Aaron,

Since you dislike my wording, I'll reword:
God is timeless, he exists outside of time, since God is outside of time, when God looks at his painting of the universe he sees the past, the present and the future all at once. For God, time does not pass like time passes for us, For God time is presented all at once. In his painting God sees every intervention he has ever made. Since God already knows his interventions, by looking at his painting he cannot choose different interventions when taking them. God lacks free will to alter his actions since he is predestined to choose one course of action. God knows this.

I think you are forgetting what God is, God is omnipotent, omnipresent, omnibenevolent and omniscient in short God is everything and everything. God has an IQ of infinite and posseses infinite knowledge because of this God can make such comparisons. Just as we encounter situations where we think we will get equal utility from consuming two different items, God might find himself in a situation where two of his actions causes equal kindness, I would argue that this is very rare though, since God would be able to see every externality and every nuance subject to an infinite number of decimal places and an infinite number of years. Out of interest when you find yourself in a situation looking at two different sandwiches which you are indifferent between, how do you choose? do you randomize your decision, or buy both? If God was in such a situation where two acts of kindness yielded exactly equal payoffs I would expect him to choose both.

Hardball,
Of course, if you thought this is what I meant then you have not been understanding the argument at all. (Assumption: you do not have infinite knowledge, you are not a time traveller)

Lets say you are going to get a sandwich, you have a choice of turkey, pork and beef, you originally were going to go with turkey but since you have free will you can order whatever sandwich you like, in fact since you have free will you can say 'no, I will not have anything today'

Now lets suppose you have infinite knowledge (from a website);

"There is a light switch on the wall; God may either turn it on, or leave it off; but, since God already knows the future, God knows that he will turn it on. That is part of his knowledge. But what if God exercises freewill, and chooses not to turn it on. Is this possible?"

This is the issue, I argued that God has to turn it on. maybe you are not understanding the term omniscient, there are many levels of the term, I am taking it in the most literal, as in 'knowing everything that can be known- infinite knowledge'

God is omniscient, God knows his interventions, God is logically bound to his interventions.

If you are still not understanding, I will explain the definition of omniscient I am using again. God is all knowing, he knows everything, Since God knows everything, he knows his own actions, he knows his own actions infinitely into the past and infinitely into the future. Again if you do no not take this definition to be accurate as to your picture of God then fine, I accept that I do not believe in God after all, I am just basing my argument after this definition.

Of course this argument is cyclical, I present my argument, you criticize it, I defend my argument. You are not making any new points, if you presented a new argument the argument would move on.

I'm tired of repeating myself. You're making the same mistake you've been making throughout. You also have two people saying the same thing to you and you're remaining stubbornly close-minded about it. You are attributing linear time to God when you talk about him being "predestined" to do something as if there is a "pre" to God with respect to time as we experience it. You can now add to your list of considerations the possibility that two actions (if they happened to have the same utility) may be mutually exclusive.

On the second point, you are still repeating the error of attempting to assign a linear ordering to all of God's decisions. Two acts of kindness may not even be comparable with respect to its level of benevolence, and God may choose to act based on other aspects of his character.

You're the math guy so maybe I'm missing something here, but which one of those permutations allows for every person to have a chance to get into heaven?

You're misreading the post.

For each person, there must exist a reality in which that person (individually) got into heaven. A gets into heaven in {A, B}, B gets into heaven in {B}, and C gets into heaven in {B, C}, so everyone has a chance. But it's entirely possible for no permutation to exist in which everyone (simultaneously) to get into heaven.

But don't you believe that God has knowledge of exactly which permutation will occur beforehand?

Oh, I see where the confusion is. There are two things going on here.

Flynn was talking about "possible permutations of reality" as an abstract theoretical and was attempting to claim that two specific conditions implies the existence of a "permutation of reality" in which everyone gets saved. I was showing him that the two conditions given were not sufficient to draw that conclusion.

This conversation is disjoint from the question of which of these "permutations" is actually made manifest in reality. I guess in this language, God also knows what is (and what was and will be), and he also knows what could have been.

K got it. Carry on.

