Do God's Omniscience ,Omnipotance, and free will Contradict?

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An atheist guest comes knocking at the door of the comment section with a string of canned arguments we've answered a million times, hurled lake a gauntlet as though we have never see it before:


God is asserted to be all good, all loving, all knowing, all powerful, in possession of free will and having imparted free will to human beings as well as being eternal and uncaused as well as outside of space and time while acting in a time sequence of events within space and time.
Sorry, one simply cannot make rational sense to reconcile all these asserted properties. They contradict each other in various ways making the whole package incoherent by it's own theistic definitions.
Here is an old answer I put up on Metacropck's blog in 2011, again in 2013:

Atheists think it is. I've seen many a knock down drag-out fight, multiple threads, lasing for days, accomplishing nothing. I wrote that dilemma off years ago before I was an internet apologist, so long ago I don't remember when. I wrote it off because at an early date I read Boethius who, in his great work The Consolation of Philosophy (circa 524), puts to rest the issue by proving that foreknowledge is not determinism. In this essay I will demonstrate not only that this is true but the atheist error about omniscience and omnipotence contradicting are actually hold-overs from the pagan framework which Boethius disproved.

___________________ 
Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius
(480?-524)
 Aurthor The Consolation
 of Philosophy
___________________

For years my debates on the matter were marked by silly repetition. I would constantly argue that just knowing that someone does something is not controlling it. But atheists were always cock sure that it was. I used the following analogy: I know how the Alamo turned out. Travis and the men stepped over the line and chose to stay and die. I know they did that, does my knowledge of it mean that I made them do it? Of course the atheist say "O of course not, but you are not in the past, you are knowing this by a look back in history to see what they already did." Of course, but God doesn't know about events before they have happened in time, he knows about them because he's beyond time and he sees everything in time as a accomplished fact. From our perspective in time God's knowledge is "foreknowledge" because from our perspective in time knowledge comes before the event. But it's not foreknowledge for God, he doesn't know before it happens, he knows about events because form an eternal perspective its a done deal. Just as my knowing what the men at the Alamo already did does not give me control over their choices, so God's knowledge of facts we have already accomplish does not give God control over our choices.

Of course, predictably, the atheists dismiss this idea as "nonsense" and go right on asserting that to know of an action is to control, but they can't tell me why. They can tell me a  theoretical reason but they can't tell me why if my knowing about the Alamo ex post facto does not control those actions why would God's knowledge of a past event already done control the past event? Why are these not analogous if God is outside time and sees all things in time as accomplished facts? They can't tell me but they are certain the idea is nonsense. The reason they give initially is this. Say that God knows today that I will go to the store tomorrow. That means that i can't tomorrow morning decide "I don't want to go to the store, I hate the walk." I can't decide that and follow it because God already knows I went so I have to go. But the problem is they are not following a modern concept of God knowing because he's outside of time. They are still stuck in the pre Christian framework which has clung to modern Western Philosophy lo these many centuries. That frame work can be clearly seen in Boethius because that's what he was arguing against. The fame work is the Greek Gods were controlled by the fates, but they also had foreknowledge, so they were trumping the fates, to whom they were really subject. That creates an issue. Moreover, foreknowledge was about things that had not yet taken place, thus that is a contradiction; it hasn't taken place, how can it be known what one will do, to know it is to set in stone and thus not free will. But that only holds in the case of God in time not outside of time. It doesn't apply to the idea of God transcendent of time and thus that's why they can't answer me, but because they know the philosophers they read still assert the old Greek idea they must cling to it.


We can see the exact kind of thinking the atheists use in the Consolation and it is the framework against which Boethius toils. This quotation is form a summary in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. The summary is by John Marenbon.


The first point which needs to be settled is what, precisely, is the problem which Boethius the character proposes? The reasoning behind (7) seems to be of the following form:
  1. God knows every event, including all future ones.
  2. When someone knows that an event will happen, then the event will happen.
  3. (10) is true as a matter of necessity, because it is impossible to know that which is not the case.
  4. If someone knows an event will happen, it will happen necessarily.(10, 11)
  5. Every event, including future ones, happens necessarily. (9, 12)
The pattern behind (8) will be similar, but in reverse: from a negation of (13), the negation of (9) will be seen to follow. But, as it is easy to observe, (9–13) is a fallacious argument: (10) and (11) imply, not (12), but
  1. Necessarily, if someone knows an event will happen, it will happen.
 (emphasis mine)
 The summary of the problem he's working against indicates exactly the problem I frame it, that the atheist (following the Greeks) is not assuming transcendence of time but is working on the assumption that God's knowledge is prior to the completed nature of the action. This was framework in which Boethius found the problem in his own contemporary scene which came from the pre-christian Hellenistic world. Even when the philosopher writing the article sums it up he still speaks form the same perspective:


The fallacy, therefore, concerns the scope of the necessity operator. Boethius has mistakenly inferred the (narrow-scope) necessity of the consequent (‘the event will happen’), when he is entitled only to infer the (wide-scope) necessity of the whole conditional (‘if someone knows an event will happen, it will happen’). Boethius the character is clearly taken in by this fallacious argument, and there is no good reason to think that Boethius the author ever became aware of the fallacy (despite a passage later on which some modern commentators have interpreted in this sense). None the less, the discussion which follows does not, as the danger seems to be, address itself to a non-problem. Intuitively, Boethius sees that the threat which divine prescience poses to the contingency of future events arises not just from the claim that God's beliefs about the future constitute knowledge, but also from the fact that they are beliefs about the future.There is a real problem here, because if God knows now what I shall do tomorrow, then it seems that either what I shall do is already determined, or else that I shall have the power tomorrow to convert God's knowledge today into a false belief. Although his logical formulation does not capture this problem, the solution Boethius gives to Philosophy is clearly designed to tackle it.
He's speaking form the perspective of future events which have not yet happened, being known before they happen. But that leaves out the assumption that's God's is not actuality using real foreknowledge so much as transcendent eternal knowledge that sees the events as an accomplished fact because it sees the the end result from a perspective after the event is accomplished. That's the wider perspective. Transcendent eternal knowledge is the knowledge of all time as the "eternal now" not "foreknowledge" in the sense of known only prior to the doing of the event. Then there is also an issue about the nature of the knower. This is a point Boethius may be making but it's hard to say. God knows form the standpoint of eternity but he speaks within times arrow to us so it appears to be foreknowledge, knowledge of that which has not yet transpired. Thus the illusion of determinism is created. But the fact of it is the knowledge comes from viewing all events as accomplished facts. It's in the perspective of timeless transience which only God can have.

This latter issue of the nature of the knowledge is marked by the summary and by the text itself as "modes of cognition." The Constellation of Philosophy is the old fashioned Philosophical dialogue which no one writes anymore, the kind Berkelely write (out of date in his day--early 1700's).

Erronious: "hi fallacious how's it going?"
Fallacious: "great, I'm now considering a new idea"
Erronious: "prey tell good sir what idea might that be?"

And they go on to discuss and provide endless house of fun writing Monty Python style paradiges of themselves. Then burst into a course of "Rene Descartes was a Druken fart, 'I drink therefore I am.'

But before they do that they discuss issues and the philosopher places his arguments in the mouth of the character. In the Consolation the Character Boethius is agonizing over philosophy when Philosophy personfied as a beautiful woman comes to him and gives him the answers. That's the context in which this reviewer states the following:

Her view, as she develops it (in V.5 and V.6), is based on what might be called the Principle of Modes of Cognition: the idea that knowledge is always relativized to different levels of knowers, who have different sorts of objects of knowledge. Although she initially develops this scheme in a complex way, in relation to the different levels of the soul (intelligence, reason, imagination and the senses) and their different objects (pure Form, abstract universals, images, particular bodily things), for most of her discussion Philosophy concentrates on a rather simpler aspect of it. God's way of being and knowing, she argues, is eternal, and divine eternity, she says, is not the same as just lacking a beginning and end, but it is rather (V.6) ‘the whole, simultaneous and perfect possession of unbounded life.’

Boethius did not have the knowledge of modern cosmology, the big bang, quantum theory or any of the other scientific data that we have so he did not possess the concepts of being outside of time. He did however have an understanding of eternity that came form his own spirituality, and it seems to coincide remarkably with the modern notion. What's he's saying is that God's is an eternal perspective. He can see the events of what to us are the future but to him is an eternal now. So he's not knowing something that hasn't happened yet, he knows something that to him has happened, but to us has not yet happened. Without the big bang Boeithius still has the concept of God being outside of time and he saw that as the basis of non-deterministic events in time which known to God as completed events due to God's unique respective.

A being who is eternal in this way, Philosophy argues, knows all things—past, present and future—in the same way as we, who live in time and not eternity, know what is present. She then goes on to show why, so long as God knows future events by their being present to him, this knowledge is compatible with the events’ not being determined.

Through the mouth of philosophy Boethius speculates that there two kinds of necessity. The first is:

Simple necessities are what would now be called physical or nomic necessities: that the sun rises, or that a man will sometime die. By contrast, it is conditionally necessary that, for instance, I am walking, when I am walking (or when someone sees that I am walking); but from this conditional necessity it does not follow that it is simply necessary that I am walking.

Although some philosophers disagree,  she is not noting the scope fallacy above but is actually using Aristotelian modality to argue about the eternal perspective. All things are known to God as though they were in the present. Future events for God are necessary in just the way that present events are necessary for us. What I'm doing writ now I am necessarily doing because I'm really doing it. But because it's my choice to do it and I'm doing it now (as opposed something I already did five years ago) my will to do it is not negated. I can stop doing it and so something else. But I can't go back five seconds ago and stop doing it in the past. All moments are known to God from this perspective.

Now so far so good. But there are two problems:

(1) Most philosophers today do not accept this reading of the issues.

It is important to add, however, that most contemporary interpreters do not read the argument of V.3–6 in quite this way. They hold that Philosophy is arguing that God is a-temporal, so eliminating the problems about determinism, which arise when God's knowing future contingents is seen an event in the past, and therefore, fixed.
That's going to be a problem for me becasue it means that timeless state of "beyond time" would mean God is "frozen" unable to act and thus can only act in time and thus the temporal problem. Rather, God sees as past and while may not control past is also not free to act in the past becuase it is a done deal.

(2) Philosophy seems to swing to a predestination view at the end.

