ASSUMING that we have free will, and assuming that someone else can't come up with a good argument as to how we could have free will while God would know what our futures hold, then yes, the potential of God's virtual omnipotence would be limited only by God's inability to know what its creatures would do with their free wills (the free wills we are assuming that we have). If there is more to be hammered out, it will have to go on without me until tommorrow evening (or maybe tommorrow afternoon if its another dead Friday market ).
More irrefutable proof from Thunderdolt (©IMissedTheBoat 2002). Thunder, I think we all have to throw in the towel. We cannot reasonably be expected to argue with your infallible logic. Are we in unanimous agreement yet? I know Axe and Dan are even getting very close to seeing it your way. Hey, they are bright guys like yourself, and must surely know when they have been licked. Looks like you have won. Excellent job.
Ok this is another area that we need to develop a bit further. Firstly let's say for the purposes of this discussion that the god we are talking about is omnipotent and omniscient. What then is free will? I would state in a generic sense that free will or agency is the ability of a person to make choices for themself without being forced to make those decisions by some external force. Is there a difference between freedom and free will? Citizens of the US say they are free or relatively more free than citizens of other countries, such as North Korea. But does this mean that US citizens have more free will than North Koreans or that North Koreans have limited free will? I don't believe this is the case. While the menu of choices may be different, all people have the ability to choose which item they want off that menu (if any at all). Most importantly they have the ability to choose how they think. So how does the existance of god fit into the free will picture? A god who is omniscient knows the past, present and future actions that every person will take, and how every event will play out. If god doesn't know the future outcome of events and choices then by definition he is something less than omniscient. Now to Daniel's assertion: (paraphrasing) if god knows the outcome of our actions then we really don't have free will because everything has been fated to happen. There is a fallacy involved here. Humans still retain the ability to choose what they will do in every situation. There is no auto-pilot that takes over if we start straying from the predesigned course. At any time a person may alter his course and freely choose something different. However an omniscient being will know the eventual outcome of all the choices. I would think that being omnipotent would make being omniscient easier. Here's how. Let's say you are god and you aren't quite sure how the market will turn out the next day, you simply use your omnipotent power to go forward in time and check the closing prices, print off a 1 minute 5 minute and 30 minute chart of your trading vehicle, then you go back in time and start trading. (ok sorry for the humor but after reading the past few pages some of you guys need to lighten up a bit).
tripack, the implication of man having free will is that it becomes possible for the god of christianity to be wrong. if god "knew" that i would be a carpenter at age 25, but, using my free will, i became a trader instead, god was wrong about me being a carpenter. there is no way to avoid it. if you say, "oh but god knew you would change your mind", then STILL at some point, god thought i would be a carpenter. and at SOME POINT was WRONG. furthermore, when god is potentially wrong about the future actions of BILLIONS of people, there is practically no way he could be sure of what the world will be like, say, 500 years from now. and if god created the universe, as you say, and just "let it happen" after that ( as theits who believe in evolution say), then we can only conclude that god had no idea of how the world would turn out millions of years later.
No I don't see how that is a logical conclusion. If god is all-knowing then he can't by definition be wrong. If he knows all, this in no way impinges upon your choices because god isn't forcing you to choose one way or another. An all-knowing god knows in advance all the decisions you would make. He knows in advance when you would change your mind, and he also knows all the outcomes of those decisions. In other words he lets you fail, and he also lets you succeed without intervening. He knows what you will have for breakfast tomorrow. He knows if you will be late for work. He knows you will muse about becoming a carpenter then change your mind at some point and choose something else. His knowledge does in no way limit your free will. You still have the ability to choose any outcome you desire. It is just that god knows what you will choose before you choose it. It isn't really that hard to understand.
well, one thing we share is the amazement that the other person can't see how simple our respective arguments are look, if i ask god, "what will tripack be doing on 30 April 2003?" and he says, "tripack will doing X". you have no choice BUT to do X. if you don't, then god was WRONG. if god is NEVER wrong, then it wasn't your free will that lead you to do X, you were fated to do it.
On the goodness of the Bible or other books. If god is good as the bible says, and the bible is indeed record made by prophets who speak for god then it should be possible to infer wheter the bible is in fact a good book or not. How can we determine wheter a book such as the bible is good or not? Well I'm glad you asked. A good book should contain good teachings that lead those who read, understand and most importantly PRACTICE those teachings to do good things. If following a teaching leads us to live happier lives then I think it is fair to say that that teaching is "good". While if a particular teaching leads us to live less happy lives then I would characterize that as a "bad" teaching. So let's take a look a few of the bible's teachings, and determine if in fact those who follow them are likely to be more happy or less happy. Let's look at some of the 10 commandments. Thou shalt not kill. I think most people would agree that there are a lot of bad things that come from killing someone. Guilt, fear, anger, as well as the long arm of the law catching up with you are just a few ways in which not killing will tend to make people happier. I'd lump "thou shalt not steal" in this same group as it has similar though muted negatives associated with it. Thou shalt not commit adultary. Certainly if you want a happier married life, I would say this is a good bit of advice to follow. There are lots of negatives associated with adultary and very few long-term positives. Honor they father and mother. If you want happier family life then this is a given. There is a lot of stress associated with parents and family that can be mitigated by showing respect for parents. Of course there are other books that are also good. I don't want to detract from them in any way but would include scripture in the list of books that lead us to do good things or live happier lives.
the bible MIGHT lead you to lead a happier life; if you choose to ignore the morally criminal actions of the one who you are supposed to devote your life to serving (god). anyway, this is all besides the point. the question was never whether the bible contains bits and pieces of wisdom - even i, who find most of that book morally repugnant, will admit it does. the question is whether the claims it makes are true.
Let's get back to the definition of free will. I think that is where we are going different directions. I say free will is the ability to make choices independently, without being forced to make any given decision by an outside force or circumstance. Let's say if there is an omniscient god out there right now and we are here living making choices, you would say that because god knows what we will do that we have no free will, yet if god doesn't know then we have free will? That makes no sense. Why does knowledge of future action force us to take a particular action? We still make the choice regardless of who knows about it in advance. It isn't like god plots out for us what choices we will make and (key point) forces us to make those choices. We go about making free choices. God just happens to know which choices we will make before we make them. We still determine our futures by the choices we make.
Let's assume that you know your friend will choose rocky road ice cream (past experience, habit etc.). Does this mean that if your friend chooses rocky road ice cream that he has lost his free will when choosing ice cream because you knew in advance he would choose it?