Ruminations.

[matt_doyle]

Many people (including Saint Augustine) have claimed that if God knows what will happen in the future, then that future is predestined, and free will is an illusion.  That knowing the future causes the future to be fixed, and therefore we do not have a choice but to act in certain ways.  Whether God exists outside of time, or has supernatural prescience of some other variety, or is truly, directly pulling the quantum strings of all us puppets to cause this future is seldom addressed, which is but one of the things about this argument that has always annoyed me.

So let's talk about it.

I have never believed Augustine's premise that foreknowledge is necessarily equivalent to causation or predestination.  There are all kinds of things that I know will happen in the future, and I have no hand in the mechanics by which they occur.  The sun will rise tomorrow, and if I cared I could tell you when, down to the minute.  Trust me, I am not making it happen.

If we assume an omniscient God (and I am not saying that we must), then God is the perfect weatherman.  By knowing every facet of existence in more exquisite detail than humans can ever  know anything, God can know every variable, predict every interaction.  By knowing the current position (AND the current momentum!) of every electron in the universe, God can know where each of them will be five years, five hundred years, five million years from now, without any need for transcending time itself -- only a perfect understanding of math and the ability to graph every molecular interaction with perfect elegance and accuracy.

That is still stunning, and well beyond not only human ability but perhaps even human imagination, that a being could contain that magnitude of knowledge, but if God is all-knowing, then it is possible to do without moving a single electron, with no causation entering into the equation.

And if it's true of electrons... sometimes I know what a friend is going to say, and I can finish their sentence for them.  Sometimes I know my wife is going to hate a dumb joke in a TV show before we watch it together.  When we are close to someone, and we know them well, we can be weathermen for their behavior.  Of course, we can't predict everything, and not all our predictions are right.

But an all-knowing God would know every memory, every desire, every thought of every person.  Every irrational bias, every quirk, every firing of every neuron.  God would always know what jokes we won't laugh at, but that doesn't mean God has caused our sense of humor.  It just means God knows us well enough to always guess right.

So if God knows every being in the universe that intimately -- their positions, their minds, the lifespan of every cell in their body -- why couldn't God predict, with perfect accuracy, everything about our future?  And it what way would that prediction make our choices less our own?  When I finish a friend's sentence for them, they never complain that I made them speak that sentence.

Comments

[stoneself]

if god is omniscient and the first cause, then he chose to start the universe knowing that you would do what you will do. he could have chosen otherwise, but you could not.

[matt_doyle]

That is a stronger argument, but it really doesn't hold up for me either. Knowing what I am going to do does not make my choices less meaningful, for one. For another, even if God created the universe knowing I would some day write this blog post, that does not mean that God intended me to write it, wanted me to write it, or even inspired me to write it. It just means that me writing it was, for God, a foreseeable consequence of creating the universe. God knowing with perfect certainty that I would not choose otherwise does not mean I was not free to do so.

hypothetically

[stoneself]

that god could have chosen otherwise, but did not, does mean he selected for you to write this blog entry. it does mean he intended for you to write it.

that you think you have free will is just masturbation on god's part.

[matt_doyle]

Well. No.

Even as finite and mortal beings we are frequently aware of third and fourth order consequences to our actions, but while we cause them, our intent rarely reaches that far in the causal chain.

Also, I will note, even assuming an omniscient demiurge, I do not believe my post states an omnipotent demiurge. The degree to which God had a choice in creating the universe, or in what was created, is a complicated one, even assuming an omnipotent deity, at least if we assume this being has some sort of moral or ethical framework in which it operates. If you don't want to assume a deity with scruples, that's fine, but at that point you and I are discussing beings so radically different from one another that further comparison seems senseless.

[matt_doyle]

A complicated question. 'scuse me.

[stoneself]

choice does not require omnipotence.

omnipotence is not required to for the lack of free will. just omniscience.

omniscience means that you're talking about awareness of nth order consequences.

ergo, having the ability to choose otherwise, but not having done so means god selected all this.

unless you're saying god does not have the ability to choose.

* * *

why is it necessary for god to be omniscient?

[matt_doyle]

The post specifically notes that I don't think it's necessary to be omniscient.

You are disagreeing with me, but your statements here don't seem to be responding to the points raised in previous comments, so I really don't have too much in the way of an answer. I'd just be repeating myself. For that matter, your assertion that omniscience necessitates the lack of free will is still unsupported, as far as I can see. You're making the Augustinian argument that says omniscience necessitates lack of free will, but I believe I've addressed that.

[stoneself]

first cause + choice + omniscience = no free will

first cause does not require omnipotence. neither does choice.

though omniscience + first cause may entail omnipotence.

foreknowledge alone is not enough to remove free will. but with the other two it is.

* * *

that you are using yourself as a model for how god would handle foreknowledge is putting an infinite peg in a small hole.

what it means for you to know something, and for god to know everything are very different things. even for what you do know, you know far less than is actually happening. with that kind of truncation of information you will be surprised even by what you do.

* * *

you're arguing you could choose otherwise, but did not. thus you have free will. in that scenario you still don't have free will. what you think of as free will is an epiphenomena (i.e. god is mentally masturbating).

there is no other way for things to happen except for the way god already knows it will happen.

