The Evitable and Inevitable

[overmind]

There are at least two common philosophical arguments about the properties of God. This thread is about the idea that as long as God possesses omniscience, we do not have free will. The idea is that one would feel they have no way to make real decisions if God tells them what they are going to decide. This is currently my solution to the problem:

Knowledge of one’s actions does not remove freedom, it removes surprise. If one knows why they will do something, there is no surprise regarding the outcome. People usually know why they make decisions, and God always knows how time will unfold, which naturally includes what choices we make. If our choices came with genuine surprise, we would be at the mercy of random chaos, and would thus not be free.

Free will is the ability to think and choose, not the ability to do the unexpected. Even if God told you what you would do next, you would not make that choice because God said you would do it. You would choose based on your own goals, desires, thoughts, understanding, etc. In time-space, a person could not truly know if what God tells them of their future is really true, as it is not yet an experiential fact for them. So it cannot be the ultimate deciding factor for one’s actions, and hearing this future does not imply fate, as fate occurs no matter the desires of the person.

However, God’s knowledge of His own future can be called fate, as He exists at all points of eternity and has knowledge of such all at once. He exists in time and outside of it. If God were to intervene at different times in time-space, from His perspective, He would be manipulating the future and past in the same moment. From the point of infinity, God is doing everything at once. True fate is the future being experienced in the present, not the knowledge of the future being known in the present, but this definition is time-dependent. Fate can only exist for God, and that is only when dividing Deity into separate categories of experiential and absolute forms of existence.

[overmind]

The other question regarded the existence of evil and God's omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. I know I solved this problem years ago, I just don't know where I stuck it.

[overmind]

(194.7) 16:8.7 The relative free will which characterizes the self-consciousness of human personality is involved in:

(194.8 ) 16:8.8 1. Moral decision, highest wisdom.
(194.9) 16:8.9 2. Spiritual choice, truth discernment.
(194.10) 16:8.10 3. Unselfish love, brotherhood service.
(194.11) 16:8.11 4. Purposeful co-operation, group loyalty.
(194.12) 16:8.12 5. Cosmic insight, the grasp of universe meanings.
(194.13) 16:8.13 6. Personality dedication, wholehearted devotion to doing the Father’s will.
(195.1) 16:8.14 7. Worship, the sincere pursuit of divine values and the wholehearted love of the divine Value-Giver.

[Sandy]

Thank you Arthur. You made some very valid and sensible points in my opinion.
This says it all in a nutshell, I think.

Free will is the ability to think and choose, not the ability to do the unexpected. Even if God told you what you would do next, you would not make that choice because God said you would do it. You would choose based on your own goals, desires, thoughts, understanding, etc. In time-space, a person could not truly know if what God tells them of their future is really true, as it is not yet an experiential fact for them. So it cannot be the ultimate deciding factor for one’s actions, and hearing this future does not imply fate, as fate occurs no matter the desires of the person.

XX Sandy

[overmind]

It was mentioned somewhere in the Urantia Book that omnipotence is not the power to do anything (as the power to do the impossible does not exist, like square circles). I was thinking it was more like the power to actualize all potentials. Perhaps the qualities of God are more like the following:

Omniscient: can know all potentials
Omnipotent: can actualize all potentials
Omnipresent: can experience all potentials (seeing things from all angles, being everywhere)

In the eternal future, all potentials can be synonymous with absolute potential, which could lead to absolute knowledge, absolute power and absolute experience.

This idea I had probably works best with God the Absolute. I know that the members of the Trinity deal with different forms of potentials (personality, spirit, mind, etc.), but I wanted a chance to redefine the attributes we associate with the Creator. I think this could be pretty nifty, because if you look at these three traits as the aspects of the theoretical I AM before the Trinity and also God the Absolute, then the transition from one to the other looks cyclical as the potentials of one become the actuals of another.