Divine Timelessness/Eternity and Libertarian Free WIll

Walter Pound

Suppose that God is changeless and that he knows the actual state of affairs changelessly. See note.
Since God knows the actual state of affairs changelessly, God knows, changelessly and eternally, that I will have difficulty understanding how libertarian free will is compossible with God knowing every thought and action I will carry out changelessly and eternally.

How is it possible for God to know, changelessly and eternally, that on Feb 2019 I go on philosophy forums and for me to have libertarian free will? Usually, I hear that simply because God knows that on so-&-so date that I do X does not mean that I necessarily do X, but, if God knows X changelessly and eternally, then how could X ever fail to happen? I agree that X is not "necessary," but simply because it is possible for X to be contingent, does not mean that I had the power to do otherwise.

Does anyone have any ideas?

For sake of argument, assume that libertarian free will is true and that compatibilism is false.

Note: In the relational theory of time, if X is changeless, then X does not experience time since time just is change. So X is timeless.

TheMadFool

↪Walter Pound

God knows everything including what everyone will want and do at any particular time BUT this knowledge has no causal import on us. For example I can know what will happen to a billiard ball if I cue it with a certain force and at a specific angle but my knowing it doesn't cause the billiard ball's motion.

Walter Pound

↪TheMadFool

I don't think your analogy really works. Unlike physics (which can be explained with mathematical precision) libertarian free will thoughts cant be.

I agree that it is fallacious to say that If God knows X, then X is necessary or that God's knowledge causes X.
However, since God only knows the actual state of affairs, and that that includes every thought and action I do, then how could I ever make those thoughts and actions fail to happen?
How could I ever do otherwise?

Simply saying that those thoughts and action are contingent is not enough for those thoughts and actions to be said to have been brought about by libertarian free will.

TheMadFool

I don't think your analogy really works. Unlike physics (which can be explained with mathematical precision) libertarian free will thoughts cant be.

I agree that it is fallacy to say that If God knows X, then necessarily X.
However, since God only knows the actual state of affairs, and that that includes every thought and action I do, then how could I ever make those thoughts and actions otherwise or fail to happen? — Walter Pound

You're assuming God uses causality to know our choices. You seem to think that God knows us thoroughly and from that has preknowledge of our decisions. This reasoning is something like knowing the initial state of a physical system and then deducing its future state.

It is a possible explanation of God's omniscience and would preclude free will for us.

However, what if God's knowledge isn't deduction based but a type of clairvoyance for lack of a better word. He knows what we'll do BUT not by deduction but something else - a sixth sense so to speak.

Imagine we have free will and we are in a movie doing things with complete freedom. God knows what we'll do not because he deduces our future states from knowledge of our initial states but because he has full access to the entire movie. I couldn't find a better analogy. Sorry.

Walter Pound

↪TheMadFool

because he has full access to the entire movie. — TheMadFool

I don't see how this helps libertarian free will.
God knows, changelessly and eternally, the actual state of affairs.
God knows, changelessly and eternally, that I eat pizza on my 20th birthday.
How could I ever do otherwise?

What you are saying is that what I eat on my 2nd birthday, what I eat on my 22nd birthday, what I I on my 82nd birthday and what I eat on my 122nd birthday are all equally real and are in the state of occurring. If that is all true, then it seems like I never had time to make a thought, choice, or action since all three exist already and God knows of them.

TheMadFool

↪Walter Pound

Well what about time travel, one of your other favorite topics? If someone travels to the future she'd know what everyone would do but that doesn't imply that there's no free will. God's omniscience could be thought of as something similar.

Terrapin Station

↪Walter Pound

I thought that the usual approach was that God knows everything there is to know, but that doesn't include freely willed choices that you'll make, since those don't obtain prior to you making them, and they're not a causal consequence of previous states of the world.

yazata

Does the theological idea of an eternal God really mean a God that exists in time but merely has infinite duration? Or does it mean a God that's outside time entirely, such that the creation of the universe involved the creation of time as well as space?

We can hypothesize the existence of an omniscient God that knows everything that happens in time and space, but that doesn't necessarily mean that he knows before (or after) it happens. So we shouldn't say that God knows what we are going to do before we do it, suggesting that we can't do anything else.

We needn't conclude that God's knowing somehow constrains what happens. The details of what happens might indeed be the result of the free choices of the ants in God's little ant-farm. God just knows (timelessly) the outcomes of those choices.

Rank Amateur

↪Walter Pound

While we have no real alternative that to try to understand something like God by applying some anthropomorphic concept. It is important to understand we have no reasonable basis to say anything at all about the nature of such a thing as God, if there is one. The cognitive distance between human beings and such a thing that could cause the universe as we perceive it to exist is immense. It could be like an ant trying to explain how a plane flies.

While a desire to understand such a being seems innate, we do not posses the tools of reason that would allow such an understanding. And all attempts at reason, in understanding such a concept as the nature of God, fail before they start, because we have no reasonable basis to believe we can say anything at all about what God is, is not, can or can't do.

Ajemo

The proof that God knows everything and we don't have free will is that we can't think an original thought. Every thought we have is some mash-up of what we have seen and experienced. And what we have seen and experienced was put in front of us by God.

Now as far as God knowing what we are going to do ahead of time and possibly deviating from it... I would put on the table the illusion of free will is a reflection of our own feelings about our perceived humility (feelings of powerlessness), and that God is also humble.

Agent Smith

Can we simulate timelessness?

What would it look like?

Imagine you're a game developer!

180 Proof

Can we simulate timelessness? — Agent Smith

Cinema.

Agent Smith

Cinema — 180 Proof

What does it look like? People/objects freeze in their tracks?

180 Proof

↪Agent Smith

What does what look like?

Agent Smith

What does what look like? — 180 Proof

:chin:

180 Proof

↪Agent Smith

Push the pause button. Rewind or fast forward "the reel". Watch it again and again and again ...

Agent Smith

Push the pause button. Rewind or fast forward. Watch it again and again and again ... — 180 Proof

Timelessness as in ek (outside) of time.

180 Proof

↪Agent Smith

Ergo, "cinema".

Divine Timelessness/Eternity and Libertarian Free WIll

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