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From: esk@wucs.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.philosophy
Subject: moRE Omniscience and Freedom
Message-ID: <392@wucs.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Oct-84 14:49:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: wucs.392
Posted: Wed Oct  3 14:49:29 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 5-Oct-84 04:35:24 EDT
Distribution: net
Organization: Washington U. in St. Louis, CS Dept.
Lines: 34

[]


	To be sure, having the power to decide to act in a particular
	way and not another is a manifestation of freedom, not of
	unfreedom.  However, it seems to me that our freedom is
	located in that moment of decision:  to the extent that we
	have made an irrevocable decision, we are the servants of our
	past resolve.
	There can be no time at which an omniscient being makes a
	decision,  because otherwise previously he would not know what
	his future action would be.
				Bob Renninger
				hou2a!54375rr

An omniscient being could make a decision continuously.  After all,
few decisions are made only once:  for example, I decide today to go to
class tomorrow, but something comes up and tomorrow I change my mind.  
The omniscient being knows beforehand what it will decide at the moment
when the decision becomes irrevocable, because it knows what the grounds
are on which that decision will be based.  If the omniscient being has a
certain minimum of rationality, it will never do what I do and change its
mind, because it always (at least ever since it has been omniscient) knows
what the relevant facts are and what decision they justify.  Therefore,
each time the being remakes its decision, it confirms the original one.
(Then why remake the decision?  Well, if the omniscient being is also
omnipotent, it can afford to, because it has plenty of time and energy.)
Far from being unfree, such a being seems to me to be perfectly free.
By the way, I agree that God must exist in time or at least "meta-time".
However, I do not see how this creates any logical difficulties.

				Paul V Torek, ihnp4!wucs!wucec1!pvt1047
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