Interesting problem...

[Samuel Dravis]

I've recently come across an argument that claims to logically deny any christian God, ie, any one that is benevolent and all-knowing. Tell me what you think; I can't see any particular weak points with it.

1. You have a God. This God is omniscient.
2. God created everything, including people.
3. Because God is omniscient, he knew what your (and all of His creation's) actions would be before He made them.

Does this make God responsible for the crimes committed? It would seem so. It also does not really allow free will, which is a major point (actually THE point) in accountability for sins in said religions...

[Stryker]

Knowing something will happen does not force it to happen.

I know when Immortal Lobster is going to fly around a corner in Skybox, and I know he is going to run into my fusion. Does this make it my fault that he runs into my fusion?

To elaborate a little more, yes it was my choice to fire the fusion. But was it Lobster's decision or mine to fly around that corner? I'm just pursuing my normal course of action--firing fusion near a corner--and Lobster is completely in control of his own actions. Why would it be my fault if he flies into the path of the fusion and dies a purply, fiery death?

To put this into clearer terms, yes, God knows what will happen. However, does this make him responsible for an independent being's choice to destroy him or herself?

[Top Gun]

So the oldest argument in JudeoChristianity can be completely solved in just three lines? That's news to me.

I think it's pretty easy to invalidate that argument, at least on the most simplistic scale; obviously, any response that anyone could give to it will just open up a big can of worms. The way I see it, the essence of free will is that of self-determinatin, the ability to choose your own course through life based on the circumstances that you face. If God is an omniscient being, then He has foreknowledge of the choices that you will wind up making, and the results of all of those choices. However, that knowledge in no way prevents you from being the sole decisive force behind the choices, even if there is someone who knows what you will choose. You mentioned God being held liable for the evil choices that people will inevitably make; in response, I have to ask you this: if God really did step in to prevent people from making evil choices, wouldn't that in essence destroy free will, and not the situation that you proposed? If we had God stopping us from ever committing evil actions, our obedience of Him would be no free choice of our own; we would be little more than mindless automatons. That's not at all what God wants us to be; He wants us to know and love Him of his own accord. The evil present in the world today isn't a result of some decision that God made; it's because of humanity's inherent flaws. For free will to have any meaning at all, we have to have the ability to choose for evil as well as for good; it's the nature of that choice that makes us free.

That's just my take on things, and it's probably not the most eloquent you can find out there, but it's worked for me thus far.

Edit: Looks like Stryker beat me to the punch.

[Samuel Dravis]

To elaborate a little more, yes it was my choice to fire the fusion. But was it Lobster's decision or mine to fly around that corner? I'm just pursuing my normal course of action--firing fusion near a corner--and Lobster is completely in control of his own actions. Why would it be my fault if he flies into the path of the fusion and dies a purply, fiery death?

The problem I see with that in this case is that you specifically created Lobster to fly into the fusion, even when you could have picked an infinite number of other alternatives. I really can't see any way around that myself. Perhaps someone else has some insight?

[De Rigueur]

It's easy to run into paradoxes when trying to explain the nature of God. E.g., you seem to have concluded that free will is not possible, but this goes against the idea that God can do anything.

[Samuel Dravis]

It's easy to run into paradoxes when trying to explain the nature of God. E.g., you seem to have concluded that free will is not possible, but this goes against the idea that God can do anything.

Yeah, but how can you reconcile that? Is the argument's way of removing free will valid? Would you solve it by limiting God's power, claiming he doesn't care, saying he is immoral by his own standards (ie, the Bible), or some other way?

Basically I'm just trying to see if the argument can be proven wrong.

[Foil]

Congratulations! You've stumbled across the age-old debate over "free will" and "determinism".

In fact, there are very good Christians and Christian theologians on both sides of the issue.

Allow me to give a quick, overly-simplified comparison:

On the "free will" side, God is seen as omniscient, but in the interest of giving humanity the ability to make truly free choices, He has designed the universe such that the outcome is not pre-determined. How can an omniscient God do this? Remember, He is omnipotent, too. (Theologically, this is often described in terms of God choosing the limits of His own omniscience when it comes to our universe.)

On the "determinist" side, God is seen as omniscient, but not cruel, despite the inherent pain and evil in His creation. In this view, much like Stryker's analogy above, God knows what will happen, but the responsibility for actions still rests with us. (Theologically, this is often described in terms of the nature of choice, and how a person still chooses to take actions even though the future outcome may be known by God.)

There are a whole spectrum of views on the subject, but to say the least, asking the question does not in any way make a "proof" of the non-existence of God. (Of course, trying to make a scientific "proof" of the existence of God poses many of the same issues. )

And then there's the view Lothar and Drakona described as "free-will determinism" - can anyone post the link to that thread from a few months ago?

[Edit]

...if the argument can be proven wrong...

In scientific/mathematical terms, the argument isn't well-defined enough to either prove or disprove. But to better answer your question, the idea of an omniscient God with a non-deterministic universe isn't necessarily self-contradictory. As I mentioned above, one must consider God's omnipotence as well, and allow the possibility that God was able to create our universe in a non-deterministic way. (Or if you're a Physics junkie, you might even look at the concepts involving "infinite possible universes" from Quantum Mechanics. )
[/Edit]

[Samuel Dravis]

Congratulations! You've stumbled across the age-old debate over "free will" and "determinism".

