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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/22/2003 5:42 AM (GMT -6) |   | If this has already been discussed I am willing to go to that thread is someone will post it if not thanks for the answers in adavnce.
God knows X will happen
X happens
Therefore X was determined.
Does this follow? I mean jsut because God knows that I am going to eat fish tomorrow does that mean that God caused me to eat fish tomorrow? Although, does God know "because" he determined or does God know because "my choice" was genuinely made?
I am somewhat confues about this.
What keeps getting me is some have said that because God knows something is going to happen I have no choice in it happening? I do not see how pre knowledge eliminate my choice. What if there were a thousand different option I could have made any number of them and what I chose was known.
Does anyone see the delimna in my head with this?
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/22/2003 7:11 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Let's say I tell my daughter number two, I brought home two cookies, she gets her choice, a chocolate chip or a snicker doodle. Yet in the bag I only have the snicker doodle. Does she really have a choice?
I know she can only have the snicker doodle, she thinks she has a legitimate choice. Is that real freedom?
Yes, she has a choice. You gave it to her. What she doesn't have is the delivery of the choice if she picks the chocolate chip. I am confused why would you tell here that she can choose between to options when only one is really available? Nevertheless it does not appear that "her choice" is taken away because what she chooses cannot be given to her if she chooses the chocolate chip.
What would you do if she said chocolate chip? | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/22/2003 7:17 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi OrthodoxBerean!
If God knows that you will do X it does NOT follow that GOD determined that you do X. What does follow is that X is determined. Who determined X? Well, the options are: 1) God or 2) Something or someone other than God. It might be that I am responsible for rendering my doing X tomorrow certain in God's mind, if, say, I chose my way over time into an addiction to alchohol. In this case God could now know that "Tom will have a drink tomorrow" without himself determining that I drink. But God would know this by knowing the present circumstances. However, if you want to say God knows ETERNALLY all that I will do--that all that ever happens is eternally known by God exclusively as what "will" happen--then option (2) above is effectively ruled out (since no force or person other than God is eternal). If God eternally knows it all as "will" and "will not" AND if God isn't the one determining what will and will not happen, then you need to explain what it is that renders my doing X tomorrow certain in the mind of God from eternity. If it's not God's will that eternally determins that I do X, what is it that renders it eternally certain that I do X? It can't be ME, that is my choice, because I'm not eternal. So who or whaat is it if not God?
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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| Posted 10/22/2003 7:39 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
(2) above is effectively ruled out (since no force or person other than God is eternal). If God eternally knows it all as "will" and "will not" AND if God isn't the one determining what will and will not happen, then you need to explain what it is that renders my doing X tomorrow certain in the mind of God from eternity. If it's not God's will that eternally determins that I do X, what is it that renders it eternally certain that I do X? It can't be ME, that is my choice, because I'm not eternal. So who or whaat is it if not God?
Could it not be reasoned that God knows what will happen because he is perfect at knowing what causes produce ceratin effects? Hence it could be reasoned that If I do X then I will do P? Or Since I will do X I will as a result do P? | | Back to Top | | |
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Alan Rhoda
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Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 680
| Posted 10/22/2003 7:44 AM (GMT -6) | | Good question OB. According to the way we ordinarily use the word "knowledge", knowledge that X will happen does not by itself show that X is determined. The reason is that human knowledge is fallible. Thus I can say, "I know that my wife will choose chocolate over vanilla if offered", even though I could be wrong--she does surprise me at times. If she did choose the vanilla then we would say that I didn't really know, I just thought I did, but if she chose chocolate at predicted then we would say that my knowledge claim was correct, even though her choice is presumably free. Thus human knowledge of future events does not entail that the event is determined.
With God things are somewhat different, for God's knowledge has traditionally been thought to be infallible. If God knows that X will happen, then it cannot be the case that X does not happen. It is the infallibility of God's knowledge that gives rise to the problem of the compatibility of foreknowledge and free will. It is possible for God to have infallible knowledge of future free choices?
