God's Omniscience and Human Free Will - Essay Example

? God’s Omniscience and Human Free Will - Contradiction One of the most intriguing and most debated contradictions in philosophy is the contradiction of the presence of an omniscient God and human free will. That is, God’s foreknowledge of what is going to happen and our free will to choose whatever we want to. As it can be seen, it is clearly evident that both the above contradict each other. If God already knows what we are going to do in the future, then it implies that we do not have the freedom to choose what we are going to do. There have been various solutions proposed or arguments made in order to prove that both God’s omniscience and human free will are compatible with each other. Most of the solutions or arguments are aimed at working around the problem rather than resolving it. I believe that there is no way to solve this conflict without denying either God’s omniscience or the existence of free will. In this essay I argue and attempt to prove that God’s omniscience and human free will are not compatible with each other. Omniscience in the simplest form is defined as the knowledge of everything, infinite or complete knowledge. That is, an omniscient God knows and has knowledge of everything, including what is going to happen in the future1. Human free will on the other hand is defined as the ability, power or force of a person to choose what or what not to do. In a more religious sense it is the ability or power to choose or turn away from good or evil2. Hence, definition of omniscient God implies an all knowing God meaning that God knows what is going to happen in the future. If God already knows what we are going to do in the future, it means that our actions are already predetermined and we have no control over the actions that we are going to take in the future. This puts the concept of free will in danger as it implies that we are not free to choose what we want to do as it is already predetermined. If we were free to choose what we were to do, then we would either choose to do what God knows or we could choose to do against what God knows. In the second case, God would no more be omniscient as he did not know what we would choose. Therefore, one of the either two extremities is possible. God is omniscient or humans have free will, both cannot be possible. Now let’s consider some of the solutions offered to solve the above conflict and see if it actually attempts to prove the compatibility of the two ideas or not. One of the major arguments made by those supporting omniscient God and human free will is that God’s foreknowledge in no way restricts human free will. That is, foreknowledge does not imply causality. Following analogy is used to support the claim: Sun rises tomorrow and knowing this does not cause the sun to rise. Knowing ahead of time does not restrict or cause an event to occur. Similarly, God’s foreknowledge of what we are going to do does not affect our free will to choose what we are going to do. It just means that God happens to know ahead of time what we are going to choose freely. God does not affect our freedom to choose but he simply knows ahead of time that what we are going to choose3. For this argument to work the concept of time as we know it must be discarded. God is not restricted by the concept of time as we do. To God past, present and future exists at once, i.e, God exists outside of time. The above argument does not make logical sense and can be termed invalid. Let’s assume that humans have free will and are free to choose what they want to do. If an option A is chosen then by the earlier argument God would have known that option A would be chosen ahead of time. If instead of option A, due to free will, option B is chosen then the argument would be that this is what would have been known4. So either way the conclusion that can be drawn is that the future is determined. Irrespective of causing the event to occur or not, the future remains determined in the analogy used. Knowing that the sun would rise does not cause the sun to rise but it is a determinate future where the sun will rise. Free agents do not have determinate futures and if they do, then they are not free agents. Therefore, logically either God has foreknowledge or humans are free agents and both cannot be true. Now for the sake of this essay, let’s assume that God is omniscient and humans have free will. God exists out of time and eternally knows that what we are going to choose through our free will, and allows us to choose that. This assumption questions the other qualities of God such as Omnibenevolence. Omni means ‘all’ and benevolent means ‘good’. Hence, an omnibenevolent God is one who wishes and does only good for all. An omnibenevolent God is opposed to all evil and is capable of eliminating all evil5. If God is omniscient and knows what we are going to choose in the future through our free will and allows us to choose that. As we have seen consequences of human choices can be negative and positive, good and evil, constructive and destructive. If God is omniscient and omnibenevolent, then God must interfere and influence our choices in such a way that it only leads to positive, good and constructive consequences. That is, God must ensure that all good happens and there is no evil in the world as consequences of human choices. If God chooses to influence our choices, then human are not free any more as their choices are not their own. On the other hand, if God does not interfere but allows humans to make their choices and in the process create evil and harm others, then the concept of an omnibenevolent God must be discarded. There can only be two conclusions that can be drawn out of this. One, God decides not to interfere with human free will and lets us make our choices. This means that God is deceitful and doesn’t care about our decisions. Moreover he is just an inactive onlooker and plays no role in shaping the world. Second, God has no control over what we do as we are free agents. Even if God wants to, he will not be able to influence our actions and hence is of no use in the bigger scheme of things. This contradicts another attribute of God that God is omnipotent. By definition, an omnipotent being is one that is all powerful and can do anything6. If God has no power to influence or shape the world then God is not all powerful. Therefore, in order there is only logical solution to this problem and that is to accept that God is either omniscient or human have free choice and not both. The argument of theological fatalism is an excellent one that argues that omniscient God and human free will cannot co-exist. According to this argument, human actions occur due necessity and hence are not free. If God’s foreknowledge is infallible with respect to a human act, then that act becomes a necessity and not free. This argument is based on the idea that if God knows what the future is and this knowledge is infallible; the no act of humans is free. The reasoning behind this argument is that if a being believed infallibly in the past that an act would be perfumed by you in the future. Now there is nothing that can be done about the belief as past events cannot be changed. And the future act cannot be changed as his belief was infallible. Therefore you cannot act otherwise means that you do not have free will7. The above argument makes absolute sense logically and it goes on to show that an omniscient God and human free will cannot coexist. From the above arguments it can be seen that foreknowledge and free will do not coexist just because of contradictions but also because of the fact that if they do, then the whole ideology behind the concept of God breaks down. As it’s already been shown, if God is omniscient and humans have free will, then the concept of an omnibenevolent and omnipotent God falls apart. That is, God either has no control over our actions or he chooses not to interfere hence allowing humans to suffer and again punish them for the wrongdoing they did as a result of free will that he gave in the first place. What is the purpose of giving free will and punishing for using it? Therefore, omniscient God and human free will cannot coexist. Works Cited Kretzmann, Norman. "Omniscience and Immutability." Journal of Philosophy. 63.14 (1966): 409-421. Print. Krupp, Nathan. Getting to Know God. Salem OR: Preparing the Way Publishers, 1998. Print. Mabry, Eddie. Balthasar Hubmaier's Understanding of Faith. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1998. Print. Slick, Matt. "If God knows our free will choices, do we still have free will?." CARM, 2011. Web. 12 Apr 2012. . Slick, Matt. "Argument against God's existence from the impossibility of omniscience and free will." CARM. 2011. Web. 12 Apr 2012. . Westphal, Jonathan. Philosophical Propositions: An Introduction to Philosophy. London: Routledge, 1998. Print. Zagzebski, Linda, "Foreknowledge and Free Will", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2011 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = . Read More