h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

well i did mean omnipotent: but now im talking about omniscience! is it possible for God to be omniscient and for us to be free?

Presumably, yes. As long as he can't intervene it doesn't matter what he Knows. It's if he can intervene in the internal workings of our decision making that the problems start.
Sage

I disagree: even if he Knows yet doesn't interfere we are still not free: how can we be free when there is only one course of action open to us[which is what God knows it to be]?

So.... do you believe in God, or do you believe in free will? Or... to put it another way...... What does the concept "God" mean? And what does the concept "Free Will" mean? I know the notion that free will and determinism are compatible is not an easy one (it took me a couple of years to get my head round it) but it does make sense. Responsibility is not an internal property of our actions; it is something we ASCRIBE to them.
Sage

Glad you're back!
I believe in both! I think that God knows all possible futures, but doesn't know which one will occur: therefore he knows everything that is logically possible and we still have freewill.

And determinism and free will arent compatible: compatibilism is a 'miserable subterfuge': so there

GB: rebel without a clue!

Interesting. There is something here that smacks of the quantum indeterminacy problem; more than one future is possible but why does one particular future get chosen in preference to another? If god gets to choose this has implications for free will; if the decision is down to chance so does that. The whole point of my compatibilist position is that if the argument is settled in favour of determinism NOTHING has been said about questions of free will and ethics.
In the meantime my nephew Onion wants to use the computer, so I'm being booted. With a bit of luck I'll be back shortly.
See ya!
Sage

I just wrote a guide entry on omniscience, you can get at it: A767955. Tell me what you think!
GB
Say Hi to Onion for me!

Hi there. I was taught this stuff by Swinburne himself. However, anything I say, unless attributed, is my own including errors. My take on freewill is pretty much that of Locke, although I arrived at it kinda independently. We are free to act as we choose - however we are not free to choose as we choose. The latter would lead to an unacceptable infinite regress. I guess that, in consequence, I don't believe in free will but in free action. I take it though that the question OUGHT to be about free action since free will is a regressive logical paradox that isn't worth bothering about.

To put a little flesh on the bones of this: our choice is determined by our genetic inheritance and experiences. That's no problem, because the sum of those factors is what I mean by 'me'. A choice based on those factors is MY choice although it is also determined by some things - things that I call 'me' though. Hence I guess I am a compatibilist although I put the emphasis on freedom of action rather than of choice.

Cool! Swinburne: was he a good teacher?

He was an excellent teacher who took trouble over the job. He even discussed our essays individually unlike any of the others.

That sounds fantastic! I had a couple of lectures by Vardy for my A-Level, and he seemed quite cool too.

I was lucky that he happened to be my philosophy tutor when he was professor at Keele. Actually, I think he wangled the best students for himself, since two of us in his group were the only ones to get firsts from that year's cohort. I believe he is still going as Professor Emeritus at Oxford.

Got to hear more famous 'names' in the Philosophy Society. RM Hare (picked his nose all the way through his talk), Alvin Plantinga, Michael Dummett...

Cool! I was going to go to do phil. at Keele at one point, but he put me off philosophy, because the head guy was interested in the 'philosophy of time travel'... why study something that doesn't exist, and may not ever exist?

Having said that I do enjoy phil. as a hobby

I think he was trying to get you to argue that time travel into the past is logically impossible. That would have gone down very well, I imagine. Philosophers can be devious bas..... erm... people at times!

And here's me had to do it the hard way! Not a famous teacher in sight. Probably explains why some of my thinking and terminology is a bit idiosyncratic by academic standards.

Noggin

no... it was going round to see unis at the time, and he wasnt looking at applicants intentionally: he was sorting out clearing...so we had this impromput interview [wasnt Swinburne!] and he said that his area of specialism was the philosophy of time travel!

Well that's hard to believe. All that's worth philosophising about time travel can be written on the back of a postage stamp (according to me )

It's hard whichever way you do it Nog! Getting stuff past Swinburne wasn't exactly easy. But for the twitch of a butterfly's wing, I would be teaching this stuff I guess. I'm available to be right or wrong on h2g2 anyway. I listen and argue, do my damnedest not to appear to pontificate. Bad move in philosophy! . Nice to meet you guys and get rid of years of rust. My fellow students didn't seem to be that interested, but they didn't get top degrees either .

That's what put me off! I kinda felt get with the real world!

Which is a bit of a problem; because without studying philosophy you wouldn't know whether there was a real world and, if so, which one it was. Bit of a Catch 22 there dude.