There’s a nice little debate going on about the compatibility or otherwise of an omniscient god with free will. It started out between The Raving Atheist and Michelle of And Then?, and has continued over a few days with other people joining in.
The debate is of unusually high quality, given that it’s between theists and atheists, who normally end up arguing over the exact definitions of words or accusing the other of evangelism, or quoting scripture. Some highlights occur in the comments section of the World Wide Rant post.
Brent concisely states the atheist viewpoint:
Can you do something that God does not know you will do before you do it? If the answer is no, then free will is but an illusion. If the answer is yes, then your god is not omniscient.
Steve Polson hits back with,
It would only be a problem for free will if the Creator knew your choice BECAUSE he was making it for you. But if you are the one freely making the choice God’s knowledge is the consequence of your free choice, not the cause of an unfree choice.
Before I deal with this, some background: I’m not entirely convinced that there is such a thing as free will. There is very little evidence for it; I can’t go back and change a decision I made and see what would have happened. At any given moment we only get to choose one option, and our choice could just as well have been the result of deterministic laws of nature as of free will. The only evidence for free will I can see is my own personal experience of it, and not only can I envisage mental mechanisms that would cause the illusion of free will, even the experience of it is far from perfect.
Consider waking up in the morning. You wake up, you decide to get out of bed, and some time later (in my case quite some considerable time later) you find yourself getting out of bed. In that time between deciding to get up and actually getting up, there doesn’t seem to be much free will involved at all. A more mundane example is the way our emotions can make us behave in ways we rationally would rather not. Occasional failure of self control does not suggest free will.
So much for that. The reason theists, in particular Christians, need free will is that they use it to explain evil in the world. Bad people can exist even though God is good because God wants us to choose whether to be good. This is known as the free will theodicy, and there are all kinds of problems with it. For one thing, it is quite possible to concieve of a world that has free will and still has no pain and suffering. For another, you can’t have a god who knows everything and still have free will.
Steve Polsen argues that God can know what you’re going to do in advance without that affecting your choice. His knowledge is the consequence of your free choice. This gets the argument backwards. God cannot predict random events in the same way that he can’t create square circles; it doesn’t make any logical sense. Therefore if God knows the future then it logically must be because the future is determined.
This in no way proves there is no god. It does limit the kinds of god that are possible, and opens theists to the kind of argument presented by Niclas Berggren:
even if god was unaware of what would ensue after his having created the universe, he is still admitted by the theist to know what happens spatially, i.e., at any point in time, as happenings are, indeed, realized. If so, god would have known, a posteriori, what his creation had given rise to, and hence could have rectified anything with which he was discontent (due to his omnipotence). This he has not done and thus is blameworthy for evil.
Update: Some more excellent arguments on this subject in a posting at dustbury.com, in particular in the comments section.
Isn’t it quantum theory that basically dictates that there are an infinite number of parallel universes in which all possible actions are played out?
That would tend to suggest there is no free will, as whatever decision you make, in an alternate universe another version of you is making a different decision. So in other words “you” choose all the options, but as you’re stuck in one universe, you’re only ever aware of making one choice and one set of consequences of that choice
I think quantum theory says something a bit like that, I’m not sure of the details but I think it might have more to do with the behaviour of electrons than entire alternate realities.
Anyway, I’ve often wondered what it would be like if all possible universes exist in parallel as extra dimensions. We see events unfold one after another because our consciousness is travelling through the time dimension. Free will is our consciousness moving sideways in time, between alternate realities. This seems close to your idea, and has all kinds of wierd consequences if you think about it.
What if not all people had a consiousness in every version of reality? What if there were multiple consciousnesses inhabiting my body, but each in a different version of reality? What if there was no suffering in the world because anyone who is suffering in any given version of reality doesn’t have a consciousness; their consciousness chose a different version in which they are happy?
Interesing thought experiment at least…
Yes, the electrons thing. I think it was something to do with the fact that you can’t actually predict where any given electron will be, even though you know they’re moving when an electrical current flows or something like that. The mutliple universe theory was a way of explaining how the current still flows, even though the inidividual electrons aren’t necessarily where you might expect them to be.
Needless to say, it’s many, many years since it’s been explained to me and I’ve probably forgotten some important bits along the way.
Omni-Will
There is some interesting discussion about the compatibility (or non-compatibility) of omniscience and free-will. It started off at The Raving Atheist (actually, it started with this post, the other link is the latest post on the subject), and has cont…
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Interesting debate. I’ve been reading all over the web that some atheists believe in free will while others call it a religious illusion. i’m not an anythingist.
so if we live in an automatic universe, in which all life is based on continuing itself, all decisions are based in biological needs and reactions to environmental stimulation. we can also throw individual brain chemistry. therefore, all decisions are determined by nature. no one is independent of nature. however, since we are all part of this greater system of nature, it just comes down to language and the use of metaphor. a neo-pagan might call this nature system, “the goddess” in order to have an intellectual, emotional, or “spritiual” relationship to the concept of this system. does this person become a theist when he does this? or does he become a theist when the “goddess” is no longer thought of as metaphor but literal. I know many people who use religious, mythological and metaphorical language to describe their relationship to life, without meaning it literally. are they theists? if an atheist believes his life decisions are determined by a system called “nature” is he really an atheist? for many eastern religions, the concept of god is this very system, or the “drama” called life. god is an action rather than a character that created the object called earth. “the drama” is an endless amount of variables acting and reacting to each other and playing out the story. so the real question, whether it’s by the “goddess” the “drama” or “nature,” do we have free will independent of this system? in this scenario, our consiousness or conscience would have to be something supernatural and somehow separate from this system. some call this concept “the soul.” the roots of most words concerning spirit come from the word “breath.” if someone breathed they were alive, if they weren’t they were dead. so is your consciousness, personality etc. a collection of reactions to chemistry, environment and biological needs or something else, that x-factor that life and not death. maybe a combo? and when you’re dead, not breathing, not metabolizing, and you’re flesh becomes fodder for other organisms, absorbed into their metabolism, and fueling their cells, are you alive again in a new form? are you influencing that organism’s decision? and by the way, today the sky is gray.
I agree with you the way you view the issue. I remember Jack London once said everything positive has a negative side; everything negative has positive side. It is also interesting to see different viewpoints & learn useful things in the discussion.
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