An Omniscient God Negates Free Will

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Lapidem

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Agreed.
I find some humor in the belief that God did not afford humanity free-will.
Out of interest, what boundaries and constraints would be enough for you to deem us not to have free will?

Or, when is free will not free will?
 

Grailhunter

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Out of interest, what boundaries and constraints would be enough for you to deem us not to have free will?

Or, when is free will not free will?
Beliefs, Truths, Facts......
Free-will is the reality that we live in. Our constraints are the boundaries of the physical world, beyond that is the spiritual aspect of our faith. Which makes us different than cattle, which have free-will to graze but within the boundaries of the fence.
We choose to have faith, or faith means nothing.
We choose to love God, or that love means nothing.
We choose to worship God, or that worship means nothing.
We choose to live our lives as Christians, or that means nothing.
We choose to help those in need, or that means nothing.
We choose to please God, or it means nothing.

Without free-will nothing has purpose.
 

Angelina

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Do you understand and accept that a pair of dice that are rolled on a table, are not random?
Define; pair of dice? -

Isaiah 30 -
For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel,

in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”

But you were unwilling,
16 and you said, :stageright: this is free will - is it not?
“No! We will flee upon horses”;
therefore you shall flee away;
and, “
We will ride upon swift steeds”;
therefore your pursuers shall be swift.

17 A thousand shall flee at the threat of one;
at the threat of five you shall flee,
till you are left :stageright:The conscequences free will in this instance is disobedience
like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain,
like a signal on a hill.
 

stunnedbygrace

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You're just not getting it. There's a very marked difference between "someone" knowing what a choice will be and an Omniscient God knowing what a choice will be and it's the latter that is being discussed in this thread. If God is omniscient then he knows that choice A will b made. If he knows that, then 100% absolutely that WILL be the choice. Options B and C are 100% not possible. This really isn't difficult to understand and blindly refusing to accept such a simple premise is an act of denial I'm afraid.
Nope. You’re the one not getting it.
If someone chooses between a few different options or choices, they have made a choice.
Even if someone knew what option they would choose, they still were given the choice and still made a choice.
 

stunnedbygrace

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Do you understand and accept that a pair of dice that are rolled on a table, are not random?
Once again, it doesn’t clean up your logical fallacy or begin to make it look any less fallacious to try to make a comparison between a die, which cannot do anything but sit there unmoving, and a person, who can cause a die to move. The die would have to be able to move the person to make a comparison mean anything.
 
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MatthewG

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God can always simply allow himself to know what he would do if something would happen, like with Adam, Eve, and Serpent.

Once choice was made - then a direct consequence came next.

@Lapidem, all I know is that God can not be surprised.
 

jeffweeder

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With or without free will it is a meaningless relationship because we are a construct, created by God, owned by God, with a future determined by God.
It's a privilege to embrace the life God offers us. The opportunity to choose to love one another is not so bad is it. Your choice.


  1. John 15:12

    “This is My commandment, that you love and unselfishly seek the best for one another, just as I have loved you.

  2. John 15:13
    No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends.
God/Jesus set the example and the gun you speak of was pointed at his own head.

Read 1Jn 4.
 

Lapidem

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Beliefs, Truths, Facts......
Free-will is the reality that we live in. Our constraints are the boundaries of the physical world, beyond that is the spiritual aspect of our faith. Which makes us different than cattle, which have free-will to graze but within the boundaries of the fence.
We choose to have faith, or faith means nothing.
We choose to love God, or that love means nothing.
We choose to worship God, or that worship means nothing.
We choose to live our lives as Christians, or that means nothing.
We choose to help those in need, or that means nothing.
We choose to please God, or it means nothing.

Without free-will nothing has purpose.

This is all very lovely but you didn't answer my question unfortunately. So I will ask it again:

What boundaries and constraints would be enough for you to deem us (humans) not to have free will?
Or, when is free will not free will?
 

Grailhunter

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This is all very lovely but you didn't answer my question unfortunately. So I will ask it again:

What boundaries and constraints would be enough for you to deem us (humans) not to have free will?
Or, when is free will not free will?
I am thinking my answer went over your head. I answered it in the physical and the spiritual.
So odds are that you have an answer in mind.
Free-will or freedom?
So if you have a context in mind....lets cut to the chase....
 

Lapidem

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Nope. You’re the one not getting it.
If someone chooses between a few different options or choices, they have made a choice.
Even if someone knew what option they would choose, they still were given the choice and still made a choice.

Your final statement there is the one that is in error, and please could you desist referring to "someone" knowing what option would be chosen. We are not talking about "someone" in this thread, we are talking about an omniscient God which is very different. An Omniscient God is incapable of being wrong. If he says something will happen then it will happen simple as.

If God says that a person is going to choose option A rather than B or C then simple logic dictates that options B and C are not actually possible at all. The choice is a foregone conclusion because God has already determined it. He can not know that A will be chosen unless it's a certainty that A will be chosen.

How he knows we don't need to worry about. The fact that he does know means there absolutely MUST exist predictable constraints and forces that are impacting the choice to make it a 100% nailed on certainty that option A will b chosen.
 

Lapidem

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Once again, it doesn’t clean up your logical fallacy or begin to make it look any less fallacious to try to make a comparison between a die, which cannot do anything but sit there unmoving, and a person, who can cause a die to move. The die would have to be able to move the person to make a comparison mean anything.

