Can the Immortal Omnipotent Creator co-exist with free will?

Tweet

This question, I think, is the most important question when facing the question of god's existence. If God is omniscient, then God knows the facts about the past, present, and future. If God is all knowing and does not possess the ability to be wrong about humans’ future actions and humans can do nothing other then what God already knows they will do and will believe, then this creates a philosophical dilemma. Either we are not truly responsible for our moral actions since our actions have already been determined or God is not omniscient, or is there an answer that allows for free will and God’s ability to know all? Nelson Pike, in his 1965 article, “Divine Omniscience and Voluntary Action” argues that if we believe in God’s omniscience, then we have to conclude that the idea of free will is problematic. Here’s one way to state Pike’s argument that can be found on www.JohnDePoe.com 1. God’s being omniscient necessarily implies that if Jones mows his lawn on Saturday afternoon, then God believed at an earlier time that Jones would mow his lawn on Saturday afternoon. 2. Necessarily, all of God’s beliefs are true. 3. No one has the power to make a contradiction true. 4. No one has the power to erase someone’s past beliefs, that is, to bring it about that something believed in the past by someone was not believed in the past by that person. 5. No one has the power to erase someone’s existence in the past, that is, to bring it about that someone who existed in the past did not exist in the past. 6. So if God believed that Jones would mow his lawn on Saturday afternoon, Jones can refrain from mowing his lawn only if one of the following alternatives is true: (i) Jones has the power to make God’s beliefs false; (ii) Jones has the power to erase God’s past belief; or (iii) Jones has the power to erase God’s past existence. 7. But alternative (i) is impossible. (from 2 and 3) 8. And alternative (ii) is impossible. (from 4) 9. And alternative (iii) is impossible. (from 5) 10. Therefore, if God believes that Jones will mow his lawn on Saturday afternoon, Jones does not have the power to refrain from mowing his lawn on Saturday afternoon, that is to say, Jones is not free. Now, the ulternative for this is to say that god exists outside of time.. but if this was true, would this mean that he is outside of the universe.. but he is still conscious? would this devine entity still be able to have a relationship with humans? these things are attributes of this 4 demensional world we live in.. so it would not be possible to have this being have any relationship with us, let alone conciousness. So, the occams razor conclusion would be that god does not exist. the other conclusion would be that free will does not exist.. if we take out occams razor we see that the only explanation is that this all being does not have any humaly attributes, like emotions.. and cannot be conscious, So either atheism is right, theism without free will is right, or pantheism is right. and the simplest solution would be, through occums razor, atheism? any rebuttles?