If God knows the future then no one has free will

a reply to: Tangerine

Christians believe that God, the Creator, is all-knowing and all-powerful. How, then, could an all-knowing God not know what his creations would do? How could an all-knowing, all-powerful God not create his creations to do exactly that which he wished and nothing else?

Are you here entirely to argue about semantics? Seriously, is the phrase 'all-knowing' your smoking gun for highlighting logical inconsistency within the Bible? That's comical.

I get your point. For something to be 'all-knowing' by definition, it would know all our thoughts ahead of time hence violating the concept of free-will, right?

However, consider for a second that God knew each of our thoughts as they arised - does this still make him all-knowing of our universe? Yes, because the universe is a running clock, rather than a movie being played from start to end.

Your assumption is that for God to be all knowing this universe has to be a movie from A to B. This is the mental block preventing any progression within this discussion.

Or are you simply here to refute Christianity? Is that the entire purpose of this thread and discussion? Are we still children in the school playground? Can we not extrapolate a discussion beyond the immediate trappings of literal semantics from one specific book?

Or are you here to refute free-will? Of course - complete free-will is an illusion but to not accept ultimate control of your body and actions is a weak position to take in my opinion. Only those with damaged 'hardware/software' can make such an excuse.

I am not religious let alone a Christian but I am growing really tired of this. Any singular holy book isn't hard to rip apart on an intellectual basis.

You do understand that Christianity is only a fraction of the story of YAHWEH. To best understand the texts, or in your case, to better 'debunk' the texts, you need to look at the collective stories of the Torah, Bible and Quran. They are talking about the same 'God' and chain of events.

It is very clearly stated that angels were the creation without free-will. You keep asking why wouldn't this all powerful, all knowing God create entities that cannot go against his wish - well he did. Angels (Archangels in the Bible) can only listen to God's command as explained in the Quran.

The second creation - Jinn or Angels/Demons - are not physical like us but do have the capacity for free-will. We are the subsequent physical creation, with free-will as the intention. As you can see, the texts speak of God as experimenting with the amount of free-will given to his creations.

The Torah contains stories of God actually having a discussion with Samael (Samjaza - the Devil) about the fact that humans have been misusing their ability of free-will due to the egotistical nature of the human body. God acknowledges that we have choice and the ability to make mistakes yet he does not show a will to control

I mean, from the aspect of Christianity, the whole point is essentially heaven and hell therefore of course God had to give free-will.

The God of those books wants to JUDGE humans rather than control. There's a big difference. He's controlling by his nature, but we as humans (as told in the stories) were created to be judged under his laws, not to blindly fulfil his laws - angels were created for that.

Once again - I'm definitely not saying these stories are true, but simply elevating your amount of knowledge on the matter. Remember, these are remnants of stories much older.

We know the Bible isn't the alpha and omega regarding 'God'. We know that similar stories were being told up to 2500 years earlier. The Bible is NOT God's word and if that's what you wanted to hear, I hope you're happy. But strictly focusing on trivial semantics to refute the overall concept of the God is pointless.

The phrase all-knowing is simply a human representation of a higher concept of awareness.

Peace.

originally posted by: DazDaKing
a reply to: Tangerine

Christians believe that God, the Creator, is all-knowing and all-powerful. How, then, could an all-knowing God not know what his creations would do? How could an all-knowing, all-powerful God not create his creations to do exactly that which he wished and nothing else?

Are you here entirely to argue about semantics? Seriously, is the phrase 'all-knowing' your smoking gun for highlighting logical inconsistency within the Bible? That's comical.

I get your point. For something to be 'all-knowing' by definition, it would know all our thoughts ahead of time hence violating the concept of free-will, right? ....

Actually, no, you don't get my point. All-knowing is one thing. All-knowing and all-powerful is quite another. I'm familiar with the storybook claims. I believe the OP is asking whether the stories defy logic in "reality" -- that is outside the story. As for you comment that "(t)he phrase all-knowing is simply a human representation of a higher concept of of awareness", it's ALL a human construct. Humans wrote the stories.

How does knowing the outcome affect free will?

Does the act of knowing the outcome affect ones ability to exercise free will? No

If I know you will walk left, and you will choose to walk left, and I had nothing to do with making you walk in that direction....you still have free will. The outcome was known but free will was not negated.

originally posted by: Yeahkeepwatchingme
How does knowing the outcome affect free will?

Does the act of knowing the outcome affect ones ability to exercise free will? No

If I know you will walk left, and you will choose to walk left, and I had nothing to do with making you walk in that direction....you still have free will. The outcome was known but free will was not negated.

Being all-powerful affects the outcome.

a reply to: Tangerine

We have no restriction on the choices we can make. We are restricted in the fact that there's gravity, a need to eat, the assurance of death etc. I could go on forever listing things that are humanly impossible for us. Obviously there are some things that are inevitable, though we are unrestricted as far as our day to day choices.

You're angering me.

originally posted by: Emerald53
a reply to: Tangerine

We have no restriction on the choices we can make. We are restricted in the fact that there's gravity, a need to eat, the assurance of death etc. I could go on forever listing things that are humanly impossible for us. Obviously there are some things that are inevitable, though we are unrestricted as far as our day to day choices.

You're angering me.

Are you unaware that I'm talking about the Christian belief in free will? It was this ludicrous belief that I addressed.

As for reality, there are, indeed, many restrictions on that which we can do in daily life. I'm amazed that you haven't noticed.