How can Free Will exist with Omnipotence?

Your free to choose whichever you want. The fact that God already knows what you will choose doesn't limit your choices one iota.

 

Unless god is a perfect, infallible, omniscient being. Then you could only choose what he already knew you would choose.

 

Not because I say so, but because logic says so. Of course it doesn't matter. Omniscience affords perfect knowledge of all events, including the future (from our perspective). That knowledge cannot be wrong, so there is only ever one possible choice to any decision you will ever make - that which the omniscient being knows will happen.

Again, absolutely irrelevant and meaningless. I mean that literally - saying that omniscient knowledge is based on our "choices" literally has no meaning. It doesn't matter if the omniscient knowledge is based on seeing the "choice" you will make in the future. There is only ever one possible outcome because omniscience cannot be wrong. So there was never the slightest possibility of something different happening.

Say I hold up a single piece of candy and say "pick one". There is only one option, so it's not really a choice. The principle is exactly the same with omniscience (except from your perspective, it only appears that I am holding more than one piece of candy).

Perhaps you are confusing foreknowledge with infallible foreknowledge.

No, that is not what I said. The "infallible guy" only told you that you will make a right turn. He did not tell you that he cannot be wrong - that is simply an inherent attribute of omniscience. But even if he did tell you that, it would make no difference. The outcome would be the same.

No! What I am saying is that your "choice" never could be/have been any different because of his knowledge. You're trying to inject things that aren't there.


I've never been so frustrated trying to help someone to understand something. This is such an incredibly simple concept. My guess is that you are a religious person, and this is all due to cognitive dissonance. If you are not religious (or do not believe in God/a god), then I am completely stumped.

 

The other choices do not exist. The choices are unattainable.

If the choices do not exist, and if the choices are unattainable, then how can you say you still have a choice? Can you please explain that in more than a silly one line post that contradicts itself?

There is no need to be aggressively stupid here, perhaps a pretty picture would help.

 

[video=youtube;dodTNPp12rg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dodTNPp12rg[/video]

 

An excellent book.

 

I don't want to frustrate you any further.

Let me ask you, do you think you have "freewill" or "Illusions ?"

 

I think the fundamental breakdown in communication that's happening here is in having different understandings of what actually constitutes 'free' in this context. It seems to me that some people think that a choice is only made freely if all of the options are ACTUALLY possible. I however think that there's nothing wrong with calling it a freely made choice when all of the options APPEAR to be possible to the entity that actually makes the choice.

 

The other options are not attainable.

The idea of offering any color to a customer, as long as it is black, is not freedom of choice.

 

So basically you are saying that an all powerful God cannot give us free will even though he knows what the end result will be.

Putiing limits on an all powerful God are ya? Pfft.

 

If this is a reply to my post, then I think you missed the word 'APPEAR' even though I put it in caps because its kind of important.

 

No. I am pointing out the contradiction in the reasoning.

 

Which is completely irrelevant.

Either they are choices or they are not. Period. An illusion of choice does not in any way reconcile the need for theists to have an all powerful and all knowing God, and still retain free will and sovereignty.

 

Wrong thread

 

Thanks for your opinion, obviously I disagree.

Yes, either something is a choice or it isn't. I don't think I implied otherwise. But things can APPEAR to be something they are not, of course. My brain is wired in such a way that, if offered a choice between a black car and an orange car right now, I will definitely take the black one. The orange car was never going to be my choice, and a god or ultimate supercomputer would have known that. That doesn't change the fact that the orange car APPEARED to be a valid choice. Faced with what appears to be multiple valid options, the human brain can react in such a way to manifest it's intentions, its desires, its will, toward the one that it selects deterministically to be the one it wants. So, it was my will that the black car should be the one I get instead of the orange. And that will was not under the CONTROL of another being, even though that being knew what was going to happen, so it was 'free' will as I see it.

Ask yourself these questions: When I make a choice, is it under the control of someone else?
If yes, then I'm curious as to who you think is making all of my choices on my behalf, and what it is you think my brain actually does.
If not, then ask: is it acceptable to simply define a free choice as being one made outwith the control of others?
If yes, then I make free choices.
If not, then it's simply a difference of understanding of the terms, as I suggested earlier.

 

Just because you know what they will choose does not mean their choice is illusion.

 

It does if they are physically incapable of making the other choice.

It is not that hard understand.

You are yet to deomonstrate the ability to choose any color, as long as it is black, as a demonstration of free will.

 

Let's say a creator, created the 'heavens and earth' just like ours but he wasn't omniscient until some time went by and he 'became' omniscient. Does this mean that you had a choice and then you didn't ?

 

If there is a way for a being to be omniscient, I would argue that there is no free will. If someobody "learns" to be omniscient, there must be some system of time watching where you can see exactly what a person will choose, which still implies that someone cannot go against the choice they have been "seen" doing. If omniscience is possible, I would posit that free will could not exist.

 

Come on man, can't you reason like the Almighty? What are you, just a mere creation? Geesh.

 

It is not my reasoning, it reasoning based on the Bible.

 

In a simplistic matter, yes.

 

A system of time watching also might only imply that the person being watched made the choices that they made,no ?

 

Such as ? Would you elaborate ?

 

I'm confused by this post. By a system of time watching, I meant being able to watch the past, present, and future with all events being unchangeable.