"All knowing"

Society Religion & Philosophy
41

Re: "All knowing"

Psyah,

I'm sorry I am selectively quoting from your arguments/ideas. I deeply appreciate your examples and explanations, but trying to keep the discussion focused and relevant, and a little succint. In case I have excluded something you believe to be imperative here, please do refer back to it.

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I only gave this scenario to prove that prior knowledge does NOT equal influence or control.

When we bring God in to the equation - we should avoid using the word "before" as it is time based. Everything is past tense to God. God Saw that we passed the exam ... so for us that translates to - God has Seen that we passed our exams, Sees that we are passing our exams and will See that we will pass our exams. When God Saw that we passed our exams that is all past tense and no one reading the news is blamed for having influenced the news. It only breaks down when you try to bring God in to our contingent frame of reference.
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God is the Master of All-Possibility - so when a juncture arrives in our destiny for us it appears like a multitude of choices and avenues to take, but from the Divine perspective it is just a single choice. Since several avenues or choices present themselves to us we experience Free Will in those multitude of choices ... From the Divine perspective many is like one - since one and many have no significance before Infinity. You really need to learn to separate limitations being applied to God.
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We are not following "the path that has been laid out for us" ... that path is singluar to God not to us i.e. He Sees us following the path laid out for us, but we see choice and we see morality and we see right and wrong and we see good and bad... to us we have paths to choose from ... for God we follow our path.
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For God the "asbab" are meaningless - asbab essentially translates to "Cause and Effect" ... We humans experience Good Choice - Reward and Bad Choice - Punishment. This is not applicable to God. In other words the path A itself is the reward in and of itself and path B itself is the punishment in and of itself - Essentially we either choose to put our hands in the fire or our hands in gems ... It has nothing to do with God being surprised - but for sure we surprise ourselves. If you put your hands in fire and expect to be putting your hand in gems - now that will be a surprise. So again His Knowledge in a matter does not equate to His influence in it. No matter how much you try to convince yourself of that ... This is an axiom which stems from the a priori - you have to work with the rules ... you can't rationalise them or else they won't be a priori - (starting points) then something else is being set as the starting point.

Another way to gather an analogy on this is to say that our free will exists on the x axis and God's Knowledge exists on the y axis ... Neither will a change in the x affect the y nor a change in the y affect the x. It is not to say that God cannot influence change, but that is when it gets quite complicated but still very feasible to derive conceptual models to help us understand matters without in any way saying such analogies are in themselves true. That would be wrong.

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To say otherwise is contradicting the a priori that we have in place which is our scripture. In scripture God does not create humanity to be "sent to hell" ... All humanity and all creatures were created to worship Him and we humans have to know Him - no one believes that specific people were created to go to hell. So the question is wrong.
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Our purpose is to Know and worship God and we obtain that by choosing the path where we can obtain the Mercy of God to get to heaven. Whether any of us achieve that purpose or not is a different matter. In other words God has not tied our purpose to our destiny. To say that God Knows who will go to hell and assert that was the purpose for him is to speak on behalf of God what we do not know about Him, rather it is to lie about God, because God - Allah (SWT) has already told us that we are not created to be damned.

Can the person change the course set out for him? The person always has a choice to do good ... the empirical world shows that to us everyday ... Also, du'ah can alter our path from the human perspective, but that path to God is not altered or the alteration was always Known to Him.
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Let's say a person changes his mind several times and each time his own specific destiny changed a result of it, each time we say God Knew that ...

We have to learn to stop putting ourselves in the position of the Holy Rabb (SWT) ... Rather than play games with our own intellects see what choices are present before us and be sincere and honest and merely accept Allah (SWT) in the way He reveals Himself to us ...

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I am not saying that prior knowledge equates influence. What I am saying is, absolute prior knowledge of your choice would make the alternative choice an illusion of choice since you will only do what god already knows you will do.

Granted that the concept of time doesn't exist for god; for him our past, present and future is like an open book. Breaking it down though, he is the one who created all that he sees ie past, present and future. He may look at it like a photograph, its all there, say in my case, my birth, growing up, getting old, death, the choices I made, the course I took, and that I ended up in heaven or hell. He has full visibility to it from the outset. He even knows when I would pray to him and when I will ask/pray for something to happen. So there is absolutely no surprise element. Isn't that incompatible with the idea of freewill, and even judgment? You have created 'n' number of possible choices for a person at a given point, now unless you don't know the choice he is going to make, how can you judge that person on that choice?

