The problem of free will

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
1

Christians often make the claim that God knows everything. If asked for specifics, they’ll say this includes knowledge about the future (foreknowledge) and that such knowledge is infallible. Christians also often make the claim that man has free will. Upon being asked for specifics, they’ll agree that free will entails the ability to freely make a choice. At quick glance, these claims may not appear to be in conflict. However, if we dig a little deeper into each of these claims, we’ll see that they are.

Let’s say Wayne is faced with a free choice of A or B. He is due to make this choice on Tuesday (day 2). We’ll call Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice variable Y. This means prior to day 2, variable Y has no value (or the choice lies in an unmade state), and on day 2, variable Y will acquire a value of either A or B - to be decided freely by Wayne.

Given the Christian claim that God has infallible foreknowledge, this would mean God knows infallibly what A/B choice Wayne will make when the choice still lies in an unmade state. To gain further clarity on this, it can be asked, “if it were asked on day 1 does God know infallibly what Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice will be, would the answer be YES?”. Christians would typically agree.

So we’ll call God’s day 1 knowledge of Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice variable X. If God knows infallibly on day 1 what Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice will be, then it follows that X has a static or fixed value of either A or B as of day 1.

We now have three conditions:

  1. X has a value of either A or B on day 1 and this value is fixed and cannot change. If it is A, it will remain A. If it is B, it will remain B. This follows the assertion that God has infallible knowledge of future events.

  2. Y (or Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice) receives its value on day 2. Once Y receives its value, it becomes locked. Prior to receiving its value, it could potentially become A or B, as Wayne freely decides on A or B. This follows the assertion that Wayne has free will or can freely make choices.

  3. X is equal to Y. This follows the assertion that if it were asked on day 1 if God knows what Wayne’s day 2 choice would be and the answer is YES.

Not all three of these conditions can be true.

If #1 & #2 are true, then #3 can’t be true, as X wouldn’t be equal to Y, nor would Y be equal to X. Not only would X receive a value at a different point in time than Y, but Y could be assigned a value in conflict with the static value of X.

If #1 & #3 are true, then #2 can’t be true. Wayne wouldn’t be able to freely choose A or B, as variable Y would already be defined as being equal to variable X. Christians will often argue that God knowledge of Wayne’s future choice is a function of Wayne’s day 2 choice. But this doesn’t hold true if the answer to the question “if asked on day 1, does God know what Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice will be?” is YES.

If #2 & #3 are true, then #1 can’t be true. What this means is if variable Y gets its value on day 2, then variable X also gets its value on day 2 and gets the same value as variable Y. It then follows that God can’t have infallible knowledge on day 1 of Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice.

Therefore, it is logically impossible for God (or anyone) to have infallible foreknowledge of a yet to be made free choice.

2

Let’s say that Wayne’s choice is printed in the newspaper on Wednesday.

If foreknowledge is the ability of God to see Wednesday’s newspaper on Monday, then …

Wayne can make whatever free choice he wants on Tuesday and God still knows about it on Monday.

3

There isn’t actually a logical contradiction between “Knowing X on Day 1” and “X becoming true on day 2.” It may be impossible for empirical reasons to do with the flow of time and the nature of free will, but we don’t have a deductive argument here. You assert that W’s being free with respect to A or B requires A or B not acquiring their truth value until he makes his decision, but that isn’t logically entailed by anything, it’s just as assertion. Why can’t “W will choose A” be true before the choice is made, and why can’t God be aware of that truth? I know it ‘sounds odd’, but you haven’t asserted that something sounds odd, you’ve asserted logical contradiction.

A couple other things to consider:

1.) Assuming we have free will, we apparently have a good ability to predict each other’s actions despite this. Your friends can guess what you are, how you will react to news, what you will order at a restaurant even if you are free with respect to those things. We can debate all day what the impact on freedom is, but assuming for the sake of argument that free will exists in the face of this kind of ‘knowledge’, God would simply be much better at predicting our actions than our friends are. If our friends guessing where we will be doesn’t take away our free will, then I don’t see how God’s doing the same thing would do so, just because He’s better at it.
2.) It’s always possible that God knows what the consequences of A or B will be, from the beginning to the end of the universe. Maybe knowing all things means knowing all possibilities and their outcomes, and He doesn’t know what a person will choose before they choose it because, as you suggest, there simply isn’t a fact to be known prior to that- knowing what I will choose tomorrow would be like knowing how much a dragon weighs, or that 2+2 = 11. God’s knowledge would be a little more limited in that case, but would still cover ‘everything that is possible to know’, which is one popular definition of omniscience.

