Originally posted by sonhouseWould the rest of creation know? It again goes back to robots or coded
That still doesn't answer the question as to why a deity would put out those tests when it knows full well the outcome. Therefore the test was not needed and all that shows is more the idea that said deity is man made.
outcomes, if we indeed have choice only then can we be judged for the very
choices we make. If it is all a ruse where no choices are really being made
other than by God than would it not be just a script in a book that is being
lived out instead of read?
So you have a choice when you find a wallet with ID and money, do you
get it all back to the owner who you know you can find or not? Honesty
or dishonesty will be full display by your actions the very choices you are
about to make. If you hold others to standards you don't hold yourself or
those you agree with, than is your judgment faulty?
Why should any man be condemned over something he has yet to do? Why
should any man be forgiven if he never asks for it for the crimes/sins he
committed? I believe even the angels who rebelled and those that didn't
are going to see the fullness of their actions too. I believe we are to be
witnesses to the truth on judgment day, since on that day everything that
was hidden in this life will be on full display.
Originally posted by DeepThoughtI accept we are free moral agents, we get to choose the paths we are on.
Possibly the best we can hope for is to look at things honestly and realise that we won't see things as they really are every time. I think that your argument boils down to something along the lines of "God is not subject to (human) logic"?
In your reply to bbarr you said:Creation is more than a computer program with a countless number of 'ifs ...[text shortened]... r humans to be programmed with.This is a huge metaphysical claim. Want to expand on it?
If that isn't true than only a couple of variations make sense to me, we
are acting out a play with no real means to break script, or we are subject
to outside forces and we cannot help but react the way these forces make
us react.
I reject both the living out the script where we don't choose, and I believe
life shows us that there are countless examples of people who rise above
what most would call a bad environment.
Originally posted by DeepThoughtI think we may be talking past each other. I'm not really sure where we would disagree in substance.
I assume that your definition of knowledge is something along the lines of justified belief which is true (at least to some precision). If something is true in all possible worlds then we don't have free will about it whether God exists or not. Since the scope of our discussion is things we have free will about they must be contingently true, th ...[text shortened]...
Edit: I wrote this post while bbarr was posting so I see that we aren't actually disagreeing.
It is often asserted and argued that God's possessing omniscience or infallible foreknowledge, etc, precludes human freedom of a libertarian sort. However, I disagree and think that all such fatalist arguments I have seen are flawed.
As I think the threads to which bbarr linked show, the key is understanding an infallibility condition such as "Necessarily, if P then God knows P". This is basically stating that the conditional "If P then God knows P" is true in all possible worlds. Of course, when conjoined with the truth of P in a world, then it follows that God knows P in that world.
I think this ends up working out great for the libertarian theist. For example, suppose P is some proposition regarding a future action, such as the proposition that S will perform action A. In keeping with libertarian requirements on freedom, suppose this proposition is true in the actual world but false in some other possible world(s). In conjunction with the infallibility condition above, in all those worlds wherein it is true, such as the actual world, God knows that S will perform A; and in all those worlds wherein it is false, God knows it is not the case that S will perform A. So there are no possible worlds wherein God is ignorant or mistaken about what S will do with respect to A, which is consistent with God's having infallible foreknowledge on the subject. And yet, this is all still consistent with our supposition that P is only contingently true, such that the libertarian requirement of alternative possibilities or the possibility "to do otherwise" is satisfied for S to be free with respect to A. So, contrary to fatalist objections, God's having infallible foreknowledge is consistent with our having libertarian freedom.
I think the libertarian theist still has some major problems (e.g., libertarian conceptions of freedom are basically incoherent; to really rain on his parade there are no good reasons to think God exists, either). But I think fatalism need not be his problem. But I think it depends critically on the details of the infallibility condition on God's knowledge. "Necessarily, if P then God knows P" seems resistant to fatalism. However, if we switched it to "If P, then necessarily God knows P", it would lead straight to fatalism. I think it took me quite a long time to appreciate these nuances.
27 Nov 14
Originally posted by sonhouseBecause, you know, free will.
Why would there be a judgement day when a god would have known when the universe and Earth was created, who would be naughty and who would be nice, this deity would have known that from day 1.