That's my entire point, for you the multitude of choices is merely an illusion/appearance. For god, its not a puzzle, its not a matter of waiting to see what happens. Its already known, already there. So your free will should also be an illusion. What you think you have chosen for yourself was in fact your only choice, existence of an alternative was merely an illusion. Since god himself created those choices, and knew that you will choose whichever one.

Now lets pick up duah. Isn't it based on the premise that you can make god change his mind (sorry for putting it rather crudely)? He already has a plan for you, he knows what he wants to bless you with and what he doesn't want to bless you with, he knows what events will happen in your life, its all there right in front of him like an open book. So if you pray for something, would he change his mind and change your destiny? But then again, didn't he already know this will happen i.e. you will pray at that particular point in time and that he will then give you what you are asking for? So there is essentially no change in anything. It was, again, pre-destined. Unless he didn't know that you will pray for something, and now that you have, he might decide to let you have it. But that is not the definition of him.

We can use similar arguments for the creation of hell and evil - why did god create it in the first place, and then thew a multitude of temptation into the mix. And then based on that, he is judging human beings for being enticed. And, although a 'no go', we can question the very beginning of everything. When he created Iblees/Satan, didn't he already know he would defy him? Did Iblees have a choice? The poor guy did what he was supposed to, and was damned for eternity. When Adam defied god's will, what exactly upset god? Did he not already know this was going to happen, his anger surely could not have been a 'reaction' to what Adam did.

Unless we bring in the God works in mysterious ways argument, I think religion has and always have had problem with logic.

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Re: "All knowing"

Here's a question for you - can god create a riddle that he cannot solve? Go work on that! LOL.

I can't say I understand your position (or any religion's position, since that is what it is) on this, because that is exactly what I am questioning here.

My brother, you DO NOT know what the child will choose. God KNOWS what you will choose, that is the difference. God knew what you will do before you were created, so where exactly does the 'judgment' fit in? Judgment is a reaction, how can you react unless you 'find out'.

Appreciate your input though, and would love it if you would keep it short and crip as you are doing now.

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Re: "All knowing"

Even if I were to be 100% sure what the child would do, it is the child who chose not me.

True or false?

Even if God knows what human would choose, it would be human not God who chose option A or B.

True or False?

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Re: "All knowing"

In yours and Chuck Norris' case I won't question it, but it doesn't apply to us mere mortals.

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Re: "All knowing"

My point is extremely simple.

One who chooses, is the one responsible, regardless who placed the person in situation where choice has to be made.

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Re: "All knowing"

I said "even if". So it means even with that condition of knowing 100% what the child would do, I am not responsible of what the child decides.

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Re: "All knowing"

So you dropped my point. Anyway, I didn’t mean that environment has absolutely no influence on our personality, but you can see several examples where two persons brought up in same environment behave differently on experiencing same situation.

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Re: "All knowing"

Peace sceptic

This is the way we are supposed to reason this out:

1) State your assumptions/rules/a priori
2) Work within the assumptions
3) Conclude

1)
a) God is Omniscient and has Pre-ordained matters
b) Humans have been given freedom of choice

2) Rule - Neither a) is allowed to overrule b) nor b) is allowed to overrule a) they are both rules

3) Whatever we choose to do - God Sees it
Whatever God Sees - He had Seen it in the past and will See it in the future.

Physical Laws > Traits > Environmental > Supplication

God has established physical laws over us we see that we can lift one leg and not the other at the same time. This is the marriage between choice and destiny - to break the bounds of physical laws we must use physical force and this cannot be extended beyond a certain amount for example flight enables the other leg to be lifted too, but this has limitations.

Our traits define what we are likely to do - but we can change or alter the traits we have by learning and improving ourselves it will always be harder for a person who loves his food to stop eating, but it is not necessarily the case that a person who loves his food is going to be fatter than another who does not love food as much, because the latter may be eating more out of habit whereas the former could be eating less out of struggling with his traits.

The environment we are in can help or hinder our choices - for example we can try to get up early by ourselves - but in an environment where everyone has woken up early then that becomes easier.