* * *

though you could attempt one of the other arguments - that god could know everything doesn't mean god chooses to know everything.

under this model free will is much more possible.

* * *

"but at that point you and I are discussing beings so radically different from one another that further comparison seems senseless." what kind of god you're talking about is exactly what your kind of argument brings up. this kind of statement is a rhetorical out, but not a logical one.

bring ethics/morals/scruples in gives rise to the other questions - where does evil come from? is it a choice? and if god does act, but does not always act, why is there evil?

the rhetorically problem is that you've already picking the answers you want and trying to construct an argument that matches them.

[matt_doyle]

Now you are addressing everything but my initial argument, in which I describe several examples of foreknowledge that is not causative or limiting to choice. And I still disagree fundamentally that omniscience + choice + first cause is a formula that denies free will. My ability to predict your actions, even if it is perfect, does not have anything to do with your choices. I don't see that being the first cause changes this, unless being the first cause in and of itself denies everything free will, because by definition, everything proceeds from the first cause, whether the causative being could predict the consequences or not.

As far as I can see, if that is my rhetorical problem (a premise I do not accept), then it is one we share.

What model are you using for guessing how God would handle foreknowledge? Apart from human consciousness, what other models do you have available to you?

[stoneself]

if i set you in motion knowing what you will do, despite what possibilities are available, then i have chosen for you. there is no choice on your part. this is particularly true if i could choose otherwise.

i drawing from the entailments of perfect knowledge and choice. first cause isn't the core issue - initiation of actions is. begin first cause + omniscience + choice really does mean there was intention - perfect intention for things to come out the way the did. because if god wanted them to happen otherwise, god would have chosen otherwise.

* * *

you threw out an entire line of discussion because you declared your version of god to be different than anything i could be talking about.

that's a rhetorical out, and intellectually dishonest.

the problem of freewill is tied very strongly to the issues of evil. why does god permit evil? what is the consequence for evil?

you may think you can talk about one without the others, but you can't really. because they presuppose god is good.

when you start with god is good, then you end up with real difficulties if god is omniscient and/or omnipotent when it comes to free will. it's why this stuff is so heavily debated.

foreknowledge, perfect or not, is sufficient to bring the goodness of a first cause into question.

the questions can be whether god is good. or whether god exists at all. there are a few other interesting ones.

[matt_doyle]

At this point I am having trouble understanding some of your arguments, because to my perceptions they contradict one another several times, and I am certain that is not your intention or perception. Specifically, your stance on whether or not we are discussing divine ethics, how we are discussing them, and what the implications are seems to me to change from paragraph to paragraph.

Ethics place restrictions on behavior. An ethical deity, whether omniscient, omnipotent, both or neither, is going to have restrictions on their choices. Some choices will be untenable. You are absolutely correct that this is a complicated (I would say insoluble) problem when discussing the existence and nature of a deity, and inextricably tied to the question of free will. It is also tied to the question of intention -- any choice a demiurge makes, if informed by any divine insight we lack, whether omniscient or not, is going to have to take into account uncountable consequences and interactions. Like the weather, or like a pool ball interacting with the surface of a pool table, these consequences echo, magnify, and interact. Not all consequences by a first actor, however well informed, are necessarily the actor's intent -- they are simply consequences that must be accepted in order to accomplish their intent. Set into motion, yes. Deliberately chosen, no. Only an omnipotent and unscrupulous deity would have no restrictions on their choices, and only such a deity would therefore necessarily have deliberately determined every nth-order consequence of creating the universe with specific intent.

So I don't think God intended me to write this blog post.

For that matter, on a personal level, I have not asserted at any point a personal belief in the omniscience of God, only stated that I do not buy the argument that omniscience negates free will. Every belief that I have against God is weighed against my doubt, and my ignorance, and frankly I have no idea whether I think God is omniscient or not, or how I could determine what that omniscience would entail.

[matt_doyle]

Also, does this response make a difference, or do you still see the same problem?

Thank you, by the way, for continuing to debate this with me and holding me to a stricter standard of rigor than I would otherwise be maintaining.

[matt_doyle]

Putting it slightly differently -- God's knowledge does not affect my nature or choices. My nature and choices shape what God knows.

[stoneself]

your nature and choices do not shape what god knows, because he knew it before you existed to shape it.

[matt_doyle]

If what I have said so far has not articulated why I do not believe that, I have no idea what more I could say.

[matt_doyle]

You still have me thinking about this, for the record. It is a very valid counterpoint, and I recognize that.

[ailelie]

I like your explanation.

I've always envisioned the universe as a vast and horribly complex and intersecting 'choose your own adventure' book. God knows every possible scenario and, if it is your inclination, authored every possible scenario. God also knows, based on all the decisions and factors that make us who we are and all the variables that affect any given situation, including the other people within it, which decisions we'll likely make. Even so, all scenarios are possible.

If a friend is playing one of those click-through reading games I can predict their decisions. If I'm wrong, though, the other possible outcomes are written. They aren't flung into unknown territory.

Anyway, interesting post.

[matt_doyle]

Exactly. I think we're on close to perfect agreement on this.