Determinism, Free Will, And God'S Omniscience

[Lamanite]

Most of us Mormons will concede that Man is a free creature; free to act and think as he so desires. And I think most Mormons will concede the fact that God is omniscient, without feeling the need to add qualifiers. Most of us understand the inherent conflict in accepting both statements of fact as 100% true. For those that don't accept these statements of fact at face value, how do you reconcile the two?

Big UP!

Lamanite

[Mars]

I think that God doesn't know what we'll do before it happens, I think God knows what we'll do because He sees it while it happens.

I do not believe God experiences time the way we do. (Linear as opposed to...? I don't know how God experiences time.)

[David T]

You should check out Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought, Vol 1: The Attributes of God. This is the key thrust of the entire book. (The concepts of time are also addressed - with the 'out of time' concept significantly criticized)

It argues with intense logical deconstruction for defining omniscient as knowing all that can be known, which includes a contingent knowledge of future possibilities - not infallible foreknowledge (With the assumption that the Future does not truly exist until it occurs). That, Ostler argues, is the only way of allowing Omniscience with complete Libertarian Free Will.

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, the book is certainly worth reading. It's several hundred pages of intense logical deconstruction. There's really nothing else like it Theologically and Philosophically, from a Mormon perspective.

[Nofear]

You should check out Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought, Vol 1: The Attributes of God. This is the key thrust of the entire book. (The concepts of time are also addressed - with the 'out of time' concept significantly criticized)

It argues with intense logical deconstruction for defining omniscient as knowing all that can be known, which includes a contingent knowledge of future possibilities - not infallible foreknowledge (With the assumption that the Future does not truly exist until it occurs). That, Ostler argues, is the only way of allowing Omniscience with complete Libertarian Free Will.

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, the book is certainly worth reading. It's several hundred pages of intense logical deconstruction. There's really nothing else like it Theologically and Philosophically, from a Mormon perspective.

On the other hand, if one takes the approach of infallible future knowledge by God free will can only be recovered through arguments from compatibilism*.

* Disclaimer: I personally don't buy any of those arguments and think they are a bunch of hooey. Like Ostler, I am a (free will) libertarian.

[Mars]

... (The concepts of time are also addressed - with the 'out of time' concept significantly criticized) ...

... think they are a bunch of hooey. Like Ostler, I am a (free will) libertarian.

Huh.

I guess I need to rethink my position.

[Lamanite]

"The Lord could not know all things that are to come if he did not know all things that are past as well...The Lord Himself said that He 'knoweth all things'...Therefore, God's omniscience is not solely a function of prolonged and discerning familiarity with us-but of the stunning reality that the past and present and future are part of an 'eternal now' with God!...Mortals should not aspire to teach God that He is not omniscient by adding qualifiers..."Maxwell All These Things pg. 8 (italics and bold added)

Thoughts?

Big UP!

Lamanite

[David T]

Ostler actually asked Maxwell about his views. Here it is, from Dialogue , "The Mormon Concept of God", from 1984:

--

Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, writes, "The past, present, and future are before God simultaneously.

. . . Therefore, God's omniscience is not solely a function of prolonged and discerning familiarity with us — but of the stunning reality that the past, present, and future are part of an 'eternal now' with God" .

The idea of God's eternity here appears to consist not in the Hebrew notion of God's eternal duration in time without beginning or end; but of transcendence of temporal succession. In fairness to Elder Maxwell, we must recognize that his observations are meant as rhetorical expressions to inspire worship rather than as an exacting philosophical analysis of the idea of timelessness. Furthermore, in a private conversation in January 1984, Elder Maxwell told me that he is unfamiliar with the classical idea of timelessness and the problems it entails. His intent was not to convey the idea that God transcends temporal succession, but "to help us trust in God's perspectives, and not to be too constrained by our own provincial perceptions while we are in this mortal cocoon."

[Maidservant]

Omniscience is a property of a union of beings . . . that God. In other words, God's omniscience (as an individual) is not an internal property, but a property of complete access to all that is. This access automatically offers a timelessness of the grand NOW (of which any past or present is intrinsically folded into NOW). (I don't even believe in a past or future for mortals. Do we really have one? Has anyone seen it? They both don't exist for any being, only the Now does.)

As far as choosing . . . we all know that we can only choose what's before us. There is always a limited set of choices, not a full set. We can only choose based on our culture, for example.

[David T]

(I don't even believe in a past or future for mortals. Do we really have one? Has anyone seen it?

I've certainly seen artifacts from the past, and an experience of memory of the past which is confirmed by others. Yet to see any such from the future.

[Mars]

Oh, right...

I, erhm, I uh... I meant what Elder Maxwell said...

[etana]

A thing can't be known outside of its complete temporal existence. It can only be guessed or extrapolated based on what presents in any arbitrary moment. To know "all things", God must know seed, root, flower and fruit; to know the seed he must know the fruit that produced it and the line of trees it will become. A thing is simply not whole in any given moment.

