They are more a development of Christianity's embrace of Neo-Platonism and philosophical/theological speculation.  They are not Biblical concepts. God changes his mind several times in the Old Testament for example.  There are statements that God knows everything even the hearts of man and things like that but they seem to be forms of veneration or worship.  The theologians took them and made a pretty sterile god out of the very anthropomorphic one in the texts.

 

Yea think about my situation. Four years into a degree of woo woo. So I switched to philosophy and wound up in sophisticated woo woo.  Study theology only to know the thoughts in order to argue against them.

 

Yes that is why I respect your posts and enjoy your conversations.  It is an irony I think.  Natural Theology is an oxymoron. And the morons are well..... deluded.  We must have so much invested as a species and so much fear of the implications that it is difficult to rid ourselves of something that would under other circumstances be laughable.  WE would laugh at the story of a turtle shell being the bowl of heaven but Genesis is built off a Mesopotamian myth about a bowl with the stars painted on the bottom that we see above us. It keep the water from above (blue) from meeting the water below ( sea).  But I can't for the life of me get caposkia to see that.  It is as we live in two different dimensions. One wonders if one should even invest in a dialogue about such issues. It is at best frustrating and energy draining no to mention circular.

 

He is leaving open the idea that the plants could have been made before the sun and sustained by the light of god's glory which is about as far as I can go with the discussion. I simply haven't gotten the energy up to respond to two of the post yet since it seems a bit circular. I jusrt want someone to show me a documented collection of evidence of Vatican miracles that convince me and/or scientists.

 

 

I was thinking that myself.

I feel the need for a fresh 'chew-toy' theist to metaphorically 'beat up'.

This drove me last Saturday to go into our downtown for our local Atheist Meetup Group Saturday Night 'social', where we gather between regular meetings for a drink and then a walk up to the area in our central open-air mall where a regular group of Christian 'speakers' stand up, in turn, to preach to the onlookers about how they need to come to Jesus. Some of us will attempt to confront either the speaker or his supporters with counter-arguments. It is significantly different from online discussion, but can be even more frustrating.

I say 'drove' me, because it wasn't looking good for a good roll-up - only three others had indicated on our web-site they intended to go, the weather was cold and with a hint of occasional light rain. And unfortunately no-one else turned up in the 45 minutes I hung around. I wandered up at one point to where the preachers usually gathered, but saw no sign of them - it may have been a bit early for them.

Oh well, it got me out of the house for a while...

Bob also if you would see if I am wrong anywhere or if this needs a lot more study:

 

I am not sure that I am thinking correctly on this one John but this is what I see of a theistic claim of possible worlds scenario yet with indeterminism  as a justification for a free will entailed world. It seems to run against logical possible worlds as valid applications to the real world.

Open theists admit this and say that although God is omniscient he cannot know future contingent libertarian free-willed acts.

Possible Worlds are Invalid Tools: If libertarian free-willed acts are not known then foreknowledge is not a part of omniscience. Thus omniscience is qualified in  that freewill is possible by the nature of indeterminism.

If god must create free will such that there is a lack of foreknowledge then evil may obtain without god's intent.  Further god can not determine the best of all possible worlds for he can not see the outcome of all possible worlds. It is doubtful that we can use possible world scenarios regarding god's properties. 

This argument in turn would evidence against possible world scenarios in certain cases.

Possible Worlds  Are Valid Tools:  If on the other hand possible worlds are predetermined as potential actualities then their constituents are determined by their actualization. If god must create free will by not knowing the possibilities of these actual worlds god must "blindfold"  his knowledge and "roll the dice" as to which world to pick.  Yet that world's constituents would be completely determined in the actualization which contradicts the used definition of free will. The trans-causal idea of a complete world as determined and so also its constituents though some lack causality among themselves is presented by the physicist David Bohm and his glycerine analogy.

Possible worlds themselves leave free will impossible if defined as a closed process.
God can choose properties but not possible worlds.

There is a possible world that is not determined or is there a possible world without certain constituents? Possible worlds are only logical worlds which do not conform to the empirical world of actual quantum level indeterminacy.

TG,

I will try to comment, but I need a bit of time to get my head around just what is being argued.

I have an ingrained inability to take the whole 'possible worlds' style of argument seriously. There just seem to be too many ways it can fail to mirror reality.

I have to try and translate it into a 'properly' structured argument...

