What if God foreknew human reactions?

In the same way that it is fixed from the very end of time? And at every other point in space-time? Which start of time BTW becasue I have universes with an infinite number of separate "beginnings of time"? The "start of time" is just a point in space-time, with which humans tend to have some sort of hang-up. It might just be your use of language but you seem to be confusing our time and God's time again. God is omniscient wrt to his creation and its time. I'm not claiming (but not dismissing either) omniscience (whatever that means in this context) outside of creation. I do not necessarily believe that God did know what would happen inside the creation before he created it. Jar said it best when he suggested that God's words of creation were "surprise me". "ANY logically possible universe" is a very interesting concept. We don't even have an idea of one logically possible universe yet, other than the evidence that we seem to be living in one! Everything we see in funde physics is pointing us towards the same ideas... we get less and less freedom the further we push as we discover that so many different ideas are all just viewpoints on the same unknown mega-theory. It is a common idea that there is only one logical universe... ours.Remember that I started the God and Mathematics thread with the question "is God bound by mathematics". I do not hold to normal naive notions of omnipotence. No, I don't see why you should hold to this. I can think of solving an elliptic stochastic equation across some space. I set the boundary conditions, I see the whole solution, yet I did not create the interior solution. Apologies. I do not hold to the same idea of creation as you, so I was missing your point.

For the purposes of the argument the start of time is "special" in that all other points in time are in the future.So far as I can tell the whole "our time vs God's time" issue is an irrelevant distraction. Indeed sicne I hae't referred to or used the "God's time" concpet in any way other than assuming that God exists in some sense prior to our universe I don't see how the said confusion even COULD exist.I also don't see what's so complicated by the concept of logically possible universes. Given that this includes anything which could a) reasonably be called a universe and b) does not embody a contradiction there doesn't seem to be any relevant issues other than the fact that an omnipotent GOd would have a vast array of options.

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No, I don't see why you should hold to this. I can think of solving an elliptic stochastic equation across some space. I set the boundary conditions, I see the whole solution, yet I did not create the interior solution.

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A better analogy would be if you were to choose the equation and the conditions, knowing in advance what the solution would be (this is necessary to provide an analogy to omniscience). Having chosen this particular setup you have knowingly dictated the solution (in your version you still dictated the solution, but did not do so in the knowledge of what it would be).

Depending on which is true:Eternally existing matter/universe (which is oddly easier to believe in than a Creator)OR..an eternal Creator.Just remember this little jingle:The Past is HistoryThe Future is a mysteryThe Present is a gift.The gift is that only in each present moment can we interact with eternity..(for believers, that is)Otherwise...trying to calculate foreknowledge based on math without acknowleging a Creator is akin to fullfilling the "Ye shall be as gods.(creators) Which is only Science Fiction. (or speculation)I guess what I am trying to say is that it irks me when my belief is dismissed so readily since it is non-empirical, yet speculation on the mysterious "eternal" universe can take leaps and bounds in speculations that themselves may have no life to them (or truth)If God is Truth, truth is an unchanging reality. The difference between pre-destination and pre-determination is that we either freely choose to walk...moment by moment...into a future with the living truth as a guide, or we choose to walk alone..as a species..attempting to define or create our own version of the truth.(ye shall be as creators)Its human nature...but it is not how we HAVE to be.

I am not sure if I am quite up to snuff on your logic, but you ARE a deep thinker! I suppose that my question to you is this:Can a math problem ever solve itself? In other words, if one of the variables (say, a human) had a freewill option to change their intrinsic value within the context of the equation...would that change affect the answer to the equation?If you, as the professor, invented the equation, do you first know the answer and then invent the equation that leads to it?And I still don't understand why the argument declares that God removes our free will by knowing what we will decide. All that He knows is that we either will/will not obey. The variables who will obey walk with Him...and we were, we are, and we shall be.The variables who choose to deny Him once were, now are not, and yet are IF their names are written in the book of life.Thus...the scripture where God blots names out of a book already written is the point where God changes the equation based on the decision of the variables..(humans) The fact that He sees a finished equation does NOT mean that He needed to pay any particular mind as to what choice the variables would choose.(Scriptural allusions available upon request)