[mfbukowski]

I believe the entire problem, like the alleged "mind-body problem" is a confusion of two different perspectives on the world- confusing the subjective with the objective perspectives when we speak about the problem.

God, and let's say science, (in principle) may know perfectly (if hypothetically science could eventually read "our programming" well enough to predict perfectly our actions) without that fact having any relevance for our subjective experience of choice.

Even if it is true that "we could not do otherwise" (highly debatable) from another's point of view, we still, within us, have choices and will always be held accountable for them- the choice is still real, subjectively, even if another knows what we will do.

Another way of saying this in a Wittgensteinian perspective, is that the subjective and the objective, in this case, represent different "language games" or contexts which are violated when we conflate these two totally separate points of view and confuse someone else's perception of what they know, with our own perception of our ability to make a choice.

The fact that you know what I will do has nothing to do with my making the choice anyway, unless you abstract the concept to the point of saying "well if I knew it, you couldn't do otherwise". That sentence is a meaningless abstraction which is irrelevant to my choices, just as a discussion of whether or not qualia are "real" is ultimately about language and definitions.

Logically it becomes a little like arguing about whether or not YOU see "yellow" the same way I do- ultimately the discussion is irrelevant to anything important.

We will still go on calling "yellow" by the same name which we all recognize, and we will go on making choices whether or not someone else knows what we will do.

Here is a bit about William James' conception of truth, which I find highly relevant for Mormons, and I believe will one day form the basis for a full theology:

3.2 James on truth

Claims about truth had a much more central role in James's work and he was even prepared to claim that pragmatism was a theory of truth. And his writings on this topic rapidly became notorious. They are characteristically lively, offering contrasting formulations, engaging slogans, and intriguing claims which often seem to fly in the face of common sense. We can best summarize his view through his own words:

The true is the name of whatever proves itself to be good in the way of belief, and good, too, for definite assignable reasons. (1907: 42)

‘The true’, to put it very briefly, is only the expedient in the way of our thinking, just as ‘the right’ is only the expedient in the way of our behaving. Expedient in almost any fashion; and expedient in the long run and on the whole, of course. (1907: 106)

Other formulations fill this out by giving a central role to experience:

Ideas … become true just in so far as they help us to get into satisfactory relations with other parts of our experience. (1907: 34)

Any idea upon which we can ride …; any idea that will carry us prosperously from any one part of our experience to any other part, linking things satisfactorily, working securely, saving labor; is true for just so much, true in so far forth, true instrumentally. (1907: 34)

This might be taken to suggest that beliefs are made true by the fact that they enable us to make accurate predictions of the future run of experience, but other passages suggest that the ‘goodness of belief’ can take other forms. James assures us that it can contribute to the truth of a theological proposition that it has ‘a value for concrete life’ (1907: 40); and this can occur because the idea of God possesses a majesty which can ‘yield religious comfort to a most respectable class of minds’ (1907: 40). This suggests that a belief can be made true by the fact that holding it contributes to our happiness and fulfilment.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/#PraTheTru

[Franktalk]

Free will and time. Very difficult subjects to understand from a spiritual or physical sense. I think that reading all that is said about these two subjects does not really clear the murky waters. Most of us think of time as part of a sequence and it gives us a sense of direction of the sequence. We say this happened before that happened. I think in the universe we have a pretty good understanding of time and how it is coupled with space. It seems that light which was created early can be looked at as a thing like an energy packet (photon) or as a rule of nature or rule over the creation. It is a boundary that all things in the creation must not go beyond. As any part of the creation gets faster and faster and closer to the speed of light then time slows down and distance changes, mass changes as well. All of creation works against that part that tries to break that boundary. But that is a rule for things in the creation. We know from scripture that people can be taken in the spirit forward and backward in time. This to me is just more confirmation that the spirit was not created as part of the universe.

Prophecy tells us that God knows the future. So one could think that He directs the future and makes it happen, this would cause serious problems with free will. Yes God does intervene all of the time but it is mostly for setting the stage not actually pulling the strings of the spirit. If one goes down this path then the world is determined and God is just watching all of the decisions He made in the beginning. I don't accept that position at all. Part of prophecy is taking someone from now and transporting them to the future where they actually see the future. Then they return to the place and time they had left. This actually works for free will. But to see it I think we need to look at how time and space are coupled. There are very small things in the universe and as we go smaller and smaller we come to limits of smallness. We have the quantum moment which is the smallest time, the Planck length which is the smallest size, and of course the Planck energy packet. Everything in the universe is made up of these. Using these we can form a picture of reality. I tend to see reality as a film strip. A very complex three dimensional film strip. In which the parts on the film must follow certain rules. But mixed in are spirits which have free will and are self determined.

