Guest, I thank you for your post.
But frankly, the argument your advancing is semantically sound and logically vapid.
You've established that time is linear. We agree.
You've also accepted that the future has ALREADY OCCURRED, since the SOURCE of god's knowledge for future events can only be those events. No one has offerred an alternative source for god's knowledge, so as of now, this source is the only one we have.
My argument is a simple if, them, statement. If the future has already occurred, then the choices I make lack any meaning, BECAUSE they are not choices, by defintion.
The very NATURE of choice is to have 2 options, and then pick from one of those 2. Yes, in MY OWN frame of reference, I have 2 options. That makes me THINK or BELIEVE I have choices. But a linear time line with a already occurred future makes the word choice, the words free-will and the word 'autonomy' meaningless.
This is the statement which is quite an excellent summary of how semantically you can go around the nature of choice,
But yes. If god knows you will kill yourself tomorrow, then that is the choice that you will eventually choose.
At which point, what does 'choice' mean? Apparently it means whatever I choose. That's a tautological statement of utter uselessness.
I have never claimed that god dictates our choices. Only that his having foreknowledge requires that choice itself have no meaning.
If god has knowledge of what we will do, BEFORE WE DO IT, and therefore we must NECESSARILY do what god knows we will do, then, by the very nature of it, we are following a preset plan, where choice is a FIGMENT of our imagination.
Once again: Where did god learn of our choice?
Scenario for clarification: I can choose X or Y.
I am here, at point 1 in the timeline. God must exist at ALL points in the timeline, and have foreknowledge at all points in the timeline, including points 0, 1, 2 etc.
Now, I have a choice between X and Y at point 2.
If God knows what choice I made at point 3, he is equivalent to other humans, which makes god equal to a human. Which is pointless.
If God knows what choice I make at point 2, and he knows this at the exact point in time I make the choice, he is equivalent to me, making him human.
Now, if god has foreknowledge, and he knows what choice I will make at point 2, but he knows this at point 0, then while I am at point 1, point 2 is IN MY FUTURE, and in THEORY, is an unknown. I may choose X (as god sees me doing). I may choose Y.
But while this 'choice' is apparent to me at point 1, its just a figment of my imagination. God ALREADY knows, at point 0, that I'm going to choose X. No matter what I 'do' (I'm not actually doing anything since I have no real choice anyway) I will choose X. Nothing can ever change that.
Logically, this does not work.
Feel free to construct elaborate ways of moving god outside of a timeline (making time non-linear) or placing god's knowledge source as something beyond the event itself. Both of those lead to same place, that choice is made meaningless.
If you freewill molds the future he sees, this would imply we pre-exist god. In symbolic logic:
Human freewill= h
god = g
If h shapes what g sees, h must come before g. Since nothing comes before god, by defintion, this argument is fallacious, invalid, and unsound.
Q.E.D.
Fazzle sometimes speaks in the 3rd person. He apologizes.
2+2=Whatever it needs to.
"There go the people, I must follow them, for I am their leader."
