Can We Have a Bible Thread? (Catch-All?)

As has been stated, this is a subject that theologians have argued back and forth for ages. There is a relatively strong chance that my intellect does not exceed theirs. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that there are many people in this thread who's intellect surpasses my own, but I just don't see the conflict between the God who sat outside of time and space before He invented and created it, being able to exist outside of it (and inside of it simultaneously) right now. I am not a fatalist. I believe that we do have the ability to choose, but I don't see that God knowing and being at the point of our choice already counteracts any degree of free will. We have made great leaps in our knowledge of time and space in the last 100 years, but I'm certain that the amount we know is dwarfed by the staggering vastness of what we do not know. I feel very confident in saying that I can't explain everything about the subject, but I believe I know the One who can, and if He desires, he can fill me over coffee in at whatever the celestial equivalent of Starbucks is during the next 40 bajillion years of eternity. It's not like we will run out of time.

CheezePavilion wrote:
Hypatian wrote:

In that case, knowledge means exactly what we generally understand it to mean, and... the logical conclusion is that if God knows everything (can never be surprised, nothing occurs which God does not expect) then there is no free will.

I don't think that's the logical conclusion--that's what I was trying to say. My point is that the logic you're talking about is based on thinking of God and his knowledge as we would think of a being living inside time like us, having knowledge like us.

In fact, those inaccurate words that I myself used--'surprised'; 'expect'--because this stuff is hard to talk about. I was going for something more like...'lack of knowledge never presents an obstacle'. And getting back to free will, the reason I brought it up is because that logic you're talking about is operating with this view of God's knowledge being something that makes it impossible for you to have the chance to make a different decision. That though depends on God having that knowledge prior to your decision. The issue is applying a concept like 'prior' to a being that isn't in time the same way we are.

Let me put this a different way:

All of those words? Those are words that human beings use to describe God. They're not words that God uses to describe God. If we're going to use words, we need to either use them in the commonly accepted way, or we need to be clear about how they are defined. (I would also argue that if a word has a commonly accepted meaning with have a certain responsibility to not re-define it to have a slightly different specialized meaning in order to avoid being unclear by confusing people (or ourselves) by sometimes using the common meaning and sometimes the specialized one in the same argument, but that's a different issue.)

By our definition of "omniscient", omniscience implies lack of free will. If the actual concept is something different, we need to explain what that different meaning is. In this case, when attempting to describe the qualities of a supreme being, it is insufficient to say "omniscient, but different". (Particularly if, as in this case, it's commonly combined with rhetoric talking about how God has all of the most perfect properties we could possibly imagine. Clearly, the omniscience that we can imagine is not the same as whatever it is that God actually has if omniscience causes these problems, so it doesn't make sense to confer that attribute upon God.)

Also note: prior is not being applied to God. Prior is being applied to time. If God has the power to effect anything in time (omnipotence, remember?), then God has ultimate control over every event that occurs in the totality of time. If God has the power to effect only the preconditions of the universe (which wouldn't be [em]quite[/em] the same omnipotence, but fits the "clockmaker" conception of God and is just as powerful in the end) including setting the laws of nature, but knows everything that follows on from those preconditions, then God has ultimate control over every event that occurs in the totality of time. If God has no ability to effect what happens in time, then God cannot be said to have any power at all in the universe, which is contrary to the conception of a God that has any meaningful existence at all.

And, as I've noted, if God has the power to control events but chooses not to use it, that in itself is a choice of events. So if God has the power to control the universe (either directly in time or indirectly by choosing which time will come to pass), and God has perfect knowledge of everything that will ever occur in the universe, then God has explicitly chosen every event which has ever occurred and ever will occur.

None of those things require God to be present in time, to be subject to causality, or anything like that. They require that God has the power to cause things to occur, which is an assumption that it's rather difficult to dismiss in the Judeo-Christian tradition. A God that doesn't do anything may be meaningful (if unobservable), but most certainly isn't the God described by any form of Judaism, Christianity, or Islam.

My simple beliefs are: All paths lead to God. God is love. We are beings of love. Much of our suffering in life derives from misdirected love (often when pointed at ourselves instead of outward).