She make God the determiner of events. There are also interpreters who see the Consolation as a satire that should be called "the insufficiency of philosophy." The only problem for me is that atheists will read this part of hte article and say "O see Metacrock is stupid because he didn't read the whole article." Marenbon argues that Boethius purpose is complex it can't be summarized as either "philosophy is insufficient" or "the whole issue is decided." what he's really saying is that philosophy is an ongoing concern. The true consolation of philosophy is not that such issue can be put to rest and summed up easily in nice little easy to understand phrases that only take a few syllables but we can have partial solutions and we can continue to work on problems and continue to seek answers and the act of so doing is a consolation even if we never find clear and easy answers. The interpretation of the Consolation is a literary problem, not a theological one. I will, therefore, bracket that until such as a time as I work on literary criticism.

The first problem is of much greater concern but I have an answer. I think I've analyzed Boethius' claims in the section where philosophy answers the issues of foreknowledge,I think I have that right and it works. It doesn't seem to work when we extract it form the framework of his day and place it in the world of modern cosmology, but it works again when we extract it from the framework of modern cosmology and place it in the framework of my theology (the Berkeley-Gaswami argument). My theological frame work differs from the modern cosmological in this way: I do not see God as a big man in the sky existing beyond the big bang which is a timeless void. I see God as the mind that thinks the universe, and the universe is therefore, analogous to a thought in a mind. I say "analogous" becuase it's a metaphor. If it was literal it might be more deterministic than any other view because it would mean that all events are thoughts in the mind of God in a litteral sense. I do not think that. The Gaswami part comes in where I take a page form the book of physicist Amit Gaswami (a Hindu vedantist who teaches physics at University of Oregon. Like Gaswami I see mind as the fundametnal stuff of the universe rather than energy or mater. I don't mean that in the sense of the universe being a mind, but that is related to mind in the way that a thought is related to a mind. I take that as a metaphor because like
Bishop George Berkeley I accept the premise "to be is to be perceived." God is the observer that collapses the wave function and causes the universe to be by beholding it. God is observing a thought that he has set up to run on it own. He's not making it happen or thinking every event at a microscopic level.

Two analogies that will clarify the difference. In the standard view God's relation to the world is like that of a man standing in a big room holding a world globe. The room is the timeless void beyond our space/time. The man is God, of course, and the globe is our space time. That puts God as a thing in "creation" or at least a timeless void, it makes God subject to the laws of physics and the problem of time. It makes God out to be a big man in the sky, although really far up in the sky. My view we have the room and the globe, no man. The room is the mind of God. the globe and the empty void of "timeless" are both thoughts in the mind of God. What this means is God is not subject to either time or the problem of non time. Both are pseudo problems for God because they are just ideas he thought up to create a framework for our world, which is a further thought of that preliminary thought in his mind. God is no more subject to the problems of time or even non time than we are to our day dreams and momentary fleeting fantasies that cross our minds.

This has many implications that have to be weighed. For one thing we just forget about the issues surrounding the omnis,, let them go completely. Not that God is not all knowing or all powerful, but the concepts "all knowing" and "all powerful" are hazy shadowy concepts that do more to confuse us than to help us. These are Aristotelian ideas and they hold overs from Greek philosophy. These things enter Western philosophy from Greek thought and they preserved by the prejudices of Western European philosophers. Modern philosophers still think the Greeks were the summit of human civilization, even the Church adopted ht language of Greek philosophy to discuss doctrine so we should look to the Greeks. The Hebrews were corn pones and the early Christians were Greeks themselves so Greek ideas hang on in philosophy. Thus the older meaning of "foreknowledge" and it's problems adhere to all modern discussions. The chruch began to use the language of Aristotle after the Apostolic age so we continue to speak of "omnipresent." "Omnipotent" even though the Bible doesn't so speak. We should scrap the language of "all knowing" " all powerful" because it communicates badly. Rather than these we should say, not that God is the "most powerful" that's a mistake too (from a Tillichian perspective) but that God can do whatever is logically doable. God knows whatever is logically knowable.

The problem is ni speaking of God as "doing" and "knowing' we give the importation of God as a big man and God's knowledge as the kind of knowledge city zoning board use to plan things. All of this anthropomorphic language is bring God down to the level of a thing in creation. It's not preserving the transcendent nature of God's knowledge which so different form ours we can't even know what it's like. What we can be sure of is that God has left us free will and he's not violating it. God knows whatever is logically knowable. It may not be logically knowable for God to know how it feels to be not God. But at the same time, he does know empathy, he knows the heart he knows the mind, he can take a much better intuitive feel of what that might be like than even we can ourselves. He doesn't know first hand what it's like to be human.

God does not have to make rocks he can't lift. That is a childish trap set for eighty grade apologetic hobbyists in Sunday school classes. I know because I'm still smarting from falling for it in eighth grade.God can't smell next Tuesday because days don't have smells. The eager beaver atheist can say "there's something God can't do." I say "so?" God cannot do nonsense, ok so what? We need to redefine the omnis and come up with a new term  ( I don't like "maximal greatness" too easy to confuse with "most power being"). The import this has for this issue is that there is no contradiction between omniscience and omnipotence because those are not helpful words and they don't really mean that much so they don't really describe God's attributes well. Since God is beyond the problems of either time or non-time he is not in the big room of timeless void so he's not frozen. Thus God's knowledge can come form all perspectives, from the eternal now and from time's arrow.

Might there actually be aspects of time God chooses not to see? The problem with that question is it assumes God is a rubber-necking tourist roving the expanse of all  existing matter and observing it as one would observe the country side of France from a  train window. Because God is not a big man in the sky, not anthropomorphic we can come up with other metaphors to compare God to, and that indicate that God's relationship to time is one we can't understand. Compare God to the strong force, to the unified field, to the laws of physics, the Hegelian dialectic. The Zeitgeist. I don't believe that God is impersonal but I do think it's a good exercise to think of him that way at times just to break the habit of thinking of God as a big man in the sky.

Such a God cannot waste his time worrying about conflicts between one badly worded phrase that doesn't really describe him and another badly worded phrase that doesn't describe him. Thus the problem is now reduced to a pseudo problem. It' an antiquated problem because it's rooted in the pre-Christian Greek understanding of God and time and the world, and it's also rooted in thinking of God as a big man in the sky rather than the transcendent and immanent ground of all being that God is.
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Comments

Jason Pratt said…
I would emphasize positive aseity, instead of privative aseity (another holdover from Greco-Roman theistic philosophy), along with the Boethian notion of omnipresence/omniscience: God isn't only doing rational action while actively keeping all not-God space-time in existence, God actually is rational action -- and beyond even that, God essentially and actually is actively self-existing, self-begetting and self-begotten (borrowing generational language there).

That leads to the idea of an ongoing self-sacrificial action of God creating not-God realities, and that in turn helps solve a number of standard philosophical quandries about free will and divine consciousness (e.g. how God could even be conscious without identity distinctions to be conscious about? -- such a distinction is an inherent corollary of the proposition of positive aseity. God doesn't have to create not-God reality to exist as a conscious reality Himself; there's an eternally ongoing personally active distinction in the self-begetting, self-begotten, self-giving independently self-existent existence of God, and still would be even if God never created not-God realities.)

There are prior arguments to arrive at the inference of positive vs. privative aseity, of course: it isn't just an ad hoc proposition. But naturally this also has a ton of relevance to supernaturalistic binitarian and trinitarian theism over-against any other notion of theism.

Anyway. Along that line, I suggest rephrasing some of the temporal cues in your article (I'd suggest this anyway, so far as your article goes): it isn't that God sees things that to God "have already happened", but rather God sees them as they are happening. This eternal present, not quite by a linguistic coincidence, better unites omniscience with omnipresence conceptually.

I'll cite Lewis as agreeing that this is the better way to understand Boethian omniscience, if that helps. {g}

JRP
11/21/2016 06:05:00 AM
Jason Pratt said…
I spend about 140 pages talking about this in a series of Cadre articles starting here, by the way.

I think it's important to put these things in context of a progressing systematic argument: by the nature of the overarching topic having so very mannnnyyyy subtopics, any discussion looks ad hoc otherwise.

JRP
11/21/2016 06:10:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Anyway. Along that line, I suggest rephrasing some of the temporal cues in your article (I'd suggest this anyway, so far as your article goes): it isn't that God sees things that to God "have already happened", but rather God sees them as they are happening. This eternal present, not quite by a linguistic coincidence, better unites omniscience with omnipresence conceptually.

that's the point I was making.
11/21/2016 06:31:00 AM
Gary said…
"Of course, but God doesn't know about events before they have happened in time, he knows about them because he's beyond time and he sees everything in time as a accomplished fact. From our perspective in time God's knowledge is "foreknowledge" because from our perspective in time knowledge comes before the event. But it's not foreknowledge for God, he doesn't know before it happens, he knows about events because form an eternal perspective its a done deal. Just as my knowing what the men at the Alamo already did does not give me control over their choices, so God's knowledge of facts we have already accomplish does not give God control over our choices."

It is amazing to me the mental gymnastics that moderate and liberal Christians put themselves through to maintain their worldview that an ancient Hebrew text contains the eternal truths of the universe. So now we are asked to believe that "omniscient" does not mean that God knew everything that would happen before it happened. This is convenient. It let's Yahweh off the hook for creating a universe that he knew he would, in short order, curse, and let's him off the hook for creating little mini-hims, the majority of which will follow the "broad road which leads to destruction".

No. Folks. You don't need complex philosophical and metaphysical constructs to understand Christianity. It is very simple. It is an ancient tale of scientifically ignorant ancient people trying to make sense of their scary, dangerous world. There is no deep mystery here folks.

11/21/2016 10:26:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
It is amazing to me the mental gymnastics that moderate and liberal Christians put themselves through to maintain their worldview that an ancient Hebrew text contains the eternal truths of the universe.

that is an excessively stupid thing to say Had you bothered to look at any of the things I've written and I've linked to many of then you would see that I don' believe in internecine and I don't have an ancient world view because I understand the OT as mythological largely and symbolic. But what's really ignorant is the stupid notion that liberals defend the Bible liberals ARE FAMOUS FOR TRASHING THE BIBLE so that just tells me you don't anything about theology, you are only willing to learn from atheists and atheists are stupid.moreover, my view of God beyond time is based upon Big bang cosmology which si obviously modern. calling it gymnastics show a complete lack of understanding, you don't the basics of modern thought,that's like calling modern science mental gymnastic,


So now we are asked to believe that "omniscient" does not mean that God knew everything that would happen before it happened. This is convenient.

you are just having an emotional meltdown because it blows your immature God hatred out of the water. your thinking is 19th century get over it.,


It let's Yahweh off the hook for creating a universe that he knew he would, in short order, curse, and let's him off the hook for creating little mini-hims, the majority of which will follow the "broad road which leads to destruction".


God is not on the hook you are. You are at enmity with your creator and it will lead to the destruction of your soul,wake up and use your brain.


