Re: The lot is cast ...

Don Page (don@phys.ualberta.ca)
Wed, 10 Dec 1997 12:06:28 -0700

Even though I don't believe humans have (incompatibilist) free will,
I agree with Chuck Noren when he wrote (10:35 AM 12/10/97 -0800), "I
personally don't think that foreknowledge is incompatible with free will"
(but not with his further statement, "God does not control our choices").
IF the ultimate causes in the world included human choices as well as God
(which I think is coherent if one does not have God as the creator of
everything, i.e., of these choices, but I do not regard this as plausible),
I don't see any obvious reason why God could not know all these choices that
are made independent of Him.

For that matter, I would see no reason why other beings could not
know them either. To go to an extreme hypothesis, I don't see any obvious
inconsistency in supposing that in heaven we shall each know everything and
hence be omniscient, since omniscience does not seem to imply omnipotence.
(I'm not saying that I think it is plausible that we shall know everything
there, but just that I see no obvious inconsistency in this hypothesis.)

Now I might be overlooking some Godelian self-reference
inconsistency in assuming a knowledge of everything, but I don't know enough
about these subtleties to know that there is such an inconsistency. If
there is, it is not obvious to me that it might not imply that even God
cannot possibly know everything, but I have never heard any claimed proof to
this effect. Has anyone?

Don Page