Evidence for God from Science

Hello, this is my first post on this forum and the reason that I have joined. I have read through some of the forum but I haven't found this topic covered yet, if it has I apologise for bringing it up again. I'd like to present a philosophical problem and my point of view on it so that I can better understand how you would consider this problem through the window of your faith.

Premise 1: God is benevolent
Premise 2: God is omnipotent
Premise 3: God is omniscient
Premise 4: Evil exists

Conclusion (Part 1):
From P3 and P4 we can deduce that God knows that evil exists. From P1 and P2 we can deduce that God has the power and the desire to end evil. So God has the knowledge, power and motivation to end evil and yet evil exists.

I have asked this question of many Christians before and their answers, plus what I have gleaned from studying the bible boils down to this. God gave us the free will and it is the aberrent use of this free will that leads to evil. From that we can conclude that any sweeping action by God to completely end evil would necessarily require the loss of our free will.

At this point we must include a new premise.

Premise 5: We have free will

Conclusion (Part 2):
Unfortunately this creates a fundamental inconsistency, P3 and P5 cannot both be correct. Omniscience is the attribute of total knowledge, an omniscient being has the knowledge of everything that ever was and everything that ever will be. If your future is already known then you are denied the ability to choose your own path, and are left with just the illusion of free will. Let me use an example:

As you set off for work in the morning you have a choice to make, you can either,

a) Take the North route to work
b) Take the South route to work

Being omniscient God knows, before you even choose that you will take the North route today. If God doesn't know what route you will take then he is not omniscient. If you choose to take the South route then God would be wrong and therefore not omniscient. Reductio ad absurdum - in order to maintain God's omniscience you are left with one option and one option is no choice at all.

Final Thoughts:
Personally I think that free will in fact does not exist. I consider that every action we take is predetermined by a combination of our genetic make up and previous experiences that we have had in our lives. Whilst this solves the problem of God's omniscience it still leaves me with the problem of evil. If we don't have free will then why does God allow evil to exist in the world?

Thank you for reading.

I think posted something similar in "God and Omniscience"

You are confusing the categories of being and knowledge of being. If they two are not distinguished, you have the problem you are citing, but once you separate them properly, the problem goes away.

Being refers to that which something is in itself. This is called ontology in philosophy and is found under the study of metaphysics. Ontology seeks to understand things as they are in themselves, apart from our knowledge of them. For example, whether or not I know about a certain rock's existence, it clearly has that existence. Or whether or not I have ever seen your prize-winning cow, it is still prize-winning. Like objects, events have ontologies as well. The car accident that happened yesterday at the corner of This Road and That Road is not the same car accident that will happen at that same corner tomorrow. Likewise, a predetermined event is ontologically different from a freely chosen event, as in the case of a magician forcing you to choose (unbeknownst to you) a certain card versus when he allows you to choose any card you like.

Knowledge of being, on the other hand, refers to what I do or don't know about a given things ontology. The study of this is called epistemology. It asks questions like "what do I know?" and "how do I know it?" To return to our examples above, whether or not I know about a certain rock's existence is an epistemological question, whereas the rock's existence itself, considered apart from my knowledge of it, is an ontological question. Again, whether or not I know that your cow is prize-winning is a question of knowledge, not of being. It is prize winning whether or not I know it is. And whether I know about yesterday's or tomorrow's accident (or both, or neither) has no bearing on the fact that they did (or will) occur, though it has obvious impact on my knowledge of the subject. And finally, to get to the heart of your question, my knowledge of an events predeterminedness (or lackthereof) does not change the fact that it is or isn't predetermined.

Thus, the knowledge of a thing's ontology does not change the thing's ontology in the least. It is what it is, regardless of whether or not what it is is known. If, then, I make a free-choice, and if God is fully aware of my choice, we can in no way say that God's knowledge of my choice (an epistemological issue) changes the nature of my choice (an ontological issue). To assert that knowledge of a thing changes the things nature is to commit what is called the modal fallacy. As you can see by the link, it's a standard fallacy often used to disprove Theism. You may be interested to note that the link, which is not a Christian site, but simply a site on logic, addresses this very question.