No. Folks. You don't need complex philosophical and metaphysical constructs to understand Christianity. It is very simple. It is an ancient tale of scientifically ignorant ancient people trying to make sense of their scary, dangerous world. There is no deep mystery here folks.

you need to believe that lie because you can't face what what';s going to haopen when you as a God hater.,
11/21/2016 01:25:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Gary face reality you are stupidly saying Christianity is simple an d backward obviously it;snot since my view are modern and sophisticated,. much so than yours which are limited to 19th century god hate.
11/21/2016 01:28:00 PM
Anonymous said…
Gary
Im Skeptical

Two guys that are very similar in saying ignorant things against Christianity. They also are proponents of scientism. Two examples:

Gary: The quote above when he said that Christianity is an ancient tale of scientifically ignorant people.

IMS: The time on DI (Dangerous Idea) a few years ago when he was upset at people for believing in the resurrection because he thought that it was "against science".
11/21/2016 02:31:00 PM
Gary said…
Joe,

If you believe that I am going to be punished by your God for my "God hate" then you are NOT a liberal. You are a moderate: A Christian who sneers at a literalistic interpretation of most of the Bible but still believes, literally, that a first century dead body was reanimated by a Bronze Age Hebrew deity.

11/21/2016 02:59:00 PM
Gary said…
Moderate Christians frequently want to prove the veracity of Christianity with appeals to complex philosophical and metaphysical formulations. Is this really necessary? I suggest that one can determine the probable veracity of Christianity fairly easily. Here it is:

Christianity is based on two primary claims:

1. The ancient Hebrew god Yahweh is the all-knowing, all powerful, perfect, good, Creator of the universe.
2. The bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in first century Palestine is historical fact.

Prove either of these claims false and you have discredited the veracity of Christianity. In my many discussions with Christians, they will often attempt to prove one of these claims true by appealing to the other as evidence without ever giving any evidence for the second claim. This is poor logic. The Christian needs to prove both claims correct, independent of each other, to establish the veracity of the Christian religion. Christians cannot prove the existence of Yahweh by appealing to the Resurrection of Jesus if they have not first provided evidence for the historicity of the Resurrection without appealing to the existence of Yahweh. Without the existence of Yahweh, the resurrection of Jesus is very improbable. And without the Resurrection of Jesus, the probability of the existence of Yahweh comes down to proving the veracity of mostly vague, disputed, prophesy claims. The evidence for each of the two major claims of Christianity are very weak on their own.

So which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Yahweh exists and is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator
2. Yahweh is the invention of an ancient superstitious people.

Which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Jesus of Nazareth really was resurrected from the dead, an event never heard of before or since.
2. The claims of Jesus' resurrection are based on visions, dreams, false sightings or other natural explanations for someone/someones believing they had seen a dead person alive again.

If you ask Christians to provide evidence for the two principle claims of Christianity WITHOUT presupposing the other argument is true, I believe that you can easily show that the probability of Christianity being true is very, very low.
11/21/2016 03:01:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
ary said...
Joe,

If you believe that I am going to be punished by your God for my "God hate" then you are NOT a liberal. You are a moderate: A Christian who sneers at a literalistic interpretation of most of the Bible but still believes, literally, that a first century dead body was reanimated by a Bronze Age Hebrew deity.

no but there's consequence, That is you cease to exist, like gravity it;s just way it works. It's what you are expecting anyway right? Bit it's not an act of punishment it's just like falling down gravity pulls you down.
11/21/2016 09:12:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Gary said...
Moderate Christians frequently want to prove the veracity of Christianity with appeals to complex philosophical and metaphysical formulations. Is this really necessary? I suggest that one can determine the probable veracity of Christianity fairly easily. Here it is:

you are basing that upon what atheists tell you to think. You have not read any theologians so you really don't know what they think. Metaphysical assumptions are imnpossible not to make. Even science makes them. So you have to come to to terms with metaphysics.

Christianity is based on two primary claims:

1. The ancient Hebrew god Yahweh is the all-knowing, all powerful, perfect, good, Creator of the universe.
2. The bodily resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth in first century Palestine is historical fact.

Orthodox versions of Chriostianity make those assumptioms, liberals may or no may not. you are wordimg those assumptions to give it spimn faverable to your narrative, I wont allow you to determine my assumptiomns, I will word them mny own way,

If you don't reflect the univesal and cosmic natuire of God in the first assumptiomn then you are distorting it for your own narrative.

as I said above the bible reflects the truth of god bit all gods poimt to god,. The God of the OT is a cjltural comsrict ut it points ot the reality of god and in some examples revealed by God. I do believe in the resurrection. There are 4 major liberal theologians who do althought most liberls just metaphorize it,



Prove either of these claims false and you have discredited the veracity of Christianity. In my many discussions with Christians, they will often attempt to prove one of these claims true by appealing to the other as evidence without ever giving any evidence for the second claim.

you are arguing with the average person not with thinkers.Nor have you argued with me.



11/21/2016 09:29:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
This is poor logic. The Christian needs to prove both claims correct, independent of each other, to establish the veracity of the Christian religion. Christians cannot prove the existence of Yahweh by appealing to the Resurrection of Jesus if they have not first provided evidence for the historicity of the Resurrection without appealing to the existence of Yahweh.

The messianich prophesies beimng fuilled in Jesus is evidence of both. two birds oe stone.


Without the existence of Yahweh, the resurrection of Jesus is very improbable. And without the Resurrection of Jesus, the probability of the existence of Yahweh comes down to proving the veracity of mostly vague, disputed, prophesy claims. The evidence for each of the two major claims of Christianity are very weak on their own.


you don't have to prove the existence of God to prove the res. it's implied in the thesis, prove the Res you porve the high probablity of God it's not cauised by accient or posiotionmgothercauses gives you the burden of proof,

So which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Yahweh exists and is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator
2. Yahweh is the invention of an ancient superstitious people.

both are inaccurate. All religious languageis a alogical and all religiomn language is councedcin cultral comstrjcts,. the reality of god iscommuicated to us subliminmally nand we filter it through culture. This means that in one snese the God of the OT is merely a cultiral constrjct but it also means the constrjct is a filter throjgh which the reality of God shines.



Which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Jesus of Nazareth really was resurrected from the dead, an event never heard of before or since.
2. The claims of Jesus' resurrection are based on visions, dreams, false sightings or other natural explanations for someone/someones believing they had seen a dead person alive again.

no. 1. Here we are not dealing merely with constructs because we have historical evidence.



If you ask Christians to provide evidence for the two principle claims of Christianity WITHOUT presupposing the other argument is true, I believe that you can easily show that the probability of Christianity being true is very, very low.

wrong, the argument for Jesus as messiah implies evidence for both,l the resurrection implies God since that's the presumed cause but it's not strong enough on its own to prove the existnece of God.


That brings up another problem, you need to forget the concept of proof, Proof is almost impossible and it is unnecessary. You don't have to prove something in 100% clarity in order to accept that there are good reasons to believe it, I cal this warrant, So I don't argue for proof I argue that belief is warranted. The Res does not prove god exists but it warrants beoief in god.
11/21/2016 09:41:00 PM
Gary said…
"The messianich prophesies beimng fuilled in Jesus is evidence of both. two birds oe stone."

The overwhelming majority of Jewish scholars reject the idea that there exists even one prophecy in the OT about Jesus. Therefore the best you can say about this "evidence" for your belief system is that it is contested.

"you don't have to prove the existence of God to prove the res. it's implied in the thesis, prove the Res you porve the high probablity of God it's not cauised by accient or posiotionmgothercauses gives you the burden of proof"

So you say. However, in my many debates with Christians on this issue, the debate always boils down to probability: Which is more probable as the cause of the early Christian resurrection belief: The Christian supernatural explanation or a natural explanation? Since even Christians will agree that a resurrection had never before or since occurred, a natural explanation is much more probable for this belief. It is at this point that the Christian will insert the existence of God (Yahweh) stating that the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God makes prior probability irrelevant. No Christian, you must first prove that Yahweh exists before attempting to the common definition of probability.

1. Yahweh exists and is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator
2. Yahweh is the invention of an ancient superstitious people.

"both are inaccurate. All religious languageis a alogical and all religiomn language is councedcin cultral comstrjcts,. the reality of god iscommuicated to us subliminmally nand we filter it through culture. This means that in one snese the God of the OT is merely a cultiral constrjct but it also means the constrjct is a filter throjgh which the reality of God shines."

Subjective opinion.

Which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Jesus of Nazareth really was resurrected from the dead, an event never heard of before or since.
2. The claims of Jesus' resurrection are based on visions, dreams, false sightings or other natural explanations for someone/someones believing they had seen a dead person alive again.

"no. 1. Here we are not dealing merely with constructs because we have historical evidence."

The only evidence you have are four books, written by anonymous non-eyewitnesses, decades after the alleged event, in far away lands. You have no proof that any eyewitness to the alleged post death appearances of Jesus ever proof-read these texts for accuracy.


"wrong, the argument for Jesus as messiah implies evidence for both,l the resurrection implies God since that's the presumed cause but it's not strong enough on its own to prove the existnece of God."

I agree. We must have good evidence for Yahweh to believe in the historicity of the Resurrection or any other supernatural claim in the Christian holy book.

"That brings up another problem, you need to forget the concept of proof, Proof is almost impossible and it is unnecessary. You don't have to prove something in 100% clarity in order to accept that there are good reasons to believe it, I cal this warrant, So I don't argue for proof I argue that belief is warranted. The Res does not prove god exists but it warrants beoief in god."

Yes, you are correct. I should have used the word "evidence". However, I believe that the evidence indicates that it is much more probable that a natural explanation explains the early Christian resurrection belief, and, the evidence indicates that it is much more probable that Yahweh is a figment of the human imagination.
11/22/2016 09:31:00 AM
Anonymous said…
GARY Yes, you are correct. I should have used the word "evidence". However, I believe that the evidence indicates that it is much more probable that a natural explanation explains the early Christian resurrection belief, and, the evidence indicates that it is much more probable that Yahweh is a figment of the human imagination.

What evidence is that? Science?
11/22/2016 10:45:00 AM
Gary said…
The same standard of evidence that we in western cultures use to examine all other truth claims.
11/22/2016 12:25:00 PM
Ryan M said…
I think your objection of God and foreknowledge is this:

Foreknowledge objection - [A being's knowledge of a person's action makes the person's action 'non-free' only if the being possesses the knowledge prior to the action taking place. It is a category mistake to say God has knowledge before, during, or after acts, so it is not the case that God's knowledge makes any person's actions non-free].