I'll be back...

Thanks AE. It feels that way sometimes.  Yea that glory business is either off the wall, off the charts or a classic example of the two worlds in which we live the real and the imagined.

 

I agree with you about free will. I assume it is a strategy game that evolution uses for a quick response rather than thorough processing of experience. It is as such an illusion ( not what it seems. Since our brain and body act we take credit for it and assume we chose.  But it has been determined neurologically ( Susan Blackmore for example)that the process occurs before consciousness experiences it. So the act of free will was actually a predetermined unconscious process that appears as an act when we  consciously experience it atribbuting linguistic syntax ( I did such and such which in turn is a reflexive or r4cursive process since you then experience that thought as a sentence. )  But working within Mr. Metaphysic's world and his relatives with these type of arguments I was looking at the presuppositions as they relate to their premises.  It seems to me that even indeterminism of a quantum mechanics rules out possible world scenarios in the sense that when they assume a limitless  entity that can have foreknowledge to choose based upon the constituents or properties of that world.  The god can not logically know the contents of the possible worlds and therefore can not discern one possible world from another.   Possible worlds are not consistent in the sense that variation resides in ONE world of possibilities ( the actual world)rather than a positing of potential variants of many worlds. Thus the logical presupposition and tool fails.     Free will is something that is argued and assumed in most of the scenarios.  If you grant it then it rules out the foreknowledge of a god as omniscient which in turn means he can not control the future events  and defeats omnipotents.  To me these seem like avenues to explore that can defeat the ontological arguments logically even without discourse to empirical evidence unless positing the quantum mechanics is  more evidential rather than a mathematical or logical format.  See whre I am trying to go with these  arguments?  Defeat them with there own premises.

 

 

That is a very good point.  Not only call the attributes of the premises in question but call the definitions of those attributes in question.  So rather than discuss the conflict of the idea of free will and omniscience being contradictory. One would simply ask for a proof of free will and argue the problem of such a claim as it assumes.  Or one could show the ineherent problems with just positing an idea of omniscience.   An omniscient being who not necessarily be corehent because it defines the idea of the future as foreknown and therefore a closed causal determinism.   I can understand that. But look at the problems we encounter say with Mr. Metaphysics. We could not get to definition for the presentation of the assumptions or argument. We went in circles And about his third time around  when I tried a private discussion wher I tried to manintain an empirically grounded view of the propositions he left.

Perhaps it is agreeing on first principles that is the precursor to any discussion.   We should not assume the validity obviously of omnipotence and demand a definition. But then waht I tried to do is place omniscience against omnipotence and show the conflicting irrationalities when both applied to an entity using there definitions. Perhaps omniscience for example is not a valid word if the theistic definition its meaning. The same would go for the other omnis. They are non-valid ideas with internal inconsistancies.

 

How did I miss this whole post... good thinking material.  

Hey TG, the way I see possible worlds and freewill, without going too deep into the definition of freewill, if god is is considered omniscient, and there are a finite but extremely large number of possible realities convergent from an initial point (Schrodinger's cat type), could god not have knowledge of all the possible scenarios, which in turn do realize?

In other words, if you choose to turn left, or turn right out of your own free will, there will be a possible world where you have turned left, and one where you have turned right, they are both actualized and god knows of both those distinct realities.  I don't see a conflict here.

What Zeno's paradox signifies to me, is that there is an indivisible plank quanta to space-time.  Eventually there is no half point to get from point A to point B.  The transition is instantaneous.  So there really is no paradox, it's just like any other internally consistent logical argument, it is indeed sound, within it's own parameters, and is completely irrelevant contingent on reality.  Much like the OA Mr. M proposed, even ignoring the begging question fallacy, it is completely irrelevant to my reality.

 

 

The ultimate question is can God get Angelina Jolie to give me a blow job?

Now, the theist will dodge this with "He wouldn't do that"

My response would be, "I am not talking about what he says he will do, I am talking strictly about ability"

IF IF IF IF IF  God does not have the ability to get Angelina Jolie to give me a blow job, then he is not all powerful.

For God to be "all powerful" then he has to have the ability to put my penis into her mouth.

SIDE NOTE AND DISCLAIMER,

Certainly this is blunt, graphic and blasphemous. But does anyone seriously think I have a shot at that, even with without a god?

