God's Foreknowledge

[Mark Beesley]

I know this subject has been drummed to death, but I thought of it again during this past Sunday school class when a member was saying that God knew that Abraham would follow through with the sacrifice of Isaac, and so it was really about Abraham learning something, not God.

I had to interrupt when she said that God knows everything that will happen by saying, "I like to think that I surprise God every now and again."

(Greeted by a few nervous titters and quizzical expressions.)

Fortunately, the class did not get derailed on this subject, but I wondered if anybody here agrees with my comment that we can surprise God by what we do.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

I wonder. As I commented in another thread about a week ago, there is certain verbiage used by a certain deity in a particular setting that would suggest that God does not have all knowledge until He has gathered the information.

If they yield . . .

See if Satan is . . .

Why the ifs if God is all-knowing all the time?

[Ahab]

... I don't think libertarians believe they can prove that knowledge of future contingents is impossible. Rather, I believe they think they can show that if we have libertarian free will, then knowledge of future contingents is impossible.

I have yet to see anyone prove that. If I missed it, please provide the proof, again.

I have seen people make that claim, but I have seen no proof to uphold it, and I have provided what I consider to be proof to show that God

[Jason]

I wonder. As I commented in another thread about a week ago, there is certain verbiage used by a certain deity in a particular setting that would suggest that God does not have all knowledge until He has gathered the information.

If they yield . . .

See if Satan is . . .

Why the ifs if God is all-knowing all the time?

In each case God is speaking to an audience that is not all-knowing and that in fact might be negatively effected by the knowledge that they will take a particular action.

Do you think that God asked Adam where he was and then what had just transpired because He didn't know?

[Jason]

I have seen people make that claim, but I have seen no proof to uphold it, and I have provided what I consider to be proof to show that God

[Ahab]

The basic argument is that if it is possible for anyone (not just God) to know the future with absolute certainty then this indicates that the future is fixed.

Okay, let's say I believe the future is fixed based on what happened in the past and in the present.

If the future is fixed it is therefore impossible for you to choose to do other than you were always destined to do in this fixed future, and you do not in fact have libertarian free will - which demands the real ability to have done other than you actually did.

You seem to be skipping a step.

Suppose the future is fixed only insofar as the future is based on what happened in the past and in the present.

You could still do whatever you could do in the past, and you could still do whatever you can do in the present, but whatever you do or did, THAT would determine what the future would be.

There is no escaping that, is there?

How does having that kind of freedom limit anyone's ability to have done other than what they actually did?

Anyone would be able to do anything which was in their power to do, which is the way things appear to be now.

[JDave]

Okay, let's say I believe the future is fixed based on what happened in the past and in the present.

That's pretty much compatibilism. The future is fixed based on the past, but we still have free will. A main difference from LFW is that because that future is fixed we cannot do otherwise, whereas for LFW we can always do otherwise and thus the future is not fixed.

Suppose the future is fixed only insofar as the future is based on what happened in the past and in the present.

You could still do whatever you could do in the past, and you could still do whatever you can do in the present, but whatever you do or did, THAT would determine what the future would be.

However, if you look back a year ago, you couldn't necessarily "do whatever you could do" because that future was already determined by what happened two years ago. From the beginning of time the future is fixed and thus the question is, what determined that future?

[Jason]

Suppose the future is fixed only insofar as the future is based on what happened in the past and in the present.

You could still do whatever you could do in the past, and you could still do whatever you can do in the present, but whatever you do or did, THAT would determine what the future would be.

You seem to be arguing that our choices are restricted by past events but that we still have freedom of choice in the present. That line of argument is irrelevent to the paradox I was describing, because it ignores the basic premise:

If it is possible to predict your future actions with 100% accuracy, then the future is fixed.

A fixed future means that you cannot do other than you were always destined to do. If you cannot chose to do other than you were always destined to do then you do not in fact possess libertarian free will. This is because libertarian free will requires the real possibility of chosing other than you actually chose. In a cosmos with a fixed future there is no real possibility to do otherwise.

What you will do was always what you were destined to do, and you could not have done otherwise.

Possible counter arguments would include arguments that it isn't possible to predict the future with 100% accuracy (quite popular on this board) or that the ability to make completely accurate predictions does not require a fixed future (though I find it difficult to imagine how to make such an argument).

[Ahab]

The future is fixed based on the past, but we still have free will.

What do you call the belief that the future isn't limited to what a person did in the past or in the present because they could do something different in the future, but at the moment when a future event becomes a present event, whatever a person did was the future of that previous moment?

Whatever you call it, that's what I believe is the state of things, because I know there will come a time when that future will become the present, and then the past.

A main difference from LFW is that because that future is fixed we cannot do otherwise, whereas for LFW we can always do otherwise and thus the future is not fixed.

I believe the future is fixed only in how it relates to the past and the present. In other words, the future is what hasn't happened yet in relation to the past and the present. There will come a time when that future will become the present, though, and then the past, which was the future.