What if there is more than one start of time? What if there is no start, as in an eternal universe? I think the confusion is precisely in the above quote: what do you mean by God existing "prior" to our universe? You seem to be still incorporating God's time and our time as the same thing. Perhaps I should say: you are failing to distinguish our time from God's time.When did God create the universe? That's a HUGE assumption. Try coming up with an a). Try coming up with an a) that does not violate b). We haven't managed it yet. Haven't come close. Now, I'm sure that God could come up with all sorts of "magic" universes, by which I mean universes that require constant intervention to work, that are not internally consistent. But to come up with the "scientific" self-consistent, self-sustaining reality we appear to inhabit is another matter. I don't believe that omnipotence is a valid concept when considering God outside of the physical universe. I am not certain as to how much choice God had in considering the design of our universe. Not true. You again seem to be failing to distinguish God's time from our time. Omniscience as required for this argument of fatalism/determinism is wrt our time - or more correctly, wrt to each of our own individual times. Switching to God's time, it is not necessary for him to have advance knowledge of what the solution would be.

Not necessarily.
Inflation magnified the effects of quantum fluctuations. Now if unmagnified quantum fluctuations have no impact on a macroscopic scale, then the universe would be deterministic only after the inflationary period.

Unless you're god, then anything is possible, even the impossible, and the self-contradictory.

Neither is relevant. You can have a future that is deterministic between probabalistic occurrences.
If I'm in the act of throwing a baseball, prior to the baseball leaving my hand, it might be unknowable where it'll land. However, once the ball leaves my hand, its landing spot is perfectly knowable.

Then God could've made that false; so nothing can be said about God.

an omnipotent God should be capable of creating ANYthingLimiting omnipotence to only the logically possible makes it no longer omnipotence. Omnipotence has to be limitless, by definition. So, omnipotence should be capable of the logically impossible as well.

Or everything could be said about god.

If God exists outside of logic, then I don't see he can be assigned the value of truth (i.e. how you can believe in him).

I'm trying to get a handle on this....If I knew you in the present as well as in the future, any decision that you make will be known by me, yet the important part of our relationship would, of course, be the present moment. You could choose the way that I did not actually want you to go, but it would be because of how you and I got along in the present moment. Good friends often talk each other out of certain things...distant friends or unknown strangers have no such influence. Just because I "knew" what you would do does not mean I would be happy and content with it...and my only way to allow you to have freewill would be to limit my influence on you to the present. God has no future influence on us...He chose for this to be so.
Oddly, we have "future" influence on Him...by virtue of prayer. It is not as if we imagine Him or "control" Him...we are communing with Him...moment by moment. If the prayer does not turn ot tomorrow as we wanted it to be while praying today, He is always there with us tomorrow as that good friend...Destiny is interaction with God but it is not based on human accomplishment entirely. (I am rambling here...perhaps I have to think more about my beliefs on this subject)What about prayer, then? When God "answers" prayer, He is actually not changing the future...He is interacting in a present moment not yet here. There is a difference. One view is from a mind that knows each dimension...the other view is from our mind which can only imagine and speculate on future dimensions based on gathered evidence/facts.This message has been edited by Phatboy, 09-17-2005 08:50 AM

But why are we insisting on omnipotence? I know it's tradition but I don't think it is essential, especially as we're hard pressed to define what it means. "Apparent omnipotence" with respect to what goes on inside the universe does not imply omnipotence with regard to matters outside the universe. And I personally do not believe that even apparent omnipotence holds water in the Christian faith.

omnipotenceThat's a later add-on isn't it? Various sections of the OT seems to suggest that the christian god has various limits.