Resort to becoming a troll? When have you stopped?

Notice that the idea of omniscience changes as the traditional one does not work. Suddenly god can not know all things befre they happen but he comes to know all things.

 I simply am using the possible world logics empolyed by people like Plantinqa to attempt to resolve the problem of evil . They use this scenarioin an attempt tto say that god picked the babest of all possible worlds and that this one has the least evil.   The outcome is that I can use it to defeat either free will which is what they wish to preserve in the Theodicy version or bring to light the conflicts of omni-attributes.

MM:  If God is omniscient, it only means that he knows everything that is going to happen.  But foresight does not entail strict determinism.  Even in an indeterminate universe, an omniscient person would know what's going to happen.  (Mind you, the last sentence is a quote from some Youtube video with Daniel Dennett--an atheist.)

TGB Here we find MM accepting the classic attribute. He rightfully also states that foresight does not entail determinism.  But what people of this ilk do not want to address is the fact that when omniscience with foreknowledge accompanies or is entailed with omnipotence then the act of creating the world as it is in god's mind makes it completely compliant to that thought and therefore predetermined.  An omniscient person seeing a universe determines where everything is and what everything is and what is to happen.  This is no different than when we determine the answer to a question apart from the fact that their is absoluteness in god's act and he acts with foreknowledge which is the complete determined nature of the universe once it is created. 

MM  Furthermore, omniscience entails only that God knows what is logically possible to be known; if it cannot possibly be known, then not even God can know it.  Mathematicians such as Lukasiewicz (and to a lesser extent, Aristotle), for instance, formalized a logical system in which future contingent propositions are given a third truth value--one which is neither true nor false; for God to be omniscient, he only has to know that such values are "1/2," given that they are neither "1" nor "0."

TGB:Things that cannot possibly be known are not knowledge. The idea of a possible world and its constituents ahas always been a woring assumption ( unless it is a problem for someone) The mathematical appeal  to Lukasiewicz is an attempt to move the idea of foreknowledge away from the focus on god into our limited existence where such things are applicable. 

MM:  Moreover, one can defend compatibilist views of the free will issue in which determinism and free will are reconciled.  You are remiss to not even acknowledge this.

TGB:  Bald assertion.  It does not apply to the act of a god with such attribute in creation.  It applys from our perspective of the world.

MM: Similarly, omnipotence entails only that God can do what is logically possible.  If a universe is indeterminate, then it would be logically contradictory to say that one could affect the outcome so as to determine it since in that case such a universe would be at once determinate and indeterminate.  But again, you've begged the question with regard to your epistemological underpinnings couched with strict determinism; my contention is that there is nothing to support that free will strictly implies ignorance.

TGB: Freewill does not require ignorance but in the case where god who knows everything that will happen to that world or that world should he actualize it.  Otherwise he is simply pushing the snowball down its certain slope.

MM: Let's say that God has the ability to make the wrong choices.  Are you saying that objective moral values exist?

TGB: Where did this one come from?  Yes I believe in object morality as I do in object health care. 

MM: What reason do you have to presume that the possible world actualized by God has no accessibility to any other possible world?  We could also say that God created the world knowing full well the autonomous decisions that we would make.  If I put a chocolate bar on the table, I know that my obese relative is going to eat it; does it follow that I caused him to eat it or that his decision was not free.

TGB: Here MM does not like the game and wants to change the rules.  When dealing with  a plethora of possible worlds god is choosing one out of many. Not one string of worlds attached or interacting. If god chose this world with those autonomous decisions and they were bad he is responsible for actualizing them for he has seen prior to creating that event that it as well as every other event will follow.  The chocolate eater is not an acceptable comparision.  MM's knowledge is fallable and there is a chance that the relative will not eat. With god when he looks at a possible world to actualize and sees that if he does so the obese relative will eat the candy then god is responsible because the relative must eat the candy or god's knowledge was wrong about the possible world.  MM other attempt to weisel out with the possible world actualized with access to other possible worlds can be used to say that god then is not omniscient since he does not know what the otherworlds will allow in this possible world. Or we can simply say that god sees all possible worlds including access to the other worlds by the one he creates thus having full knowledge of all possibilities the actualization still results in determinism.