The point is to demonstrate that wishful thinking is a cluster fuck and nothing but mental masturbation.

"All" is negated by the theist as soon as they set a limit to an attribute.

"He wouldn't" are only what addresses what he claims, not ability.

Any of the 7 billion humans on this planet can claim they wont kill someone. But they most certainly do have the ability to do such.

My point is that "all" as a concept as far as a fictional friend, is just that, it is our own desire to avoid the decay all things in the universe will endure.

There is no such thing as "all". There are only humans who dream of utopias.

If God is omniscient, it only means that he knows everything that is going to happen.  But foresight does not entail strict determinism.  Even in an indeterminate universe, an omniscient person would know what's going to happen.  (Mind you, the last sentence is a quote from some Youtube video with Daniel Dennett--an atheist.)

Furthermore, omniscience entails only that God knows what is logically possible to be known; if it cannot possibly be known, then not even God can know it.  Mathematicians such as Lukasiewicz (and to a lesser extent, Aristotle), for instance, formalized a logical system in which future contingent propositions are given a third truth value--one which is neither true nor false; for God to be omniscient, he only has to know that such values are "1/2," given that they are neither "1" nor "0."

Moreover, one can defend compatibilist views of the free will issue in which determinism and free will are reconciled.  You are remiss to not even acknowledge this.

Similarly, omnipotence entails only that God can do what is logically possible.  If a universe is indeterminate, then it would be logically contradictory to say that one could affect the outcome so as to determine it since in that case such a universe would be at once determinate and indeterminate.  But again, you've begged the question with regard to your epistemological underpinnings couched with strict determinism; my contention is that there is nothing to support that free will strictly implies ignorance.

Let's say that God has the ability to make the wrong choices.  Are you saying that objective moral values exist?

There is an objective basis for deriving moral guidelines, but they do not determine universal specific 'rules' in all contexts.

They have to take into account what matters to the members of the society or group, both positively and negatively, they are to apply to, otherwise they are simply a legalistic framework of laws, rewards and punishments, not a moral code.

This is why religion typically produces only a perversion of natural morality, having no objective basis, based on an imagined being and what are conjectured, ie imagined, to be the motives, power, and desires of such a being, something that would be inherently unknowable to mortal, finite beings. This leads to 'rules' based on instinct, prejudices and superstition, as we see, especially in the OT, and the Koran.

That's about as ridiculous as saying that there's an objective basis for deriving a mathematic theorem but that such a basis does not determine the specific rule in all contexts.

Is the notion that we ought to do what matters to society's members itself a universal moral guideline?  If not, then why should I believe what you are telling me?

(1) Are you claiming that religionless societies have historically produced better ethical frameworks, both ideologically and pragmatically?

(2) Are you claiming that objective morality does not exist even if there is a God whose commands are based upon his unchanging nature as an infinite (i.e., limitless) being?

(3) When you say that this being is "imagined," are you claiming to know for a fact that this being does not exist?

(4) How do you justify the claim that the motives of a being such as God would be "inherently unknowable" to finite beings?  Would it not be within this being's capacity to reveal such things to finite beings whom he created so as to be capable of understanding such revelations?

(5) Can you support biblically the idea that the rules of the OT were meant to be applicable for all eternity?

(6) Can you support biblically the idea that the rules of the OT were based on superstition and not on the historical context in which the rules were given to Israel?

(7) Can you support biblically the idea that the rules of the OT were based on prejudice and not on the historical context in which the rules were given to Israel?

(8 ) Have you ever actually read the Koran, or are you going on hearsay?  

 

I've read the God Delusion, End of Faith, Breaking the Spell, the Moral Landscape, Losing Faith In Faith, Why I Am Not a Christian, Divinity of Doubt, and a few other more obscure ones.

What about you?

 

I have addressed on in the prior post.

"I would beg to differ with you. If he knows everything that is going to happen in various possible worlds and actualizes any one of them they must necessarily actualize as he forsees it.  The contents are entailed by its whole. I disagree with Dennett all the time.  I am not a party line person.  An indeterministic world is handled by Bohm and his glyerin analogy wherein a vat of glyserin can  have drops of ink separated by space (noncausal). As the vat is turned the ink becomes thinner and thinner lines in the qlyserin. until they diappear. But turn the vat the opposite direction and the dots reappear. Such is the example of non-causally indeterministic events as related to others. They are still enfolded deterministically in the boundary condition of the whole and unfold a in predetermined manner.

