Can an omniscient being possess free will?

[Filthy Tugboat]

Can an omniscient being possess free will?

Omniscience is defined as:

•The state or quality of knowing everything.
mises.org/easier/O.asp

With that definition in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that any omniscient being would know the inifnite future which includes the actions that they will perform for the entire expanse of their existence.

•The question of free will is the philosophical question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Based on this definition free will is being able to make choices without restriction. So the entirity of this argument is basically addressing the concept that omniscience is a restriction on freewill.

So if you know the infinite future including your own actions then can you make a choice? Is the knowledge of what you will do and why a restriction on how many 'choices' you can make? If you are physically capable of performing countless actions or making countless responses, does omniscience restrict your options to just one? If omniscience does restrict your options in every scenario to just one, how could that be considered free will?

[cnorman18]

Can an omniscient being possess free will?

Omniscience is defined as:

•The state or quality of knowing everything.
mises.org/easier/O.asp

With that definition in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that any omniscient being would know the inifnite future which includes the actions that they will perform for the entire expanse of their existence.

•The question of free will is the philosophical question whether, and in what sense, rational agents exercise control over their actions, decisions, or choices.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Based on this definition free will is being able to make choices without restriction. So the entirity of this argument is basically addressing the concept that omniscience is a restriction on freewill.

So if you know the infinite future including your own actions then can you make a choice? Is the knowledge of what you will do and why a restriction on how many 'choices' you can make? If you are physically capable of performing countless actions or making countless responses, does omniscience restrict your options to just one? If omniscience does restrict your options in every scenario to just one, how could that be considered free will?

From a Jewish perspective: Who ever said God was omniscient? He doesn't appear to be omniscient in the Bible, not that that matters much anyway. The attributes of God are unknown in Jewish teachings; they are sometimes tentatively proposed for purposes of speculation, but certainly not to the point of being able to derive OTHER attributes from them and to come to firm conclusions.

Further, even if some sort of "omniscience" IS attributed to God, who says that that includes knowledge of the future? Seems to me that that's more about the nature of time and reality (e.g. that the future is fixed and "knowable") than about the nature of God, as well as assuming that God must live here in the present with the rest of us and that "knowing the future" to Him means "looking ahead" like it does to us.

The idea that "Omniscient = knows everything" and "'everything' must include the future" and "therefore..." whatever, is more a matter of stringing together theoretical speculations and coming to a real-world conclusion. Keep it in the area of speculation and we're OK: "IF this, THEN that." So, okay. IF God knows the future, THEN God has no free will; but since God, being also "Sovereign," MUST have free will, then.....

Obviously there's something wrong with our definitions here, of God as well as a few other matters. Just another intellectual boardgame without any real significance. What do we know for sure now that we didn't know ten minutes ago?

Want a REAL logical conclusion? Here's one; it makes no sense to propose that God is "omniscient" if that means He knows the whole infinite future while living here in the present with the rest of us. It's as much a logical contradiction as saying that God can do ANYTHING, meaning things that are logically nonsensical -- making a square circle, etc.

Me? Don't ask ME. I don't claim to know WHAT God knows or doesn't know, can do or can't do. I don't even know what kind of Being God is, or if He (or It, if you like) is a Being at all, or if He even EXISTS in the way that we think of things in the universe that we know as "existing." And I sure as little green apples don't know what, or how, He thinks, if He "thinks" at all.

In my religion, that kind of knowledge is above my pay grade. I know what I'M supposed to do, or to try to do; to make this world a better place for people -- all people -- in THIS life, doing the best I can, using my own human intelligence and my own moral sense. Theory and speculation and allathat is fun, but it takes a back seat to real people and real things, and should.

That's all I know for sure; but that's all I need to know, and that's enough.

[Filthy Tugboat]

From a Jewish perspective: Who ever said God was omniscient? He doesn't appear to be omniscient in the Bible, not that that matters much anyway. The attributes of God are unknown in Jewish teachings; they are sometimes tentatively proposed for purposes of speculation, but certainly not to the point of being able to derive OTHER attributes from them and to come to firm conclusions.