MM: No, he creates a world with mutual accessibility relationships to other possible worlds, knowing full well the course people and things are going to take.  He knows this, mind you, not because the course is adhering to a causal chain of events that he set in motion, but because his infinite wisdom entails that he knows everything there's to know about his creation (he would have to, for it exists because of what he knows)--including the character of his creatures such that he could predict with 100% certainty what use they'd make of their God-given autonomy.

TGB: And as I mentioned in the previous section MM can not sacrifice the Greek Philosophical corruption so he must came back and state.  Here MM asumes there must be a causal chain. The only chain of anything in a world that is actualized with full  knowledge of what it contains is the god the first cause and the thing which will result because of the first cause which while not of a causal chain is of a causal result.  The actualization.

MM: I'm just not seeing how that follows.  God creates the world, and he knows what events will unfold; why does it follow that everything is determined?  There does not seem to be any reason to accept this.

TGB Of cause I have supplied the reasons. WHIch is simple. God can know the contents of all possible worlds.  If they actualize themselves or are actualized by another agancy they are not presdestined but god's foreknowledge is such that they are pre-determined in his knowledge to happen. If he actualizes what he knows will happen then it must happen and he pre-destines it such. 

MM:  I'm saying that God, while he could have created a world where strict determinism is true, instead created a world where people can make choices and do so freely such that they are either blameworthy or praiseworthy for their actions.  However you choose to define "free will," there is no reason to believe that we reside in a universe where God is responsible for our actions--even if you can't make resolve the prima facie irreconcilability between the natural order of events and otherworldly freedom.

TGB : God if omniscient can not create a freewill world because he knows everything that will happen if he does create it. Everything must follow suit.

MM: Your notion of God choosing one possible world over some other presupposes determinism; if God's choice of one possible world necessitates that any other possible world is impossible for us, then obviously determinism is true.  But this is just begging the question.  Kripke showed, or at least made a good case for the idea, that the best way to understand modal terminology is in terms of the relationships between worlds.

TGB: This thought experiment al a la Plantinga means what it says possible worlds are individual choices that god see in order to choose the best of all possible worlds to create.  They by defalut wind up like Calvin's, Eusebius' or a Essene's fatalistic world. Only if god has the uncertainty in his nature can there be doubt as to outcome and indeterminism in the ceration.

MM: The underpinnings of your possible worlds semantics presupposes determinism.  You presuppose that God creates a possible world such that exists in complete isolation from all other possible worlds, which inheres in the very definition of "determinism."  If you presuppose that the choice of one possible world precludes others, then actuality is the only possibility (this is called the "principle of plenitude" ).  But this is just an assertion.

TGB: It does not. Determinism does not obtain unless god knows the possible world and its contents and creates it.   It is a presuppostion of those arguments that god does choose the best of all possible worlds in isolation of all others. IT IS Not my game but your theologies. I am just playing it.

MM But now that I think more about it, we have to be more clear on our terminology.  If by "possible world" you mean a complete description of reality, then God does not create possible worlds anymore than he creates numbers or the law of noncontradiction; rather, every proposition pertaining to God is contained in that maximal description.

TGB: I never said that he created the possible worlds but that he choose from them and actualized>>>>> AND HERE YOU SUBJECT THIS OMNISCIENT GOD TO THE REAL CRITTER  OF THEOLOGY GOD BECOMES EVERY PROPOSITION IN A MAXIMAL DESCRIPTION AQND NOT A GOD THAT IS REALLY A PERSON>

MM:  But you are probably referring to God's created order, in which case I'll be complaisant and grant that we can call this a "possible world." 

TGB: AGAIN you want to change your own game. GOD's created order was a possible world but now is an actualized possible world ( NO LONGER POSSIBLE).

 
MM This is your argument MM not TGB's:

(1) God created the actual world (assumed premise).

(2) God knows all future events in the actual world (premise).

