Does an Omniscient Creator Lead to Fatalism?

[Juvenal]

"Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?"

v.

Water molecules aren't free agents.

[Sparko]

v.

The bible does talk about rocks with free will!

Luke 19:40 "I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

Now with your story about free will water molecules who's laughing NOW, Mr. Lao Tzu? HMMM?

[Littlejoe]

I'll start with two assumptions that I think most Christians can agree with.

1. God is Omniscient.He is all knowing of all things through all time. He is able to see ever chain of cause and effect through to its end.
2. God created the universe. My point doesn't depend on the mechanism of creation simply that God initiated it.

If these two assumptions hold then prior to God creating the universe he was able to know what would happen if he were to create that universe. He has able to see every global event, and every personal event that would occur if he were to go through with creating that particular universe. He would also have been able to consider other universes that he could have created. Ones with different fundamental laws of physics, ones where DNA strands operate differently, ones where the nature of peoples hearts are different, even ones where everything is identical to the current universe except that instead of having coffee this morning you had tea. An omniscient and omnipotent God had all of these options before him and yet he chose to create the universe we live in. Seeing as how he knew exactly what would happen if he were to create the world, and he had other options for worlds he could create wouldn't that make life one big simulation.

Doesn't this break the idea of free will. I am familiar with and am comfortable with many of the explanations of how there can be free will with an omniscient God (ie. knowing that someone will do something doesn't take away their choice to do that thing). However none of these explanations (that I can find) address the issue that if you know what someone will do if you create them, and you could also create them differently knowing what they would do in that case as well, then how does this creation have any choice in what they do. They are just the result of you picking to create that particular instance.

I am really struggling to resolve this idea in my head, and have been praying that I will come to peace with it, but I just can't let go of it.

Open Theism (OT) for the win! OT's believe that God does know everything that is knowable but that free will decisions are not necessarily known. He IS able to see every chain of cause and effect to its end, but not necessarily which one will be actualized.

[tabibito]

Open Theism (OT) for the win! OT's believe that God does know everything that is knowable but that free will decisions are not necessarily known. He IS able to see every chain of cause and effect to its end, but not necessarily which one will be actualized.

Well I'll be ...

I had never heard of it until now. Marked for intensive reading at an opportune time.

[crepuscule]

maybe. I was one until I turned 40. Or maybe he can't actualize a world where everyone is saved and you are just one of those who ends up on the outside. Or you being an atheist will somehow convince 10 other people to become Christians.

The bible actually discusses that very thing:

Romans 9:20-22New International Version (NIV)

20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use? 22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?

If you don't want to be an atheist and/or "prepared for destruction" then don't. You have free will. Use it. Maybe this very thread is meant by God to kick you in the pants and get you to be saved and THAT is the world he is going to actualize through your free will.

I’ll just wait for that world to actualize then.

You see that’s the point: as I understand it, if God exists, and if molinism is true, we’ll all have to wait until God actualizes a world for each of us in which we come to belief. Someone who disbelieves in God does so because the world appears god-free to him, and according to the molinist this is because God has willfully actualized a world for said atheist in which s/he sees reason not to believe in God.

From a molinist’s pov, the ball is in God’s court.

[seer]

I’ll just wait for that world to actualize then.

You see that’s the point: as I understand it, if God exists, and if molinism is true, we’ll all have to wait until God actualizes a world for each of us in which we come to belief. Someone who disbelieves in God does so because the world appears god-free to him, and according to the molinist this is because God has willfully actualized a world for said atheist in which s/he sees reason not to believe in God.

From a molinist’s pov, the ball is in God’s court.

I don't think that is quite right. An unbeliever would not freely receive the Gospel in any possible world or circumstance.

https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writ...evil-once-more

[Sparko]

I’ll just wait for that world to actualize then.

You see that’s the point: as I understand it, if God exists, and if molinism is true, we’ll all have to wait until God actualizes a world for each of us in which we come to belief. Someone who disbelieves in God does so because the world appears god-free to him, and according to the molinist this is because God has willfully actualized a world for said atheist in which s/he sees reason not to believe in God.

From a molinist’s pov, the ball is in God’s court.

that's not how it works.

Think of it this way, in the "many worlds" theory of physics every possible decision is made and there is a world where Hitler won ww2, where you ate a pop tart this morning, etc. In physics this is a real possibility, that all of these possible worlds are real. parallel universes or something. There is a universe for every possible chain of events.

Molinism is sort of like that. There is a possible universe where every free will decision goes exactly as God wants it to, and an infinite number of possible universes where it doesn't. So God actualized the universe that did. He doesn't have to create actualize a world for each of us. This is the universe that he actualized where every free will decision we make lines up with his plan.

