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From: iannucci@sjuvax.UUCP (iannucci)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Divine omniscience
Message-ID: <941@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 12-Mar-85 14:18:14 EST
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.941
Posted: Tue Mar 12 14:18:14 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 14-Mar-85 03:46:22 EST
Reply-To: iannucci@sjuvax.UUCP (iannucci)
Organization: St. Josephs University, Phila. PA.
Lines: 39


In article <221@cmu-cs-gandalf.ARPA> hua@cmu-cs-gandalf.UUCP writes:
>If God is omniscient, he knows what I'm thinking and what I will do.
>Therefore, I don't have freedom of choice.  If at some point in my life
>I will have to choose between a or b, God knows I will pick "a".  Therefore
>I can't pick b.  But yet he gets upset at people's choices, even though
>he knows they had no alternative.
>
>The only way out of this is if God doesn't know absolutely everything.
>Therefore, he isn't omniscient.  Since omniscience is a power, he can't
>be omnipotent.
>
>Chris Larsen at CMU


                   This raises a very interesting question (apologies if this
has been beaten to death already).  One of the unquestionable characteristics
of God, at least for most people, is that he is omniscient.  Presumably, this
omniscience includes knowledge of the future. I think there are few people who
hold traditional views of religion (even if they are unbelievers) who would
contest this.(Of course I always expect flames anyway :-))

                           So if God always knows with certainty beforehand 
that we will do X at time t, then we have no freedom NOT to do X at time t.
Knowledge by definition is "justified true belief", which means that that 
which is known is TRUE.  For this reason, human beings cannot restrain
other humans' freedom by predicting their actions -- humans may have BELIEF
of future actions, but they have no KNOWLEDGE.  But God does have knowledge.
So how do we evade the conclusion that God's foreknowledge of all human actions,thoughts, etc. prevents them from being freely done, in other words, human
beings have no real free will?

         It seems we have no choice but to say that either human beings really
*have* no free will, or that God does not exist. If I have not explained 
myself clearly, I will undoubtedly have a chance later to do so.
-- 
Dave Iannucci
St. Joseph's University, Philadelphia
...{allegra|astrovax|bpa|burdvax}!sjuvax!iannucci
"A witty saying proves nothing. "      --Voltaire