The argument that if God knows what a free agent will do in the future
that that person cannot be free for what will be will be is popular among
modern philosophers. The Catholic and Christian
cannot accept this doctrine for their Bible has a God who does know the future
and who punishes us for our sins meaning we must have free will and have been
therefore responsible for our sins.
Here are the objections:
1 The error is in not realising
that that foreknowledge is not causing what the person will do but merely
seeing what will be done.
Some draw the analogy that you can sometimes predict what a person you
know will do. Perhaps they always come
into your house and go before twelve. It
is argued that when you can do that foreknowledge does not conflict with free
will. Some object that it is not the
same as seeing into the future but that is irrelevant. Just as seeing a person drive a car does not
mean that you are causing them to do it so gazing into the future does not mean
that you are directing the future.
God is outside time. This timeless
state is like the past, present and future all rolled into one. It is the same as a present without a past or
future. All events happen in it at
once. So, God can see the future if he
is in eternity. He sees the past too and
when he can see that without controlling all of it his knowledge of the future
does not command us to believe that he causes the future.
God sees the past but that doesn’t mean he has fixed the past. The past used to be the future too. If God caused the future by looking at it
then how could he cause it by looking "back" at it? It is a contradiction for he cannot cause
what has been caused. God cannot cause
something by looking back into it for that would be reversing time. You cannot cause the past from the present
moment be it a moment in time or the endless moment of eternity.
So God seeing the future is not the same as God controlling it and making
our future decisions for us.
Response:
Most theologies say that God is outside time and is timeless. In this view he is in a present but there is no past or future and he sees all our past present and future for it is all present to him. It is like there is one moment of time which doesn't have a past or future. In that moment of time, God creates the year 1AD at the same time he creates 2AD and so on possibly ad infinitum. In this view, God cannot see the future for there is no future. All moments happen at the one time but he is somehow able to make it seem to us as if they happen one after the other. He doesn't see the future because the future is only in our imagination and there is no future. Read page 134, GOD A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED Keith Ward, OneWorld, Oxford, 2003. The Bible God claims to be able to see the future. This timeless God refutes that notion because there is no future for him.
Note remarks from Anthony Kenny are in the first column and my comments
are in the second column.
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God is omniscient. He knows the future and what we will
do. But if we are really free, God
cannot know what we will do. PAGE 8 What I Believe by
Anthony Kenny, Continuum, If God is
outside time he cannot foresee our actions for past, present and future are all the one for him.
It is like a present moment with the past and the future present in it
and all is happening at the one time.
That means my future actions are present to him already and not future
to him and so I cannot avoid doing them.
If God can see that I sin tomorrow that means I cannot avoid sinning
and so I don’t have free will. The
thought that God is timeless is silly for it has Boethius
being imprisoned being simultaneous with the sack of When
actions are future there is no necessity for them to happen but suggesting
God knows what we will do contradicts that so God knowing what we will do in
the future contradicts our free will PAGE 50 |
If God is not
timeless then it is impossible for God to know the future without controlling
what we do and controlling everything. Then there is no free will. Then God
is to blame for all the wrong we do. If God is
timeless then it is only an illusion when I think I deliberate about things
and make a decision. To deliberate it
would really need to happen before the decision but timelessness has time
down as an illusion and the deliberation and the deciding all happening at
once. Free will is about thinking your
choice through and going for it or not going for it. It requires time. God and free
will are incompatible. Religionists
say that God foresees what we will freely do.
But they cannot prove that this is possible given the nature of time
and eternity. They endanger belief in
free will with their God idea until they prove the two are compatible. They
cannot prove a thing. Therefore what they are saying makes no sense. They don’t
know what way free will works or how to make it. They don’t know how God’s knowledge works
or how to make it. They therefore
cannot rule out that both are so linked that genuine free will isn’t possible. Let me
explain. It might be impossible for
God in some way we don’t understand for him to be aware of anything even the
future without largely controlling it or totally controlling it. I can look at something without the looking
affecting it. But God is totally different from me. An X-Ray Machine cannot look at me without
sending radiation into me that affects me.
Religion says that God’s powers and attributes are all one with him
because in spirit there is no division and he is spirit. His knowledge is the same as his power to
control things. This may prove that he
cannot foresee what we will do without making us do it. If it doesn’t, it
makes it the most likely scenario. Jack the
Ripper mutilated Catherine Eddowes in a very
distinctive way. He left cuts below
her eyes that looked like incomplete triangles. Suppose I know all this. Suppose an alien appears to me and wipes my
memory and sends me back in a time machine to the Ripper’s killing field in
1888 and I become the Ripper. I kill
all those women. The exact same thing
happens as I read about in the books before I went back in time. How could what I knew before I went back in
time coincide and be an exact match for what happened to Eddowes
when my memory is wiped and the alien didn’t force me to copy the books? How could I copy the books when the books
are about what I did? Something forced
me to carry out the murders according to the books. It must have been God or something. God knowing the future means that God must
control the future and program our decisions.
We do not have free will if there is a God. And if there is a God he must be evil or
not all-good for we cannot blame ourselves but him for evil and
suffering. You may
object that God seeing the past doesn’t mean that God controlled the
past. The past has happened. The future hasn’t. That is where the difference is. The question is how something that doesn’t
have to happen could be foreseen by God which implies it has to happen after
all. Religion says
it is wrong to think that because God knows what you will do tomorrow that he
is predestining or predetermining you to do it. Islam is an exception. It treats belief in God like belief in
fate. The result is they are not
afraid of waging war when they feel like it for they think God predestined
them to do it. Nor are they afraid to
stone adulteresses to death. If belief
in God justifies this, then the belief is wholly evil. If it doesn’t justify then when such
intelligent men as Kenny say it does, clearly nobody can be blamed for
thinking as the Muslims do. Belief in
God is dangerous. And at any
rate, there is no way to prove the Muslims wrong. The belief is dangerous. It allows a person to agree with the
Muslims on the matter of fate. And
there is reason to believe the Muslims would be right if there is a God. Nobody
thought that when Muhammad started his religion that it would become so
powerful. Nobody thought that
Christianity would take off and morph into Roman Catholicism the bloodiest
religion ever. The point is, don’t
take chances. Oppose the God belief
and destroy faith in God today. |
2 Whether God can see the
future or not does not change the fact that whatever will be will be. If whatever will be will
be is fatalism then it is still fatalism if God does or does not exist. What will happen will happen, so if God sees
the future that makes no difference. Whether he sees it or not, what will happen
will happen. So God seeing the future is
not the same as God pre-determining the future.
Response:
Whatever will be will be can be understood two ways. The fatalistic way which reckons the future
is fixed. The other way in which what
will happen will happen without being fixed.
Whatever will be will be has nothing to offer by way of arguing that
fate rules the day.
Conclusion
The foreknowledge
of God, his knowing the future, does disprove the compatibility between God and
human free will, a compatibility assumed by believers.