There are many things that I consider not to be God or descriptors of God; However, I refrain from trying to describe God to others in much greater detail because I will not pretend to know when, truthfully, I don't. Your personal relationship with God is your own, whatever that happens to be. I feel that I should respect that, so I do.

Yup. I'm going to bow out of the conversation now, I think, but I would like to point out:

I am not proposing what I said as arguments against God, or anything like that. I think the key thing I'm attempting to illustrate is that trying to apply logic to this sort of concept of God is deeply problematic. If you start applying logic to God in this way, you've entered a domain in which you're going to have problems. You can declare that God is not subject to logic in the way we think of it (and I think there are some problems with that, but I'll roll with it), but if you do then you don't get to use logic in other places, either. Entirely too many philosophers got into a kind of state where they tried to use logic to show that God was all powerful and great and must obviously exist, and then when problematic logical conclusions came up (like the problems of evil or of free will), they would wave their hands and say "Oh, but our logic does not apply to God." But applying logic only where it gives the answers you want is not at all appropriate. Either it applies (and there are these problems) or it doesn't (and you don't get to try to "prove" the existence of God using it.)

I'll also say that despite the logical difficulties, I personally find the philosophical deist concept of God to be significantly more appealing than the personal beardy guy in the sky concept of God. The more you treat God as a universal and the less you treat God like a magical sky person, the more you are bound to look at things and say things like "God is love", and live by principles of goodness and the like. The less likely you are to care about specific flavors of belief, and the more likely you are to care about the good people actually do. Because if God needs no face, then there's no reason to look askance at the person who looks at a different angle of the truth and beauty of the universe. The less you care that they even think of God at all.

Oops, we crossed in posting, Hypatian. I'll say that however problematic or not it is to apply logic to God, what I'm trying to show is that this age-old question of whether free will is compatible with a god of the onmi-predicates is flawed from the get-go like a Bill and Ted movie, just way less awesome.

I'll say that however problematic or not it is to apply logic to God, what I'm trying to show is that this age-old question of whether free will is compatible with a god of the onmi-predicates is flawed from the get-go like a Bill and Ted movie, just way less awesome.

Assertion doesn't make it so. If you can back that up with a solid description of the flaw(s), you'll be ahead of the great thinkers, and probably set for life on the lecture fees alone. (But since you've said you don't think logic is applicable, well... good luck with whatever system you propose as an alternate.)

This may however be a topic for another thread, since it's not exactly related to the Bible.

Robear wrote:
I'll say that however problematic or not it is to apply logic to God, what I'm trying to show is that this age-old question of whether free will is compatible with a god of the onmi-predicates is flawed from the get-go like a Bill and Ted movie, just way less awesome.

Assertion doesn't make it so. If you can back that up with a solid description of the flaw(s), you'll be ahead of the great thinkers, and probably set for life on the lecture fees alone. (But since you've said you don't think logic is applicable, well... good luck with whatever system you propose as an alternate.)

This may however be a topic for another thread, since it's not exactly related to the Bible.

It's an interesting exercise in logic, and I've enjoyed reading as everyone works their way through it. (And will continue to I'm sure.)

I'd like to think that we're all granted an inherent dignity during this time while we consider ourselves separate from the whole that is the universe. Maybe that separateness lasts. Maybe it repeats in a series of lives. Maybe we're being informed of this, or maybe we're just informing ourselves to bring meaning to it all. It's a bit of a conceit to think we know for certain, or that we're somehow set apart from the universe in the first place. However, it's still mindblowingly amazing for me to think that we can consider these things. Of course we can't keep ourselves from wondering why.

Robear wrote:
I'll say that however problematic or not it is to apply logic to God, what I'm trying to show is that this age-old question of whether free will is compatible with a god of the onmi-predicates is flawed from the get-go like a Bill and Ted movie, just way less awesome.

Assertion doesn't make it so. If you can back that up with a solid description of the flaw(s),

Well, my description is in my previous posts--the flaw is in thinking of God's knowledge as being knowledge ahead of time, when there's the question of whether God and his knowledge is not in time to begin with. Hypatian bowed out and we crossed in posting, so I replaced my response with just a summary.

you'll be ahead of the great thinkers, and probably set for life on the lecture fees alone. (But since you've said you don't think logic is applicable, well... good luck with whatever system you propose as an alternate.)

