From: utzoo!watmath!rtris
Newsgroups: net.religion
Title: omniscience and free will
Article-I.D.: watmath.4960
Posted: Fri Apr 22 14:25:15 1983
Received: Sat Apr 23 08:45:08 1983


Tim, I would prefer that this discussion would be carried on in a civil
fashion. Don and I succeeded at this quite easily. Since he is now off to
Victoria, I would be quite happy to persue this topic with you. First though
let me say that it doesn't seem possible for a Christian to be in your good
books. You condemn both the (seemingly) blind faith supporters, and the
ones that are trying to understand their faith. If Christians just make you
barf, fine!, but don't imply it is some other attribute that causes it.

Preperatory remark: the only "incontrovertible" logic I can think of off
hand is propositional calculus and its ilk. And even if proofs appear
using these tools, there is endless room for wrangling about the assumptions
that were used.

Another one: the implicit aim of my discussion with Don was to fully come to
grips with each others (and our own!) position. I think this discussion is
still a long way from that, but already, I have gained insights which enable
me to express my position more clearly.

On to the topic: I have defined determinism to include rules that govern
state transitions, which take the state of the system as input. And that
God cannot be part of the input, since he is outside of the system.

You reply that if God intervenes in the system then he is in it. 
I can't think of any reason why that necessarily follows. As an illustration,
suppose God is an eight dimensional being. He creates this 3 (maybe 4)
dimensional object we call the universe. Now being an eight dimensional being
it is simplicity itself for him to manipulate this object he has created.
Thusly he can intervene (which will change the state of the system). Yet
he is in no way confined to the universe.
He can "see" all states ("ask myself"), thusly he can predict (and
communicate those predictions to us if he wishes).
(I.e., he doesn't need to intervene in order to predict, only to "look").

Thus we could still have an omniscient God, and free will (in my opinion).

------

Trailing remark: Sorry, Christianity inherently holds to a number of answers.
I do my best to comprehend why it is that they are the answers. From your
remarks, I would assume that you are "open-minded" (i.e. do not presuppose
answers). If that is true, it would seem to me, that you should entertain the
possibility that omniscience and free will are compatible until proven other-
wise. I also think that requires persueing this discussion, if you're going
to be honest. Maybe I am a dummy. Maybe I got my degrees, and my programming
skills by pure fluke or something. But I contend that that is not true, that
my reasoning capacity is at least as good as yours, and that there is no 
inherent contradiction between omniscience and free will.


						Looking forward to your reply,

								Ralph.