4

If God knows everything then he would have to desire everything and experience everything.

He would have to know the desire for sex with a woman for instance.
He would also have to know of desire for sex with a man as well. Right?

Perhaps he preferred sex with men and that is why he is so against gays. One must have let him down.

Regards
DL

5

Not true. If God knows on Monday what Wayne’s Tuesday (day 2) freely made A/B choice will be, then X (God’s day 1 knowledge of Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice) has a static value as of day 1. Let’s say it is B. Wayne then freely chooses A (Y represents Wayne’s day 2 freely made A/B choice). This means that X cannot always be equal to Y.

Here are the three claims:

  1. X receives a static value on or before day 1 and is locked as either A or B on or before day 1.

  2. Y receives a static value of either A or B on day 2 through a freely made choice of a human and at that point in time becomes locked as either A or B

  3. X is equal to Y

Would you agree that not all three of these suppositions can be true?

6

Let’s say you freely choose A out of an A/B choice and make that choice at 12:00. At 11:59, could you still have chosen B?

Humans are fallible. They often make inaccurate predictions. Some people are more predictable than others (e.g. the child will want chocolate rather than spinach) and others are less predictable (the 35 year old single guy who has 20 different hobbies and activities he engages in and always behaves in a spontaneous manner).

If #2 is correct, then it doesn’t apply to any of the Christian claims I’m responding to. I’m responding to the Christian claim that God has infallible knowledge of all future events. I’m not responding to the claim that God knows all possibilities but doesn’t know what we actually end up choosing.

7

Duplicate post

8

The words ‘locked’ and ‘static’ seem to be concepts that Mutcer needs. I have no idea what they mean.

Let’s say that God does not peek at Wednesday’s paper…then there is complete free will for Wayne: no locking.

If God peeks at the future and knows what Wayne will do… how does He lock something? What has He changed for Wayne? How has He prevented Wayne from doing anything?

Your argument is based on the concept that If God sees the future state of the world, Wayne could still make a choice which alters the future. Even though God has already seen the future and knows what will happen (has happened).

Not that foresight has to work this way, of course.

9 
That is typically how we describe uncertain events, yeah. So like, if the Latverian Crayfish win the World Cup on the 2nd, it is still possible that they lose on the 1st.  And yet, people predict the winners of sporting events, and their predictions aren't unskilled/random.

And? God would be really good at making these predictions- as good as it is possible to be. Perhaps never wrong. Again, if all he’s doing us making predictions based on his superior knowledge and reasoning, but using the same method that you and I use to predict our friend’s behavior, what’s the challenge to free will? We predict each other’s free choices all the time.

OK then.

10 
It seems plausible, even certain to us, that if you look into the future at time T and see X, that means it is true that X must happen at time T.  But there's no logical connection that it must be so- it's entirely possible that I know you will choose X in advance, and then you choose X, and your choice with respect to X is free.  Our understandings of what 'knowledge' is and what 'freedom' is are far too abstract to form deductively certain arguments about such.  If Mutcer wants to merely say that it [i]seems unlikely[/i] that God could know with certainly what a free creature will do in advance, then...yeah ok. Maybe. 
But again, people can predict each other's future actions now, as infallible humans. It's reasonable to think God would be better at it than we are- like, way better.  So what's the difference between a God who has perfect knowledge of the future in a way that harms free will, and a God who is merely the best possible predictor in a way that does not harm free will?
11

Since you don’t know what locked or static mean, I will rephrase.

Not true. If God knows on Monday what Wayne’s Tuesday (day 2) freely made A/B choice will be, then X (God’s day 1 knowledge of Wayne’s day 2 A/B choice) has a value as of day 1 that will not be different from that value at any other point in time. Let’s say it is B. Wayne then freely chooses A (Y represents Wayne’s day 2 freely made A/B choice). This means that X cannot always be equal to Y.

Straw man. I’m responding to the Christian claim that God knows everything, past, present and future - not to some claim that God knows only what he chooses to know.