Thank you for your replies.

Jac3510 wrote:You are confusing the categories of being and knowledge of being. If they two are not distinguished, you have the problem you are citing, but once you separate them properly, the problem goes away.

Being and knowledge of being can indeed be seperated when the events or objects of which you have (or do not have) knowledge are past or current. As soon as you start talking about future knowledge though being and knowledge of being become indishtinguishable. Any attempt to seperate the two in that situation is as illogical as travelling back in time and killing your own father before you are conceived.

Sorry, that's just not true. Read the link I provided, if you like. My knowledge of a future event's ontology in no way changes that future events ontology anymore than it does a past or present event's ontology. Even our own language is enough to show this is the case. Consider the sentence, "God knows what she will choose." We have to distinct ideas here: 1) God's knowledge of an event, and 2) the event itself, the woman's choice. It is the woman's choice He knows, as the sentence states. If He did not know a choice, then the sentence is false. And if the sentence is false, then God does not know her choice at all.

Just reconsider your own sentence. "Being and knowledge of being become indishtinguishable." There is just no way this can be the case. Being is one thing, for it belongs to the thing itself. My knowledge of that thing's being does not belong to the thing itself, but to me. If they are indistinguishable, then they are speaking of the same thing. But "being" is not synonymous with "knowledge of being." At best, the closest you could come to conflating the two would equate both realities' cognitional existences. That is, I know something with my mind, and I can think about an event in my mind, so, in some sense, it itself actually exists in my mind. But a thing's cognitional existence doesn't altar a thing's real existence, that is, its existence in the extra-mental world. But even that is going too far, because, again, there is just no way that my knowing something ABOUT a future event changes the NATURE of that future event.

Think of it like this:

How could a being really be all powerful if this being denied another the freedom to misuse or abuse freedom?

The human conception of all powerful would deny such freedom for a host of noble sounding reason. This is why such human arguments fall short of finding an answer to such questions posed here on this thread. It rarely goes beyond exploring how being all powerful would really be all powerful by comparing it to 'if I were all powerful - I would never make things like God did; therefore, God is not all powerful enough to stop evil because it is not done my way.'

There is another part of the logic tree that is usually left out and that part is: God fears no one.

So again in conclusion: How could a being really be all powerful if this being denied another the freedom to misuse or abuse freedom? The denial would prove fear as well as an inability to be able to work through all things, all circumstances, all scenarios, all powerfully.

Think on this a bit more...
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For those who don't want to take the time to read through the link I provided (it can get rather long), here's his basic argument (which is different from the one I gave above while, generally, approaching the problem as the same kind of fallacy):

The argument that free will is incompatible with omniscience can be syllogised as follows:

• 1. If God knows what I am going to do, then it must be that I will do it.
  2. If I must do something, then I have no free choice.
  3. Therefore, if God knows I am going to do something, then I must do it and have no free choice.

While this commits the modal fallacy in that it confuses ontology with epistemology, it also commits the modal fallacy in that it applies the modal operator (in this case, "it must be") to the wrong clause. On one level, (1) is obviously true. Certainly, if God knows that I am going to do something, then I am going to do it. But the ambiguity comes from the phrase "it must be." Consider the following example (taken from the link):

• 1. If Paul has a daughter and two sons, then it must be that he has at least three children.
  2. Paul has a daughter and two sons.
  3. Therefore, Paul must have at least three children.

This certainly LOOKS true, but the conclusion is false. Let me ask: Is it true that Paul MUST have three children? No. He may have one. Or none. Of five. It is only true that Paul MUST have three children relative to the initial clause. Thus, the first premise would be more accurately stated:

• 1. It must be that (if Paul has a daughter and two sons then he has at least three children).