Free will is not violated by there being no permutation of reality wherein he cheats on Amy if he marries Bella. There is also no 'violation' of free will if there is no possible permutation wherein he cheats on his wife regardless of who he marries. It's simply not possible for him to make that choice.

Where does this leave us in respect to the actual discussion? Good question! My contention is this (my prose style seems to trip a lot of people up, so lists ftw):

1) There can be no possible permutation of reality which cannot be effected by an omnipotent god.

2) 'Possible permutations of reality' exclude such things as five-sided squares and the like.

3) No element of reality which boils down to free elective agency can constitute a five-sided square (ie, there are no 'impossible choices'). Note that our inability to fly does not contradict this; our physical limitations override the free will aspect - for it to be impossible for us to want or to try to fly would be a concrete example. In summary, there is nothing that we can call a choice that cannot exist in a possible permutation of reality which god can effect (this could be clearer and I will address objections as they arise).

4) Salvation is available to all, and all must exercise free will in attaining salvation.

5) (from 3 and 4) It is therefore possible for all free-willed individuals in a specific permutation of reality to attain salvation.

The objections raised by your set-theory argument don't apply, or at least, I don't see how they can (since your axioms conflict with mine ldo). Your god is omnipotent. If there is no possible permutation of reality in which all individuals attain salvation, then that's a pretty shabby god you've got there, IMO. Assuming that there is not, for any individual, some five-sided-square-like obstacle to salvation, and assuming further that the salvation of no number of individuals creates such an obstacle to the salvation of any other, then an omnipotent god must surely be able to create a universe in which all of its creatures are saved.


I'm assuming the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god, and arguing that one or other must be the case (all individuals either can or can not simultaneously be saved). My contention is that universal salvation without violation of free will creates no five-sided squares, and is therefore an option open to god. You want me to prove it? I can't! But I can show the conclusions you must draw regarding your god if I am right... and if those conclusions violate an acknowledged characteristic of your god... then you had best pray for five-sided squares.

Again, the assumptions are insufficient if we grant your own assumptions. Consider what the use would be, for me to prove inarguably that 'X' would be the case, if not-Y, in a universe where Y is true?

I don't believe in 'Hell', chief. And to continue the analogy, we must suppose that the parent provided not one but tens of thousands of life vests. Only one of which actually works. And, of course, the child cannot know whether or not the vest will work without putting it on and jumping into the water.

Quite culturally based, Irish Roman Catholic style. But let's not get sidetracked into Hell; we're discussing salvation and the attainment or not thereof. If we want to get into Hell, we might as well start discussing Heaven - neither is relevant to the matter in hand.


Not 'benevolence' - ultimate, infinite, benevolence. You keep pretending there are things your god can't do. I keep reminding you that you shouldn't really think that.

I think I see the problem.

Do you not see how you're mixing "possible permutations of reality" with "reality" itself? Surely God would pick a universe in which all men are saved if he is the one doing the picking. But if God is picking the reality, where is man's free will? This is a multi-party system, not a God-only system. If man refuses to do something because that's what man has decided to do, it doesn't matter what *could* have been because that is not what *actually* is.

It's not God who is making things confusing. It's man's broken nature that is causing problems. There is also a being working against God, telling the child to grab tightly to the anchor. But I think you'll understand this better once you understand the contingent nature of free will, which is that God is not the ultimate decision-maker.

God *CAN* interrupt man's free will, but then the result is not a free decision by man, which is not God's desired result. God wants man to freely choose God, not for God to choose God for man.

Well I, as a man, would like to fly to the top of Mt. Everest tomorrow.

Why can't I do that if it is my will? (which is free, as you say)

I'm not trying to be snide. The way I'm reading what you're saying it not making any sense at all. Perhaps if you answer my question I can better grasp what you're saying and see why I'm thinking about it incorrectly.

Thanks.

Free will is with respect to moral capacity and moral decisions, not physical laws and limitations.

Okay, but...

God put restrictions on what moral decisions we can make, no?

So he allows us to chose to either rape or not rape. He could have allowed us to chose to either shoot fire balls out of our ass to kill, or not shoot fire balls our of our ass to kill, but he didn't.

You said...