That's not what I said. I didn't say logic wasn't applicable, I said their logic--where you've got this unstated premise that God and his knowledge is in time the same way we think of humans and their knowledge--isn't applicable.

As for those great thinkers, how many of them saw Bill and Ted or Terminator or read Dune? Our current model of creation where time is a dimension along with space isn't that old--in other words, as great as those minds may have been, people today are familiar with concepts of time that were not so familiar or even available to them.

This may however be a topic for another thread, since it's not exactly related to the Bible.

Yeah, you're probably right.

Well, my description is in my previous posts--the flaw is in thinking of God's knowledge as being knowledge ahead of time, when there's the question of whether God and his knowledge is not in time to begin with.

Even that, though. If he's "outside" of time - and I'm not at all sure what that means besides "in a state that allows me to make an assertion", that is, it's not clear what the rules are - then presumably all of time is there for him to browse and examine, at whatever granularity is appropriate. We know from the Bible that God is aware of even the smallest things; that he's omniscient and all-powerful - so no matter the mechanism, he's got the ability to know anything, at any time.

If he does not use that, then he's not all-knowing. That's fine, but that's not a standard Christian perspective (although it *is* a Christian one, just heretical these days). If he does use it, then he is. In neither case does it matter *where* he is in relation to time. In time, or out, it makes no difference; either he can get at anything, or he can't.

That's why I'm skeptical of your argument, here - you're just pushing it out one level of reference, but you have not changed the base argument by doing so.

Robear wrote:
Well, my description is in my previous posts--the flaw is in thinking of God's knowledge as being knowledge ahead of time, when there's the question of whether God and his knowledge is not in time to begin with.

Even that, though. If he's "outside" of time - and I'm not at all sure what that means besides "in a state that allows me to make an assertion", that is, it's not clear what the rules are - then presumably all of time is there for him to browse and examine, at whatever granularity is appropriate. We know from the Bible that God is aware of even the smallest things; that he's omniscient and all-powerful - so no matter the mechanism, he's got the ability to know anything, at any time.

If he does not use that, then he's not all-knowing. That's fine, but that's not a standard Christian perspective (although it *is* a Christian one, just heretical these days). If he does use it, then he is. In neither case does it matter *where* he is in relation to time. In time, or out, it makes no difference; either he can get at anything, or he can't.

That's why I'm skeptical of your argument, here - you're just pushing it out one level of reference, but you have not changed the base argument by doing so.

Here's an example of how it changes the base argument: if an all-knowing being needed to browse or examine something, he wouldn't be an all knowing being in the first place. There's a difference between an all-knowing being, and a being with an all-encompassing media library.

And the Bible says God is all-knowing, pretty clearly (He even knows what you're going to say, before you say it). God is not described as a librarian, but as *having* knowledge of everything.

So God is Dark Helmet, and can see the whole movie at any time?

Robear wrote:

And the Bible says God is all-knowing, pretty clearly (He even knows what you're going to say, before you say it). God is not described as a librarian, but as *having* knowledge of everything.

Well yeah, that's my point: therefore it doesn't make sense to say time is there for God to browse and examine.

It's classic Begging the Question. The conflict between "Free Will" and "Omniscience" comes from the assumptions that underlie the most commonly used meanings of those terms. "Free Will" in this case assumes a timeline that is nondeterministic. "Omniscience" assumes the converse. That's why they're incompatible. It is possible to come up with a concept of "Free Will" that is consistent with a deterministic framework, but it would not be the same as the commonly used definition of "Free Will." It is also possible to come up with a definition of "Omniscience" that is compatible with a nondeterministic reality, but people wouldn't think of it as "Omniscient."

Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

So God is Dark Helmet, and can see the whole movie at any time?

How can you do that without the clip?!

There.

Well yeah, that's my point: therefore it doesn't make sense to say time is there for God to browse and examine.