That is where the conflict lies. Let’s say X has a value of A on day 1 (God’s day 1 knowledge of Wayne’s day 2 choice is that he will choose A); Y then get a value of B on day 2 (Wayne freely chooses B on day 2). In this case, A and B are not equal to each other, which demonstrates that God cannot have infallible foreknowledge of a yet to be made free choice.

12

One can think of several ways in which it could be done without harming free will.

13

Strawman? No.
I presented a way of thinking about this. In one case, God doesn’t know the future and Wayne has free will. In the other, God knows the future and you claim that Wayne does not have free will. But God has not done anything to limit Wayne. God is not forcing Wayne to do anything. So what you are saying, is that mere knowledge is a limit to free will. I find that hard to believe.

There is a difference between forcing Wayne to choose A and seeing the future where Wayne has already chosen A.

14

Yes it is a straw man. You said:

The claim I’m responding to is the Christian claim that God knows everything, past, present & future. A god that knows all that wouldn’t have his knowledge changed by peeking at the future. So if you want to be in alignment with the God I’m referring to, instead of saying “If God peeks at the future and knows what Wayne will do”, you could just say “If God knows what Wayne will do”

Let’s go back to this:

[b]Here are the three claims:

  1. X receives a static value on or before day 1 and is locked as either A or B on or before day 1.

  2. Y receives a static value of either A or B on day 2 through a freely made choice of a human and at that point in time becomes locked as either A or B

  3. X is equal to Y

Would you agree that not all three of these suppositions can be true?[/b]

If God knows the future and Wayne has free will, that equates to #1 & #2 being true. It follows that #3 cannot be true.

If God knows the future and Wayne doesn’t have free will, that would equate to #1 & #3 (indirectly) being true. However, I’m not responding to a claim that God’s knowledge of Wayne’s future actions forces Wayne to act a certain way. That would be like leaving #2 completely out of the equation. And since Christians are positing that Wayne does have the ability to freely make choices, you are once again exhibiting a straw man.

15

Nah, let’s not go back. You have been saying the same thing for years now. It used to be cereal, now it’s A and B. Better philosophers than me, have pointed out the problems with your argument, yet here you are repeating the same stuff again and again and again.

I’m done wasting my time. :character-luigi:

16 
  What's the Christian definition of 'knowledge'?  What's the Christian concept of 'freedom'?
   Knowledge and free will are philosophical terms defined by philosophers, not theologians.  The idea that when a Christian says "God knows everything" or "People have free will" they mean exactly what you need them to mean in order for your argument to work is itself a strawman.
17

If you made an argument and the only way I knew how to attack it was via straw man, I would also likely bow out.

18

If there is any confusion, I ask Christians to clarify. And even with the clarifications, there are many Christians who claim that God knows everything (including the future) and that humans have the ability to freely make choices. The suppositions I’ve plugged into the hypothesis are based on real Christian claims, not claims I imagine they have made. If you don’t believe me, I’ll be happy to create a poll on a Christian message board.

Are you suggesting the Christians don’t really mean God knows everything when they say God knows everything? If so, then what do you suppose they really mean?

19

I’m suggesting ‘knows’ and ‘everything’ and ‘free’ are philosophically loaded terms that have many definitions depending on who you ask, and that nothing in Christian doctrine commits a person to any one definition of such. Like I’ve pointed out now, the idea of God as the best possible guesser fits nicely with Him knowing everything and action being free, as far as I can tell. Compatibilism (the idea that determinism and free will are both true somehow) seems to as well, though I haven’t gone into it since I’m not a compatibilist.
If YOU want to address one particular understanding of free will and knowledge and so on, then sure, address just that, and it would be a strawman to criticize you outside of that, but you can’t say your chosen definitions constitute a criticism of Christianity, or else you’re the one making the straw man.

20

One who relies on guesses could guess wrong. For example, let’s say God guesses before you are born that you are going to choose A out of your day 2 A/B choice. On day 1, you haven’t yet made your choice, yet when day 2 rolls around, you freely choose B. That means God’s guess is wrong.

I have made it clear what I’m talking about with respect to free will and knowledge. But to give you the benefit of the doubt, I’ve opened up a couple of polls at a Christian message board.

christianforums.com/t7815892/

christianforums.com/t7815891/