I intentionally left the term God and any implication of a religion out of the OP. This was to be very literally simplified to omniscience and freewill. I don't want to discuss beings that others have proposed to have other attributes. If we focus on those two attributes we can determine if they are compatible, if they are not then you can apply that conclusion to Gods or whatever.

Further, even if some sort of "omniscience" IS attributed to God, who says that that includes knowledge of the future? Seems to me that that's more about the nature of time and reality (e.g. that the future is fixed and "knowable") than about the nature of God, as well as assuming that God must live here in the present with the rest of us and that "knowing the future" to Him means "looking ahead" like it does to us.

Knowledge of the future in this universe simply requires a knowledge of the location, velocity and direction of every particle within it. If you know where everything is, where everything is going and how long it will take to get there then you know the future within that localised space. If something is omniscient as in 'knows everything' then they know the future. If you want to apply a spiritual realm then this omniscient being I feel would have the same level of knowledge of that but this is pure speculation. So if there was an omniscient being and a spiritual realm then I would still vote that knowing everything would consist of more than just the physical in the sense I previously described, if there were 'spirits' that were transcendent of the physical plane I feel omniscience would also cover knowledge of them to the point of being able to know with 100% accuracy what the individual 'soul' would do in every possible situation. But given there is no evidence for the spiritual realms I could only speculate as to how much the theoretical omniscience would know about the 'soul'.

The idea that "Omniscient = knows everything" and "'everything' must include the future" and "therefore..." whatever, is more a matter of stringing together theoretical speculations and coming to a real-world conclusion. Keep it in the area of speculation and we're OK: "IF this, THEN that." So, okay. IF God knows the future, THEN God has no free will; but since God, being also "Sovereign," MUST have free will, then.....

You are beginning to demonstrate why I kept God and religion out of the OP, there are so many different Gods and different opinions of Gods that I could never make any suggestion about a God without someone jumping in with 'my God is different'. So keep it as general as possible and confusion is limited. IF a being had omniscience could they have free will? Does omniscience cover existence outside of this universe(?), well... if such a place exists.

In my religion, that kind of knowledge is above my pay grade. I know what I'M supposed to do, or to try to do; to make this world a better place for people -- all people -- in THIS life, doing the best I can, using my own human intelligence and my own moral sense. Theory and speculation and allathat is fun, but it takes a back seat to real people and real things, and should.

Those are very admirable aspirations but I proposed this question to people who do have time and will put in effort to consider and respond. I accept people do have other things to do but that doesn't remove the point of the thread.

[cholland]

With that definition in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that any omniscient being would know the inifnite future which includes the actions that they will perform for the entire expanse of their existence.

Maybe I'm not understanding, but who has control over the bolded section? If it is the being itself, I would say he has free will.

[cnorman18]

From a Jewish perspective: Who ever said God was omniscient? He doesn't appear to be omniscient in the Bible, not that that matters much anyway. The attributes of God are unknown in Jewish teachings; they are sometimes tentatively proposed for purposes of speculation, but certainly not to the point of being able to derive OTHER attributes from them and to come to firm conclusions.

I intentionally left the term God and any implication of a religion out of the OP. This was to be very literally simplified to omniscience and freewill. I don't want to discuss beings that others have proposed to have other attributes. If we focus on those two attributes we can determine if they are compatible, if they are not then you can apply that conclusion to Gods or whatever.

Okay; then let me rephrase the relevant part of my answer:

“IF a being knows the future, THEN that being has no free will.�

Further, even if some sort of "omniscience" IS attributed to God, who says that that includes knowledge of the future? Seems to me that that's more about the nature of time and reality (e.g. that the future is fixed and "knowable") than about the nature of God, as well as assuming that God must live here in the present with the rest of us and that "knowing the future" to Him means "looking ahead" like it does to us.

Knowledge of the future in this universe simply requires a knowledge of the location, velocity and direction of every particle within it…

Which Werner Heisenberg has shown is impossible, with even a SINGLE particle.

Like I said, this hypothetical is more about the nature of time and reality than about any, er, “being.�

If you know where everything is, where everything is going and how long it will take to get there then you know the future within that localised space. If something is omniscient as in 'knows everything' then they know the future.