You can visualize several possible worlds with god looking at the entire contents and picking even the best world. He actualizes the unfolding of that world as he knows it will occur. He is therein responsible for its entire contents including the bad shit."

 I have hardly begged the question because it simply states that if there are possible worlds they a coherent in the fact that they define and represent potenitalities. For them to be coherent and seen and known their constietuents must be known. To know everything that is going to happen does not entail strict determinism. But to know everything that is going to happen if you actualize that world and do so is strict determinism. As to two all you are saying is that god does not know the causal relationships or can not determine the causal realtionship or that THERE is no causal relationships of the constituents in the container of that possible world. So either possible world logisitics are invalid or the attributes that are ground through argument using that logic is invalid.  That is to say the preimse of the attributes are invalid while the argument's logic is valid in structure.

 

As to your second claim. If god can do only what is logically possible then he is limited by logic.  The logic of my presentation is such that he need not know the indeterminate of the universe but if he knows everything that happens in it as a possible world and chooses it over another possible world then he has predetermined the entire contents that you admit he knows beforehand. They are thus entirely predetermined and therefore the inconsistency is in the attribution of creation entailed by omniscience. If on the otherhand god is that which is the logic of the universe then god is principle or paramter of existence and therefore also not absolute.

 

As to adding ethical question to this. If god has no ability to make wrong choices then he is less than human because that is the one attribute that is being fought for in most of these type arguments.  You are left with a god who must sacrifice omniscience in creation to achieve freewill in a possible world on a subjective rather than rational act.

I'm just not seeing how that follows.  God creates the world, and he knows what events will unfold; why does it follow that everything is determined?  There does not seem to be any reason to accept this.

I'm saying that God, while he could have created a world where strict determinism is true, instead created a world where people can make choices and do so freely such that they are either blameworthy or praiseworthy for their actions.  However you choose to define "free will," there is no reason to believe that we reside in a universe where God is responsible for our actions--even if you can't make resolve the prima facie irreconcilability between the natural order of events and otherworldly freedom.

Your notion of God choosing one possible world over some other presupposes determinism; if God's choice of one possible world necessitates that any other possible world is impossible for us, then obviously determinism is true.  But this is just begging the question.  Kripke showed, or at least made a good case for the idea, that the best way to understand modal terminology is in terms of the relationships between worlds. 

If "human" is defined according to one's fallibility, then God is not human.  I don't see much of a problem here.  I could understand if that's what many unregenerate folks want God to be; it's probably the same reason people gravitate towards elected officials who enjoy popular music, or kids to teachers who play electric guitar.  There probably is a term in psychology for this.

But on the contrary, God sets the standard; it is us who fall short.  The fact that we wish to set the bar a little lower is not an argument against God, however.

 

As to one. If god knows the constituents of the possible world and that it has access to another  possible world he either knows the accessibility to the other actual world if he is omniscient.  But I would state that that is not the meaning of a possible world.  It is a completely viewed possibility if it is posited. Another possible world would vay in only one event or entity and so on. So I would state that you are redefining the thought experiment on the fly. As to you eating the chocalote bar it does.  Nut as to you it does not. God has actualized your action and your obese relatives action in that it was foreseen to happen if god actualized your world. There was no other choice and the other possible worlds were not actualized. ( Now in a Wheeler physics all possible worlds actualized)   Only when Since he sees in the possible world that you will eat it if he actualizes it it is predetermined in the foreknowledge because the foreknowledge entails the actualization of that specific world. Your situation is not an actualization of a world in which all is seen and therefore determined to happen if actualized.  The attempt to sever the ontological first cause from epistemic absolutes  by relativized situations of limited context in the situation of your obese relative is fine if you relativize god's foreknowledge.

AS to 2) if you go down that road and conjoin multiple possible worlds then god still knows the contents of all possible worlds and either knows you will or want his actualization is still a complete deterministic chain of certainty and results from his act and none other. If you use the muyltiple possible world gambit then you must sacrifice gods omniscience still. What he knows can only occur if he actualizes the world and it will occur if he does and therefore must occur. It is simply.