The layer of supplication is a direct request to God to alter our course - perhaps by providing the environment, traits and physical necessity for a certain outcome to manifest. The alteration of the environmental constraints is a common acceptance of a supplication such as getting well from a bug by setting forth the conditions where a cure is in place and effective. The alteration of traits changes a person's psyche and is a level higher, the acceptance of a request may in some rare instances result in breaking physical laws momentarily - these are called "miracles".

Coming back to the topic ... You are asking us to take the vantage point of man and the vantage point of God at the same time ... This is the fallacy ...

The choice may seem to be unreal - but that is not the case - because we can see empirical evidence that we have choice ... if choice is unreal then you might conclude that predestination is unreal ... but then that will limit God, so that too must be real.

The moment you try to derive one from the other as you are trying to do then you will come to a problem ... the problem is not in the dichotomy - it is in the association of the two ... they are not meant to be viewed as associated phenomena - but are to be accepted as real independently since one is from the vantage point of man and the other is from the vantage point of God.

We can also see signs of constraints in this life ... for example - number of children - it is impossible for us to have more than a given number of children in our lives ... age - that we die ... the journey's we make and so on ... but what can clearly be seen also is that we have choice.

The discussion above is meaningless if what we know to be true is testable and working ... as far as we are concerned we are accountable for our lives in the decisions we make ... if we find it IMPOSSIBLE to pray then we have an excuse before God ... but we don't have that excuse.

Our freedom of choice can be better analysed by comparing us to animals rather than hypothetical constructs about Divine Ability ... Our lives differ from the lives of animals ... An important aspect is that we can perceive the past and future and create conceptual models, we can see choice and realise the choices for their moral value as they lay before us. Animals cannot do that.

We also have animal nature - we can if we like, simply do the first thing that our instincts tell us to do - but we don't ... not even the worst human will always be so low.

Let's look at your key sentence and show how it breaks the rule ...

I am not saying that prior knowledge equates influence. What I am saying is, absolute prior knowledge of your choice would make the alternative choice an illusion of choice since you will only do what god already knows you will do.

Written as an inductive argument this takes the form:

Absolute prior knowledge of the choice I make, translates to me doing what God Knows I will do - therefore - illusion of choice

The problem with this argument is this:
Choice - is a noun that stems from the verb "to choose" - in order to choose the chooser needs to be unaware of the choice to make - not the one who provides the choices.

Absolute prior knowledge **by God **of the choice I make **its my choice **not God's choice. It remains my choice even if it Known by God. My choice is in the contingent reality - it is a moment that has been taken out of eternity. The moment is finite and static and eternity is dynamic and infinite ... It doesn't even make sense to compare them.

If there is no free will and there is only predetermination and God has created beings then it follows that all created beings should be worshiping God.

Since not all created beings worship God then we can say:

a) There may be free will
b) God makes people meant for hell and others meant for paradise
c) There is no accountability of us
d) We can do what we like

If there is no predestination and only free will and God has created beings then it follows that there will be nothing in the universe that is predictable because predictability means that it is following some pattern of behaviour a trend that can be relied on ...

Since we can see things with patterns, we can say:

a) There may be predestination
b) We may have a pattern that we should choose to follow
c) There is no accountability for us
d) We can do what we like

In these scenarios a) and b) are tensions but c) and d) will be met with their opposites

Such that we have free will within set boundaries and that is what we will be judged on, we should follow a code although we are not compelled to do so from the physical laws. We can do what we like, but we should not as we will be accountable for what we choose.

The question of the manner in how predestination coexists with free will remains unanswered as we also believe that finite exists with the Infinite and we don't attempt to question that either. We accept it.

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Re: "All knowing"

Psyah, I just had a quick read through your contention/thoughts/case. I will go through again in detail, whenever time will allow. Just a quick observation, the hypothesis you are drawing, it seems, is either we have free will with limited pre-destination as the religion suggests, or we are pre-destined (no freewill) in which case there should be absolute obedience to god and no defiance, which is not the case as the empirical evidence suggests. Unless I am mistaken of course.

My problem with this line of argument is, as we test the freewill hypothesis, we have to link it with the god hypothesis. I.e. its either that god has created us and given us freewill, as the religion suggests (and as we are arguing that this might not actually be the case), OR that the existence of god can be contested, if it can be established there is an inherent inconsistency between the traits associated with god (case in point, omniscience) and existence of free will and hence judgment.