So in my simple view of reality I can see God go forward and backward in time. Move His prophets forward and backward. And intervene with supernatural events as He sees fit. It is not a complete view and there are many problems with it. But it works for me.

[cksalmon]

Snip!

Well, M, I was with you up until the last. I didn't even mind that you referenced Wittgenstein and actually thought your application was on target.

But this (and this sort of sentiment)...

This suggests that a belief can be made true by the fact that holding it contributes to our happiness and fulfilment.

...makes no sense to me.

How does James (assuming the above summary is accurate) --or how do you--circumscribe the sentiment such that it excludes the inevitable reductio?

I know next to nothing about James, but from what I do know, I assume he's not particularly interested in doing any such thing.

I know about different 'kinds' of 'truth,' but surely a whole host of propositional truth claims about religiously-significant historical events (e.g., Joseph Smith encountered the Father and Jesus in the grove, or Jesus rose bodily from the dead) cannot be finally adjudicated in terms of their contribution to our happiness and fulfilment.

Assuming that you believe Joseph Smith truly and literally did encounter the Father and Jesus in the grove, you surely believe such for reasons that exceed James's pragmatic truth-making approach?

c

[mfbukowski]

Well, M, I was with you up until the last. I didn't even mind that you referenced Wittgenstein and actually thought your application was on target.

But this (and this sort of sentiment)...

...makes no sense to me.

How does James (assuming the above summary is accurate) --or how do you--circumscribe the sentiment such that it excludes the inevitable reductio?

I know next to nothing about James, but from what I do know, I assume he's not particularly interested in doing any such thing.

I know about different 'kinds' of 'truth,' but surely a whole host of propositional truth claims about religiously-significant historical events (e.g., Joseph Smith encountered the Father and Jesus in the grove, or Jesus rose bodily from the dead) cannot be finally adjudicated in terms of their contribution to our happiness and fulfilment.

Assuming that you believe Joseph Smith truly and literally did encounter the Father and Jesus in the grove, you surely believe such for reasons that exceed James's pragmatic truth-making approach?

c

I don't have much time this evening to get into it, but suffice it to say that this is part of a much more comprehensive view of truth than is alluded to in that one line from the Stanford Encyclopedia.

Pragmatists see "reality" as composed of experience- nothing is real which is outside of experience. In that sense, they have sometimes called themselves "radical empiricists". Science is true because it is "what works"- if you think of Kuhn, his views on science are similar to this- that we have changing paradigms of what is "true" according to what is observed and which paradigms are created out of the interpretation of our collective experience.

In short, what is true, is "what works" in creating scientific theories which allow us to do things- fly airplanes, send spacecrafts to Mars, and cure disease, etc.

In religious belief, claims about the objective status of God cannot be proven, and so must be judged by their effects in our lives in giving our lives meaning, etc. In other words, the only experience we have in religious matters is religious experience, so in at least JUDGING THE BELIEFS of religion, (not the objective status of religious truth claims) the only criterion we have to judge one belief from another is which "works" best in explaining religious experience.

Again- experience is what is real- since there is no OBJECTIVE evidence for religious truth claims, nor can there be, the only thing we have to judge the "validity" of religious experience is the effect such experiences have in our lives.

So what is being discussed is not the "reality" of God, - that cannot be discussed because it is beyond being directly experienced objectively- but what the effects BELIEF in God has in our lives.

I am not making up the links between Mormonism and Pragmatism, nor am I the first to point these out by a long shot.

Here are some links to get anyone interested started in studying this out, should anyone want to:

http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_speculative_philosophy/v013/13.2paulsen.html

http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/pragmatizing-mormonism-and-baptizing-william-james-or-was-william-james-a-closet-mormon-and-joseph-smith-a-proto-pragmatist-part-i-on-william-james-and-mormonism/

http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/b-h-roberts-and-pragmatism-part-ii-on-william-james-and-mormonism/

http://www.juvenileinstructor.org/b-h-roberts-and-pragmatism-part-iii-on-william-james-and-mormonism/

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatic-belief-god/

There are many more where those came from!

[mfbukowski]

I know about different 'kinds' of 'truth,' but surely a whole host of propositional truth claims about religiously-significant historical events (e.g., Joseph Smith encountered the Father and Jesus in the grove, or Jesus rose bodily from the dead) cannot be finally adjudicated in terms of their contribution to our happiness and fulfilment.

Let me very briefly answer this directly since it parallels a thread recently closed in which this exact argument was made, and never fully responded to before the thread was locked.

Those "propositional truth claims" you reference are not in anyway objectively provable. They are not scientific truths; the only way to judge their utility whatsoever is not by their objective "truth" but by the effects such BELIEFS have in our lives.

This does NOT mean they are not "objectively true"- just that their truth cannot be determined that way.

Another way of saying this (a different language game) is that they can only be accepted on Faith.