What you're resisting here is the idea that since God is described as already having that knowledge, there's no place for the librarian you're trying to set up. If he needs to go look things up, or can choose to ignore things, then he's not the God of the Bible. I know you like setting up hypotheticals, but here we have pretty clear lines to play within, given by the Bible. Nowhere does it say that God is purposefully ignorant of things.

It's not that all the people who came before used a bad argument, Cheeze, it's that yours does not fall within the given parameters for the Christian God. It's a *Bible* based argument, not a hypothetical on all possible configurations of an all-knowing god.

Robear wrote:
Well yeah, that's my point: therefore it doesn't make sense to say time is there for God to browse and examine.

What you're resisting here is the idea that since God is described as already having that knowledge, there's no place for the librarian you're trying to set up. If he needs to go look things up, or can choose to ignore things, then he's not the God of the Bible.

No, I'm not resisting that. I'm just confused by what you're saying here, because my words you quoted and what you say in response are in agreement. So I don't know where to go from there.

Robear wrote:

Quote:

Well yeah, that's my point: therefore it doesn't make sense to say time is there for God to browse and examine.

What you're resisting here is the idea that since God is described as already having that knowledge, there's no place for the librarian you're trying to set up. If he needs to go look things up, or can choose to ignore things, then he's not the God of the Bible.

No, I'm not resisting that. I'm just confused by what you're saying here, because my words you quoted and what you say in response are in agreement. So I don't know where to go from there.

So you're reversing your initial position, that God can be all-knowing and still allow free will? Because the browsing librarian idea, which I used as shorthand for your proposal, does not fit the Biblical descriptions, so your initial argument would be invalid if that was required. If not, we're back to either he's all-knowing and there is no free will, or he's not, and there is. Which is the logic you did not like.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm trying to get you to hold to an argument and back it up. You made a big, big assertion above, that you knew some way around what has stymied people for over a thousand years, maybe more. I'm trying to get you to back that up, and it's like pulling teeth. You're not strengthening your point by making it more confusing. Lay it out plainly so we can consider it. Don't disagree with me, and then tell me we're in agreement when I try to clarify things. Unless you want to change your position, in which case, say so.

Robear wrote:
Robear wrote:

Quote:

Well yeah, that's my point: therefore it doesn't make sense to say time is there for God to browse and examine.

What you're resisting here is the idea that since God is described as already having that knowledge, there's no place for the librarian you're trying to set up. If he needs to go look things up, or can choose to ignore things, then he's not the God of the Bible.

No, I'm not resisting that. I'm just confused by what you're saying here, because my words you quoted and what you say in response are in agreement. So I don't know where to go from there.

So you're reversing your initial position, that God can be all-knowing and still allow free will? Because the browsing librarian idea, which I used as shorthand for your proposal,

That is not my proposal. That's my shorthand for the god you said "browses and explores."

does not fit the Biblical descriptions, so your initial argument would be invalid if that was required.

Right, that's my point, and why I said I don't know where to go from here. This criticism of my argument was based on a god that does not fit the Biblical description (which is a whole other can of worms, but let's leave it at that for now), so your criticism is invalid.

tl;dr: it looks to me like that criticism of yours requires a god you do not think fits the Biblical description, and therefore is invalid.

If not, we're back to either he's all-knowing and there is no free will, or he's not, and there is. Which is the logic you did not like.

I'm not trying to be a jerk here, I'm trying to get you to hold to an argument and back it up. You made a big, big assertion above, that you knew some way around what has stymied people for over a thousand years, maybe more. I'm trying to get you to back that up, and it's like pulling teeth. You're not strengthening your point by making it more confusing. Lay it out plainly so we can consider it. Don't disagree with me, and then tell me we're in agreement when I try to clarify things. Unless you want to change your position, in which case, say so.

No, I know you're not trying to be a jerk, it's all cool. I just think there's a much simpler explanation: you didn't realize that you were the one who brought up the "browses and explores" Librarian God, not me, and you got confused.

Okay, good. But I still don't get your objection. Sorry. Maybe another thread is due.

LouZiffer wrote:
Bonus_Eruptus wrote:

So God is Dark Helmet, and can see the whole movie at any time?

How can you do that without the clip?!

There.

I was walking through LAX at the time.