Also, I would love to hear your thoughts on the existence of evil, damnation of satan and punishment of Adam, as I have mentioned above.

Thanks again for your knowledgeable input, I will write in detail as soon as I can.

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Re: "All knowing"

Peace sceptic

You are asking the right questions ... At least it shows that you are associating matters that would normally be associated in such discourse.

If we should introduce more parameters such as "The Existence of God" as a question up for grabs then it puts even more complexity to an already difficult scenario. This conversation of predestination and free will should only be indulged in when we have established that we are a product of Divine Works. If any attempt to determine inconsistency at this level should give rise to draw more conclusions such as evidence for or against the God concept, then the inconsistency being alleged to here must be critical ... but if the argument is that the concept of free will vs predetermination - not possible - is in fact a fallacious argument in itself then any inconsistency in it is meaningless and does not point to the God concept at all - rather it points to our inefficiency. If anything it will leave question marks behind rather than inconsistencies.

Just to emphasise predetermination happens in some cases, but the omniscience is absolute. Some things are fixed - like how much food we eat ... but the manner in how we obtain that food to eat it is not predetermined - but it is still nonetheless known.

A Divine Estimate - is so perfect - it is as good as Knowledge.

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Re: "All knowing"

Let's construct a human argument

A guess is the attempt to predict the future and it has degrees of accuracy
Knowledge of the future is to have been in the future oneself
Controlling outcome is to guide the course of events so that only a given way will manifest

A Divine Estimation is 100% accurate
Divine Knowledge is the meld of past, present and future

Only if it can be said that 100% correct estimation is impossible unless one goes in to the future and to see the future is equivalent to controlling outcome then one can say that choice is illusion.

it can be accepted that the future needs to be known for 100% accurate forecast, but it is not accepted that this means the choice is illusion ... As the choice is only illusion if the path is controlled ... And it will only be controlled if the estimation is in fact an instruction ... In order to prove the choice illusion ... One would need to prove that an estimation can become an instruction ... When it is very accurate ...

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Re: "All knowing"

He entered paradise
Through the Mercy of God
He gained the Mercy of God
Through his acts of devotion
It was the Mercy of God that allowed him to perform the acts of devotion
He gained the Mercy of God
Through his good intention
It was the Mercy of God that aligned his intention
He gained the Mercy of God
For being able to think and intend
This was his gift from God that he can think
He gets the Mercy of God
by submitting to God

This formula may stop for us ... But what is emergent at least mathematically is that both of these conditions "God's doing" and "man's doing" is a fluctuating condition that can go to infinitesimal iterations at each step the root will converge to God's Mercy ... However, what is more important for us is that if we follow the iteration along its pathway to where we are now ... It clear that we make choices and God reciprocates ... The last few steps before paradise are more important than the first few steps that happen at the sub-psyche level ... God creates first and by the time it gets to us in this life for our important choice in life those choices are ours.

All are equal at the sub sub sub level and all have been given their rules to follow but as actions proceed towards aware individuals these actions become more and more the ownership of the individual and less and less the ownership of the One Who Created those choices.

At the deep micro level there is control and at the macro level there is free will. We dwell in the macro level and that is what should concern us. But everything remains Known to God.

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Re: "All knowing"

Your question about God creatig a riddle thst he cannot solve is exactly similar as the question If God can make a stone so big thst evn he cannot lift.

And all it means is that Godless people with their limited but excellent level of argument come with these kind of questions to make them feel good somehow they have defeated Religious people or even God.

Fine. No big problem. Everyone has to do something to make the person feel good.

My answer is that: As per religious people or those who believe on God, they do not feel the need to answer these questions since it deals with God's abilities. And anyone who tries to be the spokeperson for God other thsn God himself is never going to be good enough to do the self assigned job.

The person who has these kind of questions made up just to make an argument is advised to die, be raised again, stand up to God/Allah and is free to ask these questions.

It should not make even an iota of difference to the believer in God if these kind of questions are answered or not.

The purpose of Human in this life was never to search what God/Allah can do or not. It was to obey the rules set by Allah.

