Does Divine foreknowledge negate free will?

[EduChris]

In Islam, Allah is said to have taken his pen and begun to write. Each person's life has been scripted out in precise, exact detail before the world was created. Some Christians even have similar views of the God of the Bible (although I and many other Christians do not share that view).

Anyway, the question is, If God has scripted every detail of our lives before we were even born, can we still have free will?

I do not wish to debate whether we actually have free will, or whether free will is possible in our physical universe. The question at hand is simply whether free will--freedom of choice, freedom to do otherwise--makes any sense at all if our lives have been scripted by the Deity before we were born.

[EduChris]

...an omniscient being has no need to wait until after the event occurs to write down what will happen...

That's the part I don't understand. This argument seems to speak of the future as if it were a thing that could be observed from the different "angles" of before and after. I view the future more as a set of possibilities which have not yet been realized. The set of future possibilities might be known, but if the agents that take part in realizing those possibilities are truly free, if they have the ability to "choose otherwise," the those "realized actualities" don't exist at all and therefore cannot be observed until after the free agent has realized the particular possibilities.

[ChaosBorders]

That's the part I don't understand. This argument seems to speak of the future as if it were a thing that could be observed from the different "angles" of before and after. I view the future more as a set of possibilities which have not yet been realized. The set of future possibilities might be known, but if the agents that take part in realizing those possibilities are truly free, if they have the ability to "choose otherwise," the those "realized actualities" don't exist at all and therefore cannot be observed until after the free agent has realized the particular possibilities.

Except the omniscient being would already know what possibility the free agent was going to observe and decide on. It knows what possibilities exist(ed), and it knows what possibilities will actually be picked. As long as it doesn't interfere in any way with the picking of those possibilities, it has not violated the free agent's ability to pick between the possibilities. Thus from its perspective the realized actualities do exist, even if from the perspective of the free agent it doesn't yet.

[ChaosBorders]

Either that, or against free will. There is another way out of the conundrum.. 'omniscient' is only in comparison to our understandings.. and the future is not known 100%. If 'Omniscient' is 'know all that can be known' and the future could not yet be known, then free will could exist from a philosophical point of view.

However, in my opinion, free will and 'divine foreknowledge' is mutually exclusive. However, they both could be non-existent too. One view of the physics behind QM theory (The hidden variable interpretation) is that the future could be predetermined but unpredictable, due the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This is where my mind breaks down and I start getting a head ache, and I'll let the high powered math geniuses get their geek on.

From my understanding of it, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle results from being unable to observe quantum particles and what not without also in some way interacting with those particles. A supernatural being need not have this problem.

[Goat]

Either that, or against free will. There is another way out of the conundrum.. 'omniscient' is only in comparison to our understandings.. and the future is not known 100%. If 'Omniscient' is 'know all that can be known' and the future could not yet be known, then free will could exist from a philosophical point of view.

However, in my opinion, free will and 'divine foreknowledge' is mutually exclusive. However, they both could be non-existent too. One view of the physics behind QM theory (The hidden variable interpretation) is that the future could be predetermined but unpredictable, due the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This is where my mind breaks down and I start getting a head ache, and I'll let the high powered math geniuses get their geek on.

From my understanding of it, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle results from being unable to observe quantum particles and what not without also in some way interacting with those particles. A supernatural being need not have this problem.

Not quite.. We can observe quantum particles.. but we can't know their position and their momentum at the same time with a high degree of precision.

[ChaosBorders]

Either that, or against free will. There is another way out of the conundrum.. 'omniscient' is only in comparison to our understandings.. and the future is not known 100%. If 'Omniscient' is 'know all that can be known' and the future could not yet be known, then free will could exist from a philosophical point of view.

However, in my opinion, free will and 'divine foreknowledge' is mutually exclusive. However, they both could be non-existent too. One view of the physics behind QM theory (The hidden variable interpretation) is that the future could be predetermined but unpredictable, due the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. This is where my mind breaks down and I start getting a head ache, and I'll let the high powered math geniuses get their geek on.

From my understanding of it, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle results from being unable to observe quantum particles and what not without also in some way interacting with those particles. A supernatural being need not have this problem.

Not quite.. We can observe quantum particles.. but we can't know their position and their momentum at the same time with a high degree of precision.

Yes, and from what I've read I thought the reason you can't know both is that in order to know one you end up interfering with the other. (If my phrasing of the sentence suggested that I thought we cannot observe quantum particles at all, I apologize. I know we are able to observe them, I just thought doing so also results in interacting with them).

[LiamOS]

In quantum mechanics, observation isn't 'observation'.
It's measuring the interactions.

