If God Knows the Future, What is Free Will? | Episode 710 | Closer To Truth
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 19 มิ.ย. 2024
- If God is infallible and knows the future perfectly, then God knows what I will do at every moment from my birth to my death. So where's my free will? Featuring interviews with Alvin Plantinga, Peter van Inwagen, Thomas Flint, and Dean Zimmerman.
Season 7, Episode 10 - #CloserToTruth
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#FreeWill #Theology
Nothing like watching this when hungover. The headache is other-worldly..
This particular episode does bend the mind into pretzels...
I question the assumptions.
*Are* there true counterfactuals of creatures freedom?
@@KAT-dg6el my fault, not His. And I don’t plan to do it again.
In the bible God often changes his mind, regrets His own actions, and speaks in terms of thwarted expectations. None of this makes sense if God possesses exhaustive foreknowledge.
That's not true.
@@Zekor4 would you like a list of verses?
@@Zekor4 The Lord frequently changes his mind in the light of changing circumstances, or as a result of prayer (Exod. 32:14; Num. 14:12-20; Deut. 9:13-14, 18-20, 25; 1 Sam. 2:27-36; 2 Kings 20:1-7; 1 Chron. 21:15; Jer. 26:19; Ezek. 20:5-22; Amos 7:1-6; Jonah 1:2; 3:2, 4-10). At other times he explicitly states that he will change his mind if circumstances change (Jer. 18:7-11; 26:2-3; Ezek. 33:13-15). This willingness to change is portrayed as one of God’s attributes of greatness (Joel 2:13-14; Jonah 4:2). If the future were exhaustively and eternally settled, as classical theism teaches, it would be impossible for God to genuinely change his mind about matters.
God sometimes expresses regret and disappointment over how things turned out-even occasionally over things that resulted from his own will. (Gen. 6:5-6; 1 Sam. 15:10, 35; Ezek. 22:29-31). If the future was exhaustively and eternally settled, it would be impossible for God to genuinely regret how some of his own decisions turned out.
At other times God tells us that he is surprised at how things turned out because he expected a different outcome (Isa. 5:3-7; Jer. 3:6-7; 19-20). If the future were eternally and exhaustively settled, everything would come to pass exactly as God eternally knew or determined it to be.
The Lord frequently tests his people to find out whether they’ll remain faithful to him (Gen. 22:12; Exod. 16:4; Deut. 8:2; 13:1-3; Judges 2:20-3:5; 2 Chron. 32:31). If the future were eternally and exhaustively settled, God could not genuinely say he tests people “to know” whether they’ll be faithful or not.
The Lord sometimes asks non-rhetorical questions about the future (Num. 14:11; Hos. 8:5) and speaks to people in terms of what may or may not happen (Exod. 3:18-4:9; 13:17; Jer. 38:17-18, 20-21, 23; Ezek. 12:1-3). If the future were exhaustively and eternally settled, God could never genuinely speak about the future in terms of what “may” or “may not” happen.
@@crisjones7923 So do you accept "Open Theism"?
@@johnbrzykcy3076 seems right to me.
God's belief? If God knows, he doesn't need to believe.
that’s an incorrect view of belief. belief and knowledge are not opposed concepts like light and dark.
True.
All things known are believed by God. The nature of God implies perfection or flawlessness. The statement, "God knows something", requires that it is a true statement. God certainly believes what He knows by necessity. Belief is a prerequisite to knowledge. Or a necessary partner.
This is how I can make sense of it… God knows the future… and you have free will… they do not contradict the each other, because your future God sees is shaped out of your own free will… God knows your heart more than you will ever do… so no matter what decision you make or you will make out of your own free will… God has seen the outcome. God will never interfere with your will… but he will do his best to call you home… whether you answer the call is always on you. Free will is an act of love… he doesn’t want you to be a robot following because you have to… he wants your genuine love out of your heart. Take care friends
Kind of seems pretty pointless and contradictory to his overall plan. What’s the point of creating humans whom he KNOWS will rebel against him in the future and having to keep repeating the process of establishing covenants and relationships with them that he KNOWS they will break?
So God is doing his best to call me home even thou He absolutely knows I won’t come home ??
So it's not "Free Will", but the illusion of free will.
@@makomichael "choice" is [always] contingent for choice cannot actualize within a vacuum. so if choice is necessarily contingent how then can you say its "free will"
@@makomichael Ian nailed it. Inherent free will just isn't a thing.
@@JimMajors yah Im no philosopher by any stretch of the imagination but I do have my [pre-determined] moments 😜😆
Gods knows the past the current and the future. God knows whether u are going to go to the gym or not going. If u are going God knows. If u are not going God knows. If u want to trick God of not going or going God also knows.
The act of going or not going is yr choice..YOUR WILL. God will not wassap u to tell u abt things to do or not do. Whtever choice u take God already knows. If god doesnt knows then he is not god. Simple.
@@gailhamilton3158 ..atheist talking nonsense and thinking it is making sense
Someone knowing my future doesn't have anything to do with my freewill
Except you don’t have free will.
This
Nor does not knowing your future, it simply occurs.
If you can see the future, it doesn't mean you have a belief about it. It just means you can see it happening before it does.
Don’t take the word belief so literally
Nor does it means you make it happen.
Seeing is believing.
@@Isen502
That's an expression that some people use. It's usually meant to say "I won't believe it unless you I see it with my own eyes."
It doesn't mean they are synonyms.
Why'd you bring it up anyway?
@@Bunni504
I agree. If I could see the future, it wouldn't mean I can control it.
If the Hebrew God can see the future, it doesn't mean he created the future. But it does mean that he knew what the consequences would be of creating the universe.
In that way, he knowingly started the ball rolling that would lead to everything that happened, including our behaviors.
with god all things are possible
The "possible worlds" idea is a cop-out.
The idea of God changing his plans according to free-will prayer is ridiculous since he would also know if and what we would pray for!
Thank God I'm an atheist!
@Jermain Roberts “ Game of life? -
So we are balls , billard balls on god’s
billard table !!
@Jermain Roberts not sure what you define as the “game of life”... is there a winner? 😂😂😂
Commenting on on the OP: Sounds alot like a Multiverse to me.
I truly enjoy everything about this series. Thank you 🙏🏽 philosophy for the soul
I admire Kuhn for so very many reasons, but his unfailing composure and kind, even sweet civility and respect while listening to sheer balderdash worthy of Lewis Carroll are almost superhuman. If you should ever chance to see this, sir, know that I’m typing with one hand and tipping my hat to you with the other.
Well said
@@gavinhurlimann2910 Thank you, Gavin.
th-cam.com/video/8yyTa42jaJg/w-d-xo.html
Great comment. You made my day sir.
@@LuisSantiago-ow8mu You just made mine, Luis. Thank you so much, brother!
God knows what will freely choose. It's like if someone comes from the future and they know what a certain person will choose, but the person still chooses freely.
well, I reckon, You get to make choices in your own free will...you do not know what the questions will be or what the challenges will be, and in the moment, you make choices, in your own free will. God, can't quite enjoy the surprise like you do, so God counts on you to feel it and God has a vicarious moment in your each and every feeling. You do not know what your choices or challenges will be, but as I understand it, God does. Just because God knows ahead of "time" what your decisions will be, they are no less, your decisions and the product of your free will. I am no scholar in the bible, but as I recall, God promised to not interfere after he flooded the earth out of rage. So, get real good at free will, it is what you can do. Don't worry so much that God already knows how it all plays out, thats Gods thing. Thats how I think of it. Smiling, George.
Amen! Great thoughts, brother!!
Very simple. They are over complicating it.
Dear Sir: After making a whole lot of mistakes in my life, I've come to the conclusion that whether we have FREE WILL & CHOICES & so on... or not, we still have to believe that we all have these & lead a moral life here. Otherwise, we all have to pay a huge price. Pls. trust me. GOD is presumed to know everything on everything but nobody can comprehend GOD that easily as we all know. GOD should not be an excuse NOT to follow some great principles or morals here for human beings. Life may be an illusion, hence FREE WILL, CHOICES etc... too, still we need to use all these tools to lead a morally good life here. Again, I'm saying all these after making a hell of a lot of mistakes in my life. Had I used these tools properly, I could have lived totally differently, I tell you all. Thanks. MeenaC
My book " FATE AND FREE-WILL "
deals with this topic in terms of - Is, Not is, Is and Not is, Neither is nor Not is, and trnscendence.
Available in Flipkart.
Acharya Seshaiah Kandamuru
Thank you Sir for this important investigation and video. The key word here is "uncertainty". I believe that the concepts of foreknowledge, predestination, and freewill only appear to contradict each other. I believe that our Creator observes the Universe through both Circular and Linear progressions. The Creator functions both within and without the space-time continuum. In the Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 13, verses 1 through 5, there is made mention of a tragedy at the Tower in Siloam. By using this as an example, Jesus of Nazareth demonstrates that fate is not always predestined, but each one of us does indeed retain the power of choice.
