Determining Determinism revised
God, it is believed, posses the remarkable trait of knowing all things past, present and future, namely--omniscience. And while this and other "omni" beliefs about God's character facilitates man's ability to have a perfect trust in God, they simultaneously create some problems with other doctrines that are equally important in man's interpretation of life and relationship with God. Omniscience seems to contradict, if indirectly, with the principle of free will. The idea that there is a being with a certain, exact knowledge of a future action leads one to question if that action can be changed, or if the action is already determined to happen.
An article I read supporting determinism stated the problem similar to this:
God knows that a man will cause action E to occur at a later time. There is no way to maintain God is omniscient AND allow the man to cause a different action to occur instead of E. Thus it is, as are all things, determined.
Now the theory of determinism may be more complicated than this, and I am not pretending to know all the complexities that may constitute it, but as I have described it (or as it pertains to God’s omniscience) the theory seems to fall short of its mark. I don’t know of anyone who when faced with the omniscience problem actually believes that they have no choice. Everyone thinks they have the power to choose. This denial can be contributed to either an illogical emotional response to the idea of determinism or that the evidence doesn’t back up the logical puzzle as stated. It is the latter grounds for denial I wish to look at.
Determinism is defined by a concept of omniscience that gives God the ability to know all actions. From this comes the question ‘can I choose to act other than God knows?’ The answer is no, which seems deterministic. What this concept of omniscience fails to acknowledge is that God knows all choices and actions that are caused by them. This makes it possible for God to know what future events are to come because of choice. The question then becomes ‘can I choose other than I will choose?’ The answer of course is no, but the reason you cannot is that it is logically impossible to do something other than you do. If you allow God to be truly omniscient there is no discrepancy between God’s knowledge of the future and mans ability to choose according to free will.
An article I read supporting determinism stated the problem similar to this:
God knows that a man will cause action E to occur at a later time. There is no way to maintain God is omniscient AND allow the man to cause a different action to occur instead of E. Thus it is, as are all things, determined.
Now the theory of determinism may be more complicated than this, and I am not pretending to know all the complexities that may constitute it, but as I have described it (or as it pertains to God’s omniscience) the theory seems to fall short of its mark. I don’t know of anyone who when faced with the omniscience problem actually believes that they have no choice. Everyone thinks they have the power to choose. This denial can be contributed to either an illogical emotional response to the idea of determinism or that the evidence doesn’t back up the logical puzzle as stated. It is the latter grounds for denial I wish to look at.
Determinism is defined by a concept of omniscience that gives God the ability to know all actions. From this comes the question ‘can I choose to act other than God knows?’ The answer is no, which seems deterministic. What this concept of omniscience fails to acknowledge is that God knows all choices and actions that are caused by them. This makes it possible for God to know what future events are to come because of choice. The question then becomes ‘can I choose other than I will choose?’ The answer of course is no, but the reason you cannot is that it is logically impossible to do something other than you do. If you allow God to be truly omniscient there is no discrepancy between God’s knowledge of the future and mans ability to choose according to free will.
Labels: thoughts
posted by Nate Mecham at 10:40 AM
6 Comments:
Hold on a second. Didn't get the point yet. I'll get back to this.
Good! I took a class once in which the teacher outlined two schools of thought among the brethren: A rather hard-lined determinism, and a "God knows us so well he is a good predictor of future events" view. I have problems with both. I like what you've said though. God knows all, so he knows all the consequences of all choices, so there is no doing what he does not know. I like that.
Nate I read it, I get it, and I promise to "think that like" with you more often. :) Happy Blog Day!
I like what you said. It's kind of the way I think about it. It's like my sister, Lori says..."God would not put us in a situation for something bad to happen to us." Which I think can be the argument of some if God knows all then he knowingly lets bad things happen. I like how you put it that he knows all results of all choices therefore, while he may know the outcome of our choices, he does not force us to choose bad for ourselves. We are all perfectly capable of making jacked up choices for ourselves. :)
I thought you would approve. Dedicate this one to you:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/thecause/255239.html
ohh and also this one too....
http://www.livejournal.com/community/misfitmormon/299270.html
its an article by city weekly about Misfit Mormons, a group I started.
it can also be accessed @
misfitmormon.com
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