(3) God created the actual world and knows all future events in it (from 1 and 2).

(4) If God created the actual world and knows all future events in it, then nothing in the actual world has free will (premise).

(5) Nothing in the actual world has free will (from 3 and 4).

The argument is deductively valid, but what reason do you have for supposing that the fourth premise is true?

True.  There's nothing that can be known which God does not know.

No, he does not determine the properties of possible worlds.  In fact, this is again presupposing that determinism is true.  Possible worlds are abstract entities much like mathematical propositions; the most famous Lewis axiom is perhaps that all modal propositions are necessary.  God does not "determine" them or their atomic constituents. 

I never said that he determines the properties of possible worlds in the sense in which you have turned it. You know full well how I meant it. If you open you wallett you determin how much cash you have in your wallet. Your epistemological and ontological worlds join. In the case of god looking at the possible worlds in order to choiose the best possible world in the same way determines what is in each possible world. He knows the complete contents of its ontics and events.  They would still have freewill if he did not actualize them.  But when he choises one of these worlds based upon its properties( Contents) and actualizes it those things pre-determined in his analysis and judgement will come to be so.  There is therefore no freedom in such a world. 

MM THis is really MM's argument not mine. This is your argument:

(1) God created the actual world (assumed premise).

(2) God knows all future events in the actual world (premise).

(3) God created the actual world and knows all future events in it (from 1 and 2).

(4) If God created the actual world and knows all future events in it, then nothing in the actual world has free will (premise).

(5) Nothing in the actual world has free will (from 3 and 4).

The argument is deductively valid, but what reason do you have for supposing that the fourth premise is true?

True.  There's nothing that can be known which God does not know.

No, he does not determine the properties of possible worlds.  In fact, this is again presupposing that determinism is true.  Possible worlds are abstract entities much like mathematical propositions; the most famous Lewis axiom is perhaps that all modal propositions are necessary.  God does not "determine" them or their atomic constituents. 

TGB Here we find MM accepting the classic attribute. He rightfully also states that foresight does not entail determinism.  But what people of this ilk do not want to address is the fact that when omniscience with foreknowledge accompanies or is entailed with omnipotence then the act of creating the world as it is in god's mind makes it completely compliant to that thought and therefore predetermined.  An omniscient person seeing a universe determines where everything is and what everything is and what is to happen.  This is no different than when we determine the answer to a question apart from the fact that their is absoluteness in god's act and he acts with foreknowledge which is the complete determined nature of the universe once it is created. 

He does, however, determine the universe that he'll create for us.

If we're understanding "possible world" as this universe that we live in, then I'll say that I can neither affirm nor deny it.  I see no reason to deny that God could have morally permissible reasons for not giving us the best possible place to live in, and I would certainly not claim to know why he does the things that he does--not unless he told me himself.  Are you privy to the mind of God more so than Christians?

TGB: YES

MM There are also other notions of time, which your argument overlooks.  One is that time is based merely on our mental ordering of events, which we do in consensus with one another so as to come to an agreement to a particular timescale.  Time in the Newtonian sense, however, is not real; the past is no more, the future has not happened, and the present is fleeting.  As finite beings with imperfect knowledge, we perceive things temporally in various parts of a long story; God, however, in his infinite wisdom sees every event holistically such that for him nothing is past or future--only present.  Scientifically, we have confirmed that Newtonian time is unreal.

TGB:My argument does not overlook time. It is a priori with god prior to time.  It is simply a question of the contents of a possible world's spacetime and whether god knows them in his omnipotence or not. If he does and actualizes that world then they are not free to be different. 

MM:  So, I don't think you have a very strong argument.  Even if we suppose that God is in time, it doesn't prove that free will is impossible; knowledge of the future isn't causation of it.  And we need not even suppose that time is real, such that epistemic future propositions as it pertains to God are not meaningful in the way that you'll need them to be in order for your argument to work.

TGB:  It is a strong argument with simply no placve for freewill in god's omniscience.

