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Subject: Re: A riddle that was set me...
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Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 00:33:03 GMT
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Bible Bob wrote:
> On Sat, 15 Oct 2005 19:08:44 GMT, Grinder <grinder@no.spam.maam.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>>Uncle Davey wrote:
>>
>>
>>>A participant on www.usenetposts.com/forum asked a
>>>riddle, as follows:
>>
>>>>This is what just came to my mind which I would like
>>>>to discuss with all of you:
>>>>
>>>>Is human will free? If it is not free, then people
>>>>cannot be held responsible for their sins, as they
>>>>don't have the capacity to abstain from sinning. But
>>>>if human will is free, then God is not all-knowing and
>>>>almighty, as people might choose to behave this way or
>>>>that.
>>>>
>>>>Now, what is the solution to this?
>>
>>>And my reply was the following:
>>>
>>>First you would need to define "free".
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>There is freedom to make choices between possible alternatives.
>>
>>[snip]
>>
>>
>>>That's how I would answer your riddle
>>
>>I see you didn't really trouble your answer with the conflict between
>>our free will and God's omniscience.
>>
>>If God already knows what we're going to pick at any give choice, how
>>are we free to choose any of the possible alternatives? Either:
>>
>>a) We can choose any of the alternatives, including those different than
>>what God *knows* we're going to pick -- thus invalidating his omniscience.
>>
>>b) We can only choose the alternative that God has forseen for use, thus
>>making free well an illusion.
>>
>>I've outlined this conundrum a dozen or so times to theists who hold
>>that God is omniscient, yet we have free will. So far, I have only
>>received complimentary dance lessons.
>
>
> Grinder,
>
> I see no genuine logic in the above. There is "no different" than
> what God knows because God knows all without exception possible
> options. Assume you enter a hallway and the door you entered through
> locked behind you. You have two possible choices. You can go right
> or you can go left. God knows the options and knows which way you
> will go. Take it a step further. God said turn right. You turn
> left. God knew you would turn left. You exercised your free will and
> God knew the options available without forcing you to go one way or
> the other.
If God knew that I would turn left, then there's no way for me to have
turned right. For, if I did, he didn't really know what I was going to
do, did He?
> You b) is also not logical. You incorrectly say that we can only
> choose "the alternative" that God has foreseen.
I've split the range of possibility into two conditions, a) and b). I
do not assert that one of the specific scenarios is true, only that both
of them cannot be true.
> What God forsees and
> what we choose are not connected. Suppose that God foresaw you turn
> left. That has no affect on your exercise of free will.
Sure it does. If God forsees that I will turn left, and I turn right,
then He's not omniscient is He?
Which is it: Do we have free will or is God omniscient?
> God does not make all of the alternatives. We make our own
> alternatives or others give us alternatives or circumstances provide
> alternatives and we make choices. God has nothing to do with the
> choice. He just happens to know which choice we will make and does
> not prevent us from making right or wrong decisions.
You can can assert it all you want, but there is a flat contradiction.
If God knows what choice we are going to make, before we make it,
there's no way for use to choose otherwise without making Him wrong.
> God does not
> control people. He just works in peoples lives over a long period of
> time if necessary to motivate them to do what He desires. Moses and
> his forty year period of adjustment is a good example.
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