Urikalish, a contact of mine on Blog Catalog, asked the following question a while back:
“If God is all-knowing, he must know everything that’s about to happen in the future. How can I have free will in the present, if someone (God) already knows in advance what decisions I’ll make?”
The question generated quite a bit of discussion–44 replies–but most who entered in missed one little thing.
The only thing that follows from
1) God is all-knowing
2) God knows that I will do x at y time
is
3) Therefore, I will do x at y time
not
4) I must do x at y time
There’s a big difference between the two. 3) still leaves room for freedom of the will. 4) does not. Someone who thinks determinism follows from God’s foreknowledge must show how 4), not just 3) follows, but that is a very, very tall order.
How does 3) leave room for freedom of the will? The answer lies in the direction of causality (for lack of better terminology). My future actions determines God’s knowledge, not the other way around.
Say, for example, that I will choose to eat cornflakes tomorrow morning for breakfast. In that case, God’s foreknowledge will include knowledge of that event. However, if I choose to eat Basic 4 instead, God’s foreknowledge will include that, rather than the former event.
So, I put it to the determinist: how, exactly, does someone knowing X cause X to happen?
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Agreed. If you have kids you know how they’ll react most of the time, but you don’t make them react that way. God has perfect knowledge so He knows what we’ll do.
I’ve never understood why people say that because God knows what I’m going to choose to do I’m therefore not choosing it?
It’s just weird to me.
The fact that I’m making a choice is not changed by the fact that someone can see the future and knows before I do what my choice is going to be.
Thanks for putting it in sensible words for us!
Pingback: Leaps and Bounds « The Pugnacious Irishman
Ahh, but if you did change your mind then God also knew that you would change your mind. If God knows you are going to do something then you must do it or God would not know that you were not going to do it.
I am personally a believer in predestination theologically. To me that doesn’t mean we don’t have free will in regards to what we are going to have for breakfast. It does mean that God chose us unto salvation.
Scott,
The problem with that is you still haven’t answered the question: how does God’s knowledge *cause* my action? To prove that some form of determinism holds, that’s what you need to show.
The direction of causality is all important, as I pointed out in the blog post. My actions cause God’s knowledge, not the other way around.
Simply put, saying “God knows x” causes x to happen is a non sequitur.
Well my post wasn’t so much to prove causality, but ot say that even if you change your mind, God knew that you were going to change your mind. So God always know what’s going to happen.
Like I said, I don’t think God determines what color socks you put on in the morning. I do think that he calls you to him and those he calls, those he chooses aren’t able to resist the call.
If you care to read it I did a post on this a while back. http://www.spiritualtramp.com/2008/01/predestinationelection.html and it produced a lively and very respectful discussion.
You might or might not be right on that…its an internal discussion. The focus of my post, however, was determinism, not predestination.