You’ve hit it tbh. That’s quite certainly right
You have the conditioned and subordinate will of the created being. Only the Creator truly has free will.
@@nunyabidness5375 ....and Willpower. Are Humans created in the image of God? If so, then we too have a measure of both freewill and willpower.
I agree with the first part of your comment.
However, I don't see the example of the tower as in opposition to predestination.
My understanding at this point is that they weren't any worse then the folks listening to Jesus. He didn't excuse them or anything they did. He just basically posed the question do you think they deserved this anymore than you? And furthermore if you don't repent...
Elsewhere He used the terminology he who has ears let him hear. He was speaking about those who have the ability to hear the spiritual things He was sharing . Not everyone has spiritual ears to hear .
Paul said we prophesy in part , we see dimly etc but eventually we will know more. If we knew everything we would be God . We aren't going to know it all now but we know enough. Our faith is currency enough .
There are those who will say I will believe when I can solve this or that apparent contradiction. Its like whack-a-mole they won't ever believe( in that state) .
I'm not addressing this part at you or anyone in particular because apparently you are a believer -I'm just thinking .
You do actually choose but you only choose what God puts before you and in your head! When he wrote the beginning he wrote the ending and everything in between!
We don’t have free will, only god has free will
Psalm 139:16 NLT
“You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.”
"Circuitous path to avoid doctrinal contradiction"- a brilliant, and too kind, description of theological reasoning.
"circuitous" I like it 👍🏽
That describes logic. Avoiding the principle of contradiction by any means. Is logic theological reasoning? If so then its as good science.
@@kallianpublico7517 theo-logical = oxymoron-ic
@@redpillpusher Agreed.
Wherever he is now, James “the Amazing” Randi is getting a chuckle out of that... oh, wait. He’s not. But he would have a few days ago!
God is known through stillness in ones own being. In the depth of that empiedness one loses oneself and finds God - the timeless state of consciousness that is permanently present behind one’s thinking mind. In that state (which is available to everybody) the answers to all of these philosophical and theological speculations is laid bare. From experience I can tell you that God’s perfect knowledge is just that: perfect. What is imperfect is man’s conception of things, including freewill, choice and the future. These are concepts of the mind. They have no meaning whatsoever in God. Certainly, “God perfectly knows the future” but not as man demands and not to the satisfaction of thought. God knows perfectly that these conceptual concerns are bogus, that everything is done in love, that mortal man dies and along with him his silly notions of past and future. In God, everything is already over. This is eternity: the alpha and omega simultaneously. This knowledge (self knowledge or God knowledge) is part of man - inside him waiting for him to discover it, connect with it, and thus know it. But to do that he must give up speculating and trying to work out what cannot be worked out. Instead he must seek the ground of his being in the silence and stillness of himself. There is no other way.
Hogwash.
@@TraderTimmy As I’ve never washed a hog, perhaps you wouldn’t mind providing a specific objection.
@@keirwatson3570 Thank you for this. The reason i was searching this answer was to be able to explain to people that don't believe in God why he does the things he does, and i was losing my trust in him in the process as i saw the comment section. You managed to make me realize that i don't have to worry about all these things and that some concepts and knowledge that we have are different from the knowledge that God has because his knowledge is perfect. You made me realize that i should just trust him and what he does no matter what happens. So i thank you for this, God bless you.
@@TraderTimmy
“Hogwash”
CRINGE atheism in full effect!!
The irony and the absurdity is that ultimately it’s all “HOGWASH” for atheists, that is it’s all “HOGWASH” for fatalists and epistemological nihilists isn’t it? It’s all ultimately meaningless GROUND HOG DAY then the FERTILISER PIT/THE GRAVE/THE VOID/OBLIVION right??? Prove me “WRONG” ground hog? I’ll wait!!
I was just thinking of this question the other day!
Wonderful discussion!
I love following Mr Kuhn's quest for finding the truth. I'm an atheist because I haven't found any theological arguments to carry much weight, but they do fascinate me. Probably more in terms of understanding the human condition in as wide a variety as possible, but that seems to me worthy enough in its own right, even if it doesn't reveal some "ultimate" truth (whether that is actually a meaningful concept or not).
A theist here. I admire your perspective. People need to be like you on both sides of the debate. I'm trying to be one as well.
Atheists ignore the irrefutable argument that if everything was dependent or needed to be created nothing would exist, therefore an entity that is eternal called God must exist
@@michelangelope830 your argument is only “irrefutable” to the extent that it’s self-contradictory. Sorry, it is not up to the task.
@@steinbeck1805 the cosmological argument is irrefutable as a mathematical truth, not everything can be dependent on something else, therefore an entity that is not created must exist. Atheist choose to ignore what comtradicts their vision of the world.
@@michelangelope830 I’m sorry but this isn’t getting better. Trying to avoid the dilemma you posit by simply inventing something that you claim is not subject to it is just faulty reasoning. Plus, we do not actually know what causation could conceivably look like beyond the universe we understand. “Timeless” is a real word, but is it a real, ie useful concept? Anyways, your first cause is simply an appeal to stop thinking. I recommend putting your mind to something more aspirational and exciting!
If this is the world god chose to 'actualize', with complete foreknowledge of every moment that would unfold, that pretty much throws the whole idea of benevolence right out the window.
capq57 I think it also applies to if time travel exists then this is the present that they are allowing us to have.
How do define God?
@Jermain Roberts There lies your problem, you say God and the devil are the same person. That's not the God of the bible.
Revelation 12:4 ESV / 69 helpful votes
His tail swept down a third of the stars of heaven and cast them to the earth. And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it.
Luke 10:18 ESV / 54 helpful votes
And he said to them, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.
Revelation 12:9 ESV / 52 helpful votes
And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world-he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.
Revelation 20:2 ESV / 35 helpful votes
And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years,
Isaiah 14:12 ESV / 34 helpful votes Helpful Not Helpful
“How you are fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of Dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, you who laid the nations low!
2 Corinthians 11:14
King James Version
14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.
Do you believe in God?
Depends on your view but the two common free will/foreknowledge views have good answers to this I think.
How do you define God?
This was the exact question that first led me to question the Christian doctrine of my upbringing, starting me on a great journey.
And did you get an answer?
I've gotten many. And I continue to search.
whats the difficulty here? until there's sufficient evidence for a "god" it doesn't warrant belief. simple.
You said it yourself my friend. Godspeed on your travels.
If the many-worlds theory is correct, then God sees all possible outcomes in any universe. Depending on one's (free) actions, one could be damned in one universe and saved in another, and God is aware of both possibilities. I think Plantinga touches on this around the 5:45 mark.
God would still know which infinite versions of you will go to heaven and which infinite versions of you will go to hell. It's not as if they could have acted differently, if they could then God is not omnipotent.
“To watch someone do something is not the same thing as making him do it.”
CS Lewis
Tell that to people who think knowing everything means you cause it.
@@Bunni504 If you are an all knowing creator you are responsible for what your creations do.
- It is indistinguishable from making them do it, if you’re watching them do it with infallible foreknowledge.
“To infallibly know what someone will freely do is not the same thing as making him do it.”
Me
@@Mark-cd2wf - If it’s infallibly known, right now, that you’re going to eat a ham sandwich at exactly noon tomorrow, then in point of fact you aren’t actually free to do anything other than to eat a ham sandwich at noon tomorrow. Any feeling you might have of being able to exercise any other choice would be rendered illusory. It is as if your eating a ham sandwich at noon tomorrow is already set in stone.
God knows what you will do doesn't taken away free will, it just means you have a set of choices within a parameter, if God intervened every time you did something, that would be invalidating free will.
The nature of a perfect religious god is deterministic. A religious god knows the future, meaning that could not have not created the creation knowing the outcome, meaning that free will would not exist. I know I have free will therefore a religious god doesn’t exist. We couldn’t prove a religious god wrong doing what is not established according to a perfect deterministic plan. We could not have been who we are, eliminating all responsibility for our actions. Murderers could not have not committed murder to prove a religious god wrong.
Why a perfect religious god created the creation? Was he imperfectly unsatisfied with his own existence? A religious god knows the future so the creation had to be created to not prove himself wrong. Reality according to the religious understanding is meaningless since absolutely everything that happens is determined, like growing nails in a corpse.
@@michelangelope830 Just because God knows the future, doesn't mean he forced the decision upon you. Yes he knew the infinite possibilities the person would make, however, him seeing the outcome, means he is just aware of the person's decision out of time and space, but he didn't force those thoughts and actions ON that person, or else what's the point in praying to God to change my ways, and avoid danger, if that's already going to happen?
@@pauljohnson6019 if a religious god knows for example that someone is going to commit murder even before the person is born could the person prove god wrong? My point is the religious god does not exist because we have free will. I have written a theory on God based on logic that you could be interested in. Hell and heaven is ourselves for eternity and worshiping a liar would bring infinite shame.
