Can prayer change God's perfect plan?

[Brian37]

Ok, let me try again.

"Explain to yourself first, and then anyone here, how anything is free if it cannot be any other way because the outcome is already known by God."

So far, you're explanation is simply that God stands outside of time and space, but this does not even begin to answer the question, that only explains HOW he experiences all things (and not very well at that), it does not address at all how that gives you or anyone free will.  You've simply sidestepped the question, not answered it.

I feel like that is answering it though. Let's try this. Imagine you see me grabbing a slice of cheese pizza instead of pepperoni. You know I chose cheese because you're seeing me do it, right? That's God as well, seeing us making our choices. Except that's how it is for God at all moments of time. Not just in the present.

For instance, right now, you have the "choice" to respond to me or not.  God already knows which way that will be.  How are you choosing it, then?  Can you possibly CHOOSE the other way that God has not forseen?? 

If the answer to the underlined is no, then how is this a choice at all?

Again, God is not "forseeing". That would mean He's in the present, looking at the future. Rather, to Him there is no past, present, or future. He's seeing it happen all at once.

That is still sidestepping the question. If past present and future he already knows it is like watching a video tape. Pre recorded does not give us free will.

[Silver]

God knows that you will choose cheese over pepperoni; therefore, you never had the free will to choose pepperoni over cheese.

[Mystical]

Excuse me but if this is your belief.. Then what do you believe happens to babies (innocents) who are killed before choosing your god? If free will is the reason for all the suffering in the world, how is it so easily removed from babies, or "people who haven't heard the word of god"? Where's their free will?

Not sure I understand your objection.  I wasn't talking about Free Will being the cause of suffering, I was talking about it being a reality of human life.  You don't even need to believe in God to believe in Free Will.    But my point was that if you do believe in God or, more topical to this discussion, any omnipotent being, you aren't required to stop believing in Free Will as the two concepts don't, of necessity, contradict each other.   One's will is free in the sense that one has the power to pursue what one wishes. The baby has the power to pursue a piece of candy.  He or she may encounter resistance, but if they want the candy badly enough they can keep pursuing it.  Eventually, the appetite will subside enough for the baby to no longer want to pursue the candy, either because of substitution or exhaustion, but the baby is always free to pursue that candy by whatever tools it has at it's disposal (crawling, crying, reaching, etc). All God's omnipotence means is that He knows what's going to happen. But he's not imposing that knowledge onto the person.  If He didn't know, then the question of why He doesn't intervene would be more pertinent, I should think.  Generally speaking, the only reason to intervene in anything is to either ensure the occurrence of a desired result or prevent the occurrence of an undesired one.   If you already know the result, there's no point in intervening unless you enjoy being part of the process.

You uhhh. You missed my point entirely. I'm talking about, say, still born babies. Or aborted babies. Or babies god commanded have their heads crashed upon the rocks in the Old Testament. I also put in an example of the Eskimo. Someone who would never hear the "good news" or be able to accept Christ's supposed offering. What happens to their free will if they auto go to heaven? Or hell, for that matter?

I also said that if I were one of those bsbies' spirits and I went automatically to heaven, I'd be amgry for not being able to choose my fate because knowing gods sin of creating an eternal place of torment for those of his creation is plain out evil .

Care to respond to what I said originally l?

[Edwardo Piet]

I know it must be frustrating, Aroura. Lol.

It doesn't matter whether God is outside of time or space.... it doesn't mean that he can allow you to choose otherwise at the same time as determining that you will do one specific thing and therefore NOT do otherwise....

...for exactly the same reason that it doesn't matter how omnipotent God is... he still can't make square circles.

Logical contradictions cannot be true.

If the future is predetermined to be exactly a certain way or absolutely known at 100% certainty to be exactly a certain way.... then there is only one possible world and therefore no alternative paths to be taken.

[Brian37]

Do you understand what it means to "be outside of the dimension of time"?  Or if that makes any real sense or if it's possible?  Or is this all just what you're (and Catholic doctrine) is asserting?  It's one thing to assert something and another to prove or demonstrate it.  

I'd like to see why you think it's possible to be outside of the dimension of time let alone that there is an entity already there.

I think it's impossible for any of us to fully comprehend what it means to be outside of time, because we can't possibly fathom time not existing/not being a factor. I think I've explained as much of it as I understand, though. I will say that I think time exists only so long as matter exists. God is spirit and is therefore not bound by time.  

I agree that it's one thing to assert something and another thing to prove it. It is not possible to prove that anything can exist outside of time, that's just my belief regarding God. I said a few pages back that I'm not trying to prove anything, just explaining my beliefs and giving my opinions. Why I believe what I do is a whole other story, and I've touched on it (as much as one reasonably can via forum posts) a handful of times on other threads.

Why are you desperate to feel the need to fill in that gap when you admit that you cannot prove it?

Do you explain the existence of lightening and thunder with Thor? How come you don't feel the need to believe that? Do you explain hurricanes with Poseidon? How come you don't feel the need to believe that? 

Maybe YOU need to seriously consider that it is something you were sold and something you merely desire to be true. 

Written religion was around long before Christianity, and human beings were around long before even written religion. Our planet is 4 billion years old and other species of life existed and thrived long before even apes existed. Our universe is currently estimated as having nearly 200 billion galaxies, and the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Written religion has only been around about 10,000 years of that 13.8 billion years. Our planet has had 5 mass extinction events as to which 99% of life has gone extinct and what you see left is the 1% remaining  in our planet's 4 billion year history.

I cannot take those facts that I know and fall back into the fantasy that all this was made for us. That would seem to me a long winded way to get to humans.

