Or, does such a god himself have free will? What exactly is free will? If will is reason, then subject to reason. If will not-reason, then how is it free? And it would seem that in a world that thwarts all will, that world makes all will free with respect it - how not if failure is a part of every calculation?

Free will is analogous to the domain of a function, possibility the range. The operative primitive concept being "to let." To take any step at all, one first and primordially has to "let" - has to be able to allow for the possibility of - a first specific value, and then others.

And it seems to me that free will is best defined on the individual who's will is in question, amounting simply to this: if for any decision, he or she has the capacity to negate it, then he or she has free will. Buriden's ass then necessarily possesses a free will, although not necessarily the ability to use it to good result.

2. If God is omniscient then X can't do something different to what God thinks X will do (premise) — TheMadFool

If God knows X does Y because X freely chooses to do Y, this is re-phrasing the principle of identity. This says nothing about what causes Y -- simple that X does Y.

If X can't do something different to what God thinks X will do then X doesn't have free will (premise) — TheMadFool

This is an equivocation. In 2, "can't" denies the possibility of God erring about what is real. In 3, it denies the possibility of X choosing freely, which has nothing to do with whether God knows the truth of how X acts. If X chooses freely and God knows it, there is no problem.

If will is reason, then subject to reason. If will not-reason, then how is it free? — tim wood

Will is not reason, but will and reason are interrelated. Reason knows, and will commits in light of what is known.

Knowing does not compel commitment. That is how will can be free.

Committing does not imply effective implementation. So, no failure of implementation can be evidence against free will.

I fail to understand your analogy.

Buridan's ass addresses a case of zero measure (exact balance on a knife edge) and is not a model of free will, which does not involve a balance of forces because motivations are not quantifiable, and so are not analogous to quantifiable forces.

I fail to understand your analogy. — Dfpolis

Maybe too simple. Merely that in order to have a free will, one must have some understanding - however inchoate - of the possibility of the exercise of choice. How do you solve an equation with two unknowns? You don't. But you can let one of the unknowns vary over a domain of possibilities, observing then how the other ranges. Without possessing for him- or herself the capacity for that primordial "let," no solution is possible for that individual. To be able to "let" is the first step into choice and freedom.

If Buriden's ass did not have a choice, he would not be hesitant. As you say, it's the balance that stops it. But it's just that sense of the balance and the possibility of choice that argues the ass does in fact have a free will.

Or, does such a god himself have free will? What exactly is free will? If will is reason, then subject to reason. If will not-reason, then how is it free? And it would seem that in a world that thwarts all will, that world makes all will free with respect it - how not if failure is a part of every calculation?

Free will is analogous to the domain of a function, possibility the range. The operative primitive concept being "to let." To take any step at all, one first and primordially has to "let" - has to be able to allow for the possibility of - a first specific value, and then others.

And it seems to me that free will is best defined on the individual who's will is in question, amounting simply to this: if for any decision, he or she has the capacity to negate it, then he or she has free will. Buridan's ass then necessarily possesses a free will, although not necessarily the ability to use it to good result. — tim wood

I must confess I don't quite understand what you mean here but you made an important observation - the underlined bit above. Free will is about not being influenced and influence is, to my reckoning, always positive in the sense that it takes the form of a cause bent on producing an effect. The instant we become effectable - a something can cause us to do one thing rather than another - we become not free, part of the causal web. Ergo, one form our freedom of will can assume is resistance to whatever can become causes that produce effects on the decision-making center of our brain. Basically, as you said, "...the capacity to negate..." is key to claiming free will.

2. If God is omniscient then X can't do something different to what God thinks X will do (premise)
— TheMadFool

If God knows X does Y because X freely chooses to do Y, this is re-phrasing the principle of identity. This says nothing about what causes Y -- simple that X does Y. — Dfpolis

I probably didn't understand what you mean here but if one imputes a cause to Y then, we're presupposing determinism is true and that's begging the question.

When God knows X will do Y, it means that, on pain of God losing his omniscience otherwise, X must/will do Y when the time comes. That's why X can't do something different to Y.

If X can't do something different to what God thinks X will do then X doesn't have free will (premise)
— TheMadFool

This is an equivocation. In 2, "can't" denies the possibility of God erring about what is real. In 3, it denies the possibility of X choosing freely, which has nothing to do with whether God knows the truth of how X acts. If X chooses freely and God knows it, there is no problem. — Dfpolis

Yes, you seem to be thinking along the same lines as me. God's knowledge that X will do something and X doing that thing when the time comes doesn't imply that X lacks free will. Do you have a reason why you think this? You said that there's an equivocation fallacy in there somewhere. Can you point out where exactly?

If God knows X does Y because X freely chooses to do Y, this is re-phrasing the principle of identity. This says nothing about what causes Y -- simple that X does Y. — Dfpolis

I probably didn't understand what you mean here but if one imputes a cause to Y then, we're presupposing determinism is true and that's begging the question. — TheMadFool

As Aristotle observes in the Posterior Analytics ii, 12, 95a14-24, there are two kinds of efficient causality, which have subsequently been called "essential" and "accidental." Hume and Kant didn't learn the fundamentals before starting, and so didn't know this. They thought that all causality involved time-sequence by rule. That is accidental causality. For Kant, this implied determinism and gave rise to one of the supposed "antinomies" motivating his transcendental confusion.