I think that's a fair representation of the first objection. It wouldn't help theists who believe God is within time, and it certainly is hard to swallow if being outside of time is hard/impossible to make sense of, but it's at least one way out of the foreknowledge issue.
11/23/2016 12:02:00 AM
Gary said…
Don't you guys see what you are doing? To maintain your belief that your god, Yahweh, is good and just, you are going to far as to change the meaning of words!

If Yahweh is all-knowing and possess foreknowledge as the Bible claims, then he created humans KNOWING that the majority of us would suffer unspeakable torments...forever.

Accept the truth, my Christian friends. Yahweh is not good and just. Yahweh is evil and capricious.
11/23/2016 09:03:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…

Ryan M:I think that's a fair representation of the first objection. It wouldn't help theists who believe God is within time, and it certainly is hard to swallow if being outside of time is hard/impossible to make sense of, but it's at least one way out of the foreknowledge issue.

Meta>>>Ryan God is beyond time but his energies extend in time, he is both immanent and transcendent. there is no logical contradiction to being beyond time, Big bang cosmology sets that up.
11/24/2016 12:58:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Gary said...
Don't you guys see what you are doing? To maintain your belief that your god, Yahweh, is good and just, you are going to far as to change the meaning of words!

If Yahweh is all-knowing and possess foreknowledge as the Bible claims, then he created humans KNOWING that the majority of us would suffer unspeakable torments...forever.

Accept the truth, my Christian friends. Yahweh is not good and just. Yahweh is evil and capricious.

Meta<>>>The meaning of the terms are set i biblical languages. you will never know what they mean if you only get your info from atheists. you are retrenching into your anti god fail safe which is o tpic (hell is off topic) It's also not a doctrine all Christians accept, I don't,.
11/24/2016 01:04:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Gary said...
11/22/2016 09:31:00 AM
"The messianich prophesies beimng fuilled in Jesus is evidence of both. two birds oe stone."

The overwhelming majority of Jewish scholars reject the idea that there exists even one prophecy in the OT about Jesus. Therefore the best you can say about this "evidence" for your belief system is that it is contested.


Meta>>>> only modern ones. The Talmud itself offers 450 passages that Rabbis in history have said are indicative of Messiah

"you don't have to prove the existence of God to prove the res. it's implied in the thesis, prove the Res you porve the high probablity of God it's not cauised by accient or posiotionmgothercauses gives you the burden of proof"

So you say. However, in my many debates with Christians on this issue, the debate always boils down to probability: Which is more probable as the cause of the early Christian resurrection belief: The Christian supernatural explanation or a natural explanation? Since even Christians will agree that a resurrection had never before or since occurred, a natural explanation is much more probable for this belief.

Meta>>>any Christian who says that is ignorant o the Bible. In both testaments there resurrections before Jesus' resurrection and some even performed by Jesus himself! besides it's q SN event so why seek naturalistic probability for it?


It is at this point that the Christian will insert the existence of God (Yahweh) stating that the existence of an all-knowing, all-powerful God makes prior probability irrelevant. No Christian, you must first prove that Yahweh exists before attempting to the common definition of probability.

Meta>>> wrong. We do not have to prove that God exists we only need to prove that belief is warranted,the historical evidence for the claims in overseeing the resurrection are just one example, of arguments that warrant belief.



11/24/2016 01:36:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
1. Yahweh exists and is the all-knowing, all-powerful Creator
2. Yahweh is the invention of an ancient superstitious people.

"both are inaccurate. All religious languageis a alogical and all religiomn language is councedcin cultral comstrjcts,. the reality of god iscommuicated to us subliminmally nand we filter it through culture. This means that in one snese the God of the OT is merely a cultiral constrjct but it also means the constrjct is a filter throjgh which the reality of God shines."

Subjective opinion.

Metaa:>>> no it's not it;s totally inline with modern sociological,anthropological, and Postmodern thinking

Which is more probable based on the available evidence:

1. Jesus of Nazareth really was resurrected from the dead, an event never heard of before or since.
2. The claims of Jesus' resurrection are based on visions, dreams, false sightings or other natural explanations for someone/someones believing they had seen a dead person alive again.

"no. 1. Here we are not dealing merely with constructs because we have historical evidence."

The only evidence you have are four books, written by anonymous non-eyewitnesses, decades after the alleged event, in far away lands. You have no proof that any eyewitness to the alleged post death appearances of Jesus ever proof-read these texts for accuracy.


Meta>>> wrong I have a ton of it, I linked to it, you shuld have read some of it:

(1) I have 7 seven level.s of verification forthe historical validityu of the gospels. I poste that in the nain blog spot last week.

(2) the communities were the authors not individuals and the communities were full of witnesses.

(3) Time period between event and written record was only 18 years thus tons of witnesses still alive,


11/24/2016 01:44:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
"wrong, the argument for Jesus as messiah implies evidence for both,l the resurrection implies God since that's the presumed cause but it's not strong enough on its own to prove the existnece of God."

I agree. We must have good evidence for Yahweh to believe in the historicity of the Resurrection or any other supernatural claim in the Christian holy book.

Meta>>>for that you need to understand the true origination Christian concept of supernatural because for that I have an abundance of proof. 200 studies from peer reviewed academic journals.those are secular too.

"That brings up another problem, you need to forget the concept of proof, Proof is almost impossible and it is unnecessary. You don't have to prove something in 100% clarity in order to accept that there are good reasons to believe it, I cal this warrant, So I don't argue for proof I argue that belief is warranted. The Res does not prove god exists but it warrants beoief in god."

Yes, you are correct. I should have used the word "evidence". However, I believe that the evidence indicates that it is much more probable that a natural explanation explains the early Christian resurrection belief, and, the evidence indicates that it is much more probable that Yahweh is a figment of the human imagination.


Meta >>>no, what I just said .see my book The Trace of God on amazon. I have covered a lot o this stuff in the regular bog spot on this blog over the lawst year,
11/24/2016 01:49:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Hi Joe,
Gee, I did not expect to spark all of this when I posted about a week ago on the other thread. Well, thanks for all the philosophical explorations but as always, in the thousands of theological and philosophical words spent in the attempt, the arguments presented simply fail to solve the patent incoherence of asserting omniscience in conjunction with free will.

Omniscience simply is incompatible with free will. One must get rid of one of them or both of them, you cannot have a coherent set of assertions that contain both.

"That's the wider perspective. Transcendent eternal knowledge is the knowledge of all time as the "eternal now" not "foreknowledge""
This is a classic distinction without a difference that fails to solve the incoherence of asserting both omniscience and free will.

If there is some sort of thing called the "eternal now" or god is somehow outside of space and time (whatever that word salad means)the incoherence by self contradiction remains.

Suppose I have a choice at time T in my life between X, Y, and Z. If I choose Z then I have the sensation of free will. But god already knew I would choose Z, whether one calls it "perfect foreknowledge" or "the eternal now" Z is the only possible choice for me, and is thus not free at all. Given a god who already knows I will choose Z I must choose Z, If I choose X or Y god is wrong about me choosing Z, and god, it is asserted, cannot be wrong.

Perfect foreknowledge, or perfect eternal now. Either way, it is incoherent to assert free will on a god with that property.

11/25/2016 09:02:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Hi Joe,
Gee, I did not expect to spark all of this when I posted about a week ago on the other thread. Well, thanks for all the philosophical explorations but as always, in the thousands of theological and philosophical words spent in the attempt, the arguments presented simply fail to solve the patent incoherence of asserting omniscience in conjunction with free will.

you are not reasoning about the issue, you are asserting party line. The party says they have to be incompatible so whatever argument is made it must be wrong,.

Omniscience simply is incompatible with free will. One must get rid of one of them or both of them, you cannot have a coherent set of assertions that contain both.

see what I mean. you are asserting by definition it must be so but you are not answering the argument, I proved you wrong ,logically, you are making a fallacy called "truth by stipulation


"That's the wider perspective. Transcendent eternal knowledge is the knowledge of all time as the "eternal now" not "foreknowledge""
This is a classic distinction without a difference that fails to solve the incoherence of asserting both omniscience and free will.

obviously it does solve it. You do;t understand the concept,. foreknowledge is assumed in a temporal framework. and my argument is God knows from beyond time,the difference is that of knowing something that has not happend vs something that has,

If there is some sort of thing called the "eternal now" or god is somehow outside of space and time (whatever that word salad means)the incoherence by self contradiction remains.

how so? you are just stipulating it and you have to prove it,,


Suppose I have a choice at time T in my life between X, Y, and Z. If I choose Z then I have the sensation of free will. But god already knew I would choose Z, whether one calls it "perfect foreknowledge" or "the eternal now"

wrong, you are trying to blur the distinction and they are very different things,I don't think you understand the concepts,


Z is the only possible choice for me, and is thus not free at all. Given a god who already knows I will choose Z I must choose Z, If I choose X or Y god is wrong about me choosing Z, and god, it is asserted, cannot be wrong.

God is the knower not the doer. The doer of the action has already done it when god knows it so he did not determine it,the doer could have chosen differently and God knowing what he chose does not change that fact.


Perfect foreknowledge, or perfect eternal now. Either way, it is incoherent to assert free will on a god with that property.

stop blurring the distinction kif you don't understand the concept just way so.they are totally different, by your logic I made the men at eh Alamo choose to stay and fight because I knokw what they did,

check, suppose God lived in the future at the end of time and all he knew of us is gainedby looking backwards at the past., he knows all we did in lfie but does his knowing mean we had no other choice?
11/25/2016 11:10:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Hi Joe,
"you are not reasoning about the issue, you are asserting party line. The party says they have to be incompatible so whatever argument is made it must be wrong,."
It's called an introduction. Sheese, all I do is introduce my conclusion and you go off about "the party line" and "truth by stipulation".

Here is one way people have conversations:
"I think X"
"Really? Why"
"PQR"
"No, PQR is wrong because of LMN"
(argument and counter argument continues)

Here is what you do, Joe:
Me: "I think X"
Joe: "You are just spouting the party line", "truth by stipulation", "you don't understand the concepts"

Say there Joe, howzabout you to hear somebody out before accusing him of being some kind of party robot?

"God is the knower not the doer. The doer of the action has already done it when god knows it so he did not determine it,the doer could have chosen differently and God knowing what he chose does not change that fact."
Irrelevant and not an assertion I made. I never claimed in this analysis that god is the doer. As you say he knows it, and his knowledge is perfect, therefore what he knows must come to pass. Only one thing can happen, the thing he knows will happen.

Since only one thing can happen, the future is ridgedly predetermined. God need not be the actor who micromanages every aspect of the future. But if the future is already known, then there is only one possible future, the future god knows, else god is wrong.