Bringing this idea of keeping the correct modal operator with the right clause to the free will/omniscience problem, look again at the original argument, and especially the first premise:

• 1. If God knows what I am going to do, then it must be that I will do it.
  2. If I must do something, then I have no free choice.
  3. Therefore, if God knows I am going to do something, then I must do it and have no free choice.

This, then, is false, for (1) is false. The corrected version would be this:

• 1. It must be that if God knows I am going to do something, then I will do it.
  2. If I must do something, then I have no free will.
  3. Therefore, if God knows I am going to do something, then I will do it.

Notice that it does not follow from (1) and (2) that I MUST do something (causality). It only follows that I WILL do it, and the distinction here is of the utmost importance. It is not a matter of reality. If I MUST do something and if I WILL do something, in both cases, I AM doing something REAL. Truth, in both sentences, is actual. The differences is in the nature of the reality. A reality that MUST happen is called a necessary truth. A nature that will (but not must) happen is NOT a necessary truth.

Some examples of necessary truths:

• 2+2=4
  All unmarried men are bachelors.
  No square has three sides.

But here are some examples of possible truths:

• I live in Georgia.
  The sun will rise tomorrow.
  The square's side is five inches long.

You can see that necessary truths are always and MUST be true in all circumstances, whereas possible truths may or may not be true under any given circumstances. Both deal with reality, but necessary truths are incapable of being false. Possible truths are capable of being false. The difference, then, in saying that I MUST do something versus saying I WILL do something is the difference in a necessary and possible truth. God's knowledge of my future actions is certain, but in no way does that mean that I MUST do the action. Put differently, the necessary truth is not that I MUST do the action, but rather that God MUST KNOW my action.

God's knowledge does not change my future action from a possible truth ("I will go to sleep tonight") into a necessary truth ("I must go to sleep tonight"). To assert that it does is to commit the modal fallacy, for it moves the modal operator ("must") to apply to the wrong clause.

The bottom line: God's foreknowledge does NOT infringe on human freedom, for it does not change the NATURE of human action. To assert that it does is to commit the modal fallacy, and, being a fallacy, the argument is irrational.

My brain hurts

Jac, thank you for your succinct summation of the "Modal Fallacy" page, I was making heavy work of wading through it myself. I need to spend more time considering the subject before I respond fully.

Whilst I completely follow your reasoning I still have a hard time understanding how a foreknown event is not a predetermined event. I understand that there is a difference between saying that something has to be done and saying that it will be done but I'm not sure what that difference is in the real world.

This doesn't adress the question of Creation. At the instant of Creation God knew what we would choose. If he created it slightly differently then he would know what different choices we would make. So just before Creation (I know before doesn't really exist within eternity) God knew exactly what we would choose. Also it can be assumed that all of time exists at nce within eternity. So God created all of time at the instant of Creation. Thus at the very point of Creation everything we would do was done at once. So if God essentially decided everything we would do at the point of Creation then how did we choose it.?

I understand that there is a difference between saying that something has to be done and saying that it will be done but I'm not sure what that difference is in the real world.

I think when you get this, everything else will line up without too much problem. Look at what I said before about it:

I wrote:It is not a matter of reality. If I MUST do something and if I WILL do something, in both cases, I AM doing something REAL. Truth, in both sentences, is actual. The differences is in the nature of the reality.

The difference isn't in the event's actually happening. The difference is in the nature of WHY it happened. Let me give you a very simple example. Suppose a firefighter is called to put out an apartment fire. He walks in, sees the blaze, and puts it out. He then looks to discover the cause of the flame. Consider the following:

1) He finds a wall outlet had shorted out. It was old and finally gave away. The wall near it was dry, so the sparks started the fire; or
2) He finds the remains of a match near what is left of a strip of newspaper, and these under the charred remains of the window curtains. Closer analysis reveals small traces of kerosene at the tip of the curtains.

What is the difference in these two scenarios? In the first, the cause of the blaze was accidental. It happened because the tenant was (presumably) unaware of the faulty wiring and, being unaware of the problem, left it uncorrected until it resulted in the fire. But in the second scenario, the firefighter discovers that the tenet likely set the room on fire on purpose. The difference, then, in (1) and (2), is that (1) was accidental in nature whereas (2) was an act of will. In the former case, the insurance company will pay to have the apartment repaired. In the latter, the tenant goes to jail!