Well, to answer that we have to consider the different possible ways in which God (the knower) could be related to future free choices (the known). One possibility is that God knows the future because God sovereignly wills the future. This was the answer of Aquinas and Calvin, but it rules out creaturely free will. If free will is to be possible, therefore, God's knowledge of our future free choices must be grounded in those choices, and not in God's will. That is to say, for God to know what we will freely do requires either (a) that God knows it because we do in fact freely do it (simple foreknowledge), or (b) that God knows it because we would freely do it under conditions C, and God knows or sovereingly wills that C obtains (Molinism). Both of these options are problematic. On (a) God's knowledge of free creaturely choices only comes after the fact, which means that it is not knowledge of the future, but of the past, and therefore cannot be the knowledge of future free choices that we were looking for. On (b) we have the problem of how conditionals of creaturely freedom (If C then X would freely do Y) can be true and known by God before these creatures have made their choices and before they even exist. On the contrary, if a creature's choice is genuinely free, then it seems that we should say that "If C, then X might and might not do Y", in which case God's knowing that C would not suffice to ground the infallible knowledge that X will do Y.
In short, there seems to be no way to secure infallible knowledge of future free choices. Therefore, it seems that if God infallibly knows that you will eat fish tomorrow, then you are not free to not eat fish tomorrow, which is to say that your choice to eat fish is determined and not free. Given that your choice is free, however, the inevitable conclusion seems to be that God does not know infallibly that you will eat fish tomorrow, precisely because it is not infallibly true that you will eat fish tomorrow--if your choice is free, then you might choose to eat something else.
Hope that helps,
Alan
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/22/2003 9:07 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Alan Rhoda
Good question OB. According to the way we ordinarily use the word "knowledge", knowledge that X will happen does not by itself show that X is determined. The reason is that human knowledge is fallible. Thus I can say, "I know that my wife will choose chocolate over vanilla if offered", even though I could be wrong--she does surprise me at times. If she did choose the vanilla then we would say that I didn't really know, I just thought I did, but if she chose chocolate at predicted then we would say that my knowledge claim was correct, even though her choice is presumably free. Thus human knowledge of future events does not entail that the event is determined.
With God things are somewhat different, for God's knowledge has traditionally been thought to be infallible. If God knows that X will happen, then it cannot be the case that X does not happen. It is the infallibility of God's knowledge that gives rise to the problem of the compatibility of foreknowledge and free will. It is possible for God to have infallible knowledge of future free choices?
It did help with several different things that are floating in my mind but there is still something lingering.
I still do not see how infallible knowledge takes away freedom? Because God absolutely knows what I will do it appears that I still choose to do it it was just already known.
I am sure there is something that I am missing but it is still not clicking with me. | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/22/2003 9:27 AM (GMT -6) | | Thomas Aquinas said this, can someome offer a commentary on this? He said,
"I answer that, The knowledge of God is the cause of things. For the knowledge of God is to all creatures what the knowledge of the artificer is to things made by his art. Now the knowledge of the artificer is the cause of the things made by his art from the fact that the artificer works by his intellect. Hence the form of the intellect must be the principle of action; as heat is the principle of heating. Nevertheless, we must observe that a natural form, being a form that remains in that to which it gives existence, denotes a principle of action according only as it has an inclination to an effect; and likewise, the intelligible form does not denote a principle of action in so far as it resides in the one who understands unless there is added to it the inclination to an effect, which inclination is through the will. For since the intelligible form has a relation to opposite things (inasmuch as the same knowledge relates to opposites), it would not produce a determinate effect unless it were determined to one thing by the appetite, as the Philosopher says (Metaph. ix). Now it is manifest that God causes things by His intellect, since His being is His act of understanding; and hence His knowledge must be the cause of things, in so far as His will is joined to it. Hence the knowledge of God as the cause of things is usually called the "knowledge of approbation." | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/22/2003 9:41 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by rossfadeinout
OB,
You said a couple of posts ago quote:
Could it not be reasoned that God knows what will happen because he is perfect at knowing what causes produce ceratin effects? Hence it could be reasoned that If I do X then I will do P? Or Since I will do X I will as a result do P?
