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From: palmer@uw-june (David Palmer)
Newsgroups: net.religion
Subject: Re: Omniscience vs. Free Will (again!)
Message-ID: <1024@uw-june>
Date: Thu, 23-Feb-84 11:57:51 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-june.1024
Posted: Thu Feb 23 11:57:51 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 24-Feb-84 02:37:39 EST
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Organization: U. Washington, Computer Sci
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<>

An interesting question to ask (and the road to Hell is paved with
interesting questions >:-) ) is whether an omniscient G-d* has free
will.  Since he knows everything he is ever going to do, he obviously
cannot choose to do something different.

    One answer to this is that G-d had free will once, but then, being
omnipotent, he gave himself omniscience, and thereby lost free will.
He used up all of his free will in that one act, but that act was a
result of free will.

    Some philosophers (e.g. Leibnitz) have suggested that, being
omnibenevolent, G-d is constrained to one course of action, that which
has the best results ("all is for the best in this, the best of all
possible worlds." as Candide said).  I agree with Voltaire that this is
a pretty pessimistic view of the world.

                        David Palmer

----
* G-d is a trademark of "The Moral Majority", and may not be used
without its permission :-)