However, if you look back a year ago, you couldn't necessarily "do whatever you could do" because that future was already determined by what happened two years ago.

Only in the sense that those previous moments led up to that future, but when that future is present I can then do whatever I can do then.

From the beginning of time the future is fixed and thus the question is, what determined that future?

We did, by the choices we made.

[Ahab]

If it is possible to predict your future actions with 100% accuracy, then the future is fixed.

Fixed, yes, but based on what?

I believe it's fixed only insofar as it is based on what you actually did when that future became the past after acting in the present moment of that future.

You do realize that moments in the future don't always remain in the future, don't you?

A fixed future means that you cannot do other than you were always destined to do.

You don't seem to be giving this issue enough analysis.

Today is the future of yesterday, but the fact that you did whatever you did yesterday doesn't mean you had no choice to do other than what you did. You are the one who chose to do what you did, and you had the freedom to do whatever you had the power to do.

If you cannot chose to do other than you were always destined to do then you do not in fact possess libertarian free will.

I'm saying you had more than one choice about what you could do in the past just as you have more than one choice about what you can do right now in the present, and that you do in fact have when I believe you are referring to as "libertarian free will".

You can't escape the fact that today is the future of yesterday, though, regardless of what you do.

This is because libertarian free will requires the real possibility of chosing other than you actually chose. In a cosmos with a fixed future there is no real possibility to do otherwise.

You do have that choice, right now, and whatever you do that will become your future as well as the past of a moment even more distant in the future of now.

Possible counter arguments would include arguments that it isn't possible to predict the future with 100% accuracy (quite popular on this board) or that the ability to make completely accurate predictions does not require a fixed future (though I find it difficult to imagine how to make such an argument).

I'm not countering. I'm explaining how we do have libertarian free will.

[JDave]

What do you call the belief that the future isn't limited to what a person did in the past or in the present because they could do something different in the future, but at the moment when a future event becomes a present event, whatever a person did was the future of that previous moment?

It's called time linearity?? There has been no confusion over time being linear. I don't think anyone is arguing against the idea that the things we do today become the fixed facts of yesterday after the day is over. Making decisions and then moving forward in time without the ability to go back is a common belief. To argue otherwise would enter the realm of time travel, and let's not go there!!

The question is really, if you really believe that someone could "do something different in the future", then do you believe that the future is not fixed? Do you believe that it is in flux? That is, that the decisions I make right now, which can be whatever I want them to be, and are not completely constrained by my past choices or my current character, will then have an impact on the future?

[RoseMadder]

I'm not countering. I'm explaining how we do have libertarian free will.

Really?

Though I've particular interest in the topic of this thread, I've been quite content to simply read and have felt no need to comment. Until now.

If we have libertarian free will, then God is not omniscient. There's just no way around it.

Ahab, your relentless but ineffective defense of libertarian free will is as ill-fated as was your pursuit of that sperm whale. I daresay it's destined for failure.

Please listen to JDave. He's your Starbuck.

[Jason]

I'm not countering. I'm explaining how we do have libertarian free will.

Not really.

You seem to be arguing that the future is not fixed, merely that some things are impossible or more or less plausible because of the past. That doesn't really address the paradox of God's foreknowledge.

Do you believe that despite the unfixed future you seem to believe in that God knows 100% accurately what will occur, or is it in fact possible to surprise Him with your choices?

[Ahab]

The question is really, if you really believe that someone could "do something different in the future", then do you believe that the future is not fixed?

First of all, people don't do things in the future, or at least not until the future becomes the present, because the future consists of what we will do, so the question should really be:

Do we have the freedom to choose what we will do now?

Whatever we do now will become our future, and then after that moment what we did will then be our past.

There is no way around that, which means the future is fixed based upon what we will do from this moment.

Do you believe that it is in flux? That is, that the decisions I make right now, which can be whatever I want them to be, and are not completely constrained by my past choices or my current character, will then have an impact on the future?

The future, itself, is fixed in the sense that the future will always refer to what hasn't happened yet when viewing that moment from a previous moment in time, and, yes, each specific moment of time is always in flux as it relates to the past, present, and future.

I think of each moment as the past, present, AND future, depending on my perspective when viewing that moment, with what I do now becoming my future until it fades quickly into my past.

[Ahab]

Really?

Though I've particular interest in the topic of this thread, I've been quite content to simply read and have felt no need to comment. Until now.

If we have libertarian free will, then God is not omniscient. There's just no way around it.

Ahab, your relentless but ineffective defense of libertarian free will is as ill-fated as was your pursuit of that sperm whale. I daresay it's destined for failure.

Please listen to JDave. He's your Starbuck.

Hah!

Where's Paul Harvey? There's more to my story than you seem to be aware of.