@@michelangelope830 Yes, the person could change his actions and not commit murder if God wills it! Our destiny is not always fixed, it can be averted with the help of God, of course there are some things that can't be changed, we call that karma.
@@pauljohnson6019 The perfect religious god is mere existence without life, like the eternal religious heaven. There is not life without death, happiness without unhappiness, perfection without imperfection, love without hate, existence without non existence, light without darkness, wisdom without foolishness. All lives are a present from God to God in a mortal cycle of birth, death and resurrection that tends to infinite while life creates life loving having children. God is neither created nor destroyed only transformed alive or dead when all life die to become a memory of what Life was, like a perfect religious god. God cannot be deceived and all will know all. There are no secrets because all is all. I am the same and different person than i was yesterday and I would be tomorrow impossibility possible miracle God. I was created by my parents and i always existed because i am my parents that are my grandparents that are everything else impossibility possible miracle God. Hell and heaven is ourselves for eternity alive or dead, like a perfect religious god without life because can not die.
I love this episode is me to understand whether or not God truly knows what we’re going to do so I’ve concluded that yes God does know, but he is not controlling the outcome that he saw.
It's simple, God knows in the future what you freely choose.
Okay so here is my issue:
1. There are many arguments explaining the origins of logic. How did we come to acquire reason? Many say it was given to us by God. The law of non-contradiction, truth tables, etc all cannot be violated. Naturalists say this came to us through evolution, CS Lewis says this cannot be the case because it’s self defeating. Okay, great. Let’s assume they were given by god, a circle cannot be square this is a logical inconsistency.
2. God is omniscient and all knowing. He knows everything, and in fact gave us logic. But, god cannot square a circle. God cannot do anything that is metaphysically impossible. We should qualify what is meant by omniscient. But isn’t the metaphysical also determined by him?
3. God gave us logic but cannot violate it. This is outside of His control. If something is outside of his control, he is not omniscient, but only in the qualified sense. If he is omniscient in a qualified sense, does that not seem to completely contradict what is commonly known as omniscient?
How can something be omniscient, but not be able to do what is impossible… but was simultaneously the very thing that has created the realm of possible and impossible? Upon creation, he set the rules for what is and is not possible. He then abides by the rules, but surely an omniscient being can simply rewrite the rules or violate them since there is no larger being to ensure consistency?
Another issue: suppose I put a rat in a maze with a couple of options to choose from, it is then up to its free will to determine which path to choose. Can one say the rat actually has free will if I have pre determined what the possible outcomes are? Is free will simply “here are a collection of paths available to you, you can pick one of these”… doesn’t this contradict the entire notion of Freedom. Constrained free will would seem to be a better notion. But also, if the possible paths are predetermined, it seems that Free Will is just reduced to the notion of “freedom to choose from the arbitrarily defined set of options, that can be redefined at any point”.
I think the main thing is this:
God knows and believe correctly what you are going to choose. You are given a set of options which you can freely choose from. God knows what you are going to choose but does not intervene to redirect the behavior, (but can and does on certain circumstances?) . So you have freedom to choose whatever option you want, god knows this ahead of time. Freedom of will means freedom to choose, you can choose the wrong thing and god will punish you. So god knows ahead of time who will sin, who he will punish, and who is going to heaven or hell ahead of time? If god knows ahead of time, and never believes false things, he then knows what you are going to choose and hence knows how you will be judged ahead of time, so he knows a priori who is going to heaven or hell, your actual behavior becomes entirely irrelevant it seems? Okay you can choose your own path but your afterlife is then predetermined ? He knows who is going to sin and going to hell definitionally, so I have to ask what is the damn point in living then?
I'm still confused by Alvin Plantinga's ideas.
don't sweat it he is too 😜
@@redpillpusher Hey... I got that same feeling while listening to Plantinga. Could it be just me?
@@johnbrzykcy3076 haha ..as long as you don't buy into it you're golden 😇👍🏽
I’m not sure that Plantinga’s model is any different from molinism/middle knowledge.
Plantinga is not proposing a model of how human freedom and God's foreknowledge go together; he is a Molinist, but he is not defending Molinism here. What he is doing is responding to a specific argument that tries to show that God cannot have foreknowledge and human free will simultaneously. The argument Plantinga has in mind is this:
(1) Necessarily, all of God's beliefs are correct.
(2) God believes that I will do X.
(3) Therefore, necessarily, I will do X.
What Plantinga points out is that from (1) and (2), (3) does not follow because it commits a modal fallacy by conflating necessity de dicto and necessity de re. To see this fallacy more clearly, we can reformulate the argument in modal logic:
P means some action.
And gKP means "God knows that P''.
(1) ☐~(gKP & ~ P)
(2) gKP
--------
(3) ∴☐P
But this is clearly invalid. All that follows from (1) and (2) is:
(4) P
Therefore, it is false that from the fact that necessarily, God knows that you will do X and God cannot fail, it follows that you cannot do ~X. You can, but you won't. I recommend reading this highly accessible article that explains the problem in greater detail: iep.utm.edu/foreknow/#H6
I enjoyed this video. The subject matter is great and after listening to them, I feel even more confident about my level of intelligence and knowledge.
One thing that seems not to have been mentioned:
Just because we don't understand the mechanism of how something works doesn't mean that it cannot work. It's kind of like asking a person who has been blind from birth to describe the color of a rose by simply smelling it. Not gonna work. Doesn't mean the rose can't be red. In fact, the rose can be red, and the person can have no way of knowing what color even is, let alone what red is specifically.
This was pretty cool. I like the argument that god exists unbound by time. There could be other metrics he uses to manipulate or perceive every possible event without being burdened or constrained by time.
Since we can only perceive one reality it makes us incapable of understanding what God is seeing in the other pasts or futures when we make other choices. All that we know is that we believe that we have free choice, and no matter the choice God knows what will happen.
Maybe God knows only what you will do when he cares to know. Then when discovering what you are doing, the past and future are bundled as absolute in a volume of possible times where each time line is denoted by individual choice. He gives us free will to move between all our choices and it doesn’t matter what we choose because it is always right.
It makes sense though
@@markdavidangangan1111 it does?
Then he’s not omniscient you can’t be omniscient but not know something lmao. “I know everything I just choose not to know it” makes no sense.
thats crap argument, if god doesnt know what are we going to choose, red ball or blue ball for example, then god has flaws in hes omniscientness. its mean thats not god
The entire concept of omniscience is a logical absurdity. If you know everything that was, is or will be, then you can't know surprise, uncertainty, disappointment etc. All those things depend on not knowing what even the next second might bring; and are the very things that make us human. If you don't know any of that, then you can't be omniscient.
On, "middle knowledge", consider please : Each of us has the freedom to behave in ways which we believe to be irrational. Some may even do that, for a while, as an experiment. But there is a core to our realities, where truth resides. For us to function, across our lifetimes, we each have to behave in accordance with the old psychologist's joke : I am the most reasonable person I know. Even people who have confessed to me, that they have often behaved unreasonably, have made excuses for themselves, thereby proving their perspectives on themselves, are of people behaving with reason.
So our possibilities will always converge, eventually, with the most rational way we have, of being, and that will inevitably be one where we do so willingly. Especially where that rational way, departs from realities which we seek to replace with a better one.
People rarely pose this question the right way (though Van Inwagen came close in this video). The issue is not the incompatibility between (a) divine foreknowledge and (b) free will. Even as an atheist I see no problem there. The incompatibility is between (a) divine foreknowledge, (b) free will and (c) God's ability to prophesy about the future. If God sees what I am going to do AND he tells me what I am going to do AND I am free to change my mind based on what God has told me ... now we have a real problem.
Minority Report
We are walking through time, with free will to do as we want. The Bible clearly says that at the resurrection we will have to face for the good or evil we have done. Number 4.
Easy! Special relativity might have a hint, time don’t run same for 2 referential, time stops for a referential at speed of light while its running on earth, so the past, present and future of a person on earth will be all the same in first referential. The free will exists in referential where time runs but it will stops when time stops. In our religion and I guess same for Judaism and Christianity, God isn’t an event like us, he is not contained by a space or run by time.
What about the universal wave function? Cant there be a god of “many worlds” that knows not only everything that does happen but everything that could happen?
PBS space time
Hey Al... I like your question. But how does "universal wave function" relate to your idea? I think what you are saying about "many worlds" is similar to what Alvin Plantinga said.
Themask9909 understands what im getting at. I’m thinking of the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. If the everetian interpretation holds that all possible quantum states are realized in the evolution of the universal wave function, then we might reasonably ask what happens to the other “worlds” and why aren’t we aware of them? So maybe you could argue that god is aware of all outcomes but our consciousness follows the path of our choices. It’s my attempt to express how god could be omniscient without compromising free will.
