This is a mess.

Because....?

It's determinism and not-determinism in the same paragraph. It doesn't make sense.

Including you up to point x

Contradicts the previous statement

If one is going to come up with thought experiments they should probably be logically consistent.

Imagine that everyone in the world could parse the sentence properly except you.

God can create a non-deterministic universe if he wants and he did.
Strict determinism is an illusion. People get mixed up because they see that some of our human behavior is predetermined and then they fall into the illusion of complete predeterminism or fate or hindsight bias or creeping determinism. They forget that we are capable of actions of our own free choice.

Your concept of "perfection" carries with it some rather stark assumptions. Can a "perfect God" create something that's imperfect? It's far from clear that this is an immediate logical contradiction.

Can a pianist that has the ability to play perfectly play notes written on a page do something different because they chose to? Does that artistic license deny their perfection in some way?

Similar objection, but in a more humorous setup: Can a perfect God miss a free throw on purpose? Or is he required to make every one so that he would not "logically contradict" his perfection?

Anyone who thinks that thought experiment is logically consistent is wrong. The universe being deterministic and not deterministic at the same time does not make any sense. It's one or the other.

Inb4 compatibilistic nonsense.

Your main claim seems to be ‘a perfect being cannot limit itself otherwise it wouldn’t be perfect by definition’. Is that correct?

This is a typical response made by a rationalist whose god is the intellect. In their mind, perfection is equivalent to a coherent, logical, rational proposition.

You basically confirm this here:
That’s a religious belief of an intellect worshipper.

Here’s something to think about for all the rationalists:

Which is better? A logical, non contradictory proposition or the experience of an ecstatic flow state.

I have quoted none of your post except for one sentence.

like asking if triangles are better than squares. one is more useful (?), the other more universal...?

I’m sure it is. I’d encourage you to try to periodically remember this question when you are in a contemplative mood until you become less dismissive of it, and hopefully until you can eventually answer it correctly.

The other option was available to you though - the fact that choosing it resulted in an unforeseen outcome (the destruction of the universe where you chose A) doesn't mean that your decision to choose A was not freely made. We don't choose outcomes, but actions. I can't choose to win the lottery, but I can choose whether or not to buy a lottery ticket. If I'm offered two lottery tickets, and one of them is a winner and the other one is not, my choice between them is not illusory if I choose the losing ticket just because my goal is to win. Also, by hypothesis, you are not deterministically forced to choose ~A, so this is not analogous to a computer program following its code.

The fact (if it is a fact) that God could only choose the most perfect among all possible outcomes does not mean there are not other possible outcomes. It just means that an omnipotent god has complete control over which possible outcomes becomes actual. Also, as Aaron pointed out, you are making unwarranted assumptions here about the nature of goodness and perfection in assuming there is only one best outcome and it must be deterministic.

No, what God would foresee in my thought experiment are all possible choices that you can make. But this is merely foreknowledge, he doesn't cause you to make those choices. His responding to your choices by destroying the universe when you choose A doesn't have any backwards causation in causing you to thereby choose ~A.

Stop contradicting yourself!

No, there is nothing inconsistent in saying that some things in the universe follow deterministic laws and other things do not. I mean, actually, there might be, but I'm segregating potential inconsistencies in the concept of libertarian free will from this thought experiment.

Nope. You make a lot of big claims, but rarely follow through with an actual argument. If you think there is an inconsistency, prove it using an actual argument in logical form.

No argument needed. Just look at your self-cancelling statement: "not everything in the universe follows the laws of the universe."

What is the function of those quotation marks? Cuz you're not quoting me here....

Well, either the universe has both deterministic and non-deterministic laws or there are some objects in the universe that follow deterministic laws and some that dont. Which one is it?

God willfully ignores impossibility and logic freely by virtue of Godly free will?

I don't know, I hadn't bothered thinking through this part of my hypothetical.

Great question I believe what your saying is with a perfect, all powerful, all knowing God how are we really "free" to choose? If bad things happen in the world and God is all knowing why did they have to happen? Something along those lines right?

The simplest answer it is outside human comprehension. God exist in a way/dimension we are unable to fathom. Us trying to comprehend God would be like bacteria trying to comprehend calculus .We could try and teach it show it problems, books, signs, symbols, all that would be well outside that bacteria's understanding(at least for now).

I think we are on the way, I don't put anything past the determination of man, look at what we've accomplished /created in the past 2000 years, even just the last 200. We may have an answer one day.

Check out a book called the Kybalion (ancient mysticism book aka OG LAW of attraction book. Lol) it goes into much better detail.

Now for my take...
Seems science is pointing to multi dimensions , and if your not familiar with quantum physics, subatomic particles, etc check it out all pretty interesting and I think relates to religion seeing how it's ment to define our reality at its core.

I think God exist everywhere all the time. God is a part of us, a part of everything,and we are a part of God, but we are Not God.

We are free to choose what action(or lack of) We will take, same time its ALL already predertimed. This is where the infinite number of galaxies/possibilities comes in, GOD has it ALL mapped out. We pick what road we travel by giving it attention/energy in a way we create our own reality. Everything that can happen does, all through God's grace.

Maybe the human body is physically limiting, death could be a transfer of energy, and outside a shell (body) we may be better connected with the infinite,and this knowledge would be as common as human breathing?


Now why do bad things happen?
That be a tale for another time


Namestee

Logic is an immutable property of the universe, it always applies and it's always right.

You yourself obey laws of logic on a daily basis. You don't, and couldn't simultaneously believe, for example, that gravity exists and that it doesn't, that would be a contradiction i.e. the law of non-contradiction. Two contradictory facts can't both be true. Trying to ignore that won't change it. The same laws apply to god. He can't know that there's something he doesn't know, or create a boulder so large that he can't lift it, those things are logically impossible.

I don't agree that my definition of perfect is 'unwarranted' but clearly my argument relies on it. So I'll try to defend it.

In the same way that ontological argument assumes that there can only be one 'maximal being', that there couldn't be multiple equally maximal beings because by definition there can only be one value of maximal and anything else is non-maximal, I'm assuming one value of 'the most perfect it's possible to be', I think it's just another way to express the ontological argument. And it follows that the maximally perfect being creator could only have created something that is not only maximally perfect itself, but composed of perfect elements. There can't be the option of a perfect outcome that was achieved through imperfect steps because no imperfection is possible. A perfect being can't create, or allow to happen, something imperfect.

So nothing could be anything other than what it is and we couldn't have acted in any other way than how we did (and will), as he made it in that moment of creation, no matter what choices we think we have and god having foreknowledge is not even an issue or a conflict to be resolved because how could he not know what he decided would be.

Maybe, because he's perfect, the alternative imperfect ways that reality could have been didn't even enter his thoughts, reality sprang, fully formed and perfect, immediately into existence.

Not exactly, I'm saying that free will and a perfect creator being are incompatible.

That's not very useful. Do you shrug away anything you don't understand?

Ah but god is the one being we can safely say doesn't have free will A perfect being can do no other than be perfect.

Honestly I think modern theists have made life hard for themselves by claiming god as perfect, I much prefer the gods of the roman or Greeks who were much more human and flawed. So much easier to explain everything with those gods.