[cksalmon]

It's interesting to me that in nearly every instance of face to face discussions about this topic the first response I hear to arguments for the incompatibility of foreknowledge with libertarian free will is that knowledge of somebody's actions doesn't force them to do that action. That response is often followed up by some story about how one can know what their child will do in a given situation, but that that knowledge doesn't force their child to behave the way that they do. Responses like that are clear indicators that the respondent doesn't fully grasp the issue.

I admit to a certain low-level frustration with EV folks who affirm God's exhaustive foreknowledge of future agential "contingencies" and then, in a misguided defense, punt to the argument that God's foreknowledge is not determinative. Well, congrats! The argument against that, it seems to me, is routinely missing a requisite defendant. At bare minimum, such proposed foreknowledge on God's part is, at least, and inevitably, factually accurate!

Whoosh.

cks

[All-Seeing Eye]

I believe that our brains are deterministic mechanisms that lead to deterministic actions. Assuming an extremely knowledgeable entity, it is very possible to posit that entity's ability to exactly predict all human behavior.

[Lightbearer]

Not to belabor this thread too much but last night I read an interesting article, that while not specifically about God's foreknowledge did touch upon the subject and had some interesting conclusions:

("Meeting the Challenges of Today" NEAL A. MAXWELL Neal A. Maxwell was a President of the First Quorum of the Seventy of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints when this devotional address was given at Brigham Young University on 10 October 1978.) "The combined doctrine of God's foreknowledge and of foreordination is one of the doctrinal roads least traveled by, yet these clearly underline how very long and how perfectly God has loved us and known us with our individual needs and capacities. Isolated from other doctrines or mishandled, though, these truths can stoke the fires of fatalism, impact adversely upon our agency, cause us to focus on status rather than service, and carry us over into predestination. President Joseph Fielding Smith once warned:

It is very evident from a thorough study of the gospel and the plan of salvation that a conclusion that those who accepted the Savior were predestined to be saved no matter what the nature of their lives must be an error. . . . Surely Paul never intended to convey such a thought. [The Improvement Era, May 1963, pp. 350

[Jason]

I believe that our brains are deterministic mechanisms that lead to deterministic actions. Assuming an extremely knowledgeable entity, it is very possible to posit that entity's ability to exactly predict all human behavior.

But if our actions are deterministic, would it be moral to punish us for them? After all, we could not have done otherwise.

[Brade]

Not to belabor this thread too much but last night I read an interesting article, that while not specifically about God's foreknowledge did touch upon the subject and had some interesting conclusions:There is a lot more to the article but I do not quote it all here. But I quote what I do to show where Elder Maxwell apparently stood on the issue.

That's what Maxwell believed at one time. However, he later revised his beliefs. Maxwell gave a similar discourse more recently after which Blake Ostler spoke with him and elucidated the logic of Maxwell's claims. Maxwell subsequently backed down from his position (the one he describes in the discourse you just quoted) and conceded that it is enough for God to know enough sufficient to warrant our trust in him and that he (Maxwell) was now agnostic as to whether God knows the future free choices of putatively free agents. Essentially, Maxwell found Ostler's argument for the incompatibility of libertarian free will and divine foreknowledge compelling, and, as the story goes, he (Maxwell) felt that he did not want endorse an incoherent theory (i.e. the compatibility of libertarian free will and divine foreknowledge).

[Ahab]

God does not live in the dimension of time as do we

[Brade]

Note that Elder Maxwell was NOT saying God lives outside of time, or not in time, but rather he was saying God doesn

[Jason]

Ahab, you haven't answered my question yet. Do you think it's possible to surprise God?

If not, then you can't do other than God has forseen you do and you do not have libertarian free will.

If so, then God cannot in fact predict the future with 100% accuracy.

[Ahab]

Ahab, you haven't answered my question yet.

Yes I have. Perhaps you just didn't see when I did.

Do you think it's possible to surprise God?

No, but sometimes I like to think it's possible because I'd like to think I can impress him someday with how wonderful I will have become.

If not, then you can't do other than God has forseen you do and you do not have libertarian free will.

Not so. The fact that God knows what I'm going to choose to do doesn't mean I don't have the power to choose what I will do, regardless of whether or not you believe that is true.

If so, then God cannot in fact predict the future with 100% accuracy.

You can continue to think illogically for as long as you choose to do so, and the fact that God knows how long you will continue to think illogically doesn't mean it's not in your power to choose to think logically whenever you somehow gain the power to do so.

[Ahab]

If "God actually lives IN the future", past, and present, then that implies that there is an existing future

[Jason]

Not so. The fact that God knows what I'm going to choose to do doesn't mean I don't have the power to choose what I will do, regardless of whether or not you believe that is true.

But if God absolutely knows what you will do then you have no real power to do otherwise. Your future is fixed, and there is no real possibility of avoiding it through any choice you make - you have effectively already made those choices.

In such a scenario you do not have libertarian free will.