 

 

 

 

1) AS to your 1) Actually my argument does not presuppose determinism. My analysis has the result of determinism. If we use possible worlds in the normal sense and apply the attribue of omniscience to a "knower" of any possible world its possibilities and entailments are known completely by definition and proper usage of the term.  Determinism has a dual aspect to it in the sense we normally employ it to speak of existent things.  But when we speak of knowledge things which brings in the "rotten fruit" of omniscience then the idea of determining what will occur before hand reaches  absolute by nature of the attributes of the "knower" in this case a god that is omniscient and omnipotent.

 

Secondly a possible world scenario is typically used as I have used it. There are a multitude of possible worlds from which to choose.  God is supposed to choose the best of all possible worlds. So this is the best of all possible worlds. Thus he chose the world out of all possible worlds with the least evil. And freewill corrupted it with non-natural evil.  This is so since theologians have attempted to resolve god of "acts of god( hurricanes and earthquakes)" by calling them natural evil. This leaves human choice of the bad as unnatural evil.  This is Plantinga not me.  This is also the typical argument. My response is the defeater.   Any world go knows beforehand lacks freewill simply because the epistemic determinism is actualized as ontological certainty. 

 

2) As to the second argument above by you.....

If by "possible world" you mean a complete description of reality, then God does not create possible worlds anymore than he creates numbers or the law of noncontradiction; rather, every proposition pertaining to God is contained in that maximal description"

 

If god does not have a complete description of the possible world which is but a subset of reality then he is not omniscient for he transcends all those possible worlds and can choose among them and knows them ALL.  Secondly it is not that god creates possible worlds it is that he can determine what all possible worlds are and can choose to actualize any of them.  Even this becomes a tarnished description. Because if god is omnibenevolent though he may know all possible worlds he cannot actulaize any evil worlds. As to your last statement "rather, every proposition pertaining to God is contained in that maximal description"  then god is a product of the summation of those propositions in that maximum description and you have demonstrated that god is subject to and limted by a higher entity the transcendent set of logic. 

But as to your compliance.... The actual world is simply in such a scenario of applied possible worlds the one that god actualized. The freedom is illusion for god has created the world in which he even knows the number of hairs on your head or when a sparrow falls in the field.  So this scenario worlds fine for hyper-calvinism and demonstrates the Greek philosophical addition to a Jewish concept of god.  So contrary to what you say the idea of an autonomous creature is simply a relative belief from within the context of that world. I would again refer you to Bohm's thought experiment.

 

3)  I do not overlook the question of time for the choosing of the possible world is atemporal which you also argue about prior to the big bang. So the question about time is not an issue. It is the result of the actualization and a secondary and separate analysis. Time in such scenarios becomes  simply a relational product. God is not in time in the scenario and only responds to temporal events either as desired or any the other calssical sense sense he knows all the contents of the world's time his apparent responses are simply the one response of creation experienced in relative moments as individual  actions.  This has been used by theologians ad nausem to defend the idea that god does not change . He has entirely responded and is the same in each apparent relativized moment. So god is the sme yesterday, today and tomorrow. 

My argument is strong contrary to what you think because you have mistaken it apparently as a god placed in time. You have failed to see the realtionship of modal logic to omni-attributes and their consequences. They create incoherence and non-resolvable paradox and conflict.

 

PS this really answers everything in your other post I think but prlease respond if need be.

Yes it does presuppose determinism, which includes the notion that there is only one possible world.  You are not using possible worlds in the "normal sense"; you are using it in an outdated Leibnizian sense, and he barely even touched upon the notion (his status as the Father of Possible Worlds Semantics notwithstanding).  You assume that for any possible world that God chooses, it's isolated from every other possible world--that we are trapped in this one possible world that God has chosen for us; this is determinism.  But Kripke showed that this idea of possible worlds semantics gives way to all sorts of hermeneutical difficulties, especially when one tries to reconcile it with the Lewis systems; hence, he introduced the accessibility relationship in order to resolve this very issue.  We live in a possible world that is accessible to other possible worlds; there's no reason to say otherwise.  Your argument hinges upon the notion that omniscience necessarily precludes free will; all I have to do in order to disprove this is show that it is possible to be free even if God is omniscient.  Since I've done that, your argument fails.  