But replying to my post you said that free will has nothing to do with physical laws and limitations. (which shape our reality)

Morality is tied more closely to the judgment of whether to do such an act and not as much in the act itself. The "type" of moral failing of stabbing someone to death is probably "roughly the same" as flame-farting someone to death, which is "roughly the same" as shooting someone. That it's death by steel, flame, or lead makes little difference.

Once again I have failed to make myself clear.

Andy could have chosen the left fork or the right fork in the road. There was a strong smell of onions wafting from the general direction of the right-hand fork, so Andy (who absolutely despises onions) chooses the left-hand fork where otherwise he would have chosen the right-hand fork.

Do you consider free will violated if god alters reality such that there is no smell of onions wafting down the road, and, consequently, Andy chooses the right-hand fork?

But the 'free will' is not a dice-roll. Decisions - even 'free' ones - do not take place in a vacuum. And your god is all-knowing. This means that your god knows better than you do why and how you came to make a particular choice. And knows exactly what adjustments to reality would be necessary in order for you to choose otherwise - it knows all your 'onions', and can change the wind any way it pleases.

It is the ultimate decision maker or it is not worthy of the term 'god'.

In that case, a physical law preventing rape would not affect free will.

But you're denying reality. Onions smell like onions. Roses smell like roses. You can create all sorts of hypotheticals based on whatever rules of the universe you choose. But that's not the universe that you exist in.

As far as whether free will is violated, probably not. But I don't know the ramifications of such a change on the universe. Consider it to be a butterfly effect.

Changing reality does not take place in a vacuum, either. In a one person system, it's somewhat easy to imagine changing the laws to make it work. But make it a multi-billion person system, where the peoples' decisions are linked to each other (since we are relational beings), and it becomes a huge problem. You can wave your hands and say "it can still work" but you can't provide more than assertion that it should.

If this is your theology about "God" then so be it. I don't intend to argue you our of your premises. Omnipotence is not the forceful use of all power at all times.

Sure, if we were created as asexual beings or something like that. This is starting to sound like another discussion with someone here about gun crimes. If we got rid of all the guns, there would be no more gun deaths. But it doesn't actually fix the fundamental problem of violence, so the improvement is somewhat illusory. It's just masking a symptom (very poorly), not curing the disease.

Or like a rape victim being instantly teleported to a safe haven upon a rape attempt. As one of dozens of examples I can come up with off the top of my head.

And it cures one strain of the disease. Other rules could work for other strains. If a bullet comes into contact with my skin, it can cease to exist.

If someone tries to suffocate me, then fresh air can appear in my lungs to replace the old air.

If someone drops a nuke on a civilian population, the reactive ingredients can become inert.

There's really no challenge here for an omnipotent being.

This has me really confused.

What kind of will is it if man is unable to manifest it? It's not really clear to me that an impotent moral capacity is any capacity at all.

Framing this in a Garden of Eden analogy, if God commands man not to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but then makes it impossible for man to eat the fruit, did man have the free will to violate God's command?

NO KIDDING THAT'S THE ENTIRE POINT OF THIS THREADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD

Exactly! And if I am right that the various adjustments described above are possible for your god, then this means that this reality was chosen by god from a wide range of possible universes. Which means that when I get killed in an avalanche, god wanted me to be killed in an avalanche. When I am infected with Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion, god wanted that, too.

It's difficult to see the butterfly effect as an impediment to an omnipotent, omniscient being. The whole thing about the butterfly effect is unpredictability - surely there is nothing your god cannot foresee? Surely, having foreseen, there is nothing your god cannot do to offset whatever undesired consequences arise?

For this to represent an obstacle to god, it must be the case that at least one person's salvation is made impossible by the salvation of another, no?

Not with this god, it's not. But it is always the capacity to use that power. Which is what I was referring to earlier when I mentioned the 'constant creation' - god always knows what it could do, and always can do whatever would be necessary to intervene, and thus every point at which the decision not to intervene is made represents an affirmation of the original creation. Whenever a five-year-old contracts leukaemia, every second of its life, god is choosing not to save its life.

You're still stuck on a single party system. This reminds me of a lament of God (paraphrased - If you really cared, I can look it up):

I tilled the soil, I planted good seeds, I set up a strong wall around my vineyard, but all I've got are bad grapes.

