Clarifying the "Predestination of Fate by God" Paradigm

[Strange]

I think omniscience is only incompatible with free will if the definition of free will presumes an actor that is somehow separated from the mechanics of reality making the choice.

 

Good points, well made. Many of the problems of the discussion of free will come down to people not defining what they mean.

 

For example, the OP seems to have in mind the ideas that God doesn't make our choices for us. That is, perhaps, the most restrictive and least useful definition.

 

You are suggesting a definition based on a predictable (in principle) and mechanistic view of the brain.

 

But even if neither is true, even if we are completely free to make choices independent of any internal or external factors, even if our choices are completely random, then any definition of free will is incompatible with omniscience. Because omniscience allows only one answer to the question "could you have made a different choice?" And that is "no" because the choice is known in advance.

 

This seems to disprove the possibility of omniscience rather than free will.

[Delta1212]

 

Good points, well made. Many of the problems of the discussion of free will come down to people not defining what they mean.

 

For example, the OP seems to have in mind the ideas that God doesn't make our choices for us. That is, perhaps, the most restrictive and least useful definition.

 

You are suggesting a definition based on a predictable (in principle) and mechanistic view of the brain.

 

But even if neither is true, even if we are completely free to make choices independent of any internal or external factors, even if our choices are completely random, then any definition of free will is incompatible with omniscience. Because omniscience allows only one answer to the question "could you have made a different choice?" And that is "no" because the choice is known in advance.

 

This seems to disprove the possibility of omniscience rather than free will.

And here I think I need to make the point that You're defining free will as requiring some sort of tangible existence of an alternative possibility where I do not.

 

For instance, if given a choice between eating ice cream and dirt, I will choose the ice cream. It is, of course, physically possible for me to choose to eat dirt, but outside of some coercive force that drastically tips the balance toward dirt being preferable to ice cream in my eyes, that possibility will literally never occur.

 

So it is possible for me to choose the dirt over the ice cream, but it is not possible for me to choose the dirt over the ice cream based on how I value each option.

 

My choices are determined by who I am. If you know who I am with perfect clarity, all of my motivations, beliefs, judgements, habits, etc, then you should be able to predict how I will behave in a given scenario without invalidating the fact that I chose that behavior because I am me. If you also know every scenario I will encounter, then you should be able to perfectly know the entirety of what will happen in my life and how I will act.

 

Those actions were still taken by me. And it's true that the alternatives were not taken, and that, perhaps, they never were going to be taken by me. But it's not because someone was using invisible marionette wires to force me down a predestined path against my will. It's because that was my will, and based on who I am, what I know about the situation, my mental state at the moment, I will always make the choice that I will make.

 

Either my actions are determined by who I am, in which case they are predictable if you know me well enough, or they are not determined by who I am, in which case they are either determined by something else or there is an element of randomness to them. If there is an alternate determiner, then I don't think free will applies as something other than me is making choices for me. If there is an element of randomness, then I'm just a complicated random number generator and which decision I go with has an element of luck rather than being within my control, which I think undermines free will.

 

I realize that everyone has a tendency to look back on decisions and think "Oh, if only I'd done this" or "It's a good thing I didn't do that." While it was certainly physically possible for you to have made those choices, in the sense that it wouldn't violate any laws of physics or anything, there is a reason that you went with the option you did. For you to have made a different choice, you would either have to have been a different person, or you would have to have been in a different situation. Maybe the difference would only have needed to be tiny, or perhaps it would have needed to be huge, but while there were multiple options arrayed in front of you, you chose the option that you did because of who you are and what you knew about those choices at the time you made them.

 

Perhaps I should couch that in the following caveat: Either there was a reason that you made the choice that you did, in which case knowing that reason ahead of time would allow the choice to be predictable and it is therefore compatible with omniscience, or else there was not a reason for the choice, which introduces an element of randomness into the decision and I don't accept randomness as being equivalent to (or even compatible with, frankly) free will.

[Strange]

Yes.

 

[MonDie]

I shouldn't be posting, but I think you're all missing something.

 

The problem is God's omnipotence. Re: Delta, predetermination implies that other factors, e.g. how God made them, underpin their choices. If God had control over those factors, then he's to blame. He's arguably more to blame than they are.

 

IMO punishing someone after they're dead is useless anyway.

Edited October 24, 2014 by MonDie

[Delta1212]

I shouldn't be posting, but I think you're all missing something.

 

The problem is God's omnipotence. Re: Delta, predetermination implies that other factors, e.g. how God made them, underpin their choices. If God had control over those factors, then he's to blame. He's arguably more to blame than they are.

 

IMO punishing someone after they're dead is useless anyway.

Well, I'd say the argument would be that it's God's fault for creating them at all, rather than creating them in a specific way. If he'd created them differently, he wouldn't have created them at all. He'd have created someone else.

 

So they're not responsible for their own actions insofar as they didn't choose to exist in the first place, but I'd say they bear as much responsibility for everything after that as one can bear anything one chooses.

 

And obviously this is all hypothetical since I don't think God actually created anyone in the first place. I just don't think that omniscience, on its own, is inherently in conflict with free will. Adding some more attributes that are typically ascribed to God complicated things and my stance may change depending on precisely what we're talking about in those circumstances.

 

So far, I've purely been arguing against the issue of omniscience vs free will.

[overtone]

 

 

Allah is a timeless being with no before or after. When it comes to creation, he says "be!" and it is. When someone has such infinite power, you cannot be surprised that he knows all the outcomes of all his creations. Even the angels asked him when he created Adam, the first man, what his plan is. His reply would always be, "I know that which you do not". So, who in this puny world are we to question his plan?

We're the people who invented him.

 

We have a moral duty to reconsider the workings of our big ideas, when they show signs of going haywire and hurting people.