The premises are true and the conclusions follow from the premises. Sound argument.

1) LDS doctrine teaches that God knows what will happen in the future (1 Nep. 9:6, D and C 38:2, many other sources).
2) Whatever God knows will happen in the future must happen; it is impossible for something he knows will happen to not happen, and impossible for something he knows will not happen to happen (1).
3) LDS doctrine teaches that human beings are free to make choices (2 Nephi 2:27, many other sources).
4) To be free, humans must have more than one option to choose from. If there are no options, there is no freedom to choose, or the concept of freedom is meaningless. (df).
5) However, it is impossible for a human to choose the one option that God has not already seen them choosing, or to not choose any option that God has not already seen them not choosing. (1,2).
6) 5) is incompatible with the LDS doctrine in 3)
7) Therefore, either LDS doctrine of God's foreknowledge is false, or LDS doctrine of human agency is false.

I wrote this off the cuff and refinements are welcome. But I think it is a perfectly inescapable fork. You have to give up either the Foreknowledge of God or the Freedom of humankind. Both are key teachings in LDS theology, with freedom of humankind being nearly fetishized.

If you give up God's foreknowledge, he becomes an inadequate object of worship.

If you give up human freedom then guilt, innocence, reward, and punishment are pointless. (ie the LDS Plan of Salvation is nonsensical).

Q.E.D.

There will be those of you trolling who will want to give the Sunday School answer that God's foreknowledge doesn't preclude human freedom. Don't bother. You have to either show from the above argument that one of its premises are false, or that its conclusions don't follow from its premises. Good luck doing that without some serious sophistry.

I've thought of this many times before, never laid it out so formally.

Well done.

And I do mean done.

It depends on what the meaning of is is

I wondered this myself about 20 years ago as a young adult TBM. I brought it up several times to TBMs wondering how an omniscient god did not equate to predestination. I got some interesting complicated answers from TBMs - none of which were ever satisfactory.

Also, God changing his mind on core Church doctrines of old. It's like God is playing one giant cosmic infinite game of simon says with his subjects. He seems extraordinarily arbitrary and capricious to be the God of "Alpha and Omega, the same yesterday today and forever." If he does not follow the law or the law ceases to be him, he ceases to be God according to the BoM."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 01:16AM by london.

Consider: you have a time machine. You go 20 years forward in time and buy the football almanac for the last 20 years. It records all the wins and highlights of the big games. Then you go back and watch those games. The almanac shows you each game and the key choices the players made to win or lose. Are their choices free or not? Does your owing the almanac and know g what they chose to do in anyway inhibit their free choice?

The answer is no. The reason is related to time and the ability to project beyond a point to see in retrospect what choice the individual made.

The big flaw in LDS theology isn't related to free choice it's related to the success ratio for the plan of salvation.

God is omnipotent he can do all things. God is omniscient he knows all things. He creates children and wants them to return to live with him. Yet it appears that such a being can't create a plan in which more than a small percentage are able to successful do that. Being omniscient means he knows when creating child X What choices that child will freely make before its even created. Therefore the creation process must imbue that child with some reason it will be a failure. Even if we are created from existing matter there must be something that affects us and the way we reason or why we reason that means some will fail. Why are some intelligences noble and great whilst others lesser?

If creation is unequal that might account for the variance but it also means the game is inherently rigged. Free choice can exist but if you are predisposed to make dumb choices your free choice isn't truly free but influenced by the i he rent character flaws you were made with.

On the other hand, if we were all created equal what would explain the choice differences and outcomes we experience. It would imply that identical beings (in intellect and raw morality) when faced with the same options make different choices which then affects our character. But this would disprove the idea about us being g the same or equal if when faced with the same stimulae we make different choices. Which means we cannot have been created the same or equal.

This attributes our behavioural choices to either our inherent design or to the fact that we must face different choices that are more likely to produce negative outcomes.

An all knowing and all powerful god should be capable of constructing a training program that moves all of his candidate children through it at their own pace and results in them all learning about optimal choices in order to achieve the optimal outcome.

Why would Satan, who is supposedly smart, argue with the supreme intelligence in the universe, let alone decide to battle against omnipotent omniscience? To posses a level of pride where you can't back down when such a supreme being explains your plan is flawed seems really illogical.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 05:01AM by lilburne.

Along the same lines, this omniscient, omnipotent being cannot prevent a civil war erupting between his too most illustrious sons, yet his great Plan supposedly brings families together for eternity. Not only can't He keep His own family together, they go to war! How can an omniscient, omnipotent being design a plan He can't even execute Himself. Why doesn't He start off with "Families Forever is an impossible claim; case in point: War in Heaven?"

Never thought of that before. Excellent point.

Years ago, I pointed this out to my TBM mom in an attempt to make her feel better when my brother became an exmo.