That's stretching "god" to a totally ridiculous limit.
@@altortugas5979 I like your statement: " So maybe you could argue that god is aware of all outcomes but our consciousness follows the path of our choices."
The first of these segments that really & completely confused me . Not the 1st time the content confused me . That often happens as I join in this journey to come closer to Truth. Rather , confused by the argument, aproch and conclusions. . . Hesitant to share my simple mind but, here goes. Accepting infinite , all seeing, all knowing . . . Knows all possibilities. Compared to many theories and propositions put forth in this program by scientists , philosophers & theologians. Accepting , believing / having faith in the fact doesn't seem a bridge too far . God bless and thanks for this rich , meaningful content.
The ability of some one to predict the weather does not mean the person is responsible for making the weather. If a friend were to walk into my house, I can predict exactly which door he will enter. However that does not mean he can enter through the door without using his free will. So in the same way God knowing accurately what I will or will not do does not take away or add to my Free choice to do what I do. He provides an infinite array of equally healthy choices, its for me to make the choice from the healthy lot or be lazy and not do anything at all. God knowing what choice I make does not take away from my having to make the choice.
Exactly! The rebuttal to middle knowledge is something I've thought for a while now. Really the only way free will works under the Abrahamic God is if we nerf him. Although that contradicts the Bible. I believe in Psalm 1:39 it says God knows our words before we speak them, he knows our thoughts before we think them, he know every day of our life before we've even been born.
Nowhere in Psalm 139 does it say anything about God knowing our thoughts or speech beforehand. It says that "there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether," which is describing what God knows about the present, not the future. There is nothing in the Bible to indicate that God knows the future, simply because the future does not exist (by definition!). It is not that God is incapable of knowing the future. It's just that this is a meaningless statement. One can't know something which doesn't exist.
@@sharonjackson5196 4 "Before a word is on my tongue
you, Lord, know it completely"
16 "Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be."
Jesus knows he's going to be betrayed by Judas beforehand. Jesus also knows that people will choose to kill him.
“Yet there are some of you who do not believe.” For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray him. John 6:64 (This shows that Jesus knew of Judas's future betrayal 3 years before it took place)
@@jhunt5578 "Before a word is on my tongue" Yes, but the word was already in the mind at that moment.
Verse 16 says, "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them." I don't know which translation you're using, but this version (KJV, FWIW) gives no indication of our days being "written before they came to be." The passage is just about God knowing us in the womb.
As for Judas' betrayal: The Lord knew of Judas' betrayal at the Last Supper ("One of you here will betray Me.") because Judas had already done so. St. John's Gospel, unlike the Synoptic Gospels, is not written in chronological order, so it cannot be claimed that this was 3 years before the betrayal. In the other Gospels, Christ's disputes with the Jews take place just before His Passion, even though St. John places these events closer to the beginning of his Gospel. What does "from the beginning" mean? Beginning of what? Beginning of creation? Beginning of His ministry? Beginning of His Passion?
What does it mean "God knows I will do something in the future" ?
There are two different ways. For each or them there seems no place for free will.
1. God knows something will happen because he is calculating the outcome with some form of laws of causation or chain of events. (Knowing what would happen in future and it didn't actually happened for him, what if) this kind of foreknowledge.
2. God knows something in future because it already happened for him
In the first kind of foreknowledge its already determined what will happen and the human will is subjected to the laws by which god is calculating the outcome.
The second type of foreknowledge isn't the type of knowledge when God creates something although he knew the outcome and decided to do it anyways. Theres is no possibility to say God knew something will happen (it already happened to him) and don't create it. Because for the events to take place it requires to create the setup to make them happen.
So we have to assume that this knowledge of events prior to creation is the 1st calculating events due to laws of causation. So theres is no free will either because your will is determined by the chains of events god is calculating and we as humans are part of it and can't do anything different then what God is calculating/predicting.
Also another issue I have with free choice and foreknowledge and determinism.
Does my present choice determine the future and if it does, doesn't it include the setup for a next choice in future?
Why should my present choice have any effect on the future if my future choice isn't determined by the past respectively my past choice?
Is free choice a specific event in time or is our existence a fact of continuously choosing?
His “one big question” is so easy to answer. God knows the future and we have free will. You can’t change the past. In the future you already made your decision, but currently your still making it. God knew what you were going to do before you did it because he’s in a different dimension then we are, it doesn’t change your decision making process. You still have the decision, God just knew about it before it happen. Isn’t that awesome? We have such an amazing God!
I believe what you're saying with one exception. Even the past is not fixed for someone from outside our reality
Respectfully, just my opinion, but, to "know the future" is quite a giant leap in your god story. Explain to me how this entity called god can know the future(your word choice), which is in the domain of space-time, thermal dynamics, and entropy. Then, you smuggle in "another dimension", so how does gods Rick and Morty dimension jumping portal gun work exactly? You can't, because it is all shared fantasy, made up in human minds, way back when we didn't understand what lightning and thunder were, so we made up Thor and Zeus to cope with the horror and terror of the experience of seeing a thunderstorm. We know more now. And we will know more and more about how the human brain works. Sorry, AGI and ASI are happening, if we like our not. The god of the gaps gets smaller and smaller. To me, there ain't no place left to hide. I really don't think god is hiding behind a subatomic particle. And to just assume interdimensional travel of information of any kind, just is disingenuous at best. We don't know yet. And treed more you know, the more you realize, its all made up lol. Dont believe me, type in 'optical illusions' in the TH-cam search. our brains trick us all the time. My fav is the green purple circles illusion. Freaky, but it is just an illusion. And some interesting color theory gong in. Enjoy your religion if it works for you, but you have no claim to absolute truth. Neither do i. cheers.
@@uk7769 Okay, so you have made a bunch of assertions. When we talk about how God works, we don't make assertions, because we know that any being more capable than us will have better and more complicated ways of making things work than we do. What we do is generate ideas about possible ways God could work, but we are not saying that that is actually how it works. In that process, we also seek to find any impossible logical fallacies that would necessarily compromise the existence of a maximally great being. Noone is claiming absolute truth. Neither do i. cheers.
No. Nothing can know the future and we have free will. They both cannot be true. Also, if god knows the future then how can he be disappointed in us? The bible doesn't reconcile those conflicting points. imho. God is all powerful but doesn't know the future which is WHY he can get disappointed in our choices and why he expects us to worship him since he is the creator. Anyone who doesn't understand that doesn't think logically and god is logical so he cannot know the future if we have freewill and he is our creator. God created satan so why would he be disappointed by his behaviour as well if he knows the future?!
Disappointment happens when your expectations are shattered and you cannot have expectations if you know the future.
(A) Prediction and (B) corresponding action are like dancers in a ballet: they are always the SAME, synchronized. This means things happen like in a ballet: one is the "master" dancer and the other one FOLLOWS. If the master dancer is the prediction, then no free will exists because the action must follows in order to be the same. This means to have free will the "action" must be the master dancer and the corresponding prediction must follows. Since "master" - with free will - means being TOTALLY INDEPENDENT from environmental conditions, it is not possible to "compute" the action: the ONLY WAY to know that is TO WATCH IT DIRECTLY. But the (A) prediction is of course antecedent to the (B) corresponding action. This means that the only way to make the prediction (A) is TO BE ABLE TO WATCH THE FUTURE, God should be able to do that.
@@i.101 "Israel only" doesn't work: I mean the almighty God CANNOT exist here in the universe for a logical reason. This is explained in my video th-cam.com/video/1Cw25b4KWes/w-d-xo.html
@@i.101 Interesting.
@@i.101 OK
I love this type of stuff
*THELEMA*
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Love is the law,
Love under will.
I appreciate this channel and your vids, great discussions.
thank you for the awesome interviews and insights.
93 93/93
A piece from an amazing new autobiography titled: Saved by the Light of the Buddha Within amzn.to/356Ia5W
Myoho-Renge-Kyo represents the identity of what some scientists are now referring to as the unified field of consciousnesses. In other words, it’s the essence of all existence and non-existence - the ultimate creative force behind planets, stars, nebulae, people, animals, trees, fish, birds, and all phenomena, manifest or latent. All matter and intelligence are simply waves or ripples manifesting to and from this core source. Consciousness (enlightenment) is itself the actual creator of everything that exists now, ever existed in the past, or will exist in the future - right down to the minutest particles of dust - each being an individual ripple or wave. The big difference between chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo and most other conventional prayers is that instead of depending on a ‘middleman’ to connect us to our state of inner enlightenment, we’re able to do it ourselves. That’s because chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo allows us to tap directly into our enlightened state by way of this self-produced sound vibration.
