Featured Only Knows "No" or "Probably not" as well?

HeirofSalvation · Jul 7, 2012

humblethinker said: ↑

In the following thoughts I would like to reassert post #14 to quantumfaith (and everyone that believes in free will but holds that the Open View of the future is an impossibility or is unscriptural) and look forward to replies from them.
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.......And........... now we finally get to the obvious purpose of the OP. Basically, we are talking (with respect to LFW) about a category mistake. "Probability" and "certainty" exist in different categories when we speak of LFW. If one is a determinist/compatibilist then, of course, "probabilities" are relevant. Moreover, in a deterministic POV, "certainties" are not merely knowable by fore-sight, but also calculable if one knows all variables and factors involved; much like the result of a die-roll. The result of a die-roll can be known, and would be by God on TWO levels, not merely one.
1.) God would have fore-sight of the event itself
2.) God would also be capable of perfectly calculating the outcome merely via application of natural law. i.e. weight of die+velocity/height of it's being dropped+ the hardness of the surface+ the angle it is dropped et. al.

Similarly, a Physicist who knew all variables might also perfectly calculate the result of a die-roll using method 2. Let's look at this from a hyper-link in your initial OP:

We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.
—Pierre Simon Laplace, A Philosophical Essay on Probabilities[3]

God's knowledge, however, of an act of creaturely volition does not, in any way apply here, unless one is a determinist. "Probabilities" are only ontologically "probable" if there is nothing which necessitates them. As far as LFW is concerned...then "probability" is all that there is. God only knows, and only can know the results of a creatures free act by use of exhaustive foreknowledge.

Probability Theory is only a tool. It is a tool used to make a "guess" when we are unable to know all of the variables involved in an event. God KNOWS all the variables involved in any event (and, incidentally, whether he will choose to interfere with normal events or not). But creaturely free acts do NOT exist in this realm at all, and it would be a category mistake to view them from this perspective IF one actually believes in LFW and is not a determinist.

The main purpose for the OP was to consider God's opinions of what is actually 'possible' and what was actually 'certain'.
Now from God's perspective, the things that are certainties he knows as such and to know them as uncertainties would be a contradiction, a falsity. The things that are uncertainties he knows as such and to know them as certainties would be a contradiction, a falsity.
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In a weird way, that I can't quite put my finger on...I think by bringing Probability Theory into a discussion of LFW, you are making it more complicated than it need be. Frankly, I think Probability Theory is basically irrelevant.
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Yeshua1 · Jul 9, 2012

humblethinker said: ↑

In the following thoughts I would like to reassert post #14 to quantumfaith (and everyone that believes in free will but holds that the Open View of the future is an impossibility or is unscriptural) and look forward to replies from them.

The main purpose for the OP was to consider God's opinions of what is actually 'possible' and what was actually 'certain'.

Now from God's perspective, the things that are certainties he knows as such and to know them as uncertainties would be a contradiction, a falsity. The things that are uncertainties he knows as such and to know them as certainties would be a contradiction, a falsity.

I particularly think this quote is appropriate to consider here:
Absurdity, n.: A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. (Bierce)
God, unless he is absurd as some say, cannot simultaneously hold these two contradictory ideas: that 'this' is a possibility and a certainty. The 'this' is ontologically either one or the other from God's perspective and should be from ours as well. While our perspective may be obscured His is not.
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God knows all things from the beginning of his creation to the end of His creation, so can ANYTHING become "brand new/just now known" to Him?

HeirofSalvation · Jul 9, 2012

Yeshua1 said: ↑

God knows all things from the beginning of his creation to the end of His creation, so can ANYTHING become "brand new/just now known" to Him?
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Every post you have ends with a ???? question-mark, is that because you honestly want an answer, or because you feel that this is a powerful rhetortical device? There is rarely anything you post, which has a ??? attached to it which has not already been belabored already. I have yet to see you "ASK" anything, which has not already been covered by the posts in the thread already; are you intentionally obtuse? Honestly, are you intentionally obtuse? or are you some weird form of troll whose sole purpose is to try to make people waste their time...?

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