But since the scriptures say children won't stray as long as their earthly parents correctly taught them, I guess that somehow excuses God and foists all the unrealistic expectations on parents.

Well, consider the case of Martin Harris and the "lost manuscript"...

God looks into the future and sees that:
- Martin Harris will want to show the manuscript to his family
- Joseph Smith will ask God for permission three times, and the first 2 times God will say "no"
- God will say "yes" the third time, again knowing that the pages will be lost

So... God prepares for this god-sactioned act by telling Mormon (or was it Nephi) to include an abridgment (read: backup) of the plates of Nephi.

So... by telling Mormon/Nephi to include the abridgment, this means that a future without the abridgment must have already happened (and that must be what God saw)...

When God chose to change the past, he inevitably altered the future he had already seen...

It just seems odd to me that a god with THAT much power and foresight didn't bother to curtail anything in the future related to "his church" that would prove to be embarrassing, contradictory, and so forth...

It's just too bad God had to change this, because I'm sure in the original version of the future, none of us were mormons...

That's the standard TBM response, to claim that just because God knows beforehand, that it doesn't take away your free choice (or as they would say it, free agency).

What you're missing there is that your time travel can't take away their free choice, because they never had it to begin with. Free will is nothing more than an illusion. The football players will always make the same choices, because ANYONE in exactly the same set of circumstances, with the same training, and the same DNA, and the same brain chemistry, would make exactly the same choice. For them to ever make a different choice, something has to be different. And if it's never different, they'll never make a different choice. You knowing about it or not knowing about it beforehand is completely irrelevant, which is why it appears to you that it doesn't affect anything.

For a more detailed explanation of the delusion of free will, Sam Harris has given several excellent presentations on the topic, including this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FanhvXO9Pk He also has a book that covers the subject, titled Free Will.

The LDS concept of free agency is just a set-up, which gives you a reason to feel guilty about always falling short of perfection. And then the church sets itself up as the only thing that can help you make the right choices, and the only way for you to "repent" for the wrong choices. Free agency is just one more tool they can use to keep you in line.

It's not clear whether the LDS church teaches that all moments of time — the past, the present and the future — are present to God as the present moment is present to us, but *if* that's the case, then God knowing the future doesn't render freedom absurd any more than our knowing the present.

All of he objections to the argument above are nothing more than variations of the Sunday school arguments. Lilburne, press, all others who simply make assertions: assertions don't work here.

To counter an argument You either have to tell me which premise is false or tell me how my conclusions don't follow from the premise. The dice analogy and he ideas of exactly what kind of foreknowledge god has etc are ALL irrelevant because I just showed you EXACTLY how gods foreknowledge IS prescriptive.

Either admit that god could be wrong about the future or that we are not free. You HAVE to give up one or the other here.

Either way, LDS doctrine contains falsehood.

If the result of a system can be known beforehand, the system is deterministic
If the result of a system absolutely CANNOT by any means be known beforehand, the system is indeterministic.

It is unknown whether the result of our lives can be known beforehand as we do not have the means to account for all variables ourselves.

However,

-Mormons claim the result of the system of our lives can be known and is known beforehand by god and is therefore deterministic
-Mormons claim god does not exercise direct influence over our choices
-Mormons claim god planned and arranged the obstacles, hardships, and blessings of our lives
-According to Mormon claims, God knew beforehand that the obstacles, hardships and blessings he placed in our lives would direct our choices deterministically to a single possible conclusion.
-Whether or not God’s pre-knowledge of an outcome alone is enough to influence that outcome is irrelevant as God is an active participant in the system.
-Since only God operates within the system knowing the results beforehand, God not only knew but decided everyone’s fate himself.

His knowledge of your choice would be descriptive, not prescriptive. Your choice would actively drive his knowledge. His knowledge would passively recognize your choice.

If I role a die and it comes up 4, does my absolute knowledge of that fact preclude the POSSIBILITY of other outcomes? Did the chance never exist for a different outcome?

Meh. Not important to my salvation.

generationofvipers Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You have to either show from the
> above argument that one of its premises are false,
> or that its conclusions don't follow from its
> premises.

No I don't; see above. This is what your proof amounts to to a TBM.

Agreed. It isn't very convincing to a monkey either.

Not that TBM are monkeys.

First, this is not a uniquely LDS dilemma. It's practically universal for all the major western religions that claim divine omniscience.

Next, your conclusion in (6) is false. Foreknowledge does not indicate responsibility. This is where Calvinism splits from most other Christian dogma. Calvinism implied predestination; that God placed people in positions to be saved or not saved because he knew they were going either to heaven or hell (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprobation).

Most other Christian dogma (LDS included) grant God omniscience while at the same time stating people are free to make their own choices. Just because God knows a choice will be made does not preclude that one was free to make it in the first choice. One might call free will illusory in that sense, but it's really not. I may know a friend will relapse into addiction, or that he will fail the next semester at school, but my knowing this doesn't in any significant sense alter my friends' decisions.

