yjoeyh wrote:Omniscient means having all knowledge. If there is such a thing as knowledge, then there must be such a thing as all knowledge. If all knowledge is a real thing it must be finite (even a potential infinite is in actuallity, finite.)
Says who? Demonstrate that knowledge is finite according to god. Are you saying you have some specialized view into what god knows? Can you demonstrate that? If god is infinite, and his knowledge is part of his essence, then his knowledge is also infinite.
I don't know. More than twelve? What's the quantity of shoes? If you don't know does that make them infinite?
No-- your model of god as an "infinite" does. I don't claim god is infinite-- you do. So that makes his every characteristic as infinite as he is. If he is omniscient, then his knowledge is all and infinite by definition.
I am happy to give you a chance to conjure a finite god however. Your play.
But someone who knows you and your tendancies and preferences has a better chance of anticipating your choices than someone who doesn't right? Don't you think that someone who knows more about you can do a better job at guessing and gain higher statistical probablility of getting it right?
Oh, so now it's a "higher" probability? Ok, I suppose so. But there is zero probability with god, because there's no chance he's wrong. This is pretty obvious stuff. God isn't guessing he knows my choice-- he KNOWS it. That ends the issue right there.
You can only create analogies that insist less than certain knowledge, like "people who might know me" or "anticipate my next move" -- great. for everything that does not have ALL KNOWLEDGE in an infinite capacity. Again-- let';s agree to reduce your god to mere superhuman status. He cannot know certain things. He is blind to something, else doesn't actually know what my choice will be.
Given that concession, should you make it-- I will follow up by asking you, "How do you worship this god who might be wrong?"
How is that any different than me knowing my car will run out of gas? You are making a distinction without a difference. Anticipation is based on knowldge, not random guessing. Surely you agree with that.
I know the car will run out of gas because it's a mechanical device that (now get ready for this):
CANNOT MAKE ANY CHOICE IN THE MATTER
Cars don't have free will. So your analogy is irrelevant. Now, if the car had a CHOICE to run out of gas, and I couldn't TELL if it were going to run out of gas or not -- it would actually have a choice in the matter, wouldn't it? But as it stands-- it doesn't.
These are non sequitur. You haven't shown any correlation between knowledge and the limitation of freewill. I have shown that knowledge and freewill co-exist just fine for either the theist or the atheist and you haven't shown where that's wrong.
You didn't absorb the additional characteristics of a god also being omnipotent. God cannot be wrong. I have no power over god, so the correlation exists when these elements are together.
God knows I will choose "C". I cannot prove god wrong, or surprise god, or somehow do "B" -- else I have made a fool out of god and his omniscience. If I do, I override his omnipotence and his omniscience-- I have done something A) He didn't know I'd do and B) was unable to compel me to do the thing he thought I was going to do, but turned out to be wrong.
There is no way around this. God knows I will do "C" long before I am in any sort of condition to do anything at all, and I cannot disappoint, change, or override his knowledge of that outcome. Thus, I have only the illusion of freewill. My every choice is done before I did it.
That wouldn't be much of an anticipation without some degree of certainty.
There you go again -- humanizing your gods. "Some degree of certainty"? LOL, come on-- how about a COMPLETE AND PERFECT DEGREE of it?
I don't see why it can't be.
Because then he wouldn't be god, but instead be Yoda. Do you worship Yoda?
Okay, you have free will right? Will you then conced that I have made my point and that I am completely right and you are completely wrong? I already know you won't.
You don't know anything previous to meeting me here whereas god knows all of this before existence is even created-- a bit of a difference, I'm sure you will agree.
Did I limit your free will there? Of course not! I simply accurately anticipated your choice. Is it really reasonable for me to think you would have chosen otherwise?
No but that's due to a failure on your part of the argument. I'm not "not conceding" merely because I have free will, but because you aren't making a convincing argument. But if I did decide to capitulate to your argument, that doesn't mean I was forced into it-- it merely means you offered a coherent argument that was convincing. You haven't done that at all, and so it's easy to guess that I won't be swayed by it. Convince me otherwise, and see where it goes. In any event, you don't know perfectly and for certain how I will react to anything-- you are making probability guesses, which, again -- I'll be happy to assign this to your deity if you'll concede that's where his limits lay.
Then how do you reconcile this with freewill? Do you just assume that there must be a correlation?
When I say "free" I mean it is clearly limited within the laws of physics. I do not have the "free" will to rise up out of my chair and merely float to Zanzibar. Yes, I assume the correlation based on empirical evidence that I have made choices, and I have a brain which supports the contention of consciousness, sapience, intellect, and volition.
I have no need to interject supernaturalist concepts into this model, since they do not add anything empirical to the conclusion, they are not demonstrable, and they create far more problems than interjecting them might "solve" (indeed, they solve nothing at all, but merely multiple problems unnecessarily).