So if you decide to become Christian and be saved, then just do it. If you are worried that you are damned and God doesn't love you, then just choose to be saved. Nothing is stopping you. It just means that your free will decision to be saved is part of this actualized universe and was part of God's plan all along. In molinism, the other possible universes never happened. Only this one is actual.

If you decide to sit on your butt and not be saved, then that is your decision which coincides with God's will.

God is not making you do anything.

[Littlejoe]

Well I'll be ...

I had never heard of it until now. Marked for intensive reading at an opportune time.

Based on your first two posts on page one, I assumed you were espousing OT! How else do you make sense of the passages of the Bible where God is surprised has regrets, or changes His mind. See examples of the Hebrew word "nacham" in Gen. 6:4-7, Ex. 32:9-12 (Where Moses convinces God to have mercy and to not destroy Israel) and Amos 7:1-6. There's a lot actually, this just scratches the surface.

[tabibito]

Based on your first two posts on page one, I assumed you were espousing OT! How else do you make sense of the passages of the Bible where God is surprised has regrets, or changes His mind. See examples of the Hebrew word "nacham" in Gen. 6:4-7, Ex. 32:9-12 (Where Moses convinces God to have mercy and to not destroy Israel) and Amos 7:1-6. There's a lot actually, this just scratches the surface.

On a first read, it seems that I have developed a concept that is consistent with Open Theism, but first reads don't always pan out.

[Mountain Man]

Oh please MM, we've had this argument before so I already know what it is that you know about this. Nothing! You can't travel to the future unless it exist any more than you could travel to the past unless it exists. You could argue that it does exist, you know, the block universe, where past, present, and future all exist, but then you can't argue that free will exists in such a world.

Read up on the philosophy of time travel, because you're clearly in over your head here.

[Mountain Man]

Open Theism (OT) for the win! OT's believe that God does know everything that is knowable but that free will decisions are not necessarily known. He IS able to see every chain of cause and effect to its end, but not necessarily which one will be actualized.

I more or less described this earlier. I just didn't know it had a name.

[Littlejoe]

On a first read, it seems that I have developed a concept that is consistent with Open Theism, but first reads don't always pan out.

I too developed concepts consistent with Open Theism before I even knew there was such a thing...I was amazed to find there were others within orthodoxy that believed this too.

[Littlejoe]

I more or less described this earlier. I just didn't know it had a name.

Yes, kind of...however, OT see's examples of God being surprised in the scriptures. Here's an excerpt from a formal debate I did on the old TWEB with a Calvinist:

God says, thinks or expects some things will happen, and they don’t (Because the future is at least partially open based upon the decisions we make and/or whether we follow God’s will).

1) Jeremiah 3:6,7 6: During the reign of King Josiah, the LORD said to me, "Have you seen what faithless Israel has done? She has gone up on every high hill and under every spreading tree and has committed adultery there. 7: I thought that after she had done all this she would return to me but she did not, and her unfaithful sister Judah saw it.
2) Isaiah 5:1-4 1: Let me sing now for my well-beloved
A song of my beloved concerning His vineyard.
My well-beloved had a vineyard on a fertile hill.
2: He dug it all around, removed its stones,
And planted it with the choicest vine
And He built a tower in the middle of it
And also hewed out a wine vat in it;
Then He expected it to produce good grapes,
But it produced only worthless ones.
3: "And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem and men of Judah,
Judge between Me and My vineyard.
4: "What more was there to do for My vineyard that I have not done in it?
Why, when I expected it to produce good grapes did it produce worthless ones?

[seer]

Yes, kind of...however, OT see's examples of God being surprised in the scriptures. Here's an excerpt from a formal debate I did on the old TWEB with a Calvinist:[box]God says, thinks or expects some things will happen, and they don’t (Because the future is at least partially open based upon the decisions we make and/or whether we follow God’s will).

Or is this just accommodating language? When in the garden God asked Adam where he was - are we suggesting that God really didn't know?

[crepuscule]

Molinism is sort of like that. There is a possible universe where every free will decision goes exactly as God wants it to, and an infinite number of possible universes where it doesn't. So God actualized the universe that did. He doesn't have to create actualize a world for each of us. This is the universe that he actualized where every free will decision we make lines up with his plan.

Ah, but my free will decisions are based on the actual universe I’m in; and one that you claim God made. You understand? If God exists He willfully created a world in which I would reject His existence, and He knew I would, and apparently was OK with that. If you believe that lines up with His ‘ultimate plan’, then fine, but then what you're saying is me being an atheist is part of God's plan.