How?

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Vipes

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First off, I want to introduce myself. I'm an atheist who ran into this board just this morning. Since you guys have some good debates going, I want to see if you guys can figure this out.

So far, every christian I have met agrees to the following about God:

1. He is all knowing
2. He gave humans free will

Now, I've used this question before but it has recently came up on the AN message board as well. Jake started this on our forums here...

http://www.thedeepdark.com/atheism....ee+will

How can an all knowing god create something that he already knows what it will do, without creating it to do exactly that?

4am is painful on the grammar.
 
well denning God will take away your free will, because then its all your genetics and enviroment that will affect who, what you are. ALSO it doesnt really give man a purpose to be here, it was just one big "accident" or random chance. but that is going all the way back to the root of the problem. because you can not have biological evoltion with out chem, and you can not have chem with our stellar evo.
 
First, welcome Vipes.
Second, the eternal question: free will v. all-knowing God...how do they coexist?
Now here's something, God made us knowing full well what we would do. BUT he did not make us to fall. He made us to make the choice. We made the choice ourselves (we may have not known that God knew what would happen). We made the choice to abandon God. God knew we would, but that does not mean he made us with that express intent in mind. For instance, the Puritans KNEW that their fellow men would undoubtedly degrade into criminals and general lowlife scum, but they did not found the Colonies with prisons: they founded it with shelters and homes. Prisons came next. They would just as well have had zero trouble, but que serra serra. Man has a base nature, and that base nature arose in Puritan society, degrading so far into what we have today: so-called Christians molesting kids in confessional booths...

To deny the Maker does not deny the choice or the Maker's being. You should know that right now: your interpretation of what is does not affirm or negate what is. You may say: God exists. Fine. Without your saying it, He still does. You may say: there is no God. Fine. Without your saying it, He still does. God does not need beliefs (as David Eddings' Elenium deities seem to need) to exist. He is without us.
 
Welcome Vipes. We actually already have a thread on this topic - may be on the second page by now, sadly. I recommend reading that, though.

BTW guys, it still doesn't matter, omniscience eliminates potential in our choices. =D
 
How? Again, knowing what will happen does not negate free will on my part. God knows I'll cross the street. That I do does not negate that I did. IT is merely anticipatory knowledge. That is God's omniscience.
 
Gonna hit on the 2 after timor's post. By the way, hey man. Didn't know this topic already existed. 4am probably did that to me.

[b said:
Quote[/b] (Ultima Avatar @ Sep. 21 2003,12:49)]How? Again, knowing what will happen does not negate free will on my part. God knows I'll cross the street. That I do does not negate that I did. IT is merely anticipatory knowledge. That is God's omniscience.
Click to expand...

Anticipatory knowledge only works if the being who has the knowledge isn't the creative force. Knowing what you will do before creation leaves little room for choices.

[b said:
Quote[/b] (Kidan @ Sep. 21 2003,5:21)]knowledge of all possible choices, does not negate our ability to choose.
Click to expand...

But knowledge of the path does. Reread my question.
 
Explain HOW knowledge of all possible choices (knowledge of the path is included within possible choices) negates free choice.

God created man with a will to choose. A will to think. God did not create robots. God would glean no love, no relationship, no glory for his people in that: they would have no knowledge of what they did, for they would be mere puppets to the Master above. God made us with choice, and right now you voice in your knowledge. God is not. You ask us how can God be when we have a choice to ignore him (and he created us with said choice, and knowledge of said choice).

1. God created me.
2. There is nothing done that God did not know would be done.
3. I have done something according to what God knew. It is not following a path God charted for my life: it is living exactly as I am to live. I cannot revert on a taken path. I cannot take back a phrase said, a step taken, or a breath inhaled. Can't. I can exhale it back, but that too is known, and I must inhale, or I must die. All paths to take in life, but not a one is unknown to God.
4. I live my life with my God above me. My God does not come along and smack me upside the head when I stray: he lets me seek after him and find the way that way, rather than taking my own. For I am always lost apart from God.
5. To know what one will do and not inform one of what the outcome shall be, or that you know what one shall do, does not make you evil. If you told the person what will happen, what you are doing, what you know (all things), still the person can ignore the words and go along the path, or change. The knowledge of what comes is part of free will. I choose to do X. God knows the outcome Z. God does not tell me because God does not need to, and even if I did hear, hey, humans love ignorance.
6. God repeatedly told the Hebrews what would happen if they went along a certain sinful bent, and surprise surprise, I'm gonna be anti-Semitic here, they chose to say "Up God's" and went along with their own way. And suffered. And they had BEEN TOLD! But alas, misery loves company.

Now please tell me how one cannot be the creator and all-knowing and not be "bad."
 
I guess I will repeat myself.

If God is omniscient, he knows of each and every choice I will make, he knew this for an infinite amount of time before I even made the choice or will make the choice.

This means that I will act as he knows I will act. If I act in a different manner than that of which he 'knew' I would do, I negate his 'knowing' as he would have been incorrect.