This is, incidentally, how one also gets past the "How can god let bad things happen to innocent people" complaint. God may know somebody's bad choices will lead to negative outcomes, but he cannot compel them (thereby putting god directly on the hook for hurting people).

I'm not a believer in deity of any flavor, but the belief in both an omniscient god and free will can be logically sound. And your statement that God's foreknowledge is prescriptive is just that -- a statement. The argument that it is merely descriptive is just as valid, as there is no 'evidence' as to the actual nature of god's foreknowledge.

"Just because God knows a choice will be made does not preclude that one was free to make it in the first choice."

Sorry, but if God already knows what "choice" will be made, then isn't the destination already known to God? I understand your comment about a choice being made from our own non-omniscient view, but if God is really omniscient, then we're all following a script whether we know it or not.

When I was 16 an idea similar to this bothered me. I brought it
up to my TBM Dad. He couldn't understand my point. My Mom was
in the room and she said she could understand my point. I
carefully went over my line of reasoning three times for my
Dad. Each time he said he couldn't understand it.

Now my Dad was no dummy. He was a lawyer, someone trained to
understand subtle arguments. I later came to the conclusion
that he didn't understand because he didn't WANT to understand.

I've pondered the story of Peter denying Christ the 3 times before the next morning . The only way that Christ could have known beyond doubt is either A ) he had already seen this play before exactly , or B ) fatalism is a true concept , making free agency impossible .

Omniscience makes God's life very boring. No surprises, no discoveries, no new experiences... Yawn.

But the idea of God knowing everything, knowing the end from the beginning, was just crap made up to put fear into people, to control them. And free will was another made up thing to make people feel better. But free will conflicts with the end being known from the beginning.

Lots of doctrines and theologies within all religions are in conflict because it was all invented as they went along, each doctrine created to serve a specific purpose, to solve a particular problem, usually without regard to other doctrines. Then a bunch more BS was created to try to fill in the gaps or make the conflicts seem nonconflicting.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2014 11:29AM by Stray Mutt.

A little reading: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free-will-foreknowledge/

And a lot more: https://www.google.com/search?q=god%27s+omniscience+and+free+will&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&channel=sb

Actually, Mormonism is in better shape than traditional Christianity on this issue. Mormon theology allows for gods that progress. I mean, finding out elohim was an intern-god would explain a lot, especially in the OT.

Here is a delightful and thought-provoking essay on the problem of omniscience and free will. Is God a Taoist?, by Raymond Smullyan

http://www.mit.edu/people/dpolicar/writing/prose/text/godTaoist.html

Error is in step (5). It's not impossible for them to choose other options; it's just that they didn't choose all the possible options. Now that you know what happened, it's impossible to change a past decision, but being free to change the past has never been the definition of human freedom.

Distilled philosophy from Albert Camus:

There is only one choice we have that makes all other matters moot, and that is whether to live or die.

https://soundcloud.com/onbeing/brian-greene-on-suicide

Well done o good and faithful servant -- oops, just popped out of my mouth....:)

Doesn't your argument feel more like a Catch-22 than a fork?

The original Catch-22 in Heller's 1961 novel went like this;

A U.S. Air Force pilot is prevented from asking to be grounded on the basis of insanity. A man "would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he were sane, he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn't have to' but if he didn't, he was sane and had to."


Kathleen Waters

Dear President Monson,

If I jack off today God will be PO'ed, but if I decide NOT to jack off today God will be pleased; but if He is all-knowing, does he know that I'm going to jack off anyway, because I don't give a damn and I'm horny?

Thank you for your attention, even in this matter,

Chicken N. Backpacks

For Alpiner: yes it is fatal to many dogmas, not just LDS. But as we (still a cultural identity to me) fetishize "free to choose" more than any other denomination I am aware of, we are especially threatened by determinism, hard or soft.

To help you understand my premise 6 more clearly, I will put it this way:

Stalin: "You, my comrade are free. You can choose for yourself. Your only option is to stay in those chains as I execute you."

Proletarian: "But you said I am free! What are the other options I may choose from."

Stalin: "You are entirely free, a true agent to yourself. We are true believers in individual freedom. So what do you want to do? Your only option is to stay in those chains and be executed."

IF GOD CAN SEE WHAT WE WILL CHOOSE WE CAN'T CHOOSE ANY OTHER WAY OR GOD DID NOT SEE IT CORRECTLY. Freedom of the will is NOT compatible with divine foreknowledge, unless divine foreknowledge is fallible and therefore not knowledge at all in the traditional theistic sense.

Any "feeling" a theist has that they are free is illusory. Any arguments around this simple dichotomy are sophistry.

Calvin was the only theologian with the stones to admit the damning consequences of divine foreknowledge without flinching.