 MM:Yes it does presuppose determinism, which includes the notion that there is only one possible world.  You are not using possible worlds in the "normal sense"; you are using it in an outdated Leibnizian sense, and he barely even touched upon the notion (his status as the Father of Possible Worlds Semantics notwithstanding).  You assume that for any possible world that God chooses, it's isolated from every other possible world--that we are trapped in this one possible world that God has chosen for us; this is determinism. 

TGB: This is not determinism and it is the scenario that one constructs prior to creation in determining the least amount of evil for the world.  Yes the universe is ONE and so we are in a a system that while open in expansion is closed in its laws and consistency.   I simply have applied it to the natural consequences that it then conflicts with free will. 

MM: But Kripke showed that this idea of possible worlds semantics gives way to all sorts of hermeneutical difficulties, especially when one tries to reconcile it with the Lewis systems; hence, he introduced the accessibility relationship in order to resolve this very issue. 

TGB: THis does no apply to omni-gods and pre-existence. Possible worlds in this case are worlds of actulaiztion in which he God is suppose to choose the best of all possible worlds.

MM: We live in a possible world that is accessible to other possible worlds; there's no reason to say otherwise.  Your argument hinges upon the notion that omniscience necessarily precludes free will; all I have to do in order to disprove this is show that it is possible to be free even if God is omniscient.  Since I've done that, your argument fails. 

TGB Bald assertion.  My argument does not hinge it concludes such. You have not proved that it is possible to have free will with god's omniscience. In fact the whole scholarly community admits that NO ONE HAS. Show it.

MM: No, that's an outdated Leibnizian argument based upon an unclarified notion of possible worlds.  It has nothing to do with possible worlds semantics as has been adopted by guys like Rudolf Carnap or Saul Kripke.  Today, a possible world is generally understood as a maximal description of reality; that is, it's a set of atomic propositions that have some truth value. 

TGB: It is hardly outdated and possible worlds are used the same way I am using them by you. The idea of a multiworld in which each moment has possible worlds as potential is not ultimately different from the closed world which is what one does when concluding its nature.  A possible world then is seen as this world is identical with the other worldwith the exception that he did not drink his coffee on this morning in that world.

MM: Leibniz's argument was meant to address those interlocutors whose main argument was that God, if real, did a horrible job creating the universe that we live in; Leibniz said that this was the best that he could have done.  It had nothing to do with the issue of free will.  The idea that this somehow entails a lack of freedom is nothing that he brought to the table.

TGB: It has everything to do with freewill. The result of Leibniz's argument is a conclusion that there is no free will for god to choose he must have all knowledge of those worlds.  It therefore inadvertently speaks to freewill.

MM: Your argument is that we are not free because God knows what we will do and created us and the world in which our actions would take place.  It's a non-sequitur; there is no connection between the premise and the conclusion.  It is possible for God to have created our universe, and know our future actions even if they are not predetermined.

TGB: How so.  The premise is understandable and the conclusion is certain. It is simple to understand. If god knows every fish  in the barrell of creation and their whole future
and creates it it must follow as so for he is omnscient and omnipotent. If it does not follow so then on omni fails. 

MM:He does not determine possible worlds anymore than he determines logic or mathematics.  It could be that abstract metaphysical possibilities and abstract principles are part of God's nature insofar as he is an intelligent being who thinks in a certain way (see Greg Bahnsen).  In the modern sense, a possible world includes God as part of the description, such that "God creates this universe" is an atomic constituent of the actual world.

TGB: Then you are saying that god is subject to logic and mathematics and we should follow them rather than god since they are supreme.  In the problem of evil scenario god is not included in the world sine he was prior to the world. Your semantics are thus limited to a relatvistic post modern virus

Logic is not some police officer going around making sure that A remains A or that a dog doesn't start becoming a non-dog.  Logic exists merely in the abstract, and people are free to make contradictory claims if they so please.  If I say that "God is what he is," I am not claiming that God is constrained into doing something; rather, I am articulating a truism that's logically necessarily--but not ontologically necessary.  This is just a weak rebuttal to the Christian response to the paradox of omnipotence. 

TGB: God is so constrained by logic in the sense that his omnipotence requires him to be completely logical and therefore submissive.

