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From: david@ssc-vax.UUCP (David Norris)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Need an explanation (more free will)
Message-ID: <862@ssc-vax.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 27-Feb-84 14:38:48 EST
Article-I.D.: ssc-vax.862
Posted: Mon Feb 27 14:38:48 1984
Date-Received: Wed, 29-Feb-84 07:31:21 EST
Organization: Boeing Aerospace, Seattle
Lines: 30

Byron Howes, on free will:

> David Norris asks why omniscience makes free will irrelevant.  I think
> that is a fair question.  First, however, let me clear up a misconcep-
> tion that somehow has crept into this discussion.  To say that free
> will is irrelevant is not to say that it doesn't exist, but merely to
> say that it has no meaningful consequences.  The concept of free-will
> is not destroyed, but becomes superfluous when viewed at the global
> (omniscient) level.
>
> As I have read this (and other) discussions, the reason that G*d gave
> man free will was so that man could choose to obey and love G-d or
> not.  G-d, being omniscient, already knows the outcome of that choice --
> that is to say that G-d knows already whether any given human will
> choose to love him or not.  This does not deny the existance of a
> process of choice, or that it is somehow important at the local (human)
> level.   As the outcome is known to G-d, however, irrespective of
> the choice process, the choice process becomes superfluous to the
> ultimate disposition of the soul.  This last, of course, is also
> already known.

Given, then, that free will exists, I will ask yet another question:  Why
does God's foreknowledge of our free-will choices make those choices
superfluous?  In what way does this diminish the impact of those decisions? 
The conclusion that the choice process is superfluous because the outcome is
already known is non-sequitur.  

	-- David Norris        :-)
	-- uw-beaver!ssc-vax!david