Notice what the difference is not. It is not that one happened in reality and the other didn't. Both happen. The question is the nature of the event. To use my original wording, the difference is in their ontology. In one case, the fire was accidental. That was the nature of the event in and of itself. In the other case, the fire was intentional in its very nature.

You should be able to see, then, that events have different kinds of natures (ontologies). Some events are freely chosen. Others are predetermined. Some are known by some agents. Others are unknown by some agents. That the event is or is not known does not change the nature of the event itself, be it a predetermine event or a freely chosen event. Thus, when I choose to do something of my own free will, that God necessarily knows what I will choose (as a necessary truth, God cannot NOT know what I will do), God knows what I WILL choose, not what I MUST choose. However, in the cases in which I MUST choose something (in which case, the word "choose" is probably not an appropriate word!), God likewise MUST know what I MUST choose, for both of these become necessary truths.

To put it still differently, God knows the NATURE of my choice, be that a circumstance-determined choice (by Him or something/one else or by whatever) or be that a self-determined choice (that is, a choice freely made by myself). The bottom line is that God knows what I freely have chosen. I made the choice, and God knew what the choice would be. Then note:

I am NOT free to make another choice, not because God knows my choice (indeed, had I made another choice then God would have known that), but rather because had I made the other choice, then I would not be free to choose the former. Since I am a temporal being (I experience time), I bind myself to my choices. My will binds me, not God's knowledge. Consider, for example, Frost's poem of the road less traveled. He chose to take one road, and in doing so, forever took from himself the opportunity to choose the other road. But had he chosen the other road, he would have forever lost the opportunity to choose that less traveled. That God knew which he would choose did not determine either Frost's choice or the nature of that choice (a free choice rather than a determined one). Rather, we may only say that God knew which he would choose, and what the nature of that choice would be (in this case, a freely chosen act).

Hope that helps clarify things.

edit: When you get a chance to address my response, would you also take a stab at a question of mine?

1. The existence of evil presupposes the existence of good (~good = evil);
2. People ought to choose good over evil.
3. But any "ought" presupposes choice.
4. But if there is no choose, there can be no "ought," and if there is no "ought," there can be no distinction between good and evil, and if there is no distinction between good and evil, then evil does not eixt.
5. But evil does exist.
6. Thus, humans have free choice.
7. Machines do not have choice (they must do only as they are programmed, regardless of how much it appears they are making a choice);
8. In the absence of an immaterial part of man, humans are only machines (complex though they may be);
9. But if humans are only machines, then they do not have choice.
10. But that would violate (5), and thus, if (9) is true, then there is no such thing as evil.

So, then, my question: does not the presence of evil, our ability to choose things freely, and the compulsion to choose good over evil require the existence of the human soul? But if the human soul exists, is it not required that an immaterial aspect of the creation exists? But since the material cannot produce the immaterial, does not the existence of the immaterial in the universe require an immaterial cause for the universe (or, at the very least, for the immaterial aspect of the universe)? But would not such an immaterial cause also have to be personal, for how could a non-personal immaterial cause produce anything personal (indeed, the non-personal cannot produce the personal)? But what else is an immaterial, personal cause of the universe except God? And if this God is the source of good and evil, have we not discovered the existence of Theism's God?

Leprechaun wrote:This doesn't adress the question of Creation. At the instant of Creation God knew what we would choose. If he created it slightly differently then he would know what different choices we would make. So just before Creation (I know before doesn't really exist within eternity) God knew exactly what we would choose. Also it can be assumed that all of time exists at nce within eternity. So God created all of time at the instant of Creation. Thus at the very point of Creation everything we would do was done at once. So if God essentially decided everything we would do at the point of Creation then how did we choose it.?

