Critical Logic Failure

[Pedersen]

No, I said you have the choice to make various different decisions...but, having all the information, what choice I will make would already be known to God, though it is unknown to me before I make it. I do know I'll present my kids 'choices' I know the outcome to, to let them 'choose' things for themselves. Does the fact I am sure of their choice negate the fact they did make the choice?

Again, not the same thing, and not even close.

Reconsider this: God knows everything. God can do anything. There are no limits on either of those two statements.

God must choose, at any given time, to intervene or to refrain from intervening. In either case, he has chosen what I will do, not me. How? Because he knew what I would choose. By intervening, he will have changed my mind. By refraining from intervening, he has decided I will make the choice I was going to make. In either case, the choice was his, not mine.

Now, I have the illusion of having made a choice, but that is all that it is: An illusion.

And that is not the same as having genuine free will. I'll reuse an example I had used earlier in the thread: Suppose you are confined to a room. In that room you have complete freedom. You have replicator technology to give you anything you want, and any food you can imagine. You even have holodeck technology to simulate leaving the room. You may have people come over, do whatever with you, and leave. You, though, are unable to leave that room. Are you free?

That is as close as I can come to a decent analogy. I hope it helps to explain it a bit better.

[Evandril]

Expand 'room' to planet, and I'll ask you, are we free? Same idea, there are limits to what you can do. I'd love to fly, but haven't figured it out yet...since I cannot do what I want, does that make me not free? In my own viewpoint, just because someone might know what I will do next does not mean I am not free to make my own choices.

Another point on the 'omnipotent' portion. If they wanted to create something with free will, they would be able to, or else the label no longer fits. How it works would not be obvious, but if they can do *ANYTHING*, then of course they could do so. 'tis why I've never understood the entire idea of praying for something...If God's plan is perfect, and you want it changed...Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

[Pedersen]

Expand 'room' to planet, and I'll ask you, are we free?

You've sidestepped the very basic question by playing semantics. Surely you're not going to reduce your argument to that?

In my own viewpoint, just because someone might know what I will do next does not mean I am not free to make my own choices.

Which means that you either are ignoring that omnipotent+omniscient means your choices are made for you, or you're agreeing that free will is an illusion. Which one is it?

Another point on the 'omnipotent' portion. If they wanted to create something with free will, they would be able to, or else the label no longer fits.

Congratulations, you've spotted the one hole in my argument that I have been able to devise at all.

Now, here's the flaw in that flaw: Omniscient + Omnipotent. Not one or the other. God is both.

If god makes it so that people are capable of making an actual choice, then he will not know the outcome of that choice in advance. He is no longer omniscient.

The way that he is defined by many major religions is that he is both omniscient and omnipotent. Top that off with a helping of "Everybody has free will", and there's the logic failure.

The three are not compatible. They cannot be.

As it is, you're waving a magic wand over everything and saying "Well, I'm just ignoring the logic of the situation. I have free will because I say so." Or you're saying that he doesn't actually make a choice to intervene. However, failure to act is still an action. He has to choose what to let me do when he is both omniscient and omnipotent.

How it works would not be obvious, but if they can do *ANYTHING*, then of course they could do so.

You'll note that I'm not arguing how it works. I'm arguing the simple logic of the situation. Show me a means by which god can be omniscient and omnipotent and still give us free will, and I'll accept it. I'd like to hear it.

[Slytovhand]

Can God make a round square? Or how about create a universe with no hypotheticals??

Congratulations, you've spotted the one hole in my argument that I have been able to devise at all.

I wasn't going to point out the blatantly obvious flaw, so I just let it go...

But... why can't God - getting bored with his omniscience, choose to sort of... forget? After all, I'm pretty sure there are things that you know, but don't have going around in your current memory and immediately aware of.

(ok - so it's going a bit off track, but hey.... I don't go with your original premise anyway! )

[Pedersen]

But... why can't God - getting bored with his omniscience, choose to sort of... forget? After all, I'm pretty sure there are things that you know, but don't have going around in your current memory and immediately aware of.

Well, there's only one issue I have with that: If god pushes something out of his mind, he is making himself unaware of it. If he is unaware of something, then his no longer omniscient.

With the way religions seem to define god, he is, therefore, no longer god, either.

(ok - so it's going a bit off track, but hey.... I don't go with your original premise anyway! )

You don't agree with the logic in my original premise? Then, by all means, show me how I'm wrong. I'd genuinely like to hear it.

[Slytovhand]

You don't agree with the logic in my original premise? Then, by all means, show me how I'm wrong. I'd genuinely like to hear it.

Well - specifically, that there is such a god that is both omniscient and omnipotent....

Too... 'monotheistic' for my tastes.