As Hume pointed out (and had long been known), there is no intrinsic necessity to accidental causality or time sequence by rule. It is an empirical generalization, like thinking that all crows are black on the basis of the few crows we've seen. As a generalization, there is no justification for applying it outside of its empirical basis, viz. Newtonian phenomena. So, there is no reason to think that it applies to acts of will.

Even in insensate nature, time-sequence by rule is not deterministic. If I plant a grain of wheat (a causal event) I can rationally expect a wheat plant to grow (the correlative effect), but still this does not happen infallibly. So accidental causes do not, and cannot, fully determine effects. Since the causal event is temporally prior to its intended effect, there is always the possibility of intervention in the intervening interval.

Essential causality, which is what I had in mind in my comment, is quite different. While accidental causality involves two separate events, essential causality involves only one. So, there is no possibility of an intervening event. While accidental causality lacks necessity because it is based on empirical generalization, essential causality is absolutely necessary because it is based on the principle of identity.

Aristotle's paradigm case is a builder building a house. We separate this event mentally into a cause (the builder building) and an effect (the house being built), but in fact it is one, inseparable event. There is no building without something being built and there is no being built without something building. So the builder building the house is identically the house being built by the builder.

What makes a cause essential is that it actualizes a potential. What is potential is not yet operational and so it cannot operate to actualize itself. Thus, the actualization of every potency requires the operation of a prior operational (actualized) cause.

This is the kind of causality by which free agents actualize their commitment to one of the possibilities open to them. So, God, in knowing that an agent chooses to actualize possibility P1 instead of P2, does not determine the agent's choice of P1. The free agent does.

When God knows X will do Y, it means that, on pain of God losing his omniscience otherwise, X must/will do Y when the time comes. — TheMadFool

Time is the measure of change according to before and after. Since God is perfect, He can neither gain nor lose attributes, and so is immutable. Since there is no change in God, there can be no time to measure it. Thus, whatever God knows, He knows from a timeless perspective -- seeing the space-time manifold as a whole, rather than sequentially, as we do.

That God knows the cosmos in this way does not mean that the cosmos does not exhibit the temporal dynamics we experience. It just means that God sees it all at once. Part of what He sees is free agents actualizing their potentials. Indeed, He could not see us choosing our courses of action if we did not choose our courses of action.

You said that there's an equivocation fallacy in there somewhere. Can you point out where exactly? — TheMadFool

The question is: what possibility does "can't" deny. In the first instance, it is the possibility of God knowing in error. So, whatever God knows, it knows truly. In the second, it denies the possibility of us choosing freely. This is not the same as the first possibility, as how ever we choose, God can know it truly.

The background error here is the assumption that God knows by prediction, rather than by immediate Presence. If God predicted what we will choose, then there would be some reality prior to our choice that would infallibly determine our choice. But, if God knows what we choose, not by predicting it, but by being present to it, then there need be no prior determining factors.

I'm still in a fog but not in the dark about your position. In other words I think I have a partial grasp of your view on the matter.

Firstly, I don't understand the notion of identity you're employing here. You seem to be saying that the cause and effect are the same in the case of essential causes and ergo, nothing by way of an intervening "force" can be positioned between the two. So far so good but the cause, if there is one, arising from God's foreknowledge can act before a person makes decisions.

I agree with the second part of your post - there seems to be no contradiction i.e. it's completely plausible that god's foreknowledge is not deterministic like ours is. I'd like to ask you to review the key premise in the Omniscience paradox - god's foreknowledge causes people to make the decisions they make. Taking this to its logical conclusion, foreknowledge of any kind, god's or a time traveler's, should have causal power of some nature to force people to make decisions according to what was foreseen.

Your explanation that god's omnipresence as the source of divine foreknowledge is compatible with free will because, well, it's completely non-deterministic.

Here's a short argument based on your insight:

1. There are non-deterministic methods available for foreseeing the future

2. If there are non-deterministic methods available for foreseeing the future then, god's foreknowledge of the future could be non-deterministic in nature

3. If god's foreknowledge of the future could be non-deterministic in nature then, god's foreknowledge doesn't imply that we lack free will

4. If there are non-deterministic methods available for foreseeing the future then, god's foreknowledge doesn't imply that we lack free will (from 2 and 3, Hypothetical Syllogism)

5. God's foreknowledge doesn't imply that we lack free will (1 and 4, Modus Ponens)

The argument for the absence of free will given that God is omniscient proceeds as follows: — TheMadFool

Maybe God's omniscience works like any other argument one has with a theist:

1. God knows that X
2. God is presented with evidence to show that X is false
3a. God changes his whole position on X saying you didn't really understand it in the first place, OR
3b. God ignores the evidence on the grounds that he knows X and he is omniscient, therefore X is not false, the evidence is false (fake news!)
4. God calls his pastor to be reaffirmed that X is true, and his pastor reminds him not to vote for baby-killers
5. Since God never loses one of these arguments, he must be omniscient