Still another way of discussing this whole issue is found in Alma 32- such faith, when exercised, begins to become "delicious" to one's soul.

[mfbukowski]

To bring it back to the OP, our entire world and legal system is based on the notion of choice, and the world would not "work" without it.

One can argue all one wants about us being determined because God knows what will happen in the future, but all that doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the real world.

Next time you get a speeding ticket, tell the judge that you couldn't do otherwise because God knew you would be speeding, and see how far it gets you!

[Log]

To bring it back to the OP, our entire world and legal system is based on the notion of choice, and the world would not "work" without it.

One can argue all one wants about us being determined because God knows what will happen in the future, but all that doesn't amount to a hill of beans in the real world.

Next time you get a speeding ticket, tell the judge that you couldn't do otherwise because God knew you would be speeding, and see how far it gets you!

The judge couldn't do otherwise, natch.

[Zeta-Flux]

You should check out Blake Ostler's Exploring Mormon Thought, Vol 1: The Attributes of God. This is the key thrust of the entire book. (The concepts of time are also addressed - with the 'out of time' concept significantly criticized)

It argues with intense logical deconstruction for defining omniscient as knowing all that can be known, which includes a contingent knowledge of future possibilities - not infallible foreknowledge (With the assumption that the Future does not truly exist until it occurs). That, Ostler argues, is the only way of allowing Omniscience with complete Libertarian Free Will.

Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, the book is certainly worth reading. It's several hundred pages of intense logical deconstruction. There's really nothing else like it Theologically and Philosophically, from a Mormon perspective.

The biggest issue I have with the book is that while trying to explore Mormon thought it ignores a large part of Mormon thought because those thoughts are not philosophical but rather revelatory. It ignores (or attempts to diminish) the clear statements in the scriptures and from the prophets that God does know the future. (Not to say they should be understood in the philosophical sense that God infallibly knows the future.)

That said, I agree it is a good read if you want to see some of the issues involved in the conundrum. My current feeling is that the point (in some sense) of God's foreknowledge is that He is able to use His knowledge to help us, and thus the future affects and effects the past. Further that time is not measured to God, and is not linear. This is contrary to two axioms posited by Ostler in his book.

[Bob Crockett]

Most of us Mormons will concede that Man is a free creature; free to act and think as he so desires. And I think most Mormons will concede the fact that God is omniscient, without feeling the need to add qualifiers. Most of us understand the inherent conflict in accepting both statements of fact as 100% true. For those that don't accept these statements of fact at face value, how do you reconcile the two?

Big UP!

Lamanite

Two doors confront me. If I open one, I'll be machine-gunned. If I open two, I'll find a limo waiting to take me to the airport for a Tahitian vacation.

My neighbors all know which door is which, but I don't.

Do I have free will?

What does somebody else's knowledge have to do with my ability to make a choice?

[3DOP]

Most of us Mormons will concede that Man is a free creature; free to act and think as he so desires. And I think most Mormons will concede the fact that God is omniscient, without feeling the need to add qualifiers. Most of us understand the inherent conflict in accepting both statements of fact as 100% true. For those that don't accept these statements of fact at face value, how do you reconcile the two?

Big UP!

Lamanite

I accept both truths without qualification. But those who don't accept one or both as "facts" would be relieved of any necessity to reconcile them. Many of those who deny one or the other, could possibly even be moved to their positions by an inability to satisfactorily reconcile the problem of free will and God's omniscience.

[Jeff K.]

Ostler actually asked Maxwell about his views. Here it is, from Dialogue , "The Mormon Concept of God", from 1984:

--

I note that the conversation isn't acquiesence of limited knowledge of possible outcomes. Merely an unfamiliarity of Ostlers view.

I remain unconvinced that God does not know with exact precision, all things, being truth. It seems to me the view of knowing all possible knowledge is an excuse of expanding the precise future to include likely and unlikely futures in order to keep the hope that somehow we can surprise God (a kind of mortal one upmanship). If we think God can be surprised with a possible future rather than the precise future, then doesn't that put the plan of salvation on a more tenuous footing?

[Jeff K.]

I see our experiences as being growth oriented, which does not negate our choice in the matter, just as knowing someone will do something and observing it does not mean that you are interfering.

[Jeff K.]

My favorite t-shirt says "Shrodinger's Cat is Dead" on the front, on the back "Shrodingers Cat is not Dead". Until we know and open the box, its both, and so the question of this discussion in a sense is reconciled until we in effect "open the box" in the next life.

[LeSellers]

My favorite t-shirt says "Shrodinger's Cat is Dead" on the front, on the back "Shrodingers Cat is not Dead". Until we know and open the box, its both, and so the question of this discussion in a sense is reconciled until we in effect "open the box" in the next life.

No one knows about the cat, of course, but we do know that Schrödinger is dead.

Lehi