‘Who or What Is God?’ If we compare the concept of God being a separate entity that is forever watching down on us, to the teachings of Nichiren, it makes more sense to me that the true omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence of what most people perceive to be God, is the fantastic state of enlightenment that exists within each of us. Some say that God is an entity that’s beyond physical matter - I think that the vast amount of information continuously being conveyed via electromagnetic waves in today’s world gives us proof of how an invisible state of God could indeed exist. For example, it’s now widely known that specific data relayed by way of electromagnetic waves has the potential to help bring about extraordinary and powerful effects - including an instant global awareness of something or a mass emotional reaction. It’s also common knowledge that these invisible waves can easily be used to detonate a bomb or to enable NASA to control the movements of a robot as far away as the Moon or Mars - none of which is possible without a receiver to decode the information that’s being transmitted. Without the receiver, the data would remain impotent. In a very similar way, we need to have our own ‘receiver’ switched on so that we can activate a clear and precise understanding of our own life, all other life and what everything else in existence is. Chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo each day helps us to achieve this because it allows us to reach into the core of our enlightenment and keep it switched on. That’s because Myoho-Renge-Kyo represents the identity of what scientists now refer to as the unified field of consciousnesses.
To break it down - Myoho represents the Law of manifestation and latency (Nature) and consists of two alternating states. For example, the state of Myo is where everything in life that’s not obvious to us exists - including our stored memories when we’re not thinking about them - our hidden potential and inner emotions whenever they’re dormant - our desires, our fears, our wisdom, happiness, karma - and more importantly, our enlightenment. The other state, ho, is where everything in Life exists whenever it becomes evident to us, such as when a thought pops up from within our memory - whenever we experience or express our emotions - or whenever a good or bad cause manifests as an effect from our karma. When anything becomes apparent, it merely means that it’s come out of the state of Myo (dormancy/latency) and into a state of ho (manifestation). It’s the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness, being awake or asleep, or knowing and not knowing.
The second law - Renge - Ren meaning cause and ge meaning effect, governs and controls the functions of Myoho - these two laws of Myoho and Renge, not only function together simultaneously but also underlie all spiritual and physical existence.
The final and third part of the tri-combination - Kyo, is the Law which allows Myoho to integrate with Renge - or vice verse. It’s the great, invisible thread of energy that fuses and connects all Life and matter - as well as the past, present and future. It’s also sometimes termed the Universal Law of Communication - perhaps it could even be compared with the string theory that many scientists now suspect exists.
Just as the cells in our body, our thoughts, feelings and everything else is continually fluctuating within us - all that exists in the world around us and beyond is also in a constant state of flux - constantly controlled by these three fundamental laws. In fact, more things are going back and forth between the two states of Myo and ho in a single moment of time than it would ever be possible to calculate or describe. And it doesn’t matter how big or small, famous or trivial anything or anyone may appear to be, everything that’s ever existed in the past, exists now or will exist in the future, exists only because of the workings of the Laws ‘Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ - the basis of the four fundamental forces, and if they didn’t function, neither we nor anything else could go on existing. That’s because all forms of existence, including the seasons, day, night, birth, death and so on, are moving forward in an ongoing flow of continuation - rhythmically reverting back and forth between the two fundamental states of Myo and ho in absolute accordance with Renge - and by way of Kyo. Even stars are dying and being reborn under the workings of what the combination ‘Myoho-Renge-Kyo’ represents.
Nam, or Namu - which mean the same thing, are vibrational passwords or keys that allow us to reach deep into our life and fuse with or become one with ‘Myoho-Renge-Kyo’. On a more personal level, nothing ever happens by chance or coincidence, it’s the causes that we’ve made in our past, or are presently making, that determine how these laws function uniquely in each of our lives - as well as the environment from moment to moment. By facing east, in harmony with the direction that the Earth is spinning, and chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo for a minimum of, let’s say, ten minutes daily to start with, any of us can experience actual proof of its positive effects in our lives - even if it only makes us feel good on the inside, there will be a definite positive effect. That’s because we’re able to pierce through the thickest layers of our karma and activate our inherent Buddha Nature (our enlightened state). By so doing, we’re then able to bring forth the wisdom and good fortune that we need to challenge, overcome and change our adverse circumstances - turn them into positive ones - or manifest and gain even greater fulfilment in our daily lives from our accumulated good karma. This also allows us to bring forth the wisdom that can free us from the ignorance and stupidity that’s preventing us from accepting and being proud of the person that we indeed are - regardless of our race, colour, gender or sexuality. We’re also able to see and understand our circumstances and the environment far more clearly, as well as attract and connect with any needed external beneficial forces and situations. As I’ve already mentioned, everything is subject to the law of Cause and Effect - the ‘actual-proof-strength’ resulting from chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo always depends on our determination, sincerity and dedication. For example, the levels of difference could be compared to between making a sound on a piano, creating a melody, or producing a great song, and so on. Something else that’s very important to always to respect and acknowledge is that the Law (or if you prefer God) is in everyone and everything.
NB: There are frightening and disturbing sounds, and there are tranquil and relaxing sounds. It’s the emotional result from any noise or sound that can trigger off a mood or even instantly change one. When chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo each day, we are producing a sound vibration that’s the password to our true inner-self - this soon becomes apparent when you start reassessing your views on various things - such as your fears and desires etc. The best way to get the desired result when chanting is not to view things in a conventional way - rather than reaching out to an external source, we need to reach into our own lives and bring our needs and desires to fruition from within - including the good fortune and strength to achieve any help that we may need.
Chanting Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo also reaches out externally and draws us towards, or draws towards us, what we need to make us happy from our environment. For example, it helps us to be in the right place at the right time - to make better choices and decisions and so forth. We need to think of it as a seed within us that we’re watering and bringing sunshine to for it to grow, blossom and bring forth fruit or flowers. It’s also important to understand that everything we need in life - including the answer to every question and the potential to achieve every dream - already exists within us. th-cam.com/video/NR5DdqjMxgA/w-d-xo.html
Let go, and let God - Olivia Newton-John Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Let go, and let God - Olivia Newton-John Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
www.youtube.com
@@i.101 right on,,ty. ill go have a peek.
@@i.101 so i did check out Jason's channel,,interesting stuff, ill dive into it and check it out more, so hey, ill return a suggestion for you!!
"The Modern Hermeticist"
th-cam.com/users/TheModernHermeticistfeatured
this is a really good channel I follow,, lots of great history and philosophy, etc,, very cool channel.
@@anpu418
because every man and every woman is a star!
If everything is carried out according to gods plan then I’m sorry you have no free will.
no, YOU have no free will
Everything is according to God's plan only applies to major events not small individual events.
@@d4ro obviously I have free will I don't believe in this magic sky daddy cult of yours.
@@emenz910 so, god is only responsible for 9/11, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Auschwitz? They seemed like pretty big events.
@@cam553 I surprised you didn't say corona virus, not every single big event is from God.
There is a scripture, even two, that shows that God doesn't know all future events; instead, by his power and his will (decision about the world, present, past, and future) he forces his will onto the world as events unfold.
If he knew all future, we would be living in a meaningless movie with no free will at all, with no random events possible - down to brownian motion.
However, like scientists with computer aid can predict the orbits and motion of the heavenly bodies, God can do this way beyond our imagination, even in regard to human actions.
You didn't understand the issue.
Something that people don't value enough is truth, or at least being closer to truth, being uncertan is better than being ignorant.
Yeah, God is omniscient, he just doesn’t know everything...
He’s omnipotent but he isn’t ALL powerful
@FEELSonWHEELS can i surprise god?
@Jake Costanza
As a Muslim, we believe God knows what possible outcome from any event or what future in store for you.
It is written in the Quran even before Adam was created, God had planned to put Adam and Eve on Earth to multiply, as God knew Adam would fail the test of God and Adam is fallible creation and with forgetfulness, therefore there is no original sin in Islam.
Those who turn to God in seeking forgiveness with sincere repentance God will forgive you, based on one's sincerity, therefore is no need to kill Jesus for his blood or manslaughter for mercy and salvation which are insult to God in Islam.
God is unlike the creation to be in need for a 'son' or 'daughter' and it is blaspheme in Islam.
@@gabrielabrahao4383 God knows about you, more than you know of your own self.
@@gabrielabrahao4383 LOL. No you cannot surprise God, God knows every possible outcome from any given event or what future in store for you and God did not take away you free will from you.
Hold on a second - just because 'God knows the future' doesn't mean there can be no free will. All that that means is that God knows what you are going to do, not that he removes your decisions.
The problem is I don't like to think that God always knows what I am going to do. The more I think about it, I start questioning some really puzzling ideas.
Thank you for the life of me I don’t understand what the contradiction is
@@johnbrzykcy3076 Like what?
@@TheQuranExplainsItself 10:10 explains the contradiction.
@@ibmor7674 I still don’t understand the connection between God KNOWING and people MAKING choices.
God simply knows the effects of everything to you and your reactions and consequences of your actions.
