Omniscience Paradox Debunked

This video debunks a pretty bad objection to theism, the omniscience paradox.

Sources:

The Guide for the Perplexed - Moses Maimonides

City of God - St. Augustine

Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview - JP Moreland, William Lane Craig

The Coherence of Theism - Richard Swinburne

The Non-existence of God - Nicholas Everitt

[sebastianvega]

You've got a special talent for explaining the concepts I've been reading about for years in a way that no one else I know has. Keep up the good work!!

[ericpeterson]

Every two weeks we're blessed with InspiringPhriday

[MrKerr]

Wow.. you jumped into something i never knew people actually debate on.. nice. Im gonna sub you.

[angeliquaserenity]

In other words: God doesn't have to experience sin or be sinful to know what its like to sin.

[dingosmith]

Everyone's forgetting omnipotence.... once you throw that in, free will becomes (more) untenable.

[lifewasgiventous]

“What happens determines what God knows” that’s genius, your insight is great along with your clear and concise
presentation. Thanks man, your vids always get me thinking.

[grubblewubbles]

I don't get how there's a problem with the statement "God knows what we will freely choose to do". Even if He knows what our choices are, they're still that. OUR choices that WE make.

[Archangel]

The funny think is. . . God doesnt just know your past, present, and future. . .
He knows every possible past, present, and future you could have had, as well as the one you are currantly living in.
He knows every possible decision you could have made, and every possible future outcomes that could have resulted in those possible decisions.
He also knows this for every human being, as well as every possible event, from a meteor falling onto a planet, to the beat of a butterflies wing, that could have occured, and every possible future outcome form every possible event that could have tooken place.
He knows this for every possible world as well.
And so much more!
Yet what I just described still cannot fully begin to grasp the infinite knowledge of God.

[Alskana]

That actually makes a lot of sense. This is how I understood it but you explained it rlly well thanks!

[cam]

How does god being outside of space and time while being omniscient, mean that he sees our actions in a chronological format? Going by such a format, he would know the beginning, ending, and everything in between, simultaneously. But whatever the case, our existence and actions could never predate his existence and omniscience.

[jevinlauver]

IP, I love your work. It’s helped me to understand my faith. Your arguments seem thought through and logical compared with counter claims. However, something that has been bothering me is the existence of Hell. Not the thought that God created it, or he sent people to it, but the fact that secularists and theologians alike claim it doesn’t exist, and is a man made fear to encourage religious belief. I’ve seen references to the four words used for Hell in the Bible, Sheol, Tartaraus, Gehenna and Hades, referring to different things but not eternal damnation. I’m curious if there’s an explanation for this, not having studied Hebrew or Greek myself. Could you explain Hell? Great video btw.

[beerussama]

Different possibilities cannot exist if all outcomes are already determined by a "creator". There can't be a single possibility that exempts his knowledge, because he technically knew everything even before creating anything

[letumetnihilum]

So, what was the point then of god warning Adam and Eve from eating from that tree, if he already knew they would be tempted by Satan to eat from it? If he already knew the Snake was going to persuade them to eat from that tree, and that they would eventually listen and do so, then why did he punish them? Seems rather cruel, don't you think?

[chipan]

After rewatching this I realized there's one argument not addressed in the video, an argument concerning the incompleteness theorem. This would basically be that either God's knowledge is complete or substantiated but it cannot be both. So to say God knows all true propositions, the one he can't know is whether he's omniscient because that proposition would have to be justified by something outside God's knowledge. What would be your response to this argument?

[willsal]

How do you only have 70K subs, man? This is great stuff..

[BigGman]

Just a quick question, if God could not possibly actualize a perfect world in which there is no evil, does this mean he is not omnipotent?

[trouqe]

Good Job. I cannot wait until you release your next three videos.

[TopoTopaco]

The problem is not with moral perfection and omniscience, but with omnipotence and omniscience. Since God created everything the way he wanted, he already knew at the time of creation what was going to happen and therefore he determined it by putting (for example) atom A in place B instead of atom C in place B. In a way, he created the conditions by which we would decide and act the way we did and therefore, decided how everything was going to play out in advance. In other words, he anticipated your decisions and decided to create the universe in X manner and not in a Y manner were you would've decided differently (if we are able to say that God can create all possible universes). Another theory could be that God had no choice in creating the universe the way he did because it is the most "perfect" one with free will, but then, he is not omnipotent nor free...

[michaelsommers]

Q1) Can an omniscient being simultaneously know, to arbitrary precision, the position and momentum of an electron? If yes, how can quantum mechanics (which depends deeply on the uncertainty principle) still work? If no, then why call the being omniscient?

Q2) Can an omniscient being distinguish one electron from another? If yes, again how can quantum mechanics work? And if no, how can it be omniscient?

[Pietrosavr]

People think that God can't be omniscient and give us free will because they assume that God can only know the future like we can know the future, with prediction, which requires some degree of determinism. However, God is outside of time and doesn't need to predict the future based on the past, God sees all as present.