As you noted, there is no "before" Creation, so, even with your caveat, it is difficult to make sense of the statement, "God knew what we would choose." Still, I believe the above discussion does address that question. What we do have to recognize is that human beings do not have absolute free will. No one that I know would assert that. We have relative free will, meaning we are free to choose between any logically possible alternatives presented to us.

Thus, while on the obvious level I can't fly without the help of a plane, I can't refuse to fall if I'm unsuspended in the air, I can't choose to survive being decapitated, and I can't choose to walk through a brick wall, it is also true that I can't choose to go right when the street turns only left; I can't choose to take the test when it is not yet offered, nor can I choose to study for it if I haven't been told one will be given. But when I am told there will be a test next Friday, I THEN have the choice to study or not to study at any time I choose.

We then see that freedom of choice is granted only when we encounter reality, and never before. Thus, when God created the universe, He created reality. He created this way rather than that, but had He created it that way rather than this, it still would have been reality. In creating reality, He gave us these situations to which we may freely react. He did not give us those situations to which we could react. But does the fact that we have these, rather than those, situations to react to negate the fact that we have the choice to react to these situations in any way we see fit? No. And does the fact that God knows what we will freely choose in those cases negate the fact that the nature of our choice-events is that of being freely chosen (if only relatively)? Again, of course not. Thus, even from the standpoint of creation, people have free will.

I just wanted to say that I am learning a lot from this discussion. Thanks.

FL

After consideration I submit to you that the problem is in fact not one of knowledge but instead one of information. Further I submit that knowledge is necessarily a special case of information.

I concede your point that being and knowledge of being are indeed separate but only within the narrow definition of knowledge as it applies to imperfect beings such as ourselves. When we define knowledge, we do so through the window of human thought. Human knowledge consists of information just as all knowledge does, however human knowledge is a knowledge constructed from incomplete information. Perfect knowledge — or omniscience — however is indistinguishable from information itself. This is a very important realisation because the relationship between being and information of being is completely different from the relationship between being and knowledge of being.

whether or not I know about a certain rock's existence, it clearly has that existence

The rock's existence is in no way contingent on my knowledge — or lack thereof — of it's existence. Never the less, if the rock does exist then there also exists information of that existence regardless of whether or not anybody knows that information. If there is no information (note that when I write “no information” I mean it literally) that the rock exists then in fact it does not exist.

Once you accept that being and information of being are inextricably linked in the past, present and future you must accept that any perfect foreknowledge — or infallible information — of a future event necessarily requires that the event takes place in accordance with that information, or else the information could not exist in the first place. This is the very definition of determinism.

top5,

My original reply to this was rather long. Each line, almost, seems to require comment, but rather than go through all of that, let me just try to get right to the bottom line. We can draft your argument as follows:

• 1. All events are necessarily composed of information by which they must happen;
  2. To perfectly know an event's information is the same as to be the information itself;
  3. Therefore, a perfectly known event must happen as it is known to happen.

There are two problems with this. First, the argument is invalid, and second, the argument is unsound. To deal with them in that order:

Invalid
An argument is invalid if its conclusions do not logically follow from the premises. This happens whenever we commit a logical fallacy. In this case, you have committed the fallacy of equivocation, which means you are using the same word in two premises to mean different things. Consider the following example:

• 1. All feathers are light;
  2. Light cannot be dark;
  3. Therefore, no feather can be dark

This is an invalid argument because it uses the word "light" in two different ways in (1) and (2) (that is, it equivocates the word 'light'). Sadly, you have done the same thing. In (2), to "know" something is epistemological. You mean it with reference to actual knowledge, and this usage is properly transferred to the first instance of the word in the conclusion. But the second instance of the word "known" in the conclusion "known to happen" is being used, as required by your second premise, in an ontological sense. "To know" in that sense is simply "to be the information found in an event."

