So you say here that God’s foreknowledge would preclude a person’s free will.
But you say here that I should no longer insist that you say that God’s foreknowledge would preclude a person’s free will.
What???
We need to consult a Calvinist 
I must disagree.
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Omniscient means having “all knowledge” or infinite (unlimited) knowledge; anything less, any added qualification—including the idea that God knows “everything that is possible to know”— is not omniscience. Therefore, you do not actually believe God is omniscient.
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God’s unlimited foreknowledge does not impede a person’s free will. Indeed, a person will not do otherwise than what is foreknown by God; but what they end up doing is still their own choice.
Certainly God tries to genuinely influence people to make good choices, and will never stop doing so. And God knows our future sins, but will never stop loving us—because He IS love. Like God’s omniscience, His nature of love is also unqualified and unlimited: He doesn’t love people only if they make choices which please Him.
Again, although the Scriptures have examples of God supposedly changing His mind, these are only anthropomorphizations: ascribing human limitations to God.
I suggest you edit the above post appropriately. I did not say those things. Paidion did.
I beg your pardon, lancia.
Thanks for the correction.
Having come this far, would we be willing to go to this extent, from the Westminster Confession? In other words, is there a difference between utter predestination of every single thing that ever happens, and what we have been discussing as ‘foreknowledge’? An old question but a good one.
"3.1. God from all eternity by the most and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordained whatever comes to pass; yet because of that neither is God the author of sin; nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.
3.2. Although God knows whatever may or can come to pass, upon all supposed conditions; yet he has not decreed any thing because he foresaw it as future, as that which would come to pass, upon such conditions.
3.3. By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death."
Again, my perception is that this hangs on the semantics, esp. of “will, necessary, and free will.”
Gabe is surely correct that knowing something will happen need not mean that knowledge is the cause of that event. And one can still argue the ‘choice’ involved in that event was ‘free’ (even with omniscience) As I’ve said, whether it’s coherent that future free choices can be already known with certainty remains much debated, and partly hangs on definitions of ‘free’ will.
But I don’t see how any of that undermines my statement. If we agreed it is a known “fact” that A "will" happen, it’s understandable to perceive that then it’s not possible for B to happen, and that it’s as ‘necessary’ for A to happen, as it would be if the language was that A ‘must’ happen. And a corollary is that “now” at the present time no choice could be made to choose B.
Well, yes. When one places modifiers on will, modifying the word to something like certainly will happen or the fact that it will happen, it seems to me that such will terms then become necessary and no longer contingent. But that is not the case in the syllogism, which simply lists an unadorned will, which is clearly contingent. But again, I’m no philosopher or linguist, so what do I know about this subject?
Well, to the average guy, saying A “will happen” doesn’t need to have any modifier to make it claim “that it will happen,” because “will happen” already means “will happen.”
I know. Bummer. But philosophers do not think, write, or act like the average guy. Have you ever met William Craig, for example?
But, again, will conveys contingency, and thus any proposition including it (without modifiers) can be false, by definition.
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Paidion is not a philosopher, so insisting that his usage mean what you think a philosopher believes, instead of how normal people understand language, makes no sense to me.
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Knowing “A will happen” may mean to you that A is 'contingent. “Will” does not convey that to me.
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Yes, I’ve met William Craig (as well as read him extensively). My most memorable time with him was watching him debate Christopher Hitchens at BIOLA University. He strikes me as an intelligent and very skilled debater in bludgeoning opponents, but so committed to being an apologist for fundamentalism that he shows little interest in any open search for truth.
My impression is that this is classic Calvinism, and that classic Arminians find the belief that God determined every human action, including damnable unbelief, as appalling, since they believe God has given ‘free agency’ to men so that their own choice is the explanation of their responses, rather than fixed by God’s choosing.
Yes sir I like that.
I wrote:
Again, that in no way implies that God’s foreknowledge caused the person’s choice, but that if such foreknowledge existed, it would be inconsistent with the person’s choice, and thus the person could not do otherwise than what is foreknown. Thus the person would not have free will, i.e. the ability to choose.
The crucial thing in my statement is “if such foreknowledge existed it would be inconsistent with the person’s choice…” That is the reason the person could not do otherwise than what is foreknown.
It has no relation to the concept that such presumed foreknowledge would itself prevent the person from choosing.
It doesn’t matter who has the presumed foreknowledge. If you, yourself, knew right now that I would not eat an apple at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning, then I could not eat an apple tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. For if I did actually eat an apple at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning, that is evidence that you did not know that I would not eat an apple tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. For if you truly did know it, then I would be unable to eat an apple tomorrow morning at 8 A.M. —not because your foreknowledge prevented me from eating an apple, but because the facts of your foreknowledge contradicts my eating of the apple at that time.
If doesn’t make matters any difference whether the one who knows in advance is God rather than someone else… It’s a simple contradiction. It’s a contradiction of the same nature as saying that if you are not in your house at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning then you cannot be in your house at 8 A.M. tomorrow morning.
I don’t understand this part of your post.
If time is the sort of thing that someone like God could look at and ‘see’ the future, then even without God seeing it, you are going to do in the future exactly and inexorably what the future timeline ‘shows’.
In other words, if the timeline is already completed - and can be viewed by an omniscient being - then you are not free to act any differently. In a sense, the future is ‘finished’ and you have no choice.
God’s seeing it has no effect whatsoever, if the timeline really exists.
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There are two ways of looking at your claim: “the person could not do otherwise than what is foreknown.” Both show your claim to be false.
Premise 1: If God foreknows you will do A, then it could not be otherwise that you will do A.
Premise 2: God foreknows you will do A.
Conclusion: It could not be otherwise that you will do A.
But this is erroneous. Just because God foreknows you will do A, it does not follow deductively that it could not be otherwise that you will do A. The claim ”it could not be otherwise that you will do A” is a necessary proposition, a proposition that is impossible to be false. But God also foreknows contingent propositions, propositions that are possibly false. So, just because God foreknows a proposition, it does not follow deductively that such a proposition is a necessary one. So, Premise 1 is false.
Another way of looking at your claim is this one.
Premise 1: It could not be otherwise that if God foreknows you will do A, then you will do A.
Premise 2: God foreknows you will do A.
Conclusion: It could not be otherwise that you will do A.
This version commits the modal fallacy. The conclusion does not follow deductively from the premises. It is not correct to conclude that “It could not be otherwise that you will do A.” The correct conclusion via deduction is “You will do A,” as shown by the corrected syllogism next.
Premise 1: It could not be otherwise that if God foreknows you will do A, then you will do A.
Premise 2: God foreknows you will do A.
Conclusion: You will do A.
But since “You will do A” is a contingent proposition, not a necessary one, it could, in fact, be false. That is not to say God is not omniscient. It is just to say that this syllogism fails to establish deductively that it could not be otherwise that you do what is foreknown.
So, in either case, your claim fails.
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