[Pat Mustard]

You must have lived a very sheltered life to now, seeing as you've not encountered the problem of evil before. It's been worried over by theists since before christianity and not one has come up with a satisfactory answer.

In fact the only good answer came from Epicurus:

---

If god has a perfect, unchanging plan, then you don't have free will because your thoughts and actions were determined for you long before you even existed and you have no choice in the matter.

Freedom can't be absolute (which is I think what Sam Harris is recognizing in his writings), but it's free at the point where one identifies with the predetermined causation of choices.  Freedom is a first person experience.  

But if free will exists your "perfect" god cannot, because free will limits that god's ability to act thus causing sn imperfection.

Either free will exists, or your god exists, or neither.

[brewer]

Hm? I'm not sure I follow. The scenario is that both cheese and pepperoni are available, and you see me freely choosing cheese, therefore you know I chose cheese by my own free will.    


I can choose whatever I want. And I do. The thing is, since God can see all of time, He is already seeing me making my choices, whatever they are.

I'll also add that you're still looking at this the wrong way. You're still looking at it in terms of God being in the present and looking at the future, and asking if the future can still change from what God has seen. Being outside of time is different from that, as I have explained in the best way I can.

It's damn hard to argue with a fantasy.

[Edwardo Piet]

Nah it's easy to argue with it it's just those who want such a fantasy don't notice the logical mistakes they're making.

[Catholic_Lady]

I think it's impossible for any of us to fully comprehend what it means to be outside of time, because we can't possibly fathom time not existing/not being a factor. I think I've explained as much of it as I understand, though. I will say that I think time exists only so long as matter exists. God is spirit and is therefore not bound by time.  

I agree that it's one thing to assert something and another thing to prove it. It is not possible to prove that anything can exist outside of time, that's just my belief regarding God. I said a few pages back that I'm not trying to prove anything, just explaining my beliefs and giving my opinions. Why I believe what I do is a whole other story, and I've touched on it (as much as one reasonably can via forum posts) a handful of times on other threads.

Why are you desperate to feel the need to fill in that gap when you admit that you cannot prove it?

Do you explain the existence of lightening and thunder with Thor? How come you don't feel the need to believe that? Do you explain hurricanes with Poseidon? How come you don't feel the need to believe that? 

Maybe YOU need to seriously consider that it is something you were sold and something you merely desire to be true. 

Written religion was around long before Christianity, and human beings were around long before even written religion. Our planet is 4 billion years old and other species of life existed and thrived long before even apes existed. Our universe is currently estimated as having nearly 200 billion galaxies, and the universe is 13.8 billion years old. Written religion has only been around about 10,000 years of that 13.8 billion years. Our planet has had 5 mass extinction events as to which 99% of life has gone extinct and what you see left is the 1% remaining  in our planet's 4 billion year history.

I cannot take those facts that I know and fall back into the fantasy that all this was made for us. That would seem to me a long winded way to get to humans.

Not desperate. Just explaining my views to those asking for it.

[Valyza1]

Suppose you had the ability to look back and watch your entire past in as much detail as you want, knowing you can't change it.  Would that make all the multiple choices you made in the past any less free?

No. It wouldn't make a difference whether I looked back into the past or not. Either way I couldn't have done otherwise. Same with the future and the present.

We agree on that point, then.

No, that's what omniscience means.

Yeah, I don't why those two words got mixed up in my head. Apologies.

And we're talking about the future, not the past.

I know that. I was just using the fixed nature of the past as analogous to a hypothetical Divine Point of View of the fixed nature of all time.

Dude... if the future is determined then that means we can't do otherwise in an incompatabilist sense.

Right. I wonder if I'm just going by a different definition of Free Will than most people are over here.

Not sure I understand your objection.  I wasn't talking about Free Will being the cause of suffering, I was talking about it being a reality of human life.  You don't even need to believe in God to believe in Free Will.    But my point was that if you do believe in God or, more topical to this discussion, any omnipotent being, you aren't required to stop believing in Free Will as the two concepts don't, of necessity, contradict each other.   One's will is free in the sense that one has the power to pursue what one wishes. The baby has the power to pursue a piece of candy.  He or she may encounter resistance, but if they want the candy badly enough they can keep pursuing it.  Eventually, the appetite will subside enough for the baby to no longer want to pursue the candy, either because of substitution or exhaustion, but the baby is always free to pursue that candy by whatever tools it has at it's disposal (crawling, crying, reaching, etc). All God's omnipotence means is that He knows what's going to happen. But he's not imposing that knowledge onto the person.  If He didn't know, then the question of why He doesn't intervene would be more pertinent, I should think.  Generally speaking, the only reason to intervene in anything is to either ensure the occurrence of a desired result or prevent the occurrence of an undesired one.   If you already know the result, there's no point in intervening unless you enjoy being part of the process.

You uhhh. You missed my point entirely. I'm talking about, say, still born babies. Or aborted babies. Or babies god commanded have their heads crashed upon the rocks in the Old Testament. I also put in an example of the Eskimo. Someone who would never hear the "good news" or be able to accept Christ's supposed offering. What happens to their free will if they auto go to heaven? Or hell, for that matter?

I have no idea. I have no idea what happens to anyone's Free Will once they die. I don't see what Free Will has to do with someone being religious or not, much less if they ever had a chance to be religious.

I also said that if I were one of those bsbies' spirits and I went automatically to heaven, I'd be amgry for not being able to choose my fate because knowing gods sin of creating an eternal place of torment for those of his creation is plain out evil .

Care to respond to what I said originally l?

I didn't respond to your anecdote about going to heaven because I didn't and still don't see how it's relevant to the discussion.