Quote:
Quote by: Yasa  1. Free will:
One has free will when his actions/choices are contingent. That is, the person can do, or not do something. He can choose something or not choose something. Give a certain decision, it is perfectly reasonable that he could have decided otherwise. If it is not true that the person could have chosen otherwise, then the person does not have free will.
2. Omniscience:
A god who is omniscient knows all, including the future, knows every action, decision, etc. that you will make.
3. If such a god's knowledge of the future is not false, then the actions foreseen for you must indeed happen and be unchangeable. In other words, they are not contingent and you are not free to choose otherwise.
4. Therefore, either a god cannot be omniscient and we have free will, or we do not have free will and a god could be omniscient.
Expansion on premise 3:
It is clear that if a being could see the future actions of everyone, then in order for such a being's knowledge of the future to be accurate, those actions must necessarily happen. They cannot happen otherwise, or else such a being's knowledge would indeed be false and thus we would not consider that being to have omniscience. However, should every action necessarily happen in a certain way, those actions are not contingent--they cannot happen otherwise. This implies that free will is merely an illusion. |
If the person has free will they can make limited choices, what hat to wear today, or not to wear at hat at all. Just because God can predict what hat you will pick does not mean you did not have a free choice.
If I open the front door I know ahead of time my cat wants to run outside that does not mean I have prevented it's choice to stay inside.
Let us say that someone read the whole Bible and wanted to obey every single commandment and moral concept, well, he would be powerless to do so, he can crank up all the free will to be perfect and still fall well below the mark. That is not in the cards.
Let us say by free will you wanted to violate those commandements and morality standards, that would be easy, like taking candy from a baby.
Point being; There are things you can make a choice about doing or not doing, and things over which you have no choice. None the less you can use free will to make a choice even if that choice does not empower a manifested destiny. You can chose to live a "sin free" life but find that you are stuck sinning in non-conformity with your will. The unwilling sinner as compared to the willing sinner. Which is like having sex without conscent or with conscent.
It could be argued that you will complete a disteny, do matter if you wear and hat or not, because the choice of a hat makes no difference in what will happen.
You cannot pull back for making a wrong choice unless you already had the power in you to do so. If logic did not rule over the emotional urges.
Now President Buch has free will, yet he is so predictable I can sit here and and tell you what his next speech will be about.