But what if the future cannot be known by any “thing� or being? Quantum theory, chaos theory, uncertainty principle… Doesn’t appear to be even theoretically possible, even for a limited space, according to what is know known about physics.

If you want to apply a spiritual realm then this omniscient being I feel would have the same level of knowledge of that but this is pure speculation. So if there was an omniscient being and a spiritual realm then I would still vote that knowing everything would consist of more than just the physical in the sense I previously described, if there were 'spirits' that were transcendent of the physical plane I feel omniscience would also cover knowledge of them to the point of being able to know with 100% accuracy what the individual 'soul' would do in every possible situation. But given there is no evidence for the spiritual realms I could only speculate as to how much the theoretical omniscience would know about the 'soul'.

My point is that ALL this is speculation; like I said, an intellectual board game with no real-world significance.

The idea that "Omniscient = knows everything" and "'everything' must include the future" and "therefore..." whatever, is more a matter of stringing together theoretical speculations and coming to a real-world conclusion. Keep it in the area of speculation and we're OK: "IF this, THEN that." So, okay. IF God knows the future, THEN God has no free will; but since God, being also "Sovereign," MUST have free will, then.....

You are beginning to demonstrate why I kept God and religion out of the OP, there are so many different Gods and different opinions of Gods that I could never make any suggestion about a God without someone jumping in with 'my God is different'. So keep it as general as possible and confusion is limited. IF a being had omniscience could they have free will?

Okay. No.

Does omniscience cover existence outside of this universe(?), well... if such a place exists.

I don’t see how it’s possible -- ACTUALLY possible, that is, outside of the board game -- even WITHIN this Universe.

In my religion, that kind of knowledge is above my pay grade. I know what I'M supposed to do, or to try to do; to make this world a better place for people -- all people -- in THIS life, doing the best I can, using my own human intelligence and my own moral sense. Theory and speculation and allathat is fun, but it takes a back seat to real people and real things, and should.

Those are very admirable aspirations but I proposed this question to people who do have time and will put in effort to consider and respond. I accept people do have other things to do but that doesn't remove the point of the thread.

I DO have time, and I DID respond. No such thing as “omniscience,� and if there WERE such a thing, any being with it, never mind my use of the word “God,“ would not have “free will.� What’s wrong with that?

[cholland]

“IF a being knows the future, THEN that being has no free will.�

What if the being was the one who wrote the future? Would he not have free will to write what he wants?

[cnorman18]

“IF a being knows the future, THEN that being has no free will.�

What if the being was the one who wrote the future? Would he not have free will to write what he wants?

We're dealing with theoreticals here. If you want to talk about God, which the OP does not, here's the problem; in Jewish tradition and in the OT, God does not control or "write" the decisions of humans. Free will on the part of human beings is a baseline assumption on the part of the Biblical writers; there is no attempt to prove it. I doubt that would have occurred to them, or if they would have understood what that even meant. What point would there be to giving "commandments" if humans had no power to choose?

Therefore, though God may KNOW the future, He does not DETERMINE the future -- at least not in detail. Whether or not that's because He CANNOT do so, or because He CHOOSES not to, is immaterial; that's the way it is. For instance; In Christian terms, He cannot determine whether an individual human is "saved" or not, no? That's up to that person and no one else. Therefore, God either doesn't or can't "write" that part of the future.

All that is assuming a very great number of things that are nonprovable, nonverifiable, and are not necessarily part of ANY religious tradition. Chief among them is the assumption that in "knowing the future," God is living here in the present with the rest of us and perceives the future as being "ahead." There are many strands of both Jewish and Christian thought which speculate that God's existence and perceptions (which of course assumes that such things are among God's attributes to begin with) may very well be separate from or outside of time as we humans perceive it. He may perceive or experience past, present and future as one thing, and what that may imply, I wouldn't care to speculate about.

I have a hard time dealing with the usual speculations about God's nature, that is, those which assume that God is sort of a really super-powerful Being, like us, only bigger and stronger and wiser, etc. I think that sort of thinking about God is limited and limiting, and I don't see any reason to go there. I don't know what kind of Being God is, whether He (or It, for those who worry about pronouns) is a "Being" at all in human terms, or whether or not He even exists in any way that humans understand.

