How does knowing that you'll choose soup A over soup B negate free will? His knowledge on the subject stems directly from your free will.

As for your example, if we were to look at the exact moment that you choose, and you were to choose soup B, then it's impossible for it to be "already established [you'd] choose A". For that to happen (like you said), it would mean that God was wrong and his omniscience be limited which cannot be the case. Instead, God would know that you would choose soup B. To say that one or the other must be non-existent doesn't make sense to me, as God knowing what will occur =/= God choosing what will occur. Again, merely because God knows what you will choose does not change the fact that said knowledge is based solely on his ability to see the future and know what it is you will choose.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Jul 23 2010 03:31pm

If anyone can know what will occur for certain, that means that only one action will occur for certain. If it is possible to know what will happen, then what will happen is predetermined.

He could only know that if he set the thing in motion to begin with, and if he did then he only created us with the illusion of free will because all of our actions are simply made to fulfill this design that he has laid for us.

The issue is simply this. For God to know, without a doubt, what I will do and when then it impossible for me to do otherwise. I could never commit an action that he did not foresee, meaning the set of possible actions for me is limited to those things which contribute to God's grand design.

Basically, every single thing I've ever experienced, worked for, etc. was not because of my own talents or my own successes but rather it was all because God decided to lay that path out for me.

Sure, but that knowledge stems from the persons free will.

To say that God knows that one will choose X over Y, but then at the moment of choice the person's free will is limited because they cannot choose Y is to effectively say that one wishes to choose both X and Y at the same time when only one can be chosen.

This post was edited by Handcuffs on Jul 23 2010 03:43pm

If anyone can determine the future for certain, that means the input and output of the variables are able to be determined, and that we have no say in what the final output will be, because it will happen regardless of our "choice" or "will".


That's the absence of free will.

Either that, or God created a blank slate in you and you make your own success based off of your free will.

You wouldn't commit an action that he did not forsee, but you simultaneously would not commit such an action because it's something you would do in the first place. The fact that God knows that you won't act this way doesn't mean that you aren't choosing to act this way.

Unless the future is contingent on your free will, no? Meaning that there are an infinite amount of possibilities of occurences, but our free will and our choices effectively move us down a certain path, and God merely is aware of which path we will end up choosing to go down.

Living a life that was played out before I lived it is shallow and without any form of joy, in my opinion. I don't know why such a being would create humans just to live a life without any unique consequences and then judge them based off of decisions he pre-ordained.

How did you reach that conclusion? You are choosing X and are restricted from choosing Y. How does that mean you are choosing both X and Y?