The Supposed Contradiction of God's Omniscience
Wednesday, October 14, 2009 at 10:10AM 
Commenting on my post on God’s omniscience, Godlessons objects that the doctrine of the omniscience of God contains paradoxes. (I’m thinking that he—or she, but I’m betting on he—means contradiction rather than paradox.)
In order for God to be omniscient, he can’t not know something. This means that not only would he know all possible futures, he would know the future that was going to happen as well, which means there is no other possible future.
How can I resist? Here’s my response:
You are equivocating on the term possible futures. When you use possible futures in the way you first use it, the term means something like “all the things God has the power and knowledge to accomplish—events God could have planned to occur had he desired.” They are possible in that sense—God has the ability to bring them to pass if he wanted to. They are conditional possibilities: They are possible, had God willed them. In this sense of the term, there are innumerable possible futures and God knows them all.
In your second use of the term possible futures, you are refering to “the one conditional future which can actually come to be because God has planned for it to be.” This category contains the one conditional possible future for which the condition is met by God’s decision to bring this future into existence. In this category, we’re talking about actual possibilities, not conditional ones. There’s only one actually possible future, and God knows it because he decided it.
Reader Comments (8)
Well done.
You don't quite understand I guess, and yes it is a paradox, not in itself, but it is if you take into account any other qualities that are given for God, like omnipotence, or even the ability to make a decision. If God created everything, or at least if he put it all into motion, he knew at that point exactly how it would all turn out. He had to have known exactly what was going to happen, and when it was going to happen. Presupposing an omnipotent being could actually make a decision, none of us would be able to do anything other than what he had already predetermined by creating us as he did.
This is a paradox just as the "grandfather paradox" is. It is a different type of paradox, but works for the same reason. For example, you could not go into the past with the intention of changing anything because as soon as you were to change that thing, back in the future, you would have never had a reason to go back and change that thing. It works the same way for God. Omniscience is exactly like knowing the future and going back to the past to try to change it, only somewhat in reverse. Once he changes it, the future wasn't as he saw it, and therefore he can't be omniscient.
Further, an omniscient being doesn't have to actually see the future in order to negate free will for everything that might possibly have it. Merely the ability of that being to see the future totally negates free will since it would mean that the future was written in stone.
An omniscient mind essentially would make any God merely a force acting without thought, just because of its nature. The most it could be is a set of logic circuits such as a computer acting merely on the information that dictates its switches to work.
I have to admit that it is rather difficult to explain these paradoxes, but if you understand what I am saying, you have to come up with another explanation of what level of foreknowledge God must have.
A thing can't be omnipotent without omniscience, and it can't have free will with omniscience.
Godlessons,
I think we have two very different concepts of God.
I believe the Bible tells us that God, by his plan, predetermines the future. None of us can do anything other than what God predetermines. He knows the future because he plans it, not because he takes in information about what will happen.
The sort of paradoxes you are pointing to don't apply to a God who "works everything according to the counsel of his will"—a counsel (or plan) that he made in eternity.
Omniscience is exactly like knowing the future and going back to the past to try to change it, only somewhat in reverse. Once he changes it, the future wasn't as he saw it, and therefore he can't be omniscient.
Not if the basis for God's omniscience is that everything that exists comes from him and everything that occurs happens because he planned it. Not if God's knowledge of the future is forethought, rather than merely foresight. If God's knowledge of the future originates in his plan, why would the future ever be changed, since God's plan is unchanging because he is unchanging?
An omniscient mind essentially would make any God merely a force acting without thought, just because of its nature.
Not if God knows everything and plans everything "from himself". Then he is not a force, but a creator expressing his nature through what he brings into being and what he causes to occur. Then he is the being with ultimate free will: the freedom to express himself through creation and the outworking of his plan for creation.
In this scenario, you are saying that nothing happens unless God intends it to happen. In other words, Hitler killed millions of Jews because God intended it to happen. Loss of free will is inherent. If we have no free will, it matters little what decisions we make because God intended us to do them when he created the universe, and we can't go against God's plan.
Your scenario also suggests there is no omnipotence. If God can't see the future, he can't do everything. If he can see the future, he still can't make any choices.
No matter which way you look at it, free will is abrogated, if not in God, in us.
In this scenario, you are saying that nothing happens unless God intends it to happen.
Yes. That's what the Bible teaches. God "works all things after the counsel of his will." The worst crime in human history, the murder of God's own Son occurred when people did "whatever [God's] hand and [God's] plan had predestined to take place." God has his own good purposes in everything, purposes we won't fully understand unless he reveals them.
Loss of free will is inherent.
Free will is a tricky term. Whether we have free will or not depends on how it is defined. But no, we don't make autonomous choices.
If we have no free will, it matters little what decisions we make because God intended us to do them when he created the universe, and we can't go against God's plan.
It matters what choices we make because God works his plan through our choices. Our choices are means by which he brings about his plan. And we are responsible for our choices because they come from our own desires and motives.
Your scenario also suggests there is no omnipotence.
Omnipotence is the ability to do whatever he desires or plans to do. If God is "working all things according to the counsel of his will," then he is omnipotent.
If he can see the future, he still can't make any choices.
The future that he sees is the future that he chose to bring to pass. Everything that will happen represents a choice he made in eternity.
But if by "he still can't make any choices" you mean that he can't change his mind, then I agree. God is immutable and his plan for history is immutable.
No matter which way you look at it, free will is abrogated, if not in God, in us.
God is the one whose will is autonomous. He's the creator, we're the creatures. We can't take our next breath unless he sustains it.
If God has autonomous free will, then we can't. That would make for a contradiction.
Is contradicted by
You can't have it both ways. You can't say that our decisions matter since they really aren't our decisions. God intended for us to make them, so they are God's decisions. If you are correct, we are each nothing more than machines created to do exactly what we do, when we do it. Therefore, since it is not possible for us to go against God's will, it doesn't matter what we do because whatever we do is based on his plan.
The idea that we are responsible for our decisions when we have no free will to do otherwise is ludicrous. You don't punish a machine for functioning exactly as it was designed to function. That would make no sense.
I often wonder when god created his 'plan'. If it was some finite time in our past then there was a time 'before' it was written. In this time god would have had no knowledge of the unwritten plan and therefore cannot be omniscient. If the plan has existed for eternity (whatever that means) then it is accurate to say that he never actually wrote it, it has always simply existed. If this is the case, is it really god's plan, or is he merely an enforcer of a story line that he did not write and cannot edit?
If god knows all then the future is predetermined and he can't change his mind (i.e. not omnipotent). If not, he is not omniscient. These are mutually exclusive states.
If god knows all then the future is predetermined and he can't change his mind (i.e. not omnipotent).
God being omnipotent has never meant that he can do anything at all. It simply means that he has the power to carry out all of his will.