Because the same word is being used differently, it gives a false impression, namely, that events MUST happen according to foreknowledge. But actually, what the conclusion actually MEANS is:

"Therefore, a perfectly known event must happen according to its information." But, of course, if we say it that way, then nothing is said about the lack of free will. We all have agreed that all things happen according to their information/nature. A freely chosen thing has the information in it that it is freely chosen, and thus, it happens according to that nature!

Unsound
An argument is unsound if it is based on a false premise. In other words, it is simply not true. Consider the following example:

• 1. I have met all women;
  2. All women I have met are blond;
  3. Therefore, all women are blond.

Now, technically, this is a VALID argument in that its conclusions follow necessarily from the premises. But the conclusion is false because it is based on a false premise, in this case (1). I have NOT met all women, and therefore, the argument is unsound.

In your above argument, (2) is false, for it is NOT true that "to perfectly know an event's information is the same as to be the information itself." Or, to use your own words, the statement, "Perfect knowledge — or omniscience — however is indistinguishable from information itself," is FALSE. Knowledge of thing's information, even perfect knowledge, is distinct from the information itself. Allow me to demonstrate.

When you talk about the difference in being and information of being, you are talking about what philosophers refer to as being and nature. In other words, all being has nature, and all nature has content. It is what is true about something else. Or, put differently, it is what can be predicated to the thing. So, take the thing called "bachelor." That has information which includes "maleness" and "unmarriedness." Put differently, the nature of "bachelor" is "an unmarried male." Thus, a thing cannot be a thing if it does not have a nature, or concepts, or information, or ontology, or whatever word you wish to use here. If it turns out that a thing has no conceptual content (no information), then it turns out to be no thing at all.

But, in this, we see that information of being is an ontological issue. Knowledge of being is an epistemological issue, and epistemology is not ontology. To assert they are is, again, to return to the modal fallacy. To know something is to be identified with a thing's nature (or information), but to be identified with that information is not the same as to BE that information. For if I know something, I do not say that I AM that something I know. I know that 2=2=4. But I am not a math equation. Perfect knowledge, then, is merely exhaustive knowledge of all information in all things, or, put differently, it is exhaustive knowledge of all natures.

Therefore, your second premise is FALSE, leading to a false conclusion.

All you have shown is that every thing has a nature--that is, conceptual content--and that this conceptual content is to be distinguished from the knowledge of it. Thus, if a thing is a freely chosen event, then the fact that it is freely chosen is part of the event's information, and the fact that it is perfectly known by omniscience means only that God is fully and exhaustively aware of the information regarding the event. That is, God knows fully that the event is freely chosen. He cannot know otherwise, and the event itself is not otherwise.

Ok, I agree with that, but I still have issues about eternity and it's relation to free-will. "Before" Creation (perhaps "at the instant of" would be a better term) God decided everything about Creation. Thus he decided everything that would occur within our universe. I am deducing this from the fact that when God creates somethig he must know everything that will occur as a result of it. I am also using the idea that if there is no timeframe in eternity as it is by definition eternal so all of time exists at the one instant (within eternity) because eternity doesn't have to "wait" for time to elapse as there is no time witihn eternity. So if all of time exists at once within eternity (and always has existed at once within eternity) then it can be assumed all of it was created at once. So God created all of time at once. ( I might not have explained something here cos I'm doing several things at once please tell me if I've missed something).
So God knew (in advance) everything that would occur within Creation. So essentially at the moment of Creation he knew every "choice" we would make and then decided to make it this way thus fixing us to our "choices" (this is touching heavily on predestination). It would be like making a robot which travels from A to B and decides as it goes what is the best route. Now technically this robot has the choice to decide which way ti travels but lets suppose that you know where A is and where B is and you know the exact nature of everything in between A and B and you know the decision making parimeters of the robot then you could say with certainty which way it will travel. So although you the robot decides which way to travel knowing what it parameters and what it's path will be before you make it means that you know what route it will take so although it chooses it's path the fact that you know exactly what it will do before you make it menas that you have pre-determined it's path......hmm this is weird I'm going to have to think on this more.....I never considered myself to be a Calvinist...I'll type the rest and try and make it clearer when I get the chance.