From: utzoo!watmath!rtris
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: Omnipotence and free will
Article-I.D.: watmath.4917
Posted: Mon Apr 11 15:39:50 1983
Received: Tue Apr 12 00:19:52 1983


 Don,

I see your point very well. The line of reasoning that if a being KNOWS what
I am going to do for the rest of my life, then it follows that reality is
deterministic, is quite natural. It is something that causes endless debate
in Christian circles as well!

And the crux of the problem, of course, is our respective viewpoints on
free will. It would seem to me that the most natural definition angle is:
free will consists of the power to make choices. (This is approximately
how Turing defined it anyway). It would also seem to me that a computer
does not have this power, it is indeed a deterministic machine.

Now, given this, I think to say that IF something is known, THEN it is 
controlled (by laws or someone or something), is a fallacy. I'll grant
you that it is a compelling conclusion, since all of inanimate reality
does seem to operate that way. One can only know a future event (such as the
outcome of an experiment involving well known principles) with certainty,
if there are physical, deterministic laws at work.

But I don't see that there is a NECESSARY causation between the two statements
"it is known" and "it is determined" in and of themselves. In particular,
although determinism creates the possibility of foreknowledge, I don't
think one can say that the reverse (foreknowledge implies determinism) is
necessarily true.

Let me try and illustrate with what I think is reasonable example.
Suppose you know a person very well. In fact you know him/her so well, that
in various situations you can know or predict with incredible accuracy what
he/she will think or how he/she will respond. (I know various pairs of people
like this (Peters and Glover come close)). Now given such a situation, are
you compelled to say that the object of the knownness is deterministic?
I think not. You could, of course, but I think it just as plausible to say
that the person nevertheless chose, and thus excersised free will. What
occurred is that you knew WHAT he/she would choose.

To draw it out a little, suppose you know what he/she is going to do for
the next twentyfour hours. Does he/she have free will? Again you could argue
he/she doesn't of course, but on the other hand one could say, yes he/she does!
You may know what he/she is going to do, but you can't (or won't) change it!
He/She chooses, and it is completely in his/her hands. You can't (or won't)
take control.

So what it comes down to, I think, is that you reject my notion of free will.
I don't think you can say God MUST be a controller.

Of course, you could reply by explaining my example in terms of a deterministic
LISP program. Yes, I have already agreed that that is a possibility. But
ONLY if you reject my definition of free will. Sure you can consistently
maintain that reality is deterministic. But one can also consistently
postulate an omnipotent and omniscient God and free will (in my opinion).


				At least give me credit for my reasoning?
							Ralph.