Beats me. I don't claim to know the attributes of God to ANY degree; I don't know where to find out what they are, or how I could verify them if I could. I have written elsewhere about the Bible and particular interpretations of it not being helpful in that regard. If you, or others, wish to go that route, peace to you, but in that case prepare to deal with lots and lots of logical, scientific, and even Scriptural contradictions and problems.

Me, I don't know. My religion is one of community, heritage, tradition acknowledged as tradition and not science or history, and above all practicality. Speculation and boardgames are fun, but I'm not committed or deeply engaged in any of them.

[cholland]

“IF a being knows the future, THEN that being has no free will.�

What if the being was the one who wrote the future? Would he not have free will to write what he wants?

We're dealing with theoreticals here. If you want to talk about God, which the OP does not, here's the problem; in Jewish tradition and in the OT, God does not control or "write" the decisions of humans. Free will on the part of human beings is a baseline assumption on the part of the Biblical writers; there is no attempt to prove it. I doubt that would have occurred to them, or if they would have understood what that even meant. What point would there be to giving "commandments" if humans had no power to choose?

Therefore, though God may KNOW the future, He does not DETERMINE the future -- at least not in detail. Whether or not that's because He CANNOT do so, or because He CHOOSES not to, is immaterial; that's the way it is. For instance; In Christian terms, He cannot determine whether an individual human is "saved" or not, no? That's up to that person and no one else. Therefore, God either doesn't or can't "write" that part of the future.

All that is assuming a very great number of things that are nonprovable, nonverifiable, and are not necessarily part of ANY religious tradition. Chief among them is the assumption that in "knowing the future," God is living here in the present with the rest of us and perceives the future as being "ahead." There are many strands of both Jewish and Christian thought which speculate that God's existence and perceptions (which of course assumes that such things are among God's attributes to begin with) may very well be separate from or outside of time as we humans perceive it. He may perceive or experience past, present and future as one thing, and what that may imply, I wouldn't care to speculate about.

I have a hard time dealing with the usual speculations about God's nature, that is, those which assume that God is sort of a really super-powerful Being, like us, only bigger and stronger and wiser, etc. I think that sort of thinking about God is limited and limiting, and I don't see any reason to go there. I don't know what kind of Being God is, whether He (or It, for those who worry about pronouns) is a "Being" at all in human terms, or whether or not He even exists in any way that humans understand.

Beats me. I don't claim to know the attributes of God to ANY degree; I don't know where to find out what they are, or how I could verify them if I could. I have written elsewhere about the Bible and particular interpretations of it not being helpful in that regard. If you, or others, wish to go that route, peace to you, but in that case prepare to deal with lots and lots of logical, scientific, and even Scriptural contradictions and problems.

Me, I don't know. My religion is one of community, heritage, tradition acknowledged as tradition and not science or history, and above all practicality. Speculation and boardgames are fun, but I'm not committed or deeply engaged in any of them.

I appreciate the thoughts, but I made no mention of God. I was dealing in the theoretical as you said.

[McCulloch]

“IF a being knows the future, THEN that being has no free will.�

What if the being was the one who wrote the future? Would he not have free will to write what he wants?

It matters not whether he wrote it. If a being knows the future, from the point where he knows what the future holds, that being would have no free will. If he acts in such a way as to render a different future, then he did not genuinely know the future. Thus, his acts must be consistent with what he knows will happen. The more this being knows the future, the more constraints there is on what he can do. If he knows the future completely and perfectly, then he cannot have any free will.

[cholland]

“IF a being knows the future, THEN that being has no free will.�

What if the being was the one who wrote the future? Would he not have free will to write what he wants?

It matters not whether he wrote it. If a being knows the future, from the point where he knows what the future holds, that being would have no free will. If he acts in such a way as to render a different future, then he did not genuinely know the future. Thus, his acts must be consistent with what he knows will happen. The more this being knows the future, the more constraints there is on what he can do. If he knows the future completely and perfectly, then he cannot have any free will.

You're saying that if I sit down and write a book, I exercise no free will since after the book is written I can't change it? Just because I know what the book says?