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Originally Posted by Aaron W.
I believe the more traditional position ends up invoking a weird time sense. I don't think it's necessarily wrong, but it is a lot harder to explain.
Yes, typically the arguments goes towards some sort of time discussion. But I have yet to see one that has been satisfying. There still are too many issues.
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It's not determinism in that your future actions are not solely dependent upon the state of the universe right now. However, God knows the decisions you "will have made" when the time comes.
But the issue is that the effect (the choice made) precedes the cause (the free will agent). So although the claim is that actions are supposedly not dependent on the universe "now", as it is in determinism, there is something other than the free will agent that allows for the future to be "determined" as it would have to be in order for God to know before the agent exists.
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To wrap your mind around it, it's as if you're playing a game in which every decision corresponds to picking a particular card from a deck. So for breakfast, you've got a card labeled "bagel" and another labeled "toast" and "yogurt" or whatever else you've got. You then pick the card and that becomes your decision. And then the consequences of that decision are played out until your next decision. So at every junction, you are legitimately making your decision.
I understand what you are saying, but the problem becomes, what cards are actually available to me. If God knows that tomorrow I will pick the "bagel" card, then was the "toast" card in the actual range of possibilities?
If there is only one actual world, the one that God knows, then there are no actual worlds in which I can pick the "toast" card, which means that I do not have the ability to choose otherwise, therefore I do not have free will.
However, God sees the game as if it's already over. That is, he sees the stacks of cards that correspond to people's decisions, and when he lines up those decisions in time, he can "watch" the universe play itself out. The analogy gets a little difficult when you insert the fact that God is monkeying around by influencing certain decisions in time, because the question ends up being "Did God override free will?" whenever he acts. So he's interacting "in time" with everyone else, but is also able to see what it looks like after everyone has finished making their decisions. This is where things get hand-wavy.[/QUOTE]