Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2024 9:18 pm
Harbal wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2024 8:55 pm
Immanuel Can wrote: ↑Sat Apr 20, 2024 8:19 pm
You can't mean "knows." You must mean "arranges." "Knowing" never makes anything happen.
I do mean "knows". You said God
knows the future, and I explained what I thought the logical consequences of that would be. God arranging the future was one possibility, but not the only one.
Well, unless you're thinking that "knowing" automatically entails "arranging," that is simply not possible to put in any form that even
looks logical. So we'll have to disagree about whether we can equivocate "knowing" into "arranging."
Or, you could give me the syllogism that you think works.
God couldn't know the future unless the future is predetermined, that is what I am saying. I am not saying that God predetermines the future.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:The lack of God does not mean a deterministic universe
Prove that.
You are the one making the claim. You said that if there is no God, then the universe has to be deterministic. You prove that
What non-mechanistic means do you think could have possibly created the universe...other than God, of course.
I haven't got the faintest idea.
IC wrote:Harbal wrote:IC wrote:It's unavoidable, for the secularist. If there's no God, then something else must account for the existence of the universe, and you and me. That's bound to be some impersonal, natural force. And that force is certain to be fatalistic and predetermining of everything.
I don't know how you came to that conclusion, but I haven't come to it.
You will, when you think about it carefully.
No I won't; there is simply too much that is not known to be able to arrive at a conclusion.
So we're back to the problem: as a Non-Theist of some sort, how can you believe in the existence of ANY amount of free will? Have you abandoned rationality completely? Because the only possible reasoning available to a Non-Theist would entail that free will is utterly impossible.
Thus, if any free will exists at all, all forms of Non-Theism are false. And if they are true, then there is absolutely no possibility that free will of any kind exists.
I don't agree with you, I'm afraid. But that doesn't matter, because it isn't what we were discussing. The only point I wanted to make was that it is impossible to know a future that isn't already fixed. So either God does not know the future, or we are part of a deterministic system. Those are the only logical possibilities that I can think of.