God gave us a good world, but our decisions screwed it up. As far as the hypothetical goes, I simply do not know how far it can be pushed. I don't know the mind of God perfectly, and am simply trying to speculate along with you. If God had made something different, I don't feel confident in making declarative statements about how things could have been.

If you read what I said, the butterfly effect applies to *me*. I don't know what the ramifications of changing the laws of the universe are. Therefore, I cannot say with confidence that such and such is possible. It's like playing with a very complex machine without having a working knowledge of how all the various parts interact. If you swap a few wires and change some hoses around, I don't know what will happen.

It might well be the case that two people's salvation are mutually exclusive. Two bitter rivals can decide to have nothing in common.

I'm getting confused between "god", "your god", and "this god." We're bouncing around between various hypotheticals and reality, and I'm losing track of the argument.

I'm really not 'stuck on a single party system'. I'm "stuck" on supposed impediments to an omnipotent will which don't constitute five-sided squares.

How did 'our decisions' create, say, leukaemia? And tsunamis?

This is terribly weak. I say if you're unable to argue at least plausibly that it's impossible for god to have created a 'better' universe, you should accept it as you accept its ability to do anything not requiring a five-sided square. Contrariwise, if you are able to argue this plausibly, you have, IMO, effectively dethroned god.

And it would not be possible for god to prevent this (while preserving free will as laid out above)?

What's important is whether or not the salvation of two people is innately mutually exclusive - ie that, decisions made by either one notwithstanding, Abby can never be saved if Bella is.

All uses of 'god' in my posts refer to the same supposed entity. I don't think I've assigned any attributes to the entity that you could say you don't believe it possesses.

Again, many people who have sought to harm others have been forcibly prevented from doing so. Did they lack moral capacity? Did they lack free will?

You can claim that the ability to create real damage with moral action is necessary in order for free will to exist, but if this is the case then those who have been unable to effect their malevolent desires for whatever reason (paralysis, imprisonment, or acute myocardial infarction) have lacked free will. Thus, either free will is unnecessary or the ability to cause harm is not necessary for free will.

By this standard, someone suffering from a disease like lateral sclerosis has no free will whatever - there are people who are fully conscious yet have no motor control over their bodies. If your position is that our ability to do grievous harm to others is necessary, then how do you account for those who clearly lack that ability?

God gave us a world in which the single overriding principle is entropy and decay. A universe mostly composed of cold rock and emptiness. A place where, due to the simple laws of physics, it is far easier to destroy than to create. Where the damage wrought by a single man in a single moment can't be repaired by a hundred men in a hundred lifetimes.

If this is the best God can do, then he can only be stupid, evil, or imaginary.

If you stay under my roof, you are under my protection. But if you go outside, you're on your own.

Huh? You're arguing that because the universe isn't in some manner that you have contrived, God must not be something or another. You're using "better" as if you have some capacity to compare the current universe with some universe that you have imagined in your head.

You keep going back to an argument that essentially boils down to "God can change everyone's minds while simultaneously maintaining free will." You have yet to produce any argument to support this. So far, you've tried to stretch amoral thought processes (I like onions - I don't like onions) and draw some sort of conclusion about moral decisions (I accept God - I reject God).

Here you go with the "permutations of reality" thing again. That possible worlds exist (due to man's ability to make decisions) does not mean that any of these potential realities may ever be made into manifest reality. It may require man to make a choice that he may decide not to make. It's not that man lacks the capacity to make such a choice, but that he simply refuses. This is parallel to the idea that God can remove man's free will, but refuses.

This is a little hard for me to follow because I am bouncing back and forth between God as I know him to be, and god based on the structure of the arguments you are laying out. They are very different. For example, your conception of omnibenevolence is different from mine because your conception of "good" is different from mine. You (as well as Rushankil) are both measuring "good" by some variant of "number of persons in heaven." This has been implicit throughout the entire discussion as you've been arguing the entire time about getting people in heaven.

I don't believe "good" can be accurately measured in a linear manner. I tend to believe it's some sort of partially ordered set in which "evil" is always lower than "neutral" which is always lower that "good" but that it may not always be the case that two "good" acts are directly comparable.