On a rigidly determined future free will is an illusion, irrespective of the mechanism by which that future comes to pass.

Joe, your error is classic. You confuse the required determinism of perfect foreknowledge with god as the micromanaging actor in manipulating decisions by humans.

"stop blurring the distinction kif you don't understand the concept"
Ok, very reasonable. I do understand the concept and your distinction is one of no difference to this issue.

"by your logic I made the men at eh Alamo choose to stay and fight because I knokw what they did,"
No, by my logic if you knew the men of the Alamo would stand and fight prior to the existence of those men, and if your foreknowledge is perfect or if you exist in some sort of "eternal now" that provides you with perfect observation of a human time sequence of events and from time to time you interact on that time sequence of events in your own time sequence of events then the only possible thing those men could have done is to stand and fight. The fact they would one day stand and fight was predetermined ages before they did so.

The mechanism for this determinism need not be specified and need not be micromanagement of human thought by god on a moment to moment basis.

Determinism is mandated by the perfect foreknowledge of god, or if you prefer, by the "eternal now" of god. It is that mandated determinism (mechanism unspecified) that makes free will an illusion.

"check, suppose God lived in the future at the end of time and all he knew of us is gainedby looking backwards at the past., he knows all we did in lfie but does his knowing mean we had no other choice?"
If god lived only in the future that fact alone would not mandate determinism.

However, god is asserted to live in the future, the present, and the past, all eternity, and be the perfect observer throughout. That assertion requires absolute determinism, which in turn requires that free will is an illusion.

Did you have me in check? That was my lure :-) Checkmate, my friend, and better luck next game :-)
11/25/2016 12:54:00 PM
im-skeptical said…
I answered it JB. Thanks

You answered it by contradicting yourself.
11/25/2016 02:00:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Say there Joe, howzabout you to hear somebody out before accusing him of being some kind of party robot?

so far all you said wasw that foreknowledge and eternal now are the same no reason given as to how that can be,. you haved not given an argument that answers the reasoning, So thaqt means you are merelyt stipulating waht you thiniki is trueand that is ideology,. big coincidense your stipulatiojs just happen to be what all athiests say,like a party line,,

"God is the knower not the doer. The doer of the action has already done it when god knows it so he did not determine it,the doer could have chosen differently and God knowing what he chose does not change that fact."


Irrelevant and not an assertion I made. I never claimed in this analysis that god is the doer. As you say he knows it, and his knowledge is perfect, therefore what he knows must come to pass. Only one thing can happen, the thing he knows will happen.

Since only one thing can happen, the future is ridgedly predetermined. God need not be the actor who micromanages every aspect of the future. But if the future is already known, then there is only one possible future, the future god knows, else god is wrong.


you think the issue of knowing and doin is irrelivant to determinisn you truely do not understand the issues,?


On a rigidly determined future free will is an illusion, irrespective of the mechanism by which that future comes to pass.

we don't live in a deterministic universe sand free will is real



5/2016 12:54:00 PM Delete
11/25/2016 02:24:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Joe, your error is classic. You confuse the required determinism of perfect foreknowledge with god as the micromanaging actor in manipulating decisions by humans.

bull shit, Nothing I've said implies that, you have not answered the argument, the key central all important issue is that God knows our actions as accomplished facts that means he is not controlling our doing of them,.



"stop blurring the distinction kif you don't understand the concept"
Ok, very reasonable. I do understand the concept and your distinction is one of no difference to this issue.


I don't think you do because it's absolute. if our actions are passed events from God;s perspective then is not controlling them we decide them,

"by your logic I made the men at eh Alamo choose to stay and fight because I knokw what they did,"


No, by my logic if you knew the men of the Alamo would stand and fight prior to the existence of those men, and if your foreknowledge is perfect or if you exist in some sort of "eternal now" that provides you with perfect observation of a human time sequence of events and from time to time you interact on that time sequence of events in your own time sequence of events then the only possible thing those men could have done is to stand and fight. The fact they would one day stand and fight was predetermined ages before they did so.


so if i went in the TARDIS back the Alamo my knowing what they would do would mean I'm controlling them? is that it? how could it though? they already decided I already know they did I wont do anything to change it so how is my knowing it equal to control?

The mechanism for this determinism need not be specified and need not be micromanagement of human thought by god on a moment to moment basis.

Determinism is mandated by the perfect foreknowledge of god, or if you prefer, by the "eternal now" of god. It is that mandated determinism (mechanism unspecified) that makes free will an illusion.


no it;s not., that is atheist bull shit, there is no law of logic that says that, besides you are talking about foreknowledge I've already nixed foreknowledge, that assumes wordage of unaccomplished thing is future it's a past based assumption,my view is for transcendence of time, not foreknowledge

"check, suppose God lived in the future at the end of time and all he knew of us is gainedby looking backwards at the past., he knows all we did in lfie but does his knowing mean we had no other choice?"
If god lived only in the future that fact alone would not mandate determinism.

so why would living outside of time be different?

However, god is asserted to live in the future, the present, and the past, all eternity, and be the perfect observer throughout. That assertion requires absolute determinism, which in turn requires that free will is an illusion.


no it doesn't. besides your understanding of determinism probably confused cause and effect with determinism. be that as it may, just as I could go back in time sand be very careul not influencethings so can God.

Did you have me in check? That was my lure :-) Checkmate, my friend, and better luck next game :-)

11/2

you have not answered my argument, you are still muddling the distinction between foreknowledge and transcendence of time, you;'admitted enoigh to beat your argument gut you refuse because the party line says you have to be right,
11/25/2016 02:40:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
from God's perspective it is determiner in the sense that time is a finished product to one outside of time, but that does not negate our freedom in the process, We are moving along times arrow we don't know the outcome,.So we are free to choose; god knows our choices because he's working from a perspective in which for him those choices have been made that does not mean we did not make them.

Notice Jesus had limited omniscience.
11/26/2016 03:05:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Dusty your quip about being in check, I don't see all discussion about God as a chess game not even all discussion with atheists. But chess does clarify your thinking.
11/26/2016 03:08:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
SP Determinism is mandated by the perfect foreknowledge of god, or if you prefer, by the "eternal now" of god. It is that mandated determinism (mechanism unspecified) that makes free will an illusion.


"no it;s not., that is atheist bull shit, there is no law of logic that says that,"
Determinism negates free will, period. If you do not understand that then you have not studied the subject with any significant understanding. Theists who claim free will also claim non-determinism, recognizing that determinism negates free will.

This is sometimes called "the dilemma of determinism". To try to get around this dilemma theists will claim that mental activities are not a part of any possible physical determinism, a position sometimes called compatibilism.

"besides you are talking about foreknowledge I've already nixed foreknowledge,"
First, you obviously did not read very carefully where I addressed your asserted notion of "eternal now". I don't know how you missed that, since I dealt with that idea multiple times, including in the above quote of my words.

Second, you didn't "nix" foreknowledge, only offered a word salad non-explanation of some notion of "living outside space and time", whatever that means. But it doesn't matter. Even if god somehow lives outside space and time god also acts in space and time as asserted in the bible and every other account of an Abrahamic god.

So, when god spoke at the burning bush at that human time god knew the men would stand at fight at the Alamo. Since god is asserted to be perfect then it was predetermined that the men would stand and fight at the Alamo.

For all human time from the burning bush to the Texas revolution, through all the lives of billions of people the fact men would stand and fight at the Alamo was predetermined. Those men had no choice but to stand and fight because god knew they would do so at the time he spoke at the burning bush.

The men felt like they had a choice, but that feeling was an illusion. If they had not stood and fought then god's knowledge would have been imperfect. God is asserted to know all things about human history and the human future at any time on our human time line that he chooses to speak to us and to miraculously manipulate our physical world in our time.

The mechanism of this determinism is an interesting subject, but it is irrelevant to the fact that god's perfect knowledge of our future on our time line when he acts in our time sequence of events strictly requires a ridgedly determined future.

Perhaps this determinism is because physics is a clockwork, or perhaps this determinism is because god tinkers with our fates from time to time to his liking, it doesn't matter in the issue of determinism, which is strictly required by god's perfect knowledge of human future each time he acted within our human timeline.

"you have not answered my argument"
You don't have a coherent argument. I have exposed the irrelevancy of your distinction without a difference and demonstrated that "eternal now" is functionally equivalent to "foreknowledge" on the subject of determinism on the human time line.

"you are still muddling the distinction between foreknowledge and transcendence of time"
There is no functional difference for the purpose of demonstrating determinism on our time line, because god acts on our time line and thus has perfect knowledge of our future whenever he acted within our time line in our past.

"you refuse because the party line says you have to be right,"
You must be god because you can, apparently, read my mind.

11/26/2016 04:09:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
11/26/2016 07:17:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
SP Determinism is mandated by the perfect foreknowledge of god, or if you prefer, by the "eternal now" of god. It is that mandated determinism (mechanism unspecified) that makes free will an illusion.

1. you say it is foreknowledge that mandates determinism

2. I say I don't believe in foreknowledge God ha no foreknowledge

3. Thereore, determinism is not mandated,.


"no it;s not., that is atheist bull shit, there is no law of logic that says that,"
Determinism negates free will, period.

But determinism is mandates by foreknowledge and god has no foreknowledge, therfore, you are wrong!


If you do not understand that then you have not studied the subject with any significant understanding. Theists who claim free will also claim non-determinism, recognizing that determinism negates free will.

apparently you have not studied reading because I have said repeatedly I don't believe in foreknowledge and you keep squawking about it as though I do., your mechanism for determinism is foreknowledge I nixed it so you are done,


This is sometimes called "the dilemma of determinism". To try to get around this dilemma theists will claim that mental activities are not a part of any possible physical determinism, a position sometimes called compatibalism.


That is not what compatibsalism is. any idea that says free will and determinism are compatible is compatiobaliosm.what you re talking about may be one form of it but it's not my position anyway,

"besides you are talking about foreknowledge I've already nixed foreknowledge,"
First, you obviously did not read very carefully where I addressed your asserted notion of "eternal now". I don't know how you missed that, since I dealt with that idea multiple times, including in the above quote of my words.

I missed it by explaining to you why foreknowledge as you use the term and "eternal now (transcending time) are not a par,. you have not answered that, that is why you have lost because you don't understand it,



11/26/2016 07:36:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Second, you didn't "nix" foreknowledge, only offered a word salad non-explanation of some notion of "living outside space and time", whatever that means. But it doesn't matter. Even if god somehow lives outside space and time god also acts in space and time as asserted in the bible and every other account of an Abrahamic god.