No, that's an outdated Leibnizian argument based upon an unclarified notion of possible worlds.  It has nothing to do with possible worlds semantics as has been adopted by guys like Rudolf Carnap or Saul Kripke.  Today, a possible world is generally understood as a maximal description of reality; that is, it's a set of atomic propositions that have some truth value.  Leibniz's argument was meant to address those interlocutors whose main argument was that God, if real, did a horrible job creating the universe that we live in; Leibniz said that this was the best that he could have done.  It had nothing to do with the issue of free will.  The idea that this somehow entails a lack of freedom is nothing that he brought to the table.

Your argument is that we are not free because God knows what we will do and created us and the world in which our actions would take place.  It's a non-sequitur; there is no connection between the premise and the conclusion.  It is possible for God to have created our universe, and know our future actions even if they are not predetermined.

He does not determine possible worlds anymore than he determines logic or mathematics.  It could be that abstract metaphysical possibilities and abstract principles are part of God's nature insofar as he is an intelligent being who thinks in a certain way (see Greg Bahnsen).  In the modern sense, a possible world includes God as part of the description, such that "God creates this universe" is an atomic constituent of the actual world.

Logic is not some police officer going around making sure that A remains A or that a dog doesn't start becoming a non-dog.  Logic exists merely in the abstract, and people are free to make contradictory claims if they so please.  If I say that "God is what he is," I am not claiming that God is constrained into doing something; rather, I am articulating a truism that's logically necessarily--but not ontologically necessary.  This is just a weak rebuttal to the Christian response to the paradox of omnipotence.  

On your worldview, free will does not exist.  That would necessitate that every choice that we make is actually the product of physical events, which are themselves the product of other physical events.  As such, I am not morally responsible for anything that I do, because the laws of physics necessitate that I do what I do.  Thus, I am a Christian because physical events necessitated that I be one.  

You are overlooking the question.  If time only exists in a relativized sense, and God does not experience the world in the same way that we experience the world, then the idea that God knows what will happen does nothing for your argument.  Let's say that God doesn't know what will happen, but rather he just knows what happens; how is this inconsistent with free will?

This is your argument:

(1) God created the actual world (assumed premise).

(2) God knows all future events in the actual world (premise).

(3) God created the actual world and knows all future events in it (from 1 and 2).

(4) If God created the actual world and knows all future events in it, then nothing in the actual world has free will (premise).

(5) Nothing in the actual world has free will (from 3 and 4). 

The argument is deductively valid, but what reason do you have for supposing that the fourth premise is true?

'Determinism' does not necessitate or imply predictability - that is a result of Chaos theory.

This inherent possibility of 'unpredictability' is reinforced in the real world by Quantum Theory, which points to the idea that nothing, not even Time, perhaps, is infinitely continuous, but is 'quantized' at a fundamental level, characterized by the Planck scale. This means that any mechanistic process requiring extreme precision of measurement of its initial state for useful prediction of its future trajectory will not be predictable to the extent that that would require measurement of of the initial position and momentum of its 'bits' to a precision precluded by the Uncertainty Principle.

Chaos says that some non-linear feedback systems would require infinite precision of measurement to predict their trajectory, under some conditions, such as if they start in the vicinity of certain 'cusp' states, even without Quantum Theory considerations.

As for your argument, you've only taken it out of the flame and into the fire.  

Quote:

1) God knows all possible worlds

True.  There's nothing that can be known which God does not know.

Quote:

2) He therefore knows all their properties ( constituents) They are determined by him as so.

TGB: He knows all possible worlds which you admit.  If he knows all possible worlds and knows what is in them then he has determined what is in them (epistemic sense) just as you determine what is in your pocket by looking.  There IS NO presumption of determinism here. It is simply the situation in which omniscience experiences all possible worlds. They are not on last analysis like mathematical propositions and are not abstract entities. They are potential entities wherein one can abstract their properties as attributes. Certainly logic and mathematics may in fact be merely abstract. 

You also admit he determines the  universe that he actualizes.  It is merely one of those possible worlds and as I said omniscience entails knowing it as a possible world and as you admit he knows all possible worlds any possible world would be predetermined in its actualization for its outcome is known in its creation. 

Quote:

3) God chooses the best of all possible worlds because he knows fully the constituents. It is they that are good or bad.

If we're understanding "possible world" as this universe that we live in, then I'll say that I can neither affirm nor deny it.  I see no reason to deny that God could have morally permissible reasons for not giving us the best possible place to live in, and I would certainly not claim to know why he does the things that he does--not unless he told me himself.  Are you privy to the mind of God more so than Christians?