I honestly don’t understand the problem
Perhaps I’m being arrogant but I find this video/discussion a bit misdirected. To try to simplify my point, note that the author has presented the problem from the perspective of the past forward to the future. Given what we know about God’s nature from those like Aquinas, we should be considering the issue from the perspective of the future back toward the past.
For example (and I appeal to Aquinas often in this) God by definition must be outside of material reality or He would be limited by it as is every existent. He is thus infinite in nature (about more later if desired) and thus encompasses all possibilities and by extension, is perfect. Linear time, which seems to be the track upon which the author transports his argument/line of query, does not exist outside of material reality. It is a component of the very architecture of the material realm. In a real sense God exists in the past, present and future all at once. It is clear from this that He would be able to see what we chose to do in the sequential unfolding of time in our realm of existence (in materiality) without having interfered. He did not determine what we would do but only saw “after” we had done it. What we cannot grasp is that He could know what we were going to do because what He really knows is what we have already done.
This is all very Einsteinian as well. The very architecture of existence of which space/time is a component all lends itself to this notion. Consider….two men leave in each of two rockets heading in the same direction toward a star about to explode. From the perspective of those on earth from which they will depart, it will take 54 years for the event to take place. Rocket one leaves the earth at 10000 miles/hour. Rocket 2 leaves earth at near the speed of light. After 54 years, the man in rocket 1 will see the star’s detonation. But, during that period, the man in rocket 2 will have traveled for only 4 years. Does he then see the future? It was supposed to take 54 years for the event. Since light travels at the same rate no matter the motion or position of the observer, this would not be a factor.
I could go on for pages but that would be inappropriate and boring. Suffice it to note that even the nature of quantum fields and empty space suggest the existence of God without even considering the question addressed in this video. What do you think?
"It's just not metaphysically possible for (God) to know what free beings are going to do in the future."
Or, and hear me out on this. There isn’t a god, and this question is a waste of time.
No God, no meaning----life is just a meaningless accident? Ho hum what a waste of time and space you must be--- so why do you bother to post a comment ? You might say one thing but your actions suggest otherwise.
@rantie bollox I feel sorry for you brother some day you are going to face the truth i assure you this
@@electricmanist why did you bother to comment on my comment?
@@ombladon7731 Thanks 😊
@Incorruptus An insult can hardly be classified as a logical response. You must do better if you wish to develop your understanding.
In my opinion, the future is the consequence of the present, and not the reverse. Thus the future does not affect the present at all, and knowing it only means to see what people will do by their free will in the present and its consequences.
Suuuuure...
Are you GOD?
@@textbooksmathematicstutorials no
We are acting like the past, present, and future are all separate things but they aren't. They impact each other in different ways, but they always add up to a certain result that can't be changed.
It's like reading a book, what you read now is the present, what you read before is the past, and what you have left is the future. Yes, a character's choices impact what happens in the remaining chapters, however, there still exists an ending and a beginning and both can not be changed, no matter what you do that character has to follow that path. If we are to say Free Will is the ability to change the result or choose differently than what we know of omniscience and time would completely contradict that.
Not to mention that there are multiple prophecies in the bible, a prophecy is something that can not be avoided or changed because in a way it has already happened. What adds to this is that within fictional stories prophecies are completed from the choices of a character's actions, showing that they can not be changed because its foretold. We can see the exact same process in real life, its just we can't look at it like that from a reader's perspective, but God can.
Thats why i dont believe in free will
A very interesting idea for discussion and one's own faith..
But what is faith but to believe in something that you have 0 proof or evidence of really? And the God of our Bible like all cults require this same reasoning right?🤔🥴
Hi, great show not finish yet. Hi all of you, and Hi Mr Lawrence.
"over which god has no control" doesn't sound omnipotent...
many descriptions are contradictory. Why bother
should ask how can we have free will if god is omnipotent lol
As an agnostic, I believe that IF there is a god, he doesn’t interfere in anyone’s life. Nor for the good, nor for the bad.
But this life makes no sense at all.
We all have the survival instinct, and we crave sex, which was imprinted in our nature, so to perpetuate the species.
But for what? For having miserable lives, frustration and suffering mostly, with some drops of happiness in order to make us want to keep going...
I hear you, life feels like a futile absurdity which is all it probably is yet brain needs stimulation so i watch ridiculous video
Please read: “The Family: A Proclamation to the World.”
So if you had a belief in a god, you would be a deist. If a god did exist then it would indistinguishable from a reality where a god did not exist. I mean at least you receive gnize that there's no good evidence for one.
@Incorruptus Could you please explain the relevance of your post to mine? I was simply clarifying what the OP said. I did not present my own opinion or stance.
@Incorruptus Aah, okay. I misunderstood, my bad.
For a moment, say there is an infinite being. By definition, there can only be one Infinite being that always was, and always will be. Also, by definition, there can be nothing outside, beyond, or separate from this being. This simply means this being has the absolute power to create anything....even to create finite physical worlds containing beings that forget that they are also one with, and indeed ARE the Infinite being who is playing hide and seek with itself...allowing the created finite being to have free will within the forgetfulness of it's true infinite nature. Simply, we are all IT...but we forget. All is in The ALL. And The Absolute ALL....is in all. "How does it feel to BE the Play? How does it feel to play the Play?"
"By definition, there can only be one Infinite being that always was, and always will be." What definition are you talking about?
@@WhiteScorpio2 I was thinking of an Infinite Being in terms of being absolute, complete within itself. In Yoga Philosophy they use the term "The Absolute" for God. Infinity is more correctly a quality of The Absolute. The Absolute is All. There can be nothing that is outside of it. The All is in all, and all is in The All.
So, by that definition, there can only be one "absolute" being, for being absolute, it contains everything. It is the cause of everything. One.
Free (undetermined) will, or God's (pre-determined, pre-destined) Plan? Can't have both.
In other words- how can we be judged by God?
After all man’s will is God’s will.
God is whatever I imagine God is because man created God in his own image and likeness
I guess I have a little more to say... you have free will, If God knows how you will use it, but does not interfere with it, you have it, and God has the ability to know at one instant , the entire book of your life. Reading a book weather it is one word at a time, or all at once, does not control the hand of the author of that book, eh? The book gets written by the author, You for instance, all by your choice of words, at your free will, but God, has read it without changing a single word your wrote, I guess what is hard to grasp, is that human limit of before and after. God doesn't seem to adhere to the rules of before and after so much. It seems to be all, no matter what the subject, Omnipotence just won't fit into our finite brains... and that is ok. Don't stop enjoying enjoying this life just because it is not easy to explain. I sure hope some of this helps. Smiling, George.
Interesting, and the conclusion about "openness" certainly hits clearer to the mark, in my view. Clearly, there's a time limitation for these video presentations, but focusing almost solely on Christian determinism is one fault I would find for this topic of God's foreknowledge and human free will. Many of the Eastern religions and philosophies don't have quite this problem. Looking into the mind of God is always a fraught exercise. In the belief system to which I subscribe, the Baha'i Faith, humankind has free will to make choices, whether good or bad choices. God may be aware of the choices that I make, but God allows me agency to make them. I therefore learn from my choices. When my choices are weighed in terms of my soul's development, whether the balance tilts towards the good or not good is always based on my decisions, and ... I have to live with those choices when weighing up the evolution of my soul. God has granted me this freedom (not license, however). In so doing, God has made me a free agent that moves towards good (God) or away from good.
Such a waste of time discuss this absurdity. Religious do extreme logical contortion to explain things that are completely irrational.
Such a waste to comment this absurdity. Atheists do extreme logical contortions to explain away things that are completely rational.
See how easy that is?
“Logical contortion.” I’ll be using that. Thanks.
@@joshheter1517 You seem to get butthurt when people express the absurdity of some religous claims. Why though?
@@jasminejacob1870
I’m not sure what “butthurt” means but I’d venture to guess I’m not “butthurt”.
I’m merely pointing out just how lazy and sophomoric it is to just assert that some claim is “irrational” or to dogmatically mock claims you don’t agree with.
If these ideas are so absurd, they should be easily taken down with a reasonable argument. I’d have to guess that you and others don’t do this because you can’t... but you just don’t like (or understand) the claim in question, so you mock it in a way that anyone with a 6th grade education could.
@@joshheter1517 First off, don't throw me in with that lot. I have not done what you claim they have done.
Secondly, most, if not all, of the claims that would be considered "absurd" are asserted to be true without evidence. Some think that that which is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
18:55 "clever...theological reasoning" bahahahahahahah ...oh Robert you slay me 🤣
Excellent videos 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
The amount of wordsmithing done to fit the narrative is mind boggling.
What rubs me the wrong way is that there are no FACTS to back up any of this mumbo jumbo. One can ask these questions until you're blue in the face, but when push comes to shove, you return to square one with no real answers.
These questions are certainly interesting to ask but at the same time, they inevitably become a moot point......no FACTS to back them up.