[ChaosBorders]

In quantum mechanics, observation isn't 'observation'.
It's measuring the interactions.

Exactly. So I don't think something like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle would have any relevance regarding a supernatural being that could actually 'observe'.

[LiamOS]

It depends on the nature of particles.
We can't make that call yet.

If somebody feels like saying God sees all time, then that's that sorted, though.

[EduChris]

...the omniscient being would already know what possibility the free agent was going to observe and decide on. It knows what possibilities exist(ed), and it knows what possibilities will actually be picked. As long as it doesn't interfere in any way with the picking of those possibilities, it has not violated the free agent's ability to pick between the possibilities. Thus from its perspective the realized actualities do exist, even if from the perspective of the free agent it doesn't yet.

In that case, I could imagine that right now, in God's mind, there exists a recording of everything I am going to do and say and think tomorrow. God could give me a DVD of my "tomorrow's life" today, and tell me not to look at it until the day after tomorrow. On that DVD, when I finally watched it, I could see everything that I had done and said and thought.

I such a scenario, it would be impossible for me to really know that I had free will. In fact, it would appear to me as though I did not have free will at all. To me this opens up such a can of philosophical worms that I cannot conceive of God creating the world that we see around us given what God would have already known. To me, if God could "know" the future, God would have created a world that was more illusion than reality, a world in which suffering only appeared to happen, where suffering was only an illusion with no basis in reality. And if there is more illusion than reality, then ultimately I think God could have just skipped all the bad parts and brought us to perfection the easy way, perhaps even with false memories of lives that we (supposedly) had lived and learned from.

Ultimately, I think God is more "straight" with us than this. The world is real, suffering is real, God didn't want it to be this way, but God is committed to working through it all with us, so that we one day can become truly like God.

[ChaosBorders]

I such a scenario, it would be impossible for me to really know that I had free will.

Strictly speaking, it's impossible for you to know it now by most definitions of the word 'know'. Not sure how seeing a tape of what you did yesterday that was recorded the day before would make that any different.

In fact, it would appear to me as though I did not have free will at all.

Appearances are irrelevant to objective reality. Appearing to have free will doesn't mean you do, and appearing to not have it doesn't mean you don't.

To me this opens up such a can of philosophical worms that I cannot conceive of God creating the world that we see around us given what God would have already known.

Remember though that foreknowledge only doesn't negate free will if God has no interference with the actions being foreknown. The mere act of creation, knowing what will result from it, is pretty massive interference, in which case you would be correct that there would be no free will regarding subsequent events.

To me, if God could "know" the future, God would have created a world that was more illusion than reality, a world in which suffering only appeared to happen, where suffering was only an illusion with no basis in reality.

In many ways one could say that's true anyways. We perceive the world as solid despite it being mostly empty space and pain is caused by eletric signals in our brains. Given the right hypnosis or coping techniques, you (or at least some people) can undergo surgery without feeling a thing. But illusion or not, pain feels plenty real when you're in it.

And if there is more illusion than reality, then ultimately I think God could have just skipped all the bad parts and brought us to perfection the easy way, perhaps even with false memories of lives that we (supposedly) had lived and learned from.

Firstly there's no way of telling that isn't really the case anyways. Memory is not particularly reliable even at the best at times. It wouldn't be a complete stretch to think of it as being completely fabricated. (A communications professor of mine told us the story of how he once took a group of mental patient to see Batman. This was a mistake, as it turns out one of the patients had a condition that made it impossible for him to distinguish such things as movies from reality, and spent the rest of the night in terror believing people were chasing him through the city).

But I think the question goes more into one of identity. God is all-loving, but can something that doesn't exist be loved? If God loves us, perhaps we must exist to be loved. If our individual identity involves suffering though, perhaps we must actually suffer for us to have existence. A parallel I like to draw is thinking of God as an author. When I write, my characters often go through a lot of crap. I love my characters, and part of me might like to skip all the bad stuff and just let them live happily ever after. But if I did that it wouldn't really be the same people. They're the characters they are because of what they go through. I simply view God as being an infinitely better author.

Ultimately, I think God is more "straight" with us than this. The world is real, suffering is real, God didn't want it to be this way, but God is committed to working through it all with us, so that we one day can become truly like God.

I do think that the world is real, but I'm not sure that it would matter much from our perspective if it weren't. Does being an illusion make things less important to us as individuals? Again I draw parallels to a story. A character may not objectively exist, but a well written one damn sure cares about its 'life'. (Often they also care about their 'free will' too). Not objectively existing in a material manner would not likely make my life any less important to me.