Originally posted by Symmetric Chaos
That still leaves open a few problems.Can god make predictions? Like: "If you let go of that rock it will fall to the ground." If it can then it risks infringing on free will, IMO. In this case the chances of you making any decision are predetermined and, while you have more free will than otherwise, god is sort of messing it up.
If god cannot make predictions because it sees every outcome equally (ie the answer to every question is "something will happen"😉 then I would count that more as knowing nothing than knowing everything.
I believe I addressed your question, already (object to my answer if I am not adequately doing so). God would already know all possible outcomes, but he would not know which path you yourself select from those near infinite options. And he would not see every outcome equally. Only at the single instant of the creation of the universe would he see such a state. The moment any reasoning being makes their first "free-will" decision is the moment God ceases to know exactly what exactly each being with "free-will" will choose. But he still knows all possible outcomes.
And it is far more complicated than that, as well: he can make super strong guesses as to the choices you will make based on the choice your family and friends make (ancestors, even) and the environment you exist in. But he can still be aware of all possible outcomes at the same time.
For me, that demystifies how "all-knowing" god can be while at the same time leaving Him some sort of "omniscience". It becomes a definition of degrees.
In Mormon mythology, the God that most Christians believe in would be a version of some of the beliefs of Satan. Meaning, Satan would know all possible outcomes and we would be forced to have to follow his chosen paths that ALL lead back to sinless lives. meaning, no choice to sin. "How is that like other Christian beliefs, then?" one might ask. Well, it would appear that most Christians belief in the God that knows all possible outcomes that will ever happen in the universe. then whence commeth free will? It is an illusion at that point. If God already knows all outcomes that we will choose, then we really do not have any hope of free-will in the slightest. What we have is a God that already planned out to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah before He created the universe. How lame and confusing as hell (pun?) is that? that's like the Mormon version of Satan's plan: all are forced back to God without free will.
Originally posted by Omega Vision
Well, this hits at something that I'm at war with myself over: whether there's anything more than particles at work in reality. If there are then your view could work, but if there aren't then ignorance of the volition of sentient beings would translate to ignorance of the particles that comprise them. Since (as I understand it, and again I'm no scientist) all particles in the Universe interact with one another in some way (feeling like I'm about to get corrected super hard) then ignorance of just one's path would make knowing the real full picture impossible.
Some (those smoke pot and philosophize dudes) believe that that is directly where God interacts: at the quantum level. I can stomach that. But, again, that's just a re-invention of Aristotle's 40 rings (man, it seems like I say that a lot, lately).
What if Aristotle really was right? God is pretty much the deist god. Atheists and Agnostics would be mostly right, at that point. What if when we die it turns out that most atheists and agnostics were right all along? God didn't interact with this universe and we were kidding ourselves? Meh. We'll find out...or not. Gaspity!
I just hope that when I die, there is something after that allows me to know all the shit that I wanted to know as a mortal. Man...that's really all I want out of existence. I don't care if I become part of some super consciousness God thingie or whatever. Just want to know who really shot JFK, if Atlantis was/is real, is sasquatch really extant, all about all alien life and their possible cultures/science/ideas, the grand unified theory (and actually understand it all), etc. you know, the questions that many people would like to know the answers to.