Does God have free will?

[Leox]

First of all, God is all-knowing. That means he knows everything including his own choices regardless of time.
If God has free will. He can choose to go against his knowledge of his own future actions. But then he is not all-knowing because he can't predict his own actions.
For example, God knew Adam will eat the fruit. But he decided to make Adam anyway. Thus God wasn't really punishing Adam out of God's own liking. But it was rather part of the script.

I guess this is a more philosophical problem but I want to know how it is handled in the setting of religion.

[Leox]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #80]

I think the analogy of time travel is a poor one. Doing time travel means the being experience time in the first place.

[William]

One way of avoiding the conflict all-knowing and free-will is to limit the notion of all-knowing.
God can live in another dimension different than ours. He is all-knowing to our dimension but not to his dimension.

The following is not an argument but an imaginary scenario.
An analogy will be that we create a simulated AI society in a computer program. They might think they have free will but they don't. We, knowing how this computer program works, is all-knowing to them. But we are trapped in our own simulation as well. We might think we have free will but we don't.
And God, knowing how our universe works, is all-knowing to us. But he is trapped in his own simulation.

First of all, God is all-knowing.

Premise = "The Creator is omniscient"

That means he knows everything including his own choices regardless of time.

Re: Musing on "The Real"

In that link you can read a short story which identifies the position of an Omni-Omni being. There is no free will possible for any entity in that position, alone.

If God has free will. He can choose to go against his knowledge of his own future actions. But then he is not all-knowing because he can't predict his own actions.

No entity in said position can have free will.
The only manner in which an entity in said position could experience free will is to do so by using it creations to allow it the experience.

For example, God knew Adam will eat the fruit. But he decided to make Adam anyway. Thus God wasn't really punishing Adam out of God's own liking. But it was rather part of the script.

So the Entity creates something in order to then experience said creation from within the creation. In the case of the story of the Garden of Eden, the Entity could detach from the Omni-Omni position by being all the actors in the script. Some of the actors knew more things than some of the others, but all of the actors did not have the Omni-Omni position.

In this way, the Omni-Omni Entity can experience NOT being Omni-Omni.

I guess this is a more philosophical problem but I want to know how it is handled in the setting of religion.

Religion is the result of theists NOT wanting to know anything other than what theists willing to accept.

[bluegreenearth]

So the Entity creates something in order to then experience said creation from within the creation. In the case of the story of the Garden of Eden, the Entity could detach from the Omni-Omni position by being all the actors in the script. Some of the actors knew more things than some of the others, but all of the actors did not have the Omni-Omni position.

In this way, the Omni-Omni Entity can experience NOT being Omni-Omni.

I first learned about this theological concept while listening to recordings of Alan Watts talk about ancient Eastern philosophical traditions.