On your worldview, free will does not exist.  That would necessitate that every choice that we make is actually the product of physical events, which are themselves the product of other physical events.  As such, I am not morally responsible for anything that I do, because the laws of physics necessitate that I do what I do.  Thus, I am a Christian because physical events necessitated that I be one. 

TGB: Again this is only so if god is omnipotent and omniscient and creates the world.

MM: You are overlooking the question.  If time only exists in a relativized sense, and God does not experience the world in the same way that we experience the world, then the idea that God knows what will happen does nothing for your argument.  Let's say that God doesn't know what will happen, but rather he just knows what happens; how is this inconsistent with free will?

TGB: THis is a different question and it is you backing off from omniscience such that he lacks foreknowledge but comes to know everything as it happens. That certainly is a revisionist god that Neo-Orthodox and Sophisticated Liberl Theology has gone to.  You moving in that direction?

This is your argument:

(1) God created the actual world (assumed premise).

(2) God knows all future events in the actual world (premise).

(3) God created the actual world and knows all future events in it (from 1 and 2).

(4) If God created the actual world and knows all future events in it, then nothing in the actual world has free will (premise).

(5) Nothing in the actual world has free will (from 3 and 4).

The argument is deductively valid, but what reason do you have for supposing that the fourth premise is true?

True.  There's nothing that can be known which God does not know.

TGB: Well you reversed my argument which makes it yours but lets follow it AGAIN.  $) is valid such that he knows all future events in it as you say. Also He knows that if he actualizaes this world instead of another then everything will occur as he sees it.  They are so determined by god's foreknowledge as entailed by his first act( creation) . If he creates then they necessarily must occur.  Quite simple I would state again.

MM: No, he does not determine the properties of possible worlds.  In fact, this is again presupposing that determinism is true.  Possible worlds are abstract entities much like mathematical propositions; the most famous Lewis axiom is perhaps that all modal propositions are necessary.  God does not "determine" them or their atomic constituents. 

TGB: You misuse determine. Since these are not real they are postential. He determines their contents by comtemplating each world and comparing them. He thushas determined what item is in each world and determined what is not in each world.  That since of determination is no different than you looking in your wallet to detemin how much cash you have. It does not create the cash but confirms epsitmeologically what is ontologically so. Thendifference between your wallett and the possible worlds is that god is goindg to make one of them real. They are determined in an epistemic sensee to actualize in the same ontological sense.

MM:He does, however, determine the universe that he'll create for us.

TGB: No that becomes cryptic!!!

MM: If we're understanding "possible world" as this universe that we live in, then I'll say that I can neither affirm nor deny it.  I see no reason to deny that God could have morally permissible reasons for not giving us the best possible place to live in, and I would certainly not claim to know why he does the things that he does--not unless he told me himself.  Are you privy to the mind of God more so than Christians?

TGB: Yes.

MM: Bald assertion.  Furthermore, would you be willing to grant that there is a possible world (if we are understanding "possible world" as previously noted) where humans are free?  If so, then you would grant that God, creating in the manner that he does, could create a universe where beings such as us make free choices; so why do you believe he didn't?

TGB It is not a bald assertion. It is a hairy problem for your Ontological Argument or TAG.  There are many possible worlds unless god as omniscient comes to know them and then actualizes them. Then there ae no freewill agents unless they come from heaven as angels and fuck up the time line.

MM: If you wish to say that there is no possible world where people are free, then I would ask for you to justify it.

TGB: I did above.

MM: TGBaker, we're starting to go around in circles. 

TGB: I've been consistently straight with the answers. You seem to fall back and regroup to defend something a priori rather than us mutually progressing in a learning dialogue.

MMI'd like to approach this from another angle.  I'll ask you a question, and I'd like to be keep your answer short and succinct.

Would you say that knowledge of p strictly implies that it is necessary that p?  In other words, do you suppose that any claim of knowledge entails that what is known is so and cannot be otherwise?

TGB: NO Gettier and Counter-Gettier examples re: Justified True belief.