Is God Omniscient ? If so, do we have free will?

An exploration into the philosophy of religion

If God exists, He is all knowing.
That means that in advance he knows what we will do.
If He knew yesterday that today I will do the laundry - am I free to NOT do the laundry today?

There is a conflict between our assumption that we have free will, and God's all knowing nature (as seen by Christian and Muslim theologians).

So, what do you think... is God all knowing?

Does God know all, everything, the future, the past, your innermost thoughts?

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Yes, of course. Being omniscient is one of the divine attributes of God

saurab says:

There are different levels of knowing. Cosmic knowledge, for instance has got to be distinguished from knowledge of whether a particular vegetable is available in a particular super market in a city. Phenomena of a rather trivial nature are not worth being 'scient' about if there is the much vaster domain of non-trivial knowledge to be aware of. Obviously, though you can know the number of cars parked in a garage as you walk past it during the early morning stroll, it makes no sense to count them, just because one can. In a similar way, omniscience does not necessitate one to know matters that to someone may be very significant but to oneself may be trivial. That is one point. The other point is that since the life force is undivided and flows everywhere, and is also intelligent in itself, therefore all is known, and all is knowable, including a person's innermost thoughts, since all is connected in the web of life.

Posted September 01, 2008

futurmajic says:

Since there is no such thing as time or space, ?it is only something we perceive in a physical world?, all is known, even to us at the deepest levels.

Posted August 13, 2008

TwoBrightHeads says:

Yes and No. He has a system in place already. He can be omniscient if he wants to but can also choose not to. Make sense? No?

big bright head

Posted August 10, 2008

PositiveChristian says:

Of course God is omniscient. I He were not He wouldn't be God.

Posted August 06, 2008

sirkeystone says:

Omniscience is an attribute, but "he" has left us with choices, and based on our own choices and our primal instinct to survive, we have over time created the world we live in. Besides, in my belief system, "his" all-knowing covers the fact that "he" can see the entire time-line at once, "he" can transend all the dimensions at once, so while we make our choices, "he" knows what we will do before we do it.

Posted July 20, 2008

No, who can be all-knowing?

The_Homeopath says:

I don't think "all-knowing" really has any meaning to our limited minds.

Posted July 06, 2008

kephrira says:

I don't think an all-knowing and all-powerful god would have made such a flawed world. But then again maybe there are reason that I don't know. Or maybe God is an all-knowing and all-powerful sadist.

Posted May 22, 2008

Logical fatalism

a definition

The subject of this lens is really fatalism: is our future set?

Logical fatalism is the idea that because we can say something about tomorrow that might turn out to be true, the future is already determined today.

Theological Fatalism

Theological fatalism is like logical fatalism, with a twist. Instead of just anybody being able to say anything, and someone might turn out to be right - it's God that says something.

Theological fatalism is the idea that an All knowing omniscient God knows today what will happen tomorrow - and so the future is set. Because the future is determined in advance, we as individuals can't do anything about it.

The Divine Attributes... Who or What is God?

What is God? What's SHE like?

I'm not personally invested in believing in a personal God. For me God is something impersonal, all encompassing and in everything. But what do YOU think?

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A philosophy lens

Usually my lenses are introductions into topics. This lens is my summary of the hardest topic we are covering in our philosophy of religion class at Leiden University. The class is meant for people who have already taken several philosophy classes, so while it's still a first year college class - it's also pretty advanced.

So: If you don't understand, don't worry: I made this lens precisely because I didn't understand the topic just yet. Philosophy is meant to make you ponder and think - that means confronting stuff you didn't understand at first.

I try to keep things as simple as possible in this lens, but I can't guarantee that everybody can understand what I'm talking about. Do ask any questions you might have in the comments. I will try and answer them.

The Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy)

by Linda Zagzebski

The Philosophy of Religion: An Historical Introduction (Fundamentals of Philosophy)

by Linda Zagzebski

Amazon Price: $28.75 (as of 09/06/2008)

This is the book that started me on this lens. We read it in our 'philosophy of religion' class at Leiden University - and this subject is one of the ones Linda Zagzebski tackles very well.

Philosophy books are never easy, this one isn't either. Still, it is very interesting.

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God knows us - solution no.1

Middle Knowledge / Molinism

One solution is that God is all knowing to such an extent that He knows what I will do, because he knows me so well. So although I do have free will, that doesn't stop him from knowing what I will do.

This leaves my laundry up to the certainty that I will be doing them - even if I didn't know I would in advance. It means that it has been determined in advance what I will do - and that means my free will is effectively an illusion.

God outside of time - solution no.2

Boethian Solution (Boethius and Acquinas)

I started out writing that the problem is that God knows in advance what we will be doing - him being omniscient and everything.

But some philosophers say: God doesn't know in advance, because he isn't in time. He just knows - looking at our path from outside of time. He sees where we were and where we are going all in one glance - as if from a mountain top.

In philosophy every solution creates its own problems. In this case:

If God is outside of time, can He interfere with us at a certain time?

If God is outside of time, does he know what time it is?

God gives up some omniscience so we can have free will - solution no. 3

I like this solution, but I do think it's a bit strange.

Some modern theologians say that God is in time, just like us. And because He wants us to have free will, God freely gave up his omniscience so that we could have free will.

This leaves God in the position to have a relationship to each of us, answer prayers, and act WITHIN TIME.

Omniscient God? Discussed online

A Changing Omniscient God? Balderdash!!: I've heard several people say that if God changes His mind then He isn't God as we normally understand a God to be. That is, He can't be omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent etc. They especially focus in on omniscient. ...
Godly Aliens: It's as ill-defined as "god." What are we talking about here? An omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient god? A deistic sort of god? A personal god? A semi-powerful god? An omnipresent god? It's not really defined. ...
In response to: Fembush -- Scary stuff on Palin.: How come god didn't know from the get-go that animal sacrifices weren't going to cut it for him? Why didn't an omniscient being just put JC in the garden, if that was what it would take to reach the people? Anyway, "god" didn't make ...
Comment on CATHOLIC WORKER HOUSE SUPPORTS WOMAN PRIEST by Mary O: (Remember in His omniscience, God could have chosen both Aaron and Miriam to be made priests, thus making female priests commonplace to the Jews.) I don't know why God chose this. But I do firmly believe that neither I, nor anyone, ...

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And if God is alknowing, does that mean we don't have free will?

If God is alknowing, does that mean our actions are determined in advance and we don't have free will?

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Yes, our free will is an illusion.

spirituality says:

I agree with Whiteoak that there are consequences for our actions - whether one believes in God or not. In theosophy, Buddhism and Hinduism this is called: Karma. Whether that impacts our free will is debatable and goes beyond the subject of this lens. Maybe something for a future lens?

Posted May 18, 2008

WhiteOak50 says:

But is "free will" really free when there are consequences?
We have the free will to do what we want, but if we do something against the grain (so to speak) there are consequences of the action.

Posted May 18, 2008

No, God knows what we will be doing. We still have free will.