Quote from: Copernicus on June 25, 2008, 11:45:10 AM

(1) If a being has free will, then no one can know how it will choose to act.

Assumption and proof by assertion. This premises makes omniscience and free will incompatible at the very begining rather than showing how they are incompatible. One that is farly easy to disprove as we know from past events what beings chose to act yet this does not remove the free will of past figures. Showing that knowledge of the choice does not remove the free will in the choice. As such the argument is already shown to be circular and question begging.

(4) God cannot create beings with free will.  (by 1, 2, and 3)

1 is a logical fallacy therefore this comes undone.

(5) God has created beings with free will.  (by most versions of Christian doctrine)

You're ok here too.

(6) Therefore, God does not exist.  (by 4 and 5)

And the conclusion crashes in a fiery magnitude of Hindenberg-like proportions.

The argument fails from the beginning simply by focusing on just one or two elements of an 'omnimax' God, namely, his omniscience.  What about his omnipotence, for example?  An omniscient God would know how to create free will while still knowing what decisions would be made and since he was omnipotent he would know how to pull it off.

Moreover, 1) is flawed in that it fails to acknowledge the possibility that free will means only that other human observers, or that human himself, don't know what decision will be made until it is made.   It doesn't follow that free will requires that even the Maker doesn't know what decision will be made.  This is an ad hoc assumption and by a slick slight of hand, you equivocate 'a being' to mean both a human being and God, whereas the argument changes a great deal if you specify which you really mean.

If you restated your premise like this:

"(1) If a being has free will, then no one, not even God, can know how it will choose to act."

We'd instantly want to know exactly how you know that this would have to be true about God.

There is something also to be said about the obvious clarification that knowing something is not the same as causing it.  I know that every game of chess played by normal rules will begin with a white move.  And yet I do not cause all games of chess to begin.  My knowing, even when 100% certain, does not entail causation.  And that means that someone can know someone will decide something a certain way without necessarily being the cause of it.  This one example is sufficient to take out #1 at the knees, for it assumes (among other things, some I already mentioned) that knowledge entails determinism and causation.

I never said it did.  Indeed, your memory of past choices has nothing to do with absolute knowledge of future events.  Even so, it is clear that you cannot trust your memory, because you cannot even remember what I actually said. 

I'm sorry to break this to you, EB, but us ordinary mortals just do not have absolute certain knowledge of the future, and no attempt to game my original scenario changes that.  All you are saying here is that Hobbes would allow for a real choice by secretly granting a customer's wish, something which the legend doesn't have him doing.  The whole point was that customers could only ever choose the horse nearest the door, no exceptions.  So they had no real choice of horses in the stable.  In any case, Hobbes could not even know the future with absolute certainty, even if he intended to give his customer a real choice.  He couldn't know, for example, whether the black stallion would be alive when the customer came to pick it up.  You've heard of "sudden black stallion death syndrome", haven't you? 

Again, you fail to comprehend the point.  Hobbes knows what "choice" his customers will make.  He just doesn't give them a real choice.  The chosen horse is picked automatically, regardless of the wishes of the customer.  Similarly, from God's perspective, all of our choices are determined automatically.  That is, there can be no undetermined or "free" choice from his perspective.  Otherwise, he would be just like us--not omniscient.  Logically, God cannot create beings with free will, because that would entail ignorance of the future on his part.

No, I showed that we can call something a "choice" which, in fact, is no choice at all.  And that pretty much characterizes proponents of "free will" in debates over determinism.  They often end up labeling something as "free will" when, in fact, it is fully compatible with determinism.

Non-responsive.  Answer the question.  Calvinists are Christians, but they do not believe in free will.  They have resolved the Christian dilemma by eliminating the logical contradiction.  You seem incapable of resolving it, so you pretend the contradiction doesn't exist.

EB, I think that I successfully addressed all your points in my last post.

Your response was simply to deny everything and repeat your already refuted positions.  Therefore, I see no point in a further reply in this thread.  You will, of course, stonewall, as you always do, but it seems pointless for me to continue to try to address positions that I've already refuted adequately.

EB, if you were more confident in your own reasoning abilities, you would perhaps find yourself less compelled to spend so much time attempting to trash mine.

In any case, I feel that I have adequately rebutted all of your points in the omniscience/free will debate, even if you don't accept my rebuttals.

"Omnipotence does not mean that God can do logically impossible things."

No doubt, but how do you know it is logically impossible to have complete knowledge without also the existence of free will?  You need to demonstrate this;  you've only assumed it.

"False.  Absolute knowledge of the future is incompatible with free will no matter who has that knowledge."

False.  You're just re-asserting your premise.  You've got to demonstrate this.

"Even if it is just your neighbor who knows beyond all doubt that you will hit your thumb with a hammer, it is still logically impossible for you to be able to make any choices that will allow you to avoid hitting your thumb with a hammer."

Again, you're presuming an inherent connection between knowing and causing and free will.  This is an atheistic canard.  No doubt it makes perfect sense to people who already agree with you.  Alas, if you wish to make this argument and have it respected by outsiders, you'll have to spell out why this is so.

"An omniscient being cannot willfully become ignorant of anything without ceasing to be an omniscient being."

Assumes still the assumption you're making above.  Still, one could also say, as have some (the open theists) that God also can only know what is logically knowable.  But he knows all the logically knowable things that there are... thus preserving his omniscience... but one of the things he doesn't know is what decision you'll make until you make it (though he makes good guesses, so the argument goes).  So here we see just one exception to your argument preserving omniscience and genuine free will.

I believe the exercise is unnecessary, however.  You, sir, are merely a Flatlander.  Yet you think you can speak confidently about what spheres can do- or not do.

"That is unnecessary.  The original wording said "no one", and that included God."

I figured.  And yet as soon as it is out on the table that 'God' is meant we see how it is absurd.  You're a Flatlander.  The rules for spheres and cubes incorporate the logical principles known to the Flatlander, but since they occupy a higher plane they have more capabilities than the two dimensional objects.  Since you do not believe that a God as Christians understand him exists, you can't possibly believe you have experience with God in order to know what he could or couldn't do.  And of course the analogy is limited, as Flatlanders and The Spheremen still occupy geometric space, whereas God would transcend them all, not simply in a physical sense, but in a qualitative sense.

This hugely important point is absent from your argument.

"You have introduced a red herring.  I never said anything about God causing anything."

But if God doesn't cause a person to do something, but rather they do it based on their own inclinations, then they have free will.  So if you aren't saying that God caused them to make the decision you aren't attacking 'free will.'

Quote from: Copernicus on June 27, 2008, 01:30:24 PM

It follows from the ordinary meanings of the words "knowledge" and "free will".  If you know a proposition to be true, that entails that the proposition be true.  So, if you know a future event, that means that the event cannot fail to occur.

Very distinct difference between "cannot fail" and "won't fail".

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If it can, then you cannot be said to "know" it.  If you have "free will" in making a choice, then that means you are free to choose a future event--your own behavior.  If your future has only one possibility--the one known to be true by the "knower"--then you lack free will, even if you imagine that you can choose to behave differently.  There is no way out of this.  My premise #1 follows from these facts.  If a being has free will, then no one can know how it will choose to act.  The very presence of such knowledge destroys free will.

Nope. As shown this can be disproven with the simple concept of "hindsight"...