TGB: We are understanding this would as an actualization of many possible worlds.  If he knew its content entirely as a possible world it unfolds whether there is causal determinism or not as determined by god and of necessity from its first cause.  For the act of creating it ensures that those things known beforehand mush occur as its result. Aain I would refer you back to the David Bohm analogy for the idea or Augustine for that matter.

 

MR. MEta :

Bald assertion.  Furthermore, would you be willing to grant that there is a possible world (if we are understanding "possible world" as previously noted) where humans are free?  If so, then you would grant that God, creating in the manner that he does, could create a universe where beings such as us make free choices; so why do you believe he didn't?

If you wish to say that there is no possible world where people are free, then I would ask for you to justify it.

 

TGB: It is not an assertion . It is commonly understood to follow from such.  Again the only way that humans could be free is if god DID NOT know the contents of the possible world he has actualized as ours. God could only create a universe with free agents if he did not have omniscience or if he did he sacrificed it in the at of creation. That is simply where process philosophy and your faiths new Sophisticated Theology goes. This is only about the problem of the attribbutes of god. When the possible world scenarios are used the attributes of god prevent free will just as Hyper-Calvinsim claims. If you grant a possible world of free agents then the attributes of Greek philosophical  infected theism  is false.

 

I have nothing useful to say, so I'll resort to becoming a troll...

 

 

There is a distinction between:

• inherent omniscience - the ability to know anything that one chooses to know and can be known.
• total omniscience - actually knowing everything that can be known.^{[citation needed]}

Some modern theologians argue that God's omniscience is inherent rather than total, and that God chooses to limit his omniscience in order to preserve the freewill and dignity of his creatures.^[3] Certain theologians of the 16th Century,^[who?] comfortable with the definition of God as being omniscient in the total sense, in order for worthy beings' abilities to choose freely, embraced the doctrine of predestination.

Controversies

 

The Omniscience Paradoxes

The Omniscience Paradox can be defined by these questions,

• "Can an omniscient, omnipotent, eternal, timeless, boundless, limitless, and uncontained Entity create that which it doesn't already know?"

• "If information is the substance and causation to all that exists, would an omniscient entity not literally be everything and anything in, or of existence?"

Well if such an entity is boundless and limitless to which is uncontained, its omniscience would thus need to be infinite. Thus saying it could create that which it doesn't already know would defy its omniscience on an equally infinite scale. If it were omniscient without bounds or limits, it would defy its omnipotence, boundlessness, and limitlessness. It would even collapse its status of being uncontained. And if it were eternally Omniscient without bounds or limits, how could it create anything at all? If information theory is correct, would not this entity be the sum total of all that exists?

This also brings us to the question of how one can "know" how to create the following, which also seems to be the foundation of cause to our own existence. That is, how can an entity design and bring all the following listed objects or concepts into existence, when it requires, or may require them to exist itself? How can one thus be omniscient without them?

• Reality
• Existence
• Information
• Intelligence
• Consciousness
• Logic and mathematics
• Time (the process to create time would in itself require time)
• Complexity
• The five basic senses (Touch, Smell, Hear, Sight, Taste) (In order to be an observer, and know anything including its own existence, a conscious mind will require the tools of observation in order to know, experience, perceive, respond, or act)

When we approach this subject of the paradox of knowledge, or the creation of, we can notice many of these problem areas that concern omniscience and knowledge in regards to such supposed omniscient entities. Thus it can be said that such an argument self-collapses in every area of the supposed attributes given when anyone of them is taken out of the equation by another conflicting attribute. Especially in the case or state of absolute Omniscience. We can explore these problems in religious ideologies such as Christianity (as an example amongst others). In Orthodox Christianity there is a set of specific attributes to which they use to describe their God with. Among these attributes are as follows:

St John of Damascus, The Fount of Knowledge:

Abstract 1:
"The uncreate, the unoriginate, the immortal, the boundless, the eternal, the immaterial, the good, the creative, the just, the enlightening, the unchangeable, the passionless, the uncircumscribed, the uncontained, the unlimited, the indefinable, the invisible, the inconceivable, the wanting nothing, the having absolute power and authority, the life-giving, the almighty, the infinitely powerful, the sanctifying and communicating, the containing and sustaining all things, and the providing for all all these and the like He possesses by His nature. They are not received from any other source; on the contrary, it is His nature that communicates all good to His own creatures in accordance with the capacity of each."