This is essentially the understanding of God's knowledge of the future that Calvinists hold to. But if you believe in Libertarian free will, then you believe that although causes and conditions limit and shape choices, choices are not determined by causes. The deciding factor in what choice is made is not the circumstances but the free agent's action.
Which brings us back to my earlier point. How can God know a choice until the choice is made by the agent?
Hope that helps things click a little more,
Ross
Yes, I see what you are saying. Now the only thing that I am still hung on is how infalible knowledge leads to determined acts? | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 10/22/2003 6:33 PM (GMT -6) | | Hey OB-
OB: I still do not see how infallible knowledge takes away freedom? Because God absolutely knows what I will do it appears that I still choose to do it it was just already known.
Tom: It's not "knowledge" that takes away freedom (not even infallible knowledge). Knowing that X will occur doesn't "do" anything to X, certainly not bring X about. But, as I said, if God knows that X will occur, the question relevant to our freedom is not, "Does God's knowledge cause X?" (it does not), but rather "How is it that God knows X as determined?"
Now, you suggested that God could simply know X will occur by knowing hat causes produce X. I'd say, if every cause produces one and only ONE POSSIBLE effect, then you'd be right. God could know all of history by knowing precisely at the moment of creation which causes he would bring into being. Everything else follows deterministically from THAT initial state. The question is, do all causes produce one and only one effect? Or is it possible that a cause may be followed by several POSSIBLE effects, any one of which MAY occur, one of which WILL certainly occur?
It certainly is true that SOME causes produce one and only one result. Pulling the trigger of a loaded gun pointed at my temple will produce one certain effect--my death. But not all causes produce one and only one effect. Some actions carry more than one possible result. Some of what happens follows a "If A, then B" logic. But some of what happens follows a "If A, then C, D, or E" form. God knows BOTH types. It's not his knowing that causes either to be what it is. It's the state of each being what it is that causes God to know it as it is.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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| Posted 10/23/2003 3:53 AM (GMT -6) | | AlyoshaKaramazov: Why is it necessary that a something be eternal in order to determine X? Why can't a finite, non-eternal human being determine X, yet God have perfect knowledge of it in eternity? I don't understand why you can't have both. I'd appreciate any feedback.
Tom: Non-finite beings, like me, CAN determine things like X. That's why I'm an open theist. It's the only view I've found that allows non-finite agents to determine themselves. In Compatibilism, God determines everything (but we're still myteriously responsible), and in classical Arminianism is it CLAIMED that we determine outselves but then the result of our determinations (our choices) are made eternal by the claim that God knows them eternally.
Think it through. God knows ETERNALLY that tomorrow I'll do X. It follows that X is determined in God's mind. He knows that "X will happen" is true and he knows that "X will not happen" and "X may or may not happen are false." OK. Now ask, who or what determined X? If X is ETERNALLY determined, then X's cause must be ETERNAL since causes precede their effects. I'm not eternal, therefore, I can't be the cause of X. So, non-finite causes (like you and me) CAN render X determinate, but we cannot do so eternally, since we are not eternal. If WE are the ones determining ourselves, and if WE are not eternal, then our choices cannot be known AS DETERMINATE before WE render them so. God must know them eternally as "Tom might do X."
Clear as mud?
