Argument from free will
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The argument from free will is an argument against the Existence of God which contends that omniscience and free will are incompatible, and that any conception of God which incorporates both properties is therefore inherently contradictory. The argument goes as follows:
- By definition, if someone has free will, then at any point in time they may either choose to do a certain thing or choose not to do it.
- By definition, an omniscient God knows everything that will happen in the future, including all of the choices he will make at any future point in time.
- By the definitions of "knowledge" and "choice", if one knows for certain what choice one will make in the future, one will not be able to make the opposite choice.
- Omniscience and free will are logically contradictory.
- Either nobody has free will, or nobody is omniscient.
Most monotheistic religions hold that God is omniscient, and both God and humans have free will. A common response to the above argument states that God exists beyond the constraints of linear time, and that the temporal terminology used above is meaningless when applied to him - God doesn't need to know any event "before" it happens but rather is capable of knowing/experiencing it "while" it happens.
However, the above does not eliminate the seeming contradiction of free will by itself. Omniscience requires that God would have knowledge of all things in all times, even if God's view of time was vastly different as compared to ours. However, "in all times" wouldn't apply if a God exists outside of the framework of time. Most of the apparent contradictions arise by trying to attribute temporal attributes to an atemporal idea/being.
Some would contend that no being can be all-knowing if there is free will (different possible futures). They believe this shows that omniscience and free will are logically contradictory.
This argument is one of the bases of Deism and various other non-omniscient religious philosophies.