BTW - as to your previous - that would mean that humans are now forcing God to be a particular way. God wouldn't have free will ...

slyt

[Slytovhand]

Oh - new thought...

to Evandril..

we humans are capable of making robots. We also have computers, and what we do in those computers is play games (well...ok, some of us ) and in those games are NPC's that we interact with. Those NPC's have AI. Do they have choice?

In the near future, we will have more complex robots, and better AI. When we interact with them, will they then have 'free will'? There are 'logic' processors built into various electronics, so that given a stimulus, they will respond a certain way. The more complex the machine, the longer it will be able to store the memory of those responses, and also the consequences of them.. and thus, next time around, given the relevantly same stimulus, they will act again according to that information... maybe the same, maybe different.

Either way, they will be programmed to operate under a set logic processes.

Humans are just a very complex machine....

[joe hx]

ooh old thread...

Anybody know who it was, and can tell me?

your arguement sounds much like Epicurius:

"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?"

[smileyeagle1021]

darn you slyt... you beat me to the punch.

we don't have free will... whether we are slaves to a predetermined fate by God or merely our circumstances, it boils down to the fact that the brain is little more than a very complex biological machine and will be limited as any machine would be. That does not mean we don't have choice, just that our choices are limited, in some cases so limited as just one.

[Pedersen]

That does not mean we don't have choice, just that our choices are limited, in some cases so limited as just one.

Actually, smiley, I don't think we have more than one choice ever, personally. Our brain is just a machine. Push one button, we make one choice. Pull another lever, that choice is changed. And we can't control the buttons and levers. They're all pushed and pulled in response to external stimuli.

[Slytovhand]

darn you slyt... you beat me to the punch.

Beat you to the punch??????

That was posted almost a year ago!!!

[HYHYBT]

"Omnipotent" would logically include the ability to grant free will to anyone or anything you wish to have it, regardless of whether you know what choices will result.

[Pedersen]

"Omnipotent" would logically include the ability to grant free will to anyone or anything you wish to have it, regardless of whether you know what choices will result.

Not in dispute, actually. You're kind of trying to sneak this point in, by going for the obvious "Well, God is omnipotent, and can therefore do anything."

The problem is that, logically, at least one of the following four statements must false, as they cannot all be true.

1. God is omniscient.
2. God is omnipotent.
3. God is the creator of everything.
4. Humans have free will.

The past several pages of this thread have been devoted to explanations of this. However, a quick summary:

If God is omniscient, then he already knows everything that will happen, including what he himself will do in two million years. There is no possibility for gray. It is even more set in stone than the script of a DVD you've watched two hundred times, since you could still forget a word or two, or miss a leaf falling in the background, etc. He knows all of that.

If God is omnipotent, then (among his powers) he can go back in time and change my mind from any time in the future. For instance, if (in two million years) he decides that he no longer likes the consequences of a decision I made, he can undo it. Furthermore, he can undo it in such a way that I will have no idea my mind was changed.

Couple omniscience with omnipotence, and you find that God must actually choose whether or not to allow your "choice" to stand. If he does nothing, you get to do what you've "decided" to do. On the other hand, he can change your mind before you realize there's a choice to make. So, before your choice begins, he has to decide what to do, including doing nothing.

From that, follows this statement:

If God is the all creator, then he actually set up everything using his omnipotence and omniscience. At the very beginning of time, he decided how everything would happen, right down to the smallest hydrogen atom moving in whichever direction. Your actions were determined before Adam and Eve. Put all of this together, and he actually chose, well before creating Eve, that he would a) create her and b) punish her (and all women) for all eternity for eating the apple.

Another way to look at it: God already did the whole decision making process. Of course he's promised not to interfere any more. It's already done! For him, he's seen the entirety of history, from beginning to end of the universe. He made his choices about how things would happen back when he first created the universe. Everything is already going the way he knew it would, and the way he wants it to go.

If humans have free will, then at least one of the above has to be false. Possibly all of them. And, since at least Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have the same fundamental tenets, then their view of God must also be flawed. I do believe that there is something greater than us, but don't know what that something is. But I do know what it isn't, and that's what those three religions define as God. As long as they hold those four statements to be true, they cannot be correct.

[Rapscallion]

1. God is omniscient.
2. God is omnipotent.
3. God is the creator of everything.

I've often thought of these sort of statements as being a case of, "My god's dick is bigger than your god's dick." Bit of interfaith boasting, sort of affair.

Just didn't think it through when they were coming up with it.

Rapscallion

[HYHYBT]

The problem is that, logically, at least one of the following four statements must false, as they cannot all be true.

Yes, I've read the whole thread. Absolutely nothing in it shows that one of those statements must be false. Knowing that if you do x then soandso will choose to do y does not negate the fact that y is free to choose.