If there is determinism, it is physical or perhaps biological in nature, and if we are ever to know anything about that, science will have to get us there. There is no determinism for the sole purpose of stroking the ego of a magical wizard-ghost.

o far so good but the cause, if there is one, arising from God's foreknowledge can act before a person makes decisions. — TheMadFool

First, the identity is that "the builder building the house" names the identically same event as "the house being built by the builder." The only difference is how we are thinking about that event. In the first case we are focusing on the causal aspect (the builder building) and in the second, on the effect being actualized (the house being built). Still, this mental separation does not reflect any real separation or separability, because there is only one event, not two as in accidental causality (time sequence by rule). In other words, the reality of building is identically the reality of being built.

Second, God is not in time, but sees the entire space-time manifold at once -- just as we can see the whole of a map at once. So, there is no before and after in God. In other words, from God's perspective, His knowledge is not before what is known, but concurrent with it.

Third, knowing does not cause what is known. Even if we create something, we can only know it as it is from its actual existence. Given that free will decisions, if they exist, are not immanent in the prior state of the cosmos, the only way to know them is to see what is actually decided. So, the idea that knowing causes the reality known is fundamentally confused.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, foreknowledge of any kind, god's or a time traveler's, should have causal power of some nature to force people to make decisions according to what was foreseen. — TheMadFool

We need to reflect on the actualization of potential -- which is what causes do. Before we know X, we have the potential to know X, and X has the potential to be known. When we turn our awareness (aka the agent intellect) to X. we actualize both of these potentials -- we actually know X and X is actually known. We could not actualize X's potential to be known (X's intelligibility) if X did not exist to have that potential. So, there is no way knowing X can make it exist.

There are non-deterministic methods available for foreseeing the future — TheMadFool

That is not what I am saying, nor do I agree. While we humans speak of God's foreknowledge, it is only "fore" to us, not God. To God it is concurrent knowledge, for God simply is. He does not know what I will choose by knowing the state of the cosmos before my choice and predicting what i will decide, but by knowing what i actually choose at the space-time coordinates of my actual choice.

Maybe God's omniscience works like any other argument one has with a theist: — Pro Hominem

Yes, like instead of responding to what the theist actually says, the atheist spins a demeaning fantasy.

Yes, like instead of responding to what the theist actually says, the atheist spins a demeaning fantasy. — Dfpolis

What the theist has to say IS a demeaning fantasy. Restatements of stale ontological tautologies don't change that.

Have you ever argued with a true believer? My sample argument is actually quite accurate.

Look, I'm just hazing MadFool for fun. Sorry if you felt you got caught in the blast. I've thoroughly examined the case for theism and found not only that belief in "god" is not consistently rational, but that if one has a humane sense of morality, it is unconscionable. In other words, I think it's not enough to say that god doesn't exist, it must be said that he shouldn't exist.

I think there are 3 ways to resolve this:

1- God doesn't exist/ Isn't omniscient
2- People do not have free will
3- Free will and knowing the future do not contradict (which depends on the definition of free will)

3. If X can't do something different to what God thinks X will do then X doesn't have free will (premise) — TheMadFool

This is the most important premise. This amounts to a denial of 3 but note how you called it a premise. That is because the definition of free will varies but the definition you seem to be using here is: The ability to do something differently, which is a definition that presents its own problems. It seems to suggest that there are THREE possible ways an event can occur:

1- Randomly (like nuclear decay)
2- Deterministically (like falling due to gravity)
3- "Free will"ly which I can never really conceive of

For any decision you make you will consider a bunch of variables. If those variables dictate your decision then your decision was deterministic (For example, eating when you're starving). If they don't dictate your decision then what did? If I asked you to pick between "A" and "B" without explaining what those were and you picked "A" why did you pick it? Was it because you like the letter? Then it was deterministic. Are you not really sure why you picked A over B? Then was that a random choice or a "freely willed" choice?

So far there seems to be no room for free will in our universe. Causes are either random or deteministic.

Most people who believe free will exists do so in 2 ways in my experience. The first is using some meaningless definition that assigns free will to us by default like: Free will is the ability to consider multiple alternatives, compare them, and make a choice, which results in chess bots having free will. The second is a pragmatic argument that goes something like:

1- We cannot be sure that random and deterministic are the only two modes for causes in the universe (In other words we're not sure whether or not free will exists)
2- If free will does exist and we think it doesn't then that is a great loss (As we act more irrationally and irresponsibly as a result), if free will doesn't exist and we think it doesn't exist we are right but we gain nothing, if free will DOES exist and we think it does we gain a great deal (Being able to act more responsibly), if free will DOES exist and we think it doesn't then we are wrong but we lost nothing
3- It is more pragmatic to believe in free will existing

Incidently that is the argument I use though I know it's not very good.

Thank you for your measured response. I think it is absolutely certain that there is an uncaused cause which has all the philosophical attributes of God. So, I don't think you have reviewed the case for theism adequately. I would be happy to discuss it with you privately, or in a new thread.