So why would there be a NEED for a judgement day? Or ANY of the tests put up in the bible. Like poor old Abe asked to off his own son Isaac.
A god would have k ...[text shortened]... at old Abe would have gone through with it. So why the test when it knew beforehand the outcome.
27 Nov 14
Originally posted by FMFOh come on.
People who do not believe the claims you make about Christ cannot make decisions "against" this "work" that they sincerely do not think exists or ever existed. A genuine "decisions for or against" something depends on the decision maker believing the 'something' exists.
This is just an excuse to somehow not be "guilty" of the sin of "rejecting God".
If you do not believe, then yes, you've rejected Him.
And no, I'm not talking about "some primitive African tribe cut off from civilization" or whatever usually gets trotted out in this discussion. I'm talking about people who damn well DO know what the "God of Abraham" is about.
But then, I've done this conversational experiment before. But some people have alarmingly short memories.
27 Nov 14
Originally posted by sonhousein order for free will to exist, you create alternate universes based on your choices. judgement would still be valid for your particular version of you because your choices led you down a certain path.
Why would there be a judgement day when a god would have known when the universe and Earth was created, who would be naughty and who would be nice, this deity would have known that from day 1.
So why would there be a NEED for a judgement day? Or ANY of the tests put up in the bible. Like poor old Abe asked to off his own son Isaac.
A god would have k ...[text shortened]... at old Abe would have gone through with it. So why the test when it knew beforehand the outcome.
27 Nov 14
Originally posted by ZahlanziI love how man says he doesn't know everything and then comes up with quantum theory (creating alternate universes based on your choices) that claims to have all this covered.
in order for free will to exist, you create alternate universes based on your choices. judgement would still be valid for your particular version of you because your choices led you down a certain path.
Hint: quantum theory works on the very small (i.e. Heisenberg), the results are completely inconclusive in the real world, where most things are not 'very small'.
Originally posted by SuzianneA genuine choice of this kind is one that is between accepting or rejecting something that one believes exists. If one does not believe the something exists, there is no choice between accepting or rejecting it. One can neither accept or reject it.
If you do not believe, then yes, you've rejected Him.
Originally posted by bbarrbbarr: That was Agerg's sentence translated by me, I think your question is hinting at the problem I've got with the last paragraph of LJ's post. Also I didn't understand the last couple of pages of the earlier thread and so if you can answer the question about modal logic (Wikipedia is unhelpful about this) it would be helpful.
What work do you think the infallibility condition is doing in your claim above?
Originally posted by LemonJello
I think we may be talking past each other. I'm not really sure where we would disagree in substance.
It is often asserted and argued that God's possessing omniscience or infallible foreknowledge, etc, precludes human freedom of a ...[text shortened]... ld lead straight to fatalism. I think it took me quite a long time to appreciate these nuances.
LemonJello: We aren't disagreeing (I think), I realised what you were getting at after I posted and saw bbarr's post and cottoned on to what had happened. I should have made that more clear in my edit.
With the post I'm responding to now I'm happy with the second paragraph, but struggling with the third. Using [] to mean necessarily, and K for God knows P then you are saying:
[](P->K)
is different from:
P->[]K
which now I've typed it in is clear as an exercise in logical algebra. So I don't grok modal logic since I'm having problems getting the difference at an intuitive level. I think it's related to bbarr's post from four years ago:
How about this:You go on to use Reductio ad Absurdum to show L has to be wrong. I'm wondering what the modal operator ">" means. At first I was reading it as "knows" but that doesn't make sense since the knowledge requirement in included in P. So what is the modal operator mean here?
P: God knows that you will A.
Q: You do not A.
L: Libertarianism is true.
1) Necessarily ~(P & Q)
Since it is logically impossible to know something that is false, the use of the modal operator in this premise is justified by the definition of 'know'.
2) So, necessarily (P > ~Q)
This simply follows from the derivation rules of first-order logic.
Yes, I've got through the second thread now, (4 - necessarily (God knows that you will do A)) was begging the question, because A is contingent. When reading the second thread it occurred to me that it was possible to replace free will to choose A with something like tossing a quantum coin, so that the outcome of the coin toss was absolutely random. In which case you'd have demonstrated a contradiction between God's infallible omniscience and quantum randomness; which would have caused a row.