What rubs me the wrong way about this *comment* is that there are no FACTS to back up this mumbo jumbo. One can make these comments until they’re blue in the face, but when push comes to shove, you return to square one with no real answers.
@@joshheter1517 Did you just get annoyed that someone wanted a fact or evidence to support the claims?
@@jasminejacob1870
No, not particularly.
@@joshheter1517 Why the response that basically repeats the initial comment?
@@jasminejacob1870
The ease in which it can be replicated demonstrates just how vacuous it is. It’s a baseless insult that can be turned around with essentially zero effort. If someone gave (oh, I don’t know) a substantive argument against the claim in question, it wouldn’t be so easily replicable.
If God exists outside of time, you might as well not discuss it. Logic is out the window.
Why? You can logically reason events independently of needing time, so why make time necessary for god to logically reason anything?
@@Saki630 I'm confused by your statement "You can logically reason events independently of needing time." What do you mean by that? As creatures bound to "time", it seems like all events are tied to "time." Can you explain more?
He did things inside of time, my friend, like creating us. He's inside.
How about he flits in and out with time, does it make any sense to logic
@@Saki630 because if god knows everything it means he's not all-powerful. But if he's outside time there's no arguments. Because he would know everything period, not just the future but past and future all at once.
Unless I am misunderstanding Al’s points. None of the examples he gave in the first 5 minutes are examples of knowing the future. He said himself knowing that he will walk through a door or eat dinner tonight doesn’t violate free will, why should God knowing it be any different? But neither of those are knowing the future. They are examples of things with high probabilities, but he doesn’t know with 100% certainty those will happen.
And when talking about standing. He is giving an example of what is known in the present. Your free will can’t change the present or the past, it can only exert changes on the future, which is unknown, even by God. At least that’s what I think has to be true.
As a christian I'm proud of fact that st. Thomas Aquinas was the first quantum physicist who introduced ideas of multiverse, wave function and U and R procedures :D. I love my Lord for His sense of humor. Like this when Greek paradox claimed that there is no almighty god because he cannot create a rock which isn't able to lift. But my Lord Jesus as a human surely couldn't lift a boulder but as God he can :).
“Possible worlds” is sophistry. Remember that God also designed and created everything knowing what would happen beforehand, then whatever humans decide to do only occurs because God designed and created it that way,
Robert. You made several mistakes, and they will cost you.
1. You asked Christians
2. You sat down and listened to the guy who says God has "middle Knowledge" LOL
I would say that I share a lot the points that have been presented here, with an addition: the addition is that God literally is the laws of nature. Therefore, since the "process" of whatever happens in the world happens in the laws themselves, and since "God" is the laws, then it could know the entire history of the universe.
Of course, you don't need to use the term "God". You could use "Nature", "laws" or anything you like. The truth is that we really don't know what the ontology of the universe is - what it's "made of". Therefore, we can't really say anything about the true nature of reality, having no access to its ontology. It could be that the ontology of reality is mathematical, like Max Tegmark is proposing. Or it could be that we're just universalizing mathematics to be everything just because we happened to stumble upon it and find out it works in describing nature - maybe it's a parochial event, having nothing to do with the ultimate nature of Nature.
Getting back to the issue of free will - I honestly believe we do have free will, regardless of what our current understanding of the laws of Nature is indicating at the moment - determinism, probabilism - based on the laws of Nature, neither determinism nor probabilism is compatible with free will, at least at a first glance. But then you think of the ways the laws of Nature could be: humean or anti-humean - laws that simply describe what will happen (humean) or laws that describe what *must* happen (anti-humean). And if God is synonymous with the laws of Nature and if the laws are humean, meaning they simply say that will happen, but don't impose what *must* happen, then there's a way for free will to exist.
And then you need to come up with a mechanism through which this could work. For example, in a deterministic universe with humean laws, just the fact that they're humean is compatible with free will. For a probabilistic universe, I think one way for free will to exist would be if you'd have something like a soul (or maybe the brain) that sees all the possible branches in Hilbert space and chooses one of them, basically "creating" reality out of what was physically possible. Of course this is very far fetched, but it would be a way to make it work.
The point is that "God" (whether in the religious sense or in the "laws of physics" sense) can know the "future" (at least, your future) and you could still have free will, there is no contradiction. And you can go even further, and ask if God is free to choose otherwise - my reply would be "yes, if God sets a rule for Himself to always act a certain way" - in this case, God will always take a certain action depending on what you freely do, but not because it was forced to do so by external forces, but because He chose to act like this - it's a typical example of Kantian autonomy, where you give a law to yourself - since that's an autonomous act, it's opposite to a heteronomous act and therefore it's a free choice.
In this case, though, I treat God as a religious entity, not as the laws of Nature. Like I said, we don't know what the ontology of the reality is and therefore we don't know if the ontology is just math, with no telos or "intelligence" or purposes, or if it's more than that, similar to a religious God.
As much as I detest caving in to Science , the proofs presented in quantum overlapping Realities is becoming more and more solid and definitive.
Add that to the concept that among all of those possible paths is that the past, present, and future all exist at the same time.
We cannot access it. The moment we're conscious .... we lock into the present, and its Reality for us.
Now I believe in God . Nothing this complex and well thought out could be random.
The God I believe in has knowledge of past, present, and future all at the same moment.
What he wants from us is to choose and we usually forget the part ....
To Love Him, and one another.
There's Our Choice.
The path we choose is one of many that can play out. God Knows This ...!?
He designed it that way for a reason.
God is looking for people to freely choose him, and in doing so choosing Love, pretty much through Faith.
Our tools as primitive as they are , are starting to reveal scientific support to a framework that God uses to create Your Personal Reality ....
Does he know what it is ???
Everyone assumes he set this in motion and wants to know ...
If I were God , I'd set it in motion and not look, to see if free will would choose me or not !!
If you don't see this you're back with John Calvin and Predestination .....
That has it's own problems and didn't quite catch on ........
"Nothing this complex could be random." How did you come to this conclusion?
@@WhiteScorpio2 Complexity requires precision . Randomness produces unorganized chaos for the most part ...
Look at it from a micro scale .... An organic system needs orderly precise cell division, metabolism, etc.... If these processes were random life couldn't exist ...
Cancer is a great example of the orderly process falling into chaos .... = Death .
Now explode that to space time, gravity, orbits , quantum functionality withing the entire universe .... Though at times it may look chaotic to our current level of understanding,
The math proves it's highly structured.
Knowing is different from directing.
That only works if you ignore having created the universe and everything in it exactly the way it is.
"If God knows..."
Your fundamental mistake is presuming the existence of magic and supernatural beings that have no determinable reality based on observation, measurement, and testing.
Circular reasoning, argument from ignorance, argument from improbability, argument from incredulity, argument from personal experience, Argumentum ad Populum, appeal to emotion, appeal to authority, and special pleading are all logical fallacies.
"I don't have faith and you don't have evidence. Therefore, my position is rational and yours is not." -- AronRa
Thank for that informative - albeit random - list of logical fallacies.
Let’s suppose - for the sake of argument - that there isn’t evidence for God (or that there isn’t sufficient evidence for God to establish the claim as true). What follows from that?
There are plenty of things worth thinking about that have been proven or established to be true (or real) such as the multiverse, or a single common ancestor for all living things on earth.
Never thought about this, thanks for the video!
Both god and free will are placeholder concepts. They get used to fill in what we can't explain, and neither can be demonstrated.
@@NSOcarth creations have a creator, you're begging the question by referring to reality as "creation".
On will, most concepts do arise against will. Will is the action of choice. In order to have options, something must present them, and this is done independent from will. Each option is itself a concept that was not willed into place. We don't will our perceptions, or emotions. More concepts independent of will.
I said this thing a year ago but stand by it, "free will" is a placeholder for not understanding how brain function manages complex patterns. God is a placeholder for anything we don't have an explanation for.
The answer is easy: God does not exist and free will is meaningless the way most people understand it.
“easy”
@Jermain Roberts Basically, the only evidence that a god does not exist is that where we should find evidence for a god, none is to be found. There was a study on prayer and it's effects on people recovering from a heart surgery. The study showed no improvement in those that were prayed for compared to those that were not. Also, those that knew they were being prayed for had more complications during their recovery. This is not strong evidence that a god does not exist but it does oh so slightly tip the scales in that direction.
On the "freewill is meaningless the way most people understand it" claim, I don't think I'd say it is meaningless because it does effect people's behavior. Even though freewill does not exist, the illusion of freewill tends to have a positive impact on behavior. When that illusion is broken, people tend to act more impulsively and get a tad depressed. By freewill, I mean the ability to have chosen otherwise given all variables remained the same. I am of a deterministic view so I think that given all variables remaining the same a person would not have the ability to have chosen otherwise. This view is supported by the evidence that shows the universe overwhelmingly operates deterministically.