"word salad" is not in the lexicon of logicians. it;'s a creative writing class word and it's used by very shallow people.usually it means one can't follow an argument and does not understand big words.Sure enough you don't get the argument, this is not word slaad iot';s an important distinctiom slo listen upand read show a nd think about it:


foreknowledge means one knows what will happen before it happens, The origin of this idea is the notion of fate. The argument turns on events not having happened yet but one learns the fate of a person or things and so knows it will happen,

1. foreknowledge is based upon knowing events that have not happened, and it is fate based

2. transcendence of time,eternal perspective gives God an understanding of events that already happened, It is not fate based It is no more controlling of events in history reading a history book.


3, it might be that in a realities se se from Gods perspective events are determent in a way but that does not negate the free will that went into our decisions, that is true compatibalism because it means free will and determinism are compatible. If we want to call it determinism,we may not have to.



So, when god spoke at the burning bush at that human time god knew the men would stand at fight at the Alamo. Since god is asserted to be perfect then it was predetermined that the men would stand and fight at the Alamo.


you are just confusing knowledge with control. You are pretending that to be perfect God must control that's too Calvinistic for my taste. I'm a Wesleyan.

For all human time from the burning bush to the Texas revolution, through all the lives of billions of people the fact men would stand and fight at the Alamo was predetermined. Those men had no choice but to stand and fight because god knew they would do so at the time he spoke at the burning bush.

you are not even thinking about why, you are mouthing party line, the atheist masters it must be so so it must be. look the facts man, you based determinism on foreknowledge but i dont'do foreknowledge so your mechanism is gone.

look at the words, foreknowledge means knowledge before the fact. transcending time means all the facts have happened so it's knowledge after the fact, it's just our perspective that sees it as future. Determined means re determined it is going to be but seeing from outside time is not pre determined or foreknowledge it's knowledge after the fact,.



The men felt like they had a choice, but that feeling was an illusion. If they had not stood and fought then god's knowledge would have been imperfect. God is asserted to know all things about human history and the human future at any time on our human time line that he chooses to speak to us and to miraculously manipulate our physical world in our time.

you are still asserting God must knkow events not yet come to pass,. That's only from our perspective because we are along time's arrow. But god is outside of that line so he sees what has happened, So it's not taht god makes it happen,.we decide it., God just we chose.



11/26/2016 08:08:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
The mechanism of this determinism is an interesting subject, but it is irrelevant to the fact that god's perfect knowledge of our future on our time line when he acts in our time sequence of events strictly requires a ridgedly determined future.

it's perfect because it's outside time so it sees what we decided .it's past events.It's not foreknowledge it's after knowledge told to us before our persecutor.you are making a strawmanargument, you are imposing your own mechanism and refusing to think.,



Perhaps this determinism is because physics is a clockwork, or perhaps this determinism is because god tinkers with our fates from time to time to his liking, it doesn't matter in the issue of determinism, which is strictly required by god's perfect knowledge of human future each time he acted within our human timeline.

why don't you stop imposing the atheist party line and listen to the logic ? YOU SAID FIRST LINE FOREKNOWLEDGE = DETERMINISM, FOREKNOWLEDGE MEANS BEFORE THE EVENT BUT GOD KNOWS AFTER,SO NO DETERMINISM

"you have not answered my argument"
You don't have a coherent argument. I have exposed the irrelevancy of your distinction without a difference and demonstrated that "eternal now" is functionally equivalent to "foreknowledge" on the subject of determinism on the human time line.


sorry that is really stupid, saying it's not coherent, few issues are this clear cut. you don't understand the distinction because you are just thinking about the atheisst say X that's it, you don't' think you regurgitate party line,

11/26/2016 08:24:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Hi Joe,
"SP Determinism is mandated by the perfect foreknowledge of god, or if you prefer, by the "eternal now" of god. It is that mandated determinism (mechanism unspecified) that makes free will an illusion.

1. you say it is foreknowledge that mandates determinism

2. I say I don't believe in foreknowledge God ha no foreknowledge

3. Thereore, determinism is not mandated,."
In the very text you quote I say "or if you prefer, by the "eternal now" of god. Therefore premise 1 is false.

Further, your beliefs are irrelevant to the existence of determinism. Determinism either is or is not the case irrespective of your beliefs. Therefore premise 2 is invalid as a logical argument.

Hence, your conclusion is unsound.

"But determinism is mandates by foreknowledge and god has no foreknowledge, therfore, you are wrong!"
The bible is full of prophesies that are said to have come true. God must have the functional equivalent of foreknowledge on our human time line, else he could not have predicted to Noah that a flood was coming, or predicted to Abraham that his seed would spread far and many, or predicted the coming or Jesus, or, as Jesus predicted the betrayal of him to come, or predicted so many other things.

On our time line god knew in our past all things we would experience in our future. For you to deny that this is foreknowledge on our timeline is simply nonsense.

God has, according to the bible, predicted many future events. You can speculate that god somehow exists outside of time and transcends time and all events are one for him or some such word salad, but it doesn't matter on our time line.

For us, god knows our future. To deny this is to deny all prophesy.


11/26/2016 11:18:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
look Dusty you have not said anything knew,l you are still talking like foreknowledge and eternal now are the same they are not they are totally different. The totally different and that difference erases determinism.

foreknowledge = knowing events before they happen in this view God knows events from along the same timeline we live in. In that model they are future event for /God and have not yet happened. In that model God must know events because they fated to happen so that is determinism, Determined it is a term meaning future events must happen in a certain way, it's holdover from Pganism.


transcendence of Time (aka eternal now) This view means God is outside time and looks at all events in time as one reads a history book, God is nit controlling events in this model he is examining what already happened. No one is free to change his mind in history yet we all chose what we do. God does not control the events and there is no fate.

Events only happen once and God knows what happened and if he tells us at a point in our time when it has not yet happened it seems like telling the future but for God its not. it dos not interfere with our decision making.


God looks at time and sees Jesus was born in Beth ahem. It's already happened it;s not foretelling it's past telling, so then he goes into time at a point before Christ's birth and says "messiah will be born in Bethlehem," you think so Mary and Joe could not go to caperniumn to have the kid so it's determined. Not deterred it's just already happened from God's perspective.
11/27/2016 12:34:00 AM
im-skeptical said…
transcendence of Time (aka eternal now) This view means God is outside time and looks at all events in time as one reads a history book

This is the issue that I addressed in my post. And God is the author of the book. How could he NOT be in control of what happens?
11/27/2016 09:47:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
"Events only happen once and God knows what happened and if he tells us at a point in our time when it has not yet happened it seems like telling the future but for God its not. it dos not interfere with our decision making."
Of course it does interfere. Ever seen Terminator? That's the whole point of going back in time in the movie, to change the future.

Or course it is all just silly nonsense. The whole idea of traveling forward or backward in time in any way other than experiencing time according to relativity is just made up story telling fiction.

But on that story, the fiction of a time transcendent god, the effect on our timeline is equivalent to foreknowledge on our timeline.

"It's already happened it;s not foretelling it's past telling,"
So, the future has already happened when god tells us on our time line what our future is. Therefore we can only do 1 thing in our future, the thing god says has already happened, even though for us it is in our future.

Therefore, for us, our future is predestined, it is predetermined, because god told us our future, and that makes it the only possible future, since god is perfect in what he says.

"This is the issue that I addressed in my post. And God is the author of the book. How could he NOT be in control of what happens? "
Ok, this is a different mechanism for determinism, god's will. The future is determined by god, in this view. Again, our future is predetermined. There can be only 1 future, the future that the author of the book preordains.

Either way, on a time transcendent god that can come back to our time and tell us the only possible future, or on a god that ordains and thus predetermines the future...there is only one possible future, and therefore our future is deterministic.

On a predetermined future, by any mechanism, free will is an illusion.

If our single future is preordained because the universe is a clockwork, free will is an illusion.

If our single future is preordained because a time transcendent god knows our future in our present, free will is an illusion.

If our single future is preordained because an omnipotent author mandates his story, free will is an illusion.


11/27/2016 03:47:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
Or course it is all just silly nonsense. The whole idea of traveling forward or backward in time in any way other than experiencing time according to relativity is just made up story telling fiction.


(1) we ae notvtalking about time trave, we are talklimg about God's relatiom to spaceto,e cpmtoiuum.We are kimside thatcomtimnuu, God oitsode biut capable of reacing inside.

(2) that is perfectly in accord with modern understadning of temproal theory

(3) no limitatrin on time travle would apply to god.

But on that story, the fiction of a time transcendent god, the effect on our timeline is equivalent to foreknowledge on our timeline.


bullshit! why would it be? God ses all of timej from outside where it's all copmmplished fact so what;s the problem? It;s all dome for God so it'snot foreknoeldge

"It's already happened it;s not foretelling it's past telling,"
So, the future has already happened when god tells us on our time line what our future is. Therefore we can only do 1 thing in our future, the thing god says has already happened, even though for us it is in our future.


I aleeady answered that. you are not listening, God doesn't just tell us future stuoff to amuse us. He iether puts in ways that call for choice, not telling us the outcome but only the potential outcome,or he telling signposts allwoimg to kmnow some events so we know he's god.as with Messiah,. in eithercase the decision is left to us.

Therefore, for us, our future is predestined, it is predetermined, because god told us our future, and that makes it the only possible future, since god is perfect in what he says.


no knowing is not contoling,.we are left with decisonmaking,

11/28/2016 01:09:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
"This is the issue that I addressed in my post. And God is the author of the book. How could he NOT be in control of what happens? "
Ok, this is a different mechanism for determinism, god's will. The future is determined by god, in this view. Again, our future is predetermined. There can be only 1 future, the future that the author of the book preordains.


bullshit, you are ignoring my argument, nothing in the bible says everything is controlked by god also noitce mostpromesioes are pretty veg leaving lost of room forour decision.,

Either way, on a time transcendent god that can come back to our time and tell us the only possible future, or on a god that ordains and thus predetermines the future...there is only one possible future, and therefore our future is deterministic.

you just ignored thenpossibility I've been arguing gor; God selectivly tells and leaves paths open for our decision. btw God is not traveling in and out of time like a yoyo, he'sjust everywhere but becaue he is everywhere hisw knowingis beyond time

On a predetermined future, by any mechanism, free will is an illusion.



nope not illusion but relative. From God's persective all the events have happened but they got that way by us deciding our courses of action.they were not set to begin with except for specific events like sending Jesus to die for our sin,"the lamb slain from the foundation of thie world." That doesn't mean all events were set from creation.

God sys "come let us reason together" or "choose this day whoj you will serve." Those statmentsindikcate we have ree will we make decisisons we choose for our selves.

If our single future is preordained because the universe is a clockwork, free will is an illusion.

don't know where you are getting this clock-work stuff I said nothing oike that.