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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Ichabod
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Date Joined Oct 2003
Total Posts : 5
| Posted 10/23/2003 5:22 AM (GMT -6) | | I would like to introduce a theory. The God Bubble Pseudo-Chaos Theory. I am sure this has been thought of before so I may be rather presumptious...oh well. Here goes:
Time itself is finite. God created time when he created the universe. Think of God as a big bubble encompassing the timeline as we know it-the timeline having a start and finish. Here's the rub, when God created the timeline (or humanity) its course was completed at that very moment of creation. Like spilling a glass of water you cannot know how the water will land on the floor. God did not know how the course of humanity would playout only that it had a start point and end point. Therefore, God could not have PRE-determined anything. He let it happen as free will would have it happen. Being the God Bubble containing the course of humanity God knows what has already happened in the course of humanity yet he did not determine what that course would entail.
I would further submit that God did not know that it would all turn out ok when he created the universe. Noodle on that on for while!
This could go on an on by applying this theory to any number of topics but thats it in a nutshell-or a bubble! The God Bubble Pseudo-Chaos Theory... | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/23/2003 6:41 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Think it through. God knows ETERNALLY that tomorrow I'll do X. It follows that X is determined in God's mind. He knows that "X will happen" is true and he knows that "X will not happen" and "X may or may not happen are false." OK. Now ask, who or what determined X? If X is ETERNALLY determined, then X's cause must be ETERNAL since causes precede their effects. I'm not eternal, therefore, I can't be the cause of X. So, non-finite causes (like you and me) CAN render X determinate, but we cannot do so eternally, since we are not eternal. If WE are the ones determining ourselves, and if WE are not eternal, then our choices cannot be known AS DETERMINATE before WE render them so. God must know them eternally as "Tom might do X."
Clear as mud?
Ok, something is still bothering me.
I make a choice that I will wear a tie tomorrow. This was eternally know. The cause, I dunno. Although, in God's mind it doesn't appear to me that this could be said to happen before I choose it since "before and after" are qualities of time. If God is not in time how can it be said that my choice was made before I was if the word "before" presuspposes that there is time relative to God? Do you see what I am asking.
Up above you said that since we are not eternal we cannot be the cause of X yet, is their a sequential point in time when my acts happen in God's knowledge? This also makes me think of the words, "God knows that X will happen". How can God know something that will happen if he in not in time. It seems that nothing "will happen" but it is all happening at the same moment.
Ok.... If I was confused before I am not sure what this is called. | | Back to Top | | |
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/23/2003 7:23 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by OrthodoxBerean
is there a sequential point in time when my acts happen in God's knowledge?
YES!
Genesis 22:12 He said, "Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me."
God didn't know this until Abram did it. That's why God tested Abram, to find out.
That makes me think of this passage,
"Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" (Gen 3:9)
Am I to believe that God did not know where Adam really was as well as God not knowing something until it happens?
Sincerly,
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OrthodoxBerean
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Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 82
| Posted 10/23/2003 8:10 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Laika
quote:
Originally posted by OrthodoxBerean
That makes me think of this passage,
"Then the LORD God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?" (Gen 3:9)
Am I to believe that God did not know where Adam really was as well as God not knowing something until it happens?
Genesis 3:9 is a rhetorical question.
Genesis 22:12 was in response to a command.
There are rhetorical questions but there are no rhetorical commands.
God knowing where Adam was does not violate the causal chain does it?
God knowing the effect of Abram's obedience before Abram caused it does violate the causal chain.
How do you know that the question was rhetorical? Second when God said, now I know if we can somehow take the quiestion "where are you" ni a non literal manner, however that may be why can't the same be done with this? To say because it is not a rhetorical question does not seem to be enough. Why can't it be said that God was speaking to Abraham anthropomorphcially (spelling?)? The fact that God spoke to Abraham seems to indicate that he does indeed act at times to satisfy the senses of man I am sure he could have communicated in a different way, why can't this response of his be one to satisfy the intellect of man?
Why can't something appear, relative to God, as it is even though it is not? For example, God can appear as man even though when he did he was not. Could he not also appear to act sequentially when in reality he does not?
Sincerely, | | Back to Top | | |
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