*Please go fight with God/Allah why he chose to test you (Not you personally) /gave you difficult life/gave you cancer/Gave you genetic disorder/ or....made you choose choice A or B.
*
But in all reality, God/Allah with his utmost merciful nature, He will not give punishment unless the person is deliberately being rebellious.

Even though I said "even if I knew 100% what the child would do" you keep coming with statement like "you DO NOT know".

My friend read what I wrote. I said even if I knew 100% what the child would do, the child was the person who chose. Not me.

Trying to blame God/Allah may make people feel good for a while and to some extent.

But reality is that God does not come down on earth and make you choose.

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Re: "All knowing"

But DID YOU KNOW he would take the coin? If a teacher knows that the student is going to fail the exam, no matter what, then there is not point in examining the student.

I have read through the thread and am still not convinced. For me, foreknowledge implies predetermination. If I am programmed to do such and such, then I must not be judged on that.

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Re: "All knowing"

If Allah already knows that I am not going to obey the rules, there doesn't seem to be a rationale behind creating this game to begin with.

It would make life simpler saying that God created this video game, and set the rules. Now the characters have free will to do what they like to do but,

  1. there are interventions by the creater of the game to lead it where He intended, and
  2. the end game is pre-determined after which there would be a scoring system based on the choices made by the characters.
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Re: "All knowing"

The student takes the exam to satisfy himself ...

And we have proven that foreknowledge does not equate to predetermination.
To know something does not mean the knowledge of it made it happen.

Observer does not influence outcome.

I am a time traveller ... I go into the future observe an event and come back to tell you what will happen - the fact that I told you what will happen does not magically mean I predetermined the outcome. I merely observed the future.

And since for God past, present and future is the same ... no time travel is required (and it would not make sense for God to time travel anyway) ... He Knows what will happen.

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Re: "All knowing"

Free Will and Predetermination are co-existent just like:

Finite and Infinite are co-existent
Our plurality and His Oneness are co-existent
His Mercy and His Vengeance are co-existent

This is our belief and we have to be very protective of it ... Anywhere you introduce the concept that God can in anyway be "unaware" of something then you are stating that things can "exist" independently of God ...

They don't ... Things are held in sustained existence due to the effects of the Divine Attribute - Allah (SWT) The Sustainer ... It means that nothing can exist even for a moment without Divine Intent ... This mandates full Knowledge ...

If you entertain the idea of "things existing" on their own then you will be compelled to conclude that "things" can "change" and "do things" independently too ... In which case you have removed the idea of God encapsulating all things ... this slight satisfaction that you want to give yourself - may I add ... due to a limited understanding and ability ... will wreak havoc with many other concepts regarding God ... There is an calibrated equilibrium in place and that should be maintained.

This calibration is so well fine tuned it helps us define the meaning of who we are ... "Muslims" ...

Muslim the word comes from Islam - The verb silm means - to submit ...

Muslims eventually reach the point that our intellects will take us ... and then "we SUBMIT" ...

We submit because we recognise the boundaries of human intellect ... And the deeper wisdom in that is ... When we reflect on Creation as directed to do so in the Qur'an we would arrive at the very boundaries we are talking about ... These boundaries are meant to be there to mark the territory that to go beyond it is impossible ... And we have physical boundaries, intellectual boundaries and we have emotional/spiritual boundaries ... When we reach these points we "submit" as our title/name suggests ... "Muslim" ...

How can we claim to be Muslim if we stubbornly reject the beliefs in scripture and dismiss them because they may not make sense to "us" ... By doing so we appoint our own intellects as gods ... beside God.

You see this is the level of calibration and the requisite that certain areas are hurma - boundaries that when we realise we are there - to back off and submit. It is not because we are afraid - that is a ludicrous allegation - it is because we understand the religion the way it all works together ... trying to compromise it, by saying things such as the game scenario above - will create devastation of the belief system in other areas - such as in the Sustaining Power of God.

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Re: "All knowing"

^ That which has not yet happened doesn't exist. It is not a thing. It is just an event or a plan that might or might not happen. Allowing God to not know what doesn't exist doesn't seem to be conflicting with His 'all knowing' attribute. Does it?

P.S. "Past", "Present" and "Future" are human concepts of time. If you think, "Future" is something that doesn't exist.

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Re: "All knowing"

can you validate this conclusion, empirically?

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Re: "All knowing"

No he cannot ...