If our single future is preordained because a time transcendent god knows our future in our present, free will is an illusion.

that's not pre orderdaimed. start using the right words. Pre ordeamied starts with prefix "pre" meanimg "before." So preorimdared means its set up befroe. God knowing events in time as past does not mean he set them up before. it means he knows them after ,like reading a hisory book.

If our single future is preordained because an omnipotent author mandates his story, free will is an illusion.


nothing in my model says he mandates it, only a couplle of things. you are using that phrawse because it sounds biblical ibiut it has no meaning vis my model.


11/27/2016 03:47:00 PM Delete
11/28/2016 01:39:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Joe "no knowing is not contoling,.we are left with decisonmaking,"
Right, the decision of a deterministic system, like a flow chart, a logic circuit, an algorithm.

We can make only 1 decision, the decision god said in our present we would make in our future. If we decide something else in our future then the statement god made in our present is incorrect.

Why is this so hard for you to understand? It is elementary logic.

A perfect god who tells us of a future decision requires that decision to be deterministic. I cannot possibly make a decision in the future other than the decision god has informed in my present that I will make in my future.

You can speculate about a magical being that can somehow transcend time if you like, but it does nothing to alter the fact that your speculation requires a deterministic future for me and all of us.

On a deterministic future free will is an illusion.

Sorry Joe, you have not discovered some clever way around these simple facts of logic.
11/28/2016 09:18:00 PM
StardustyPsyche said…
Joe "God is not traveling in and out of time like a yoyo, he'sjust everywhere but becaue he is everywhere hisw knowingis beyond time"
God acts on a time sequence of events, yet god does not act on a time sequence of events.

All you have done is speculate a magic man that can violate the principle of non-contradiction. On that sort of speculation logic, language, discourse, and all attempts at making sense of our existence melt into a soup of amorphous enigmas.

"don't know where you are getting this clock-work stuff I said nothing oike that."
I am not surprised you have not considered the concept of a clockwork universe, determinism, and its requirement that free will is an illusion. I suggest you investigate the fundamentals of this subject.


11/28/2016 09:33:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
We can make only 1 decision, the decision god said in our present we would make in our future. If we decide something else in our future then the statement god made in our present is incorrect.

Why is this so hard for you to understand? It is elementary log

we decide it,m nothing you said disproves that I said God only knows our Delicious its; still our decision, youh qe notdisprv ecd that,

you have sadi nothing new,
11/29/2016 03:05:00 AM
Don McIntosh said…

Gary, you have described the biblical narratives as "an ancient tale of scientifically ignorant ancient people trying to make sense of their scary, dangerous world." Now given that centuries from now our present society will almost certainly be regarded as both ancient and scientifically ignorant, would you be willing to concede that everything you think you presently know and experience is just so much ignorance vainly attempting to plumb the mysteries of life?

If not, then it doesn't make a lot of sense to summarily write off the accumulated knowledge and experiences of those who preceded us with a wave of the hand and some dismissive rhetoric.
11/29/2016 12:43:00 PM
Don McIntosh said…
Stardusty, God doesn't predict choices you won't make. He only predicts the choices you will actually make. There's really nothing incoherent, or even too difficult to fathom, about a time-transcending God with limitless power peering into the future to take a gander at what we will freely decide to do later.

You are of course right to say that God cannot be incorrect about what he knows. But how does God have knowledge of future events? He has knowledge of them because they actually will occur; otherwise they could not be knowable. Because God is omniscient, and sees the end from the beginning, he accesses knowledge of the future before it unfolds for the rest of us in time. Knowledge of events derives from the events, not vice-versa.
11/29/2016 03:07:00 PM
StardustyPsyche said…
Joe "you have sadi nothing new,"
Indeed. Your incoherent position has been exposed as such innumerable times.

11/29/2016 08:09:00 PM
StardustyPsyche said…
Don "He only predicts the choices you will actually make"
Indeed, which is why our choices are necessarily deterministic on a god of perfect powers of prediction. Our choices become the choices of a computer, a robot, an algorithm. Purely deterministic.

Thus, free will is an illusion on a god that predicts the choices we will actually make.

The incoherency is the attempt to reconcile free will with a god who predicts the choices we actually make.

" he accesses knowledge of the future before it unfolds for the rest of us in time."
Right, which is the definition of foreknowledge. He knows the future before it happens for us.

Thus, there is only 1 possible future, the future god knows before it unfolds for us.

Since there is only 1 possible future, the future is pre-determined, thus the universe is deterministic.

On a deterministic universe free will is an illusion.

To simultaneously assert " he accesses knowledge of the future before it unfolds for the rest of us in time" and also assert free will is an incoherent set of assertions.


11/29/2016 10:32:00 PM
Don McIntosh said…
Stardusty, I agree that there is only one possible future that can be known by God. But that's not to say there is only one possible future, period. Knowledge of the future apprehends future realities only, not counterfactuals.

Confusion on this point is sometimes called the "modal fallacy," basically a failure to distinguish possibility and necessity. There's an asymmetry here. If I will choose tomorrow to wear a T-shirt instead of a button-down, God, being omniscient, necessarily knows that. But if God knows that I will choose to wear the T-shirt, it does not follow that I will necessarily choose to wear the T-shirt. It only follows that I will in fact choose to wear the T-shirt. If I will choose tomorrow to wear the button-down instead, then that's what God knows instead. In that case he clearly cannot know that I will choose to wear the T-shirt, because I will not in fact choose to wear one.

In other words, the argument

1. Necessarily, if God knows I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow, then I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow.
2. God knows I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow.
3. Necessarily, I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow.

doesn't hold, because the modal feature of necessity doesn't go through for premise 2. There isn't anything about the act of wearing a T-shirt, as opposed to a button-down, logically necessitating that God knows I will wear a T-shirt, even if I will as a matter of contingent fact wear one. It is only logically necessary that if I will in fact wear a T-shirt, God knows it.

My argument admittedly may fall short of proving that foreknowledge and free will are compatible, but I think it does show that they are not strictly contradictory. At least it's an argument. All we have from you so far is an oft-repeated assertion that divine foreknowledge of freely chosen outcomes is "incoherent."
11/30/2016 08:14:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Don "But if God knows that I will choose to wear the T-shirt, it does not follow that I will necessarily choose to wear the T-shirt."
Yes it does, else god is wrong today about what you will do tomorrow.

The key factor your are missing here is the combination of asserted powers and qualities of god. On a perfect god with perfect foreknowledge if god predicts you will do X tomorrow you absolutely must do X tomorrow and there is zero possibility you will do not-X tomorrow.

"If I will choose tomorrow to wear the button-down instead, then that's what God knows instead."
In that case the same deterministic analysis applies, but substitute Y for X. Don, your error is one of not thinking clearly of this timeline. Once god says today you will do a particular thing tomorrow then that particular thing must be done, else god is wrong, and you say god cannot be wrong.

"1. Necessarily, if God knows I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow, then I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow.
2. God knows I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow.
3. Necessarily, I will wear a T-shirt tomorrow.

doesn't hold, "
Yes it does, once god expresses or holds that knowledge. And since god holds that knowledge prior to the event it is absolutely pre-determined.

" but I think it does show that they are not strictly contradictory"
No, sorry, you failed to show any such thing. Perfect foreknowledge is strictly contradictory to free will.

"All we have from you so far is an oft-repeated assertion that divine foreknowledge of freely chosen outcomes is "incoherent.""
You hear it so often because it is such elementary logic and theists are continually doing some sort of invalid or unsound word manipulation to try to get around this logical incompatibility between perfect foreknowledge and free will.

All such theistic apologetic attempts fail immediately, such as your failure and Joe's failure.

The simple logical fact is that an assertion of a god who can tell us our future on our time line, and who is never wrong, necessarily means that only that predicted thing can possibly happen, therefor it is pre-determined, therefor the universe is deterministic, therefore to also assert free will is incoherent.






12/02/2016 05:15:00 AM
Don McIntosh said…
Stardusty, please feel free to repeat the assertion that theological fatalism is a "simple logical fact" as many times as you like. More so, please feel free to construct a logical argument to support that assertion. Thanks!
12/02/2016 08:50:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Don "theological fatalism"
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

In this article, for example, 6 "solutions" to the obvious incompatibility of an omnipotent omniscient being with perfect foreknowledge on our timeline and free will are outlined. The fact so many theologians and philosophers have struggled so hard for millennia is further evidence of this obvious incompatibility.

Joe tried his version of the Boethian "solution", which of course fails because god acts on our timeline in a time sequence of events irrespective of how he might perceive time on some other plane of existence.

You can refer to that page for both an informal and formal argument.

All the proposed "solutions" fail immediately and obviously for various reasons. No serious modern rationalist could be anything other than an incompatiblist, since compatibilism is so patently indefensible.

The only reason so many people struggle so hard with the same ancient and erroneous compatibilist arguments is that they believe in a magic man who is perfect and gave us free will because that is what they learned from an ancient book of mythology and such people are unwilling to face the incoherencies of that ancient book of mythology.

12/02/2016 11:14:00 AM
Don McIntosh said…
Stardusty,

Leaving aside your psychological speculations on what drives Christian belief and cutting to this:

"On a perfect god with perfect foreknowledge if god predicts you will do X tomorrow you absolutely must do X tomorrow and there is zero possibility you will do not-X tomorrow."

That sounds rational at first glance, but again I think it involves a modal confusion. Foreknowledge is not God "predicting" things but "knowing" things, and nothing can be known that is not actually true. Knowledge doesn’t generate reality; reality generates knowledge. Therefore if I actually make a decision to do X but not Y, God knows that I will do X and not Y.

Imagine three things:

1. You will in fact be making these same arguments on this blog five years from now.
2. One year from now time travel technology will have been invented and perfected.
3. No omniscient beings exist.

One year from now I rent out a perfectly accurate time machine, start it, travel five years into the future and observe you making these same arguments on this blog five years now. So one year from now I will know what you will do five years from now with unfailing foreknowledge. Clearly my knowledge of your future, with the use of a time machine rather than with supernatural power, would not determine your behavior in any way.

Now imagine:

4. An omniscient being, God, exists.

Given 4, God knows by virtue of omniscience what I know by virtue of 1 and 2. But there is no reason why God's knowledge would determine your behavior whereas mine would not.

Can you see what the problem is there? Time is asymmetrical. Once a decision has been made it cannot be reversed, because time only travels in one direction. So with respect to any given decision, free will only operates prior to making that decision. But that is a fact whether God exists or not, or whether God is omniscient or not. Therefore with respect to a given decision free will operates only prior to making that decision, but not afterwards, whether God exists or not, or whether God is omniscient or not.
12/02/2016 01:03:00 PM
Don McIntosh said…
"...time only travels in one direction..."