Abstract 2:
"And yet again, there is His knowing of all things by a simple act of knowing. And there is His distinctly seeing with His divine, all-seeing, and immaterial eye all things at once"

1. Omniscient
2. Boundless
3. Unlimited
4. Uncontained
5. The containing and sustaining of all things
6. Timeless
7. Omnipresent

These seven attributes also led many to question if those with such religious beliefs are unaware that they are seemingly depositing the idea of pure solipsism. Here the argument can be made that even if such an entity would deny the existence of other minds or not, it would still be solipsism. Under this argument in regards to omniscience, one person just stating there isn't any other individual minds would be equal to said entity saying there are no other individual minds. Thus we have to consider that all minds that exist are of this entity's own mind. In light of this, anyone arguing against the argument would be The entity arguing with itself just for the sake of doings so, or for the amusement of doing so. Regardless of what reply anyone might have to this, the six attributes on that list can only mean pure Solipsism in order to be Omniscient without bounds, limits, or containment. This includes number 5 on the list in regards to containing and sustaining all things. These attributes also directly conflict with inherent omniscience stance, or our own individualism since it would be placing limits to a said to be limitless, uncontained, boundless God. However, the worst part isn't any of the above. The worst part is that even if one would argue that such an entity was only to be all knowing in regards to what is knowable, or existent, it would still be depositing the idea of Solipsism as noted in the example below:

Omniscient Solipsism from a Designers Perspective:
(This as if you are the Omniscient Entity about to design and create something into existence. Such as a human being)

I =: reference to all information that gives I an Identity, substance, dimension, value, an awareness, an existence, an intelligence, or a consciousness.

1. I'm Omniscient
2. I have an idea of something I want to build, construct, or make existent
3. I know infinitely everything about this thing, person, or place infinitely before, and infinitely after I have constructed it, or even thought of it.
4. I would know in my design everything it will infinitely ever do.
5. I would know everything about my design's essence or being to the point of actually, and literally being that of my design (object, entity, thing, or place) in every infinitely literal way. (and we must pay close attention to the term infinite)
6. I would know all the above infinitely in the past, present, and future.
7. This thing I designed would only be able to do what it was designed to do, and what I already infinitely know it will do, even to the point of it actually being literally me, and literally me doing all those things myself in every infinite way imaginable.
8. Even if I wanted to state that I am only omniscient to which is knowable, 5, 6 (past, and present), and 7 would all be knowable. Omniscience would translate to I, the said entity being existence itself in the best case possible, or everything that is existent in every infinite way.

[edit] Omniscience vs Freewill

See : Determinism, Freewill and argument from free will

[edit] Anterograde Omniscience

Anterograde Omniscience is the type of Omniscience used to incorporate complete knowledge of the future into God. It has been often criticized by the opponents, stating that Free-Will is incoherent with Anterograde omniscience.

A common objection towards free-will is the fact that God knows the future, and what is already known is not considered part of free-will, thus is considered predestination. Moreover stating that predestination and free-will are incoherent, because God would perfectly know everything about the future. Moreover if heaven were eternal, God would know everything the people would do during their time in bliss, laying an infinite series of determinism.

If the future was given the definition of Physics, it can be drawn down to this. The past is something that's known, the future is something that is not known but may have an infinite series of possible branched time-lines and the present is the eliminator of possibilities. If God were to know the future very precisely, it wouldn't even be considered the future since it's a logical fallacy to call it the future if given the specific definition. Therefore the future wouldn't exist. Moreover, the present wouldn't exist, thus everything would be considered "the past" since the past is something that's known with certainty, not a possibility (according to physics). The problem would persist within the nature of God himself, such as he, having a future or even things about what's he's gonna think next.

A possible correction is to state that God doesn't know the future. If this were true, it wouldn't compete with his omnipotence, since no one else would know the future ahead of God. Another correction would be that God knows all possible future events, meaning that he would see an infinite number of timelines laid out on a plane, and such time lines would still remain to exist even if not chosen. Such a God would know every possible way of how something was going to be. However, if this were true, God still wouldn't be omniscient, as his knowledge would be nothing more than mathematical; every possible hand in a poker game is known, but which one is not know before dealt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omniscience#Omniscience_vs_Freewill