Does Omniscience Limit Free Will?

[Kturbo]

I believe God gave his creation free will,because of who he is and his nature.He does not limit free will because trhen it would not be free will.Free will is a testament to Gods absolute supremacy.This means that there is nothing we or any other part of his creation can do to stop him or affect him being God.If God did not give us free will it would mean that maybe there is something he must restrict us from that may help us to stop him being God.We are free to think and do what ever we want because none of this can ever affect his supremacy.He how guides us for our own well being so that free will does not destroy us,like it did to the devil.

[sweenith]

But maybe I should add that the omniscient entity is your omnipotent creator that will judge you one day.

 

This being knew your fate all along. I don't understand how you can have free will if this being knew since the beginning of time that you would be damned or saved or stuck in the middle or whatever.

 

If free will simply means being able to choose a set of options, but can easily be predicted by computer models, then how does that fit as free will at all? That seems to be like AI to me.

 

Look at it this way:

If God exists, God is omniscient and thus knows all true propositions.

Now, God would only believe a proposition if it's true.

But the truth or falsity of a proposition as such is independent of whether or not anybody knows or believes that it is true or false. If a proposition is true, then it would still be true even if there was nobody around to know it.

So, all the true propositions God believes - regarding the future actions you and I will come to choose - would be true regardless of whether there exists a God to know them.

 

It makes no difference to free will whether an omniscient being exists or not. Even supposing there's no God, there would still be true future-tensed propositions regarding all of the actions we will come to take. So we're no less determined, in that sense, given atheism than theism. On the other hand, if there aren't such true future-tensed propositions, then God if he existed wouldn't know them anyways (since he only knows true propositions), in which case the future would be open given either atheism or theism. So free will stands or falls on whether or not there are true future-tensed propositions, not on whether or not God exists.