You've not understood sadly. To help you I will explain again. The example of a pair of dice is to highlight that what human may think of as random" or free-choice, is in fact nothing of the sort. When you throw a pair of dice you are not freely doing anything. Everything about it is predetermined. It's just that humans are incapable of understanding the millions of factors that are in play. Millions of predictable factors.
 

Lapidem

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It's a privilege to embrace the life God offers us. The opportunity to choose to love one another is not so bad is it. Your choice.

It's not a privilege if all the alternative types of life are barred from us and the only alternative offered is an eternity in Hell.
That's not free choice either. It's back to the gun to the head choice. We are not free in any sense. We are created weak and fallible and gullible and able to be programmed with any old philosophy or religious doctrine. We are created with perishable bodies so that we can not persist and continue. We are placed on a planet we can not leave and are given 2 choices, worship a ruler or be thrown into Hell.
Quite aside from the utter utter nonsense that all of that is, from any religious perspective it's the set up of a tyrant, an Authoritarian dictator.
 

MatthewG

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@Lapidem, in case you did not know Jesus Christ has taken care of hell, and it has been done away with. People live and die, they are resurrected and they are placed either inside of the Kingdom of God because of their faith, or they are placed outside because of non-faith to live there.

God has truly done a grand work through the only Son who, paved the way to have sin payed for, and the world reconciled back unto God.

Of course It's put to you what you will believe in accordance to what the Bible has to offer, I am done with the old traditions.
 

Lapidem

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@Lapidem, in case you did not know Jesus Christ has taken care of hell, and it has been done away with.
Back to the equivalent of Pharma creating a deadly virus, spreading it around the globe and then stretching out a "loving " arm with a cure or vaccine.

Who created Hell? Who allows Hell to persist? Who allows people to be thrown into Hell?
An omnipotent God has no need to become a man or anything else to "deal with Hell". He just didn't need to create it in the first place or he could have eradicated it immediately with a flick of his fingers. It saddens me greatly to see people caught in this kind of thinking. None of it hangs together if you stand back and rationally appraise it.
 

MatthewG

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It was a place created for people who died before the price of sin was paid for.

I believe the souls in hell where given up and judged, and hell was done away with.

Hell had two sections (Paradise/Prison), one side for those of faith and one side for non-faith.

That is the final picture a person can get in Revelation 21-22.

People in this world are obviously going to die, and people get murdered, die from sicknesses, and what not. It is part of life.

Does life end here though? That is the question; and my answer is by faith, no I believe people go on.

Anyway man, just wanted to make that clear to ya, have a good day.
 

Lapidem

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I am thinking my answer went over your head. I answered it in the physical and the spiritual.
So odds are that you have an answer in mind.
Free-will or freedom?
So if you have a context in mind....lets cut to the chase....

No I understood your response, it just didn't directly deal with the question I asked. You made your claim that free-will is our reality but then just listed a stream of things about the need for choice.

I'm specifically asking you what things would we necessarily see in life if free will did not exist?
How would our "choices" be framed if we did not have free-will? What would they look like?

Interesting that you cited cattle fenced in a field and described them as having free-will within those boundaries. It's a useful example TBH.

Cattle very clearly are NOT free in any sense of the term. They ARE fenced in, and they are made to do the bidding of humans (who are effectively their God). Dairy cows are kept in a state of pregnancy so they will continually produce milk, are fed anti-biotics repeatedly and will only ever see the same one or two fields their entire life.

You'd have to be pretty sick to refer to this as "free-will".

It's not remotely free-will. It's imprisonment. Internment. Slavery. Exploitation.

Humans similarly are in this position if you believe the religious doctrine.

We are not free in any sense. We are cattle, and we are given very few real choices. Those choices we are given, are effectively given with a gun to the head.

You mention free-will vs freedom.

Interesting distinction. Do you think it's worth exploring in this thread?
 

Lapidem

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It was a place created for people who died before the price of sin was paid for.
Created by who exactly?
Who created sin?
Who created man with sin in him?

MatthewG said:
People in this world are obviously going to die, and people get murdered, die from sicknesses, and what not. It is part of life.

Who created that "life"?
Why would any all-loving entity create such an awful environment where people get sick, get murdered, and die?
 

Grailhunter

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I'm specifically asking you what things would we necessarily see in life if free will did not exist?
That would depend on who was in control.....but who ever it would reflect their character.

How would our "choices" be framed if we did not have free-will? What would they look like?
If you do not have free-will, you have no choice. And what it would "look like"....a reflection of the person that was in control.

Cattle very clearly are NOT free in any sense of the term. They ARE fenced in, and they are made to do the bidding of humans (who are effectively their God). Dairy cows are kept in a state of pregnancy so they will continually produce milk, are fed anti-biotics repeatedly and will only ever see the same one or two fields their entire life.

LOL Free to graze.

You'd have to be pretty sick to refer to this as "free-will".

LOL I suspect you are sick.

It's not remotely free-will. It's imprisonment. Internment. Slavery. Exploitation.

Humans similarly are in this position if you believe the religious doctrine.

We are not free in any sense. We are cattle, and we are given very few real choices. Those choices we are given, are effectively given with a gun to the head.

You mention free-will vs freedom.

Wrong again.
What is the difference between religion and philosophy? Both require a person to subscribe to a way of thought and a way of life....that is choice.

Judaism is a religion of laws....were as Christianity is a way thinking that involves faith in the Son of God. We can choose to be good and do good or we can chose to be bad and evil.

Charles Manson considered religion and law evil because he thought it was a form of control. He believed he had the right to murder and invoke terror.