This means that I have only one potential course of life, although we percieve choices, we have destiny. The key is that we merely 'percieve' to make these choices, in reality we could not have made another choice, though the illusion that we could have done so is very strong. It is still just an illusion.

Further, if God is omniscient, he created us with the knowledge that we would fail, since he would not have done something he did not want to do (omnipotence), he wanted us to fail.

It is a rather simple concept, if God knew we would fail before creating us, he agreed with the ends that it would lead up to.
 
Please rephrase your question Ultima, I honestly have no clue as to what you are asking.
 
we repeat our selves a lot here. evolution, homosexuality, freewill, abortion, different denominations,premarital sex etc etc etc
 
How can God be wrong or bad or wicked if he created us, knowing full well the outcome of every action since before Time began?

This is a difficult problem. I do not have all the answers, and even my meager 6 points seem like trash. I don't know how to answer this, or if it can be answered.
 
ok, you KNOW what you did yesterday. but does that negate your choices that you made yesterday?

God knows all possible choices and God knows all possible outcomes for all possible choices. Which branch we take, is up to us.
 
here is a time line

XXXXXXXXX____XXXXXXXX

you are here   ^

and God is the line so God is all of it.

edit
the timeline thing didnt work the way it should
sad.gif
 
Kidan, Lion, Ultima, etc., your analogies make no sense at all.

I think Medjai and I are taking the wrong approach to this. Answer these questions, one by one, in order.

1) Is God omniscient?
2) Does he then know all future actions, decisions, etc. that you will perform/make/etc.?
3) Are you capable of changing this future which God has forseen through making choices which he did foresee through his Omniscience?

If you answered yes to all three, you're obviously contradicting yourself, as making a choice unknown to God negates His omniscience.

If you answered No to 1 and 2, you're free to go (literally), though you may wanna recheck your Bible.

If you answered Yes to 1&2 and answered No to 3, then you have just admitted you do not have free will.

You see, as Medjai and I have said time and again,
omniscience eliminates potential. You cannot possibly make ANY decision OTHER than that which God foreknew through his omniscience without negating said omniscience. Therefore, though you have the illusion of free will, there was absolutely no chance that you'd make any other decision, no matter how many were "available" to you.

Like I said once before, it's as if you're traveling down a road that has many other roads branching off of it, but at each possible turn choice, all of the possible choices are closed, detouring you to the only available option. Did you truly *choose* the road you're on, or were you forced there?
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Kidan @ Sep. 22 2003,9:58)]ok, you KNOW what you did yesterday. but does that negate your choices that you made yesterday?

God knows all possible choices and God knows all possible outcomes for all possible choices. Which branch we take, is up to us.
Click to expand...
So God, in His omniscience, knows all possible choices and outcomes, but DOESN'T know which choice you're going to make? You can surprise God? Then he's not omniscient.
 
This is what I said in the freewill thread but allow me to rephrase it because it is just so simple. God sees the choice you will make hence the word you. He is just watching what you do your not limited to that choice you had a variety and that is the one you chose and God sees it. In order to negate freewill God would have to control every step we take which he obviously has not.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (timor @ Sep. 22 2003,2:02)]
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Kidan @ Sep. 22 2003,9:58)]ok, you KNOW what you did yesterday. but does that negate your choices that you made yesterday?

God knows all possible choices and God knows all possible outcomes for all possible choices.  Which branch we take, is up to us.
Click to expand...
So God, in His omniscience, knows all possible choices and outcomes, but DOESN'T know which choice you're going to make? You can surprise God? Then he's not omniscient.
Click to expand...
No where did Kidan state that God doesnt know what choices we would make. God knows what we will chose before we ever will chose it. The choice was still left up to us. He did not force His will apon us. If God really was the type of God you are portraying, then we would all live in a happy society with no sin and everyone would worship God without any problems. But that is not the case now is it? Man was given free will to make choices in our lives. Again, just because God knows all does not even in the slightest mean that He forces us into the roles that we have on this earth.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] (Kidan @ Sep. 22 2003,9:58)]ok, you KNOW what you did yesterday. but does that negate your choices that you made yesterday?

God knows all possible choices and God knows all possible outcomes for all possible choices.  Which branch we take, is up to us.
Click to expand...
That is a good theory as well.
 
No, Thaddius and PopDrinker. Do you continue to fail to see my point?

We *are* limited to that single choice, Pop! Is there really ANY possibility, ANY at all, even the SLIMMEST chance, that you may choose ANY option other than that which God has forseen you choosing? No!

Thaddius, I'm not even inferring that God is pulling puppet strings, saying "And on Tuesday, you're going to eat...". This has nothing to do with forcing anything on anybody. He doesn't have to. The threads of time force them upon us. See, nowhere am I discussing God's active act of predestination; rather, it's passive. God knows this, therefore it will happen, as opposed to what you're suggesting, God SAYS this, therefore it will happen.
 
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