Thanks.

There are a whole spectrum of views on the subject, but to say the least, asking the question does not in any way make a "proof" of the non-existence of God. (Of course, trying to make a scientific "proof" of the existence of God poses many of the same issues. )

Yes, I wasn't expecting any sort of scientific proof of his existence or not, just how the contradiction could be resolved.

To better answer your question, the idea of an omniscient God with a non-deterministic universe isn't necessarily self-contradictory. As I mentioned above, one must consider God's omnipotence as well, and allow the possibility that God was able to create our universe in a non-deterministic way. (Or if you're a Physics junkie, you might even look at the concepts involving "infinite possible universes" from Quantum Mechanics. )

I've read about the infinite universes concept before. It's pretty interesting.

Again, the problem I see with

one must consider God's omnipotence as well, and allow the possibility that God was able to create our universe in a non-deterministic way.

is that that argument itself seems to be a contradiction. How does God go about being less than he is? And if he is not all-powerful, can he justifiably be called God (at least in christian terms)?

[DCrazy]

Check out St. Augustine's Confessions and Manacheeism. Pretty old, but still entirely relevant, debate.

Basically the Manachees believed that God could be neither all powerful and all good. To settle this debate, they determined that God was not all powerful, but he was all good, and there was a lesser god (the God of the Old Testament) that was responsible for evil.

Augustine subscribed to this theory for a while, but eventually came to reject it. In the Confessions, he relates his theory: God is all powerful, which is taken for granted, and all knowing, which Augustine sets out to prove. Humans are obviously neither. Borrowing from the Platonic Theory of Forms, goodness is defined as existence. Something that is not good at all (Satan, the lesser god of the Manachees) cannot exist. Rather, it is the lack of good in humans that makes them susceptible to corruption. Humans also can never attain Godlike holiness (this is not allowed by the theory of forms).

This is a gross simplification, and it's not easy to understand -- neither is the rest of the Confessions and 'm sure I've screwed up in a lot of places in interpreting it -- but it is a very logical solution to one of the core problems of Christianity posited by a brilliant academic.

[De Rigueur]

Kant had another approach concerning the issues of the existence of God, freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul. He called these three 'antinomies', by which he meant that arguments could be made on both sides of the issue. He concluded that pure reason is incapable of settling the debate. The three antinomies should be accepted, however, for the sake of morality. If morality really means something, then the three must be true.

I tend to agree with Kant in that, due to limitations of the human mind, issues such as whether/how the will is free will never be decided by reason alone.

[mesh]

It is entirely natural to fall back on definitions in the face of a paradox. However, a paradox is a result of those definitions. For example: God is good, God is omnipotent. We can chose to hold on to these definitions for a variety of reasons. A conflict ensues when we expand these definitions of God to encompass our observations: If God is good and God is omnipotent, then the world should be good. However the world is not all good therefore God is either not good or not omnipotent. Some of us are not happy with this conclusion.

Ways to solve the problem:
a) change the way we define good in such a way so that we can say "The world is all good". As a consequent, since this worldly good is the same as the good in the definition "God is good", we inadvertently change the way we define God.
b) give God a quality: "God has a plan". Because God is omnipotent and because we are not, we cannot know this plan. Therefore we have to assume that it is a good plan. However, this plan involves some evil and therefore God is not entirely good. Back to A.
c) assert that this world is a test to see if we are worthy to be in God's "Good Realm" (Heaven). God can be good in his realm as long as there are good occupants in his realm. However, since God can only be good by selection, he is not omnipotent. By definition God has to be omnipotent, therefore Heaven is not a solution to the contradictions of our initial definitions.
d) throw our hands up in the air and ask God for ideas...
e) assert that our words do not describe God. God is neither good nor omnipotent because those words are utterances and it is impossible for an utterance within the universe to contain the universe. However, since we want to solve the Problem of Evil, both as a definition of God and as an improvement to our quality of life, then this solution undermines our goals. Not acceptable.

There are many other angles. I am not trying to solve the issue. Alternatively, I am trying to show that reconciling just these two ideas is very complicated.
Free-will vs determinism is a much bigger can of worms because the problem persists even without having a belief in God.

meshac

[Samuel Dravis]

Kant had another approach concerning the issues of the existence of God, freedom of the will and the immortality of the soul.

Check out St. Augustine's Confessions and Manacheeism. Pretty old, but still entirely relevant, debate.

I'm going to see about reading a bit of these; I'll see about replying after I check them out.

Mesh: Basically that's where I had ended up - with a bunch of options, but none of them really solving the problem within the constraints of christian thought (God is good AND all-powerful/omniscient)...

[Genghis]

WB, Meshac. Nice post, too.

[mesh]

Thank you G. My email has changed. If ROX still has a team mailing list can you update it to include meshac.at.gmail.dot.com?

[De Rigueur]

Another thing to think about is that there are different kinds of freedom. Suppose you are kidnapped by criminals and they force you to commit crimes. In such a case, you are not free to refrain from acting, so in a sense you are not responsible. But consider the idea of freedom to form value judgements. What if you actually liked committing the crimes even though you weren't able to avoid them? What if you were secretly glad that you had the opportunity to commit them and you approved of them? If this were true, then I think you would bear some moral responsibility.

This reminds me of a Hebrew proverb: the fear of the Lord is to hate evil.

[De Rigueur]

double post