Robear:

As a scholar, would you say that the Bible clearly indicates that it views time as deterministic, or otherwise? There's a lot of determinism being assumed around here about the nature of God's omniscience. Is that justifiable?

I'm not a Biblical scholar, Larry. But that seems to be the traditional approach.

Edit - After some reading, it seems that Catholics have a belief that while God is omniscient and all-powerful, knowing what everyone will do before they do it by standing outside of time like a man atop a mountain, that He "premoves" people, by putting choices in front of them which they are predisposed to choose. (That's the Dominican interpretation, based on the thinking of their founder; Jesuits refine that to God choosing whether or not to set up the preconditions for the optimal choice.)

But in this, God still holds the ultimate choice in any man's actions. The Catholic formulation simply emphasizes that people *do* make a choice, but also that God sets the context of every significant choice, such that people do as He expects and wills, while still feeling that they are acting freely.

Robear wrote:

I'm not a Biblical scholar, Larry. But that seems to be the traditional approach.

Edit - After some reading, it seems that Catholics have a belief that while God is omniscient and all-powerful, knowing what everyone will do before they do it by standing outside of time like a man atop a mountain, that He "premoves" people, by putting choices in front of them which they are predisposed to choose. (That's the Dominican interpretation, based on the thinking of their founder; Jesuits refine that to God choosing whether or not to set up the preconditions for the optimal choice.)

But in this, God still holds the ultimate choice in any man's actions. The Catholic formulation simply emphasizes that people *do* make a choice, but also that God sets the context of every significant choice, such that people do as He expects and wills, while still feeling that they are acting freely.

That's really getting at the horns of the philosophical dilemma that is the bigger debate about free will in general. Besides stuff like a burning bush that talks to you or God hardening Pharaoh's heart, a godless universe is equally capable of creating an identical context that predisposes you. The fatal issue for free will there isn't anything to do with God, it's that people are predisposed to choose one thing over another in the first place.

tl;dr: the problem for free will in that formulation is not God's nature, but human nature.

The difference being that the universe does not *know*, with absolute certainty, which you will pick. God does. As the Bible asserts, he even knows what you will say before you say it.

It's largely a cosmetic difference. A deterministic framework is deterministic whether or not you add God to it.

Robear wrote:

The difference being that the universe does not *know*, with absolute certainty, which you will pick. God does. As the Bible asserts, he even knows what you will say before you say it.

...to say nothing of all the times where you read the Bible and say, "why would God act so surprised that happened?" A lot of it seems like mankind is continually being set up for failure.

edosan wrote:
Robear wrote:

The difference being that the universe does not *know*, with absolute certainty, which you will pick. God does. As the Bible asserts, he even knows what you will say before you say it.

...to say nothing of all the times where you read the Bible and say, "why would God act so surprised that happened?" A lot of it seems like mankind is continually being set up for failure.

Certainly sets up Hell as a ridiculously level of punishment for doing what God has led you to do throughout your life.

Robear wrote:

But in this, God still holds the ultimate choice in any man's actions. The Catholic formulation simply emphasizes that people *do* make a choice, but also that God sets the context of every significant choice, such that people do as He expects and wills, while still feeling that they are acting freely.

That's called Compatibilism, and it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

The best I've come up with so far is that God is free to act through individuals who pray for His intervention. This would explain why group prayer is said to be so effective--it provides an entire community of people for God to work through to achieve some goal. The problem of omniscience defeats even this however. As soon as God can perceive the Nth cascading side effect of some act, he can deliberately manipulate non-participating individuals by whether and how He chooses to answer prayers, even if he's simply guiding people to make one decision vs. another and that's guidance they've asked for.

An omniscient God would not need to intervene directly to effect the change he wants, if we go by "no free will." He just sets everything up exactly the way he wants it at Creation.

That said, I don't think the core concept of free will cannot be expressed in a deterministic framework. It will simply be different from that of a nondeterministic one.

There's another assumption at work here regarding God's omnipotence and human nature. Once again, it's often used in Begging the Question arguments. The assumption is that humans have no free will and are products of origin and environment only. This is a behavioralist perspective. Alternatively, that God's omnipotence does not stop at human will.