To preempt yet more confusion, I should change that to

"...time only flows in one direction..."

In principle time travel would traverse that flow.
12/02/2016 01:14:00 PM
StardustyPsyche said…
Don "That sounds rational at first glance, but again I think it involves a modal confusion. Foreknowledge is not God "predicting" things but "knowing" things,"
Distinction without a difference. In the bible god predicted many things bases on his foreknowledge. You are simply attempting another verbal sidestep that again fails immediately.

"Knowledge doesn’t generate reality; reality generates knowledge"
Doesn't matter what the mechanism of the knowledge gained or what the mechanism of the determinism is. If god knows the future then the future is pre-determined, irrespective of the mechanisms involved.

"Therefore if I actually make a decision to do X but not Y, God knows that I will do X and not Y. "
Right, and on perfect foreknowledge of god your decision is that of a robot, a computer program, an algorithm, a clockwork. Thus, although you feel yourself making a decision, that perceived process is absent free will.

"Clearly my knowledge of your future, with the use of a time machine rather than with supernatural power, would not determine your behavior in any way. "
In that case something is determining my future. On a time travel machine the future is determined and free will is an illusion. The mechanism need not be specified for this determinism and is irrelevant to the fact that free will is an illusion on perfect foreknowledge by any means.

"Can you see what the problem is there?"
The problem is that you do not realize that god need not be the actor in creating this future for incompatiblism to hold.

"So with respect to any given decision, free will only operates prior to making that decision. But that is a fact whether God exists or not, or whether God is omniscient or not."
You are wrong and the link I provided is one of many that shows you in great detail how you are wrong, as I have done in brief here.
12/02/2016 02:03:00 PM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
he has nothing to say but he still has to get the last word. If I said ;no it;snots;he would say "yes it!" how many times would he say it?


Hey Dusty,m no it's not
12/04/2016 01:33:00 AM
Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said…
hey Dusty if you want a place ot argue with a christian my message board and Gary is welcome too

http://www.doxa.ws/forum/
12/04/2016 07:23:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
"he has nothing to say but he still has to get the last word. If I said ;no it;snots;he would say "yes it!" how many times would he say it?
Hey Dusty,m no it's not "
What is not what? Sorry Joe, I don't apprehend a specific logical argument in your quoted post.
12/05/2016 08:59:00 PM
Don McIntosh said…
"Sorry Joe, I don't apprehend a specific logical argument in your quoted post."

Stardusty, being that it's coming from you, following repeated failures to supply actual arguments for your own position ("it's obvious" or even "it's a simple logical fact" doesn't count), I'm going to take the above-quoted remark as a bit of needed comic relief.

And for that I thank you. :-)
12/06/2016 07:32:00 AM
StardustyPsyche said…
Don "following repeated failures to supply actual arguments for your own position"
Uhm, see above.

Sorry Don, you gave a bit of a try to reconcile the Christian god with free will, but you didn't get far. That is not so bad, relatively, because no human being has ever published a rational means to reconcile the Christian god with free will. All attempts to do so fail immediately, so it is to be expected that both you and Joe will fail also, since the assertion of an omniscient omnipotent being in conjunction with free will is inherently and incontrovertibly incoherent.
12/08/2016 08:53:00 PM
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By J. P Holding -
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I first made this post in 2012, and since then I've made a sort of mini-career out of tracking down bogus quotes like this one (including a video version below). It's a sort of fun microcosm of the way information is mishandled in the Information Age. ** I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ. – Mahatma Gandhi A Christian can probably expect to get this quote thrown at them at least once in their lifetime, and waved in their face many more. I had it put to me recently, but my experience with this sort of thing immediately led me to wonder -- is it real? The evidence at this point seems to be no. The first signal of a problem was that anywhere I found it, no source was given. That's often a sign that something is being passed around uncritically. Whether online sources or books, no one seemed to have a source for this quote. A second warning was that the quote has been given more than one context. As
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Where did Jesus say "It is better to give than receive?"

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A visitor to the CADRE site recently sent a question about Paul's statement in Acts 20:35 which records Paul as saying, "And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, 'It is better to give than to receive'." The reader wanted to know where Jesus said this. This was my answer: You are correct in noting that this saying of Jesus quoted by Paul is not found anywhere in the four Gospels. My own study Bible says "This is a rare instance of a saying of Jesus not found in the canonical Gospels." Does the fact that it isn't stated in the Gospels mean that it isn't reliably from the lips of Jesus? I don't think so. The Apolstle John said at the end of his Gospel (John 21:25): "Jesus did many other things as well.If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written." Obviously, this is exaggeration for the sake of making a point, but it means that Jesus
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Discussing Embryonic Stem Cell Research

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Stand to Reason has published a list of "talking points" that can be used as a quick reference sheet for answering questions about embryonic stem cell research and why people ought to oppose this procedure. The piece, entitled "Are you against stem cell research and cloning?" give good, concise answers to some of the questions that arise concerning why Christians would oppose this procedure when it supposedly holds such great promise. For example, consider the following from the "talking points": Where do we get human embryonic stem cells? We can only derive human embryonic stem cells by killing a human embryo. Removing its stem cells leaves it with no cells from which to build the organs of its body. What is the embryo? An embryo is a living, whole, human organism (a human being) in the embryonic stage. All the embryo needs to live is a proper environment and adequate nutrition, the very same thing all infants, toddlers, adolescents, and adults need.
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Revamping and New Articles at the CADRE Site

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We have changed the Christian History page at the CADRE site from the old design to the new one. The focus of the revamped page has expanded, with many new articles: This page provides links to websites and articles relating to Christian history, including theological development, notable figures, contributions of Christianity to society and culture, and the archaeological evidence for the facts of the Bible. We have also added four new articles by Darin Wood, PhD: John Chrysostum: His Life, Legacy, and Influence Dr. Wood provides an informative sketch of Chrysostum's life, as well as an exploration into his writings and impact on church evangelism. The Righteousness of God in the Pauline Corpus Dr. Wood examines the crucial role that righteousness plays in understanding Paul's perspectives on justification, propitiation, expiation, and covenant. The Structure of the Apocalypse Dr. Wood provides an in-depth analysis of the structure (or structures) behind the Book o
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Tillich, part 2: What does it mean to say "God is Being Itself?"

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 In this essay, which is a chapter from the new book I'm now working on, I'm moving toward defining what I think Tillich means exactly by being itself. It's a long journey but an important one. What does Tillich actually mean by “being itself?” Does he mean the same things as other theologians who use the phrase? It’s a mysterious sounding phrase and Tillich never actually comes out and says what he means by it. As I will show there is a reason for this, and I will show what I think that reason in is. In the mean time the task of this chapter is to deduce exactly what Tillich actually means by this phrase. There are three basic possibilities: Three alternatives as to meaning (1) The basic fact that things exist is all that the concept of “God” amounts to. (2) There is a special quality to being, an impersonal aspect” ground of being” or “being itself” and that quality constitutes ‘the divine.’ This possibility excludes God as “king of the universe.” (3) God is b
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A Botched Abortion Shows the Lies of Pro-Choice Proponents

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One of the classes I teach at the university is a course on Ethics, and I am using a book by Ralph Dolgoff, Donna Harrington and Frank M. Lowenberg entitled " Ethical Decisions for Social Work Practice " as the text. Overall, I think that it is a good Ethics textbook largely because it provides a balanced viewpoint on the need for values in social work. For example, the book makes the argument (without committing to it) that those engaged in social work cannot avoid making value judgments in ethical decisions because trying to do what is right necessarily involves making an value choice. Also, I book notes that some (including me) think it is ethically wrong for a social worker to cover-up her own values when counseling another person because it creates a false (and ultimately unproductive) relationship with the person being counseled. Still, one of the exemplars in the book gave me pause – not because I thought it raised a deep ethical quandary, but because I wondered how
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The Folded Napkin Legend

By J. P Holding -
I wrote about t his "urban legend" a few years ago, but it's typical of the silly urban legends we hear about now and then, such as the idea that the head of Proctor and Gamble went on Oprah to pledge his allegiance to Satanism. Christians are no less gullible for this sort of nonsense than anyone else, and frankly, some seem more gullible to believe anything that they consider "edifying". It's no wonder we're mesmerized by self-comfort tunes like "I Can Only Imagine" that contain about as much useful theology as a thimble. ** The Gospel of John (20:7) tells us that the napkin, which was placed over the face of Jesus, was not just thrown aside like the grave clothes. The Bible takes an entire verse to tell us that the napkin was neatly folded, and was placed at the head of that stony coffin.... In order to understand the significance of the folded napkin, you have to understand a little bit about Hebrew tradition of that day. The fol
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Exodus 22:18 - Are Followers of God to Kill Witches?

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A few days ago I stumbled upon an article published on a website named Haaretz which appears to be a news site for Israeli news. The article entitled " Thou Shalt Not Suffer a Witch to Live: A Murderous Translation ," discussed the correct understanding of Exodus 22:18. According to the Haaretz article (authored by Elizabeth Sloane), the word "witch" may have been an erroneous translation. And, to read into Ms. Sloane's argument just a bit, the erroneous translation contributed to the deaths of many innocent witches. Specifically, she notes: This quote, found in the King James Version of the Bible, has been widely held responsible for the witch burnings that plagued Europe, and later America, in the Early Modern Period (1450 C.E. – 1750 C.E.). But the murderous practice may have all been the result of a Biblical mistranslation. Now, as I am not an expert on ancient Hebrew, I need to approach translation issues such as this by accessing sources readily
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A Non-Biblical Historian Accepts the Key "Minimum Facts" Supporting Jesus' Resurrection

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In their book, The Case for the Resurrection of Jesus , Gary R. Habermas and Michael R. Licona argue for the historical reality of Jesus' bodily resurrection using the "minimum facts" approach. Rather than get bogged down in inerrancy and other debates, they focus on the key facts demonstrating Jesus' resurrection. For them, the key facts are: *Jesus' death by crucifixion. *Disciples' Beliefs that Jesus Appeared. *Conversion of Paul. *Conversion of James. *Empty Tomb. William L. Craig, another significant apologist for the historical bodily resurrection of Jesus likewise focuses, in his accessible The Son Rises , on the empty tomb and Jesus' resurrection appearance. Craig gives special emphasis to Jesus' honorable burial by Joseph of Arimathea and Jesus' appearances to James and Paul and their subsequent commitment to the Christian cause. Craig, Licona, and Habermas argue that these basic facts are generally supported by most of the relevant sc
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