@Jermain Roberts Cool, may I ask what you disagree with? I could provide clarification and I'm also open to having my mind changed.
@Jermain Roberts Why do you believe that there is an intelligent designer/creator?
@Jermain Roberts I don't claim that "something comes from nothing." Your answer to that claim basically pushes that "something from nothing" idea onto the god you believe. Either that god is eternal or it came from nothing. The god claim doesn't provide any explanatory power outside of "god did it." It is possible that the universe is eternal too. The honest answer on how/why the universe came into being is "we don't know." Why do you believe your claim that god did it is true? What evidence supports your claim?
When using the term "God", could you please qualify it as "Jewish God", or "Christian God", "God of the Bible", etc? All the spirituality episodes seems to be shot from the Abrahamic-centric view. Since you also shoot science videos, please have the discipline to define the term.
Same God. So what's your point?
@@hadeseye2297 But it's not if you read all the _claims_ about those gods.
@@paulbrocklehurst7253 Bollocks. Jewish God is God of Jesus. God of Islam is God of Abraham. It's one and the same God. Just because people write different books about Him, doesn't change the fact, that all three religions are based on religion of Moses. Judaism has it's prophets. WHich are also prophets of Christianity. And prophets of Islam. Now tell me how many different traditions Christianity has? Orthodox, Luterans, Roman Catholic etc. Judasim and Islam can be treated as traditions, but with a larger scope. Judaism - still waiting for Messiah. Christianity - Messiah has come. Islam - What Messiah? Jesus didn't die on cross. Al-Quran shouldn't even be treated seriously, as surahs contradicts each other. One tells you to have friends that are Christians or Jews, as they are your older brothers in faith. Others tells you that you shouldn't have friends who are Christians or Jews, because they don;t follow Allah's will. Jewish Bible is Torah (Tanah). Which is made of five books, that are part of Christian Old Testament. When Jesus refers to Law, he refers to those five books. Nothing more. And nothinng less. First Al-Quran surahs are based on... Well you guessed it. Jewish Torah. Muhhamad's first (or second or hundreth) wife was Christian. You have story about Kain and Abel. Same thing. While clergy's narration changes, God stays the same.
@@hadeseye2297 "Same God. So what's your point?" -- No, it isn't. That's the point. There is universe outside of the incestuous Abrahamic religions. Sorry if that has escaped you.
@@mountainhobo
"There is universe outside of the incestuous Abrahamic religions. Sorry if that has escaped you."
No, it didn't.
Hinduism for example calls God Super Consciousness. Zoroastrianism has its Ahura Mazda (Wise Lord). Even in polytheism there is highest deity, which created other Gods.
You just lack proper knowledge of religions. That's all.
I agree with the "Middle Knowledge" theory up to the point where God choses which world becomes real. That is the part that erases free will. Instead, I believe God leaves it up to us to determine which world becomes real. He simply tries to guide us down a path that will lead us to a good destination, but he does not make things happen or make decisions for us.
"Instead, I believe God leaves it up to us to determine which world becomes real."
Does this mean that God doesn't know which world we will choose to become real?
@@ejenkins132 Yes. That is how he preserves our free will. Now, having perfect knowledge of us, he will know our most likely choices given any situation and be able to guide us through the subtlest of means, but ultimately we choose our own path.
The of The Architect character in the Matrix, but a lot nicer and more benevolent.
What the second dude said. If god knows what I will do, he can manifest a rock in front of me with a list of everything I will do. A rock full of "True Godly Beliefs" which cannot be contradicted.
You know what's easier then twisting yourself into pretzels trying to solve these conundrums with god. Just accept there is no god. It'll be ok, I promise.
5:10 “God sees the thing that will happen in the future and from that follows that it WILL happen but for that does not follow that it has to happen.”
That makes no sense at all. It like saying I know this is blue but I don’t know what colour it is.
And this guy is a professor? If I ever had any faith in theologians this would make me loose it.
You are forgetting possible worlds. God sees the thing that will happen in the future and from that it WILL happen. But it does not HAVE to happen. Why? Because you can do something else and God WILL have already have seen that and believed you would have done a different course of action , his belief as such always aligning this way or that way with whatever you have ACTUALLY done. Each difference represents a different possible world. You might say that this means you change God's beliefs by doing something diffferent but, no, it is just corrrespondence to reality, which is one way of defining truth. God's beliefs correspond to reality. Truth is what corresponds to reality.
@@c.k.h.l9859 I am unable to follow your line of thought. You start by repeating the silly statement that god knows what will happen but that does not have to happen. After that you switch to past tense and say something about god knowing what I have done. Which seems completely irrelevant. Knowing what did happen is something completely different than knowing what will happen. Then with the possible worlds I lost you completely.
@@mockupguy3577 My point is that God's knowledge of what will happen always corresponds to reality. If you choose X at t=12, God believes you will choose X at t=12. It does not follow you must do X at t=12. You can do Y at t=12 instead. If you choose Y at t=12, God's knowledge corresponds to that (God believes you will choose Y at t=12), not X at t=12. The actual world is the one that matches what you do at t=12 and every other t=?. Possible worlds can be very similar or very different to the actual world. There may be just 1 trivial difference, or billions of major differences.
@@c.k.h.l9859 , thank you, clearer.
Great knowledge hub
Big fan of what’s you do Lawrence.
Tho as we all get older and I’m 50+ it’s more important to guesstimates to what happens next as we all eventually exit.. heaven hell réincarna or oblivion?
Have faith in your own divine spark .. that which gives you sentience and POV.
Personally can’t be fussed as to what happens after the final exit.
We shall find sooner or later so for now make the best of the present moment as it is all we have.
As for the intro music .. mysteriously intriguing yes but not for me 😇
Is there any good reason to make a distinction between "possible" and "actual/real" worlds?
Reason has to do with out space entities (angels) talking animals, talking burning bushes? To my knowledge, every mind needs in itself a biological body. Hence, God´s mind has a biological body, or it just is restricted to the metaphysical realm? What I like of you Mr. Robert L. Kuhn is that you’re not willing to give up your reliance on reason!
What God has joined together let no man separates. Same as God's sovereignty and free will.
You have free will but since everything happens only once, whatever you choose you were always going to choose. If there were a god he would certainly be able to know something that was always going to happen.
@@NSOcarth whatever happens to the ship was always going to happen.
I never could grasp the idea that we humans get to decide what God's attributes are. I think we hold up as God what we think we would choose to be if we were God. Eternal as though he is bound by our understanding of time, all powerful, as though it takes some kind of energy to be God, all knowing as though God has some kind of memory and a thinking brain full of wants desires, disappointments... It is out of a very human need to project ourselves upon God rather than admit that God is beyond human conception.
I strongly believe the answer is quite simpler : god's omniscience means he/she/it knows everything that has been created, not everything that is still to be created.
Assuming we have inifinite space, things can still be created, therefore creating new things to experience and know about.
So why would a might creature like god see any appeal in creating some thing that he/she/it already knows the past/present/future? It the same as not creating anything really, if in an instant you can see all future of all things you're about to create.
The beauty of creating something alive is letting it live. If there's infinite space and anything can and probably will happen eventually, why not give every living creature the Will to act? :)
It's pointless to hypothesize what God is capable of without, first, having a proof of His existence. Another example. Until the early 20th century, some scientists or others imagined Martians as a complex civilization without making sure that life exists on Mars in the first place.
I see that you were in Iceland, Snæfellsjökul is always beautiful ;)
Robert, when you make a phone call, do you have to know in advance that the person who will pick up actually exists? Do you have to know how and why they exist in order to believe that they exist? Do you have to know their personality and methods of action before you call them? When they pick up, will you have had to know any of those things before they could exist? Do you not, instead, believe and have faith that they exist and will pick up if available by their own circumstances?
A good analogy is like watching a film. Imagine you are watching a film that is 2 hours long. You watch the first hour, but choose not to watch the second hour. Does your choosing to not watch the second hour of the film change the outcome of the film? In our case no, in God's case yes. I believe we were created because there's certain things we can do which God can't. For example, God cannot pick a stone off a beach and make it randomly jump into the air without defying natural law, which he created - such an event would be miraculous, but moreover it would be miraculous for no good reason. However, we can pick up the stone and skim it along the surface of the sea. Thereby we have helped God do something which he could not otherwise do in a naturalistic way. In some sense, God must restrain himself from interfering in our free will, because he undoubtedly has the power to overcome our free will if he so chose to do so. Such an event is often called a miracle. A good rule of thumb is that God doesn't do miracles lightly. Which is why people like David Blaine are dealing with unclean spirits and demons, when for example they bring a bird back to life or do something which appears miraculous. I think it's fairly likely that God disfavours such things and true miracles are not done so lightly.
Your voice is amazing.
8.2 for the mental gymnastics; lots of good movement, but the landing was pretty bad. Shame you couldn't actually address the issue.