What is the point of creating for an omniscient being?

Question

I read a book about determinism and free will that argued an all knowing / all powerful God and free will are incompatible, because if God knows our future then our actions are determined, hence no free will possible.

My question, however, is this. If an omniscient being (God) creates a deterministic world. Then, this god already knows what is going to happen. But then knowing how it will all turn out makes it kind of worthless to create since the god already knows what will happen right? In other words, doesn't omniscience preclude the value of such creation?

Answer 1

Definitions

One has to define "omniscient" (knowing all things) and "omnipotent" (being all powerful) properly, otherwise one runs into trouble without even considering your question.

Let's deal with "omnipotent" first.

Omnipotence 1

If by "omnipotent" you literally mean "being able to do everything", then consider the following fact:

It is impossible to create an uncreated object.

This is at least one thing that no being, not even God, can do. You may then object that this is irrelevant, but at least you will have to admit that it just makes absolutely no sense to talk about "omnipotent beings" that can do everything because there isn't one.

Omnipotence 2

If you restrict "omnipotence" to "being able to do every possible thing", then you still need to define or axiomatize "possible". One way is via consistency, where we define something to be possible if and only if it can be true without being inconsistent with what are already true. (If you know first-order logic, in a first-order theory possible sentences are simply those whose negation is not provable. But my definition here is not restricted to a particular logic.) If we define "omnipotence" this way, then there is still the following fact:

It is impossible for anything to make it so that nothing ever existed. (English does not have the capability of conveying this accurately, but by "ever" I do not intend any connotation of time but simply actuality.)

This needs some thought, but is undeniable, because even if anything could make everything disappear, he cannot change the fact that something did once exist. Again, I intend this to be not restricted to time-based existence. This has the following implication for any God:

It is impossible for God to make it so that nothing ever existed.

This does not contradict omnipotence of such a God, if we use the restricted definition of omnipotence. But it already tells us one logically irrefutable way in which God is necessarily restricted. However, consider the following:

Is it possible for God to make it so that he/she/it is not omnipotent?

If you say "no", then you would be saying that God is forced to be omnipotent. If you say "yes", then you would be saying that God can choose to become not omnipotent, in which case there can be free will.

Omnipotence and free will

Thus the necessary conclusion from the above reasoning is that the standard argument that omnipotence is incompatible with free will is invalid if the above definition of omnipotence is used. If another definition for omnipotence is used, what would it be? Under most alternative definitions, it's no longer important whether God (if he exists) is omnipotent. So far almost all writings on God's omnipotence do not precisely specify what they mean anyway, so their arguments are not well founded.

Free will

I'll use the definition that "free will" means "ability to choose the future". This of course depends on your definition of "future", but it suffices for our argument later. This is also a very weak kind of free will, but it avoids the problem of defining what choices are involved. This also depends on exactly what "choice" means, which cannot really be defined. I'll just say let's use our intuitive meaning for now.

Omniscience 1

If by "omniscience" you mean "knowing the truth value of everything", then of course any omniscient being will know the future of everything. This applies even in the case that you assume that there is one world for every possibility. In any case, existence of an omniscient being implies non-existence of free will in the sense that we cannot choose the future if it is already something that is known by this being. You cannot say that we can make choices that can change this knowledge because by definition an omniscient being knows the final result of all choices.

Also, a being that is once omniscient cannot choose to become not omniscient, because while omniscient he already knows everything including when he is not omniscient, unless he also can make himself forget what he knew before. But indeed an omnipotent being can become not omniscient and make himself forget what he knew before, so even if there is a God and there is free will we cannot conclude that this God was never omniscient!

Omniscience 2

Another possible definition of "omniscient" is "being able to determine the truth value of any thing". This is strictly weaker than the above definition of "omniscient", for the same reason that mathematical induction does not imply the existence of an infinite collection. An omniscient being of this kind can still be compatible with free will for choices which he does not attempt to determine until they are made. Again, I intend no time connotation here but English forces my grammar. But most people do not even think of such kind of omniscience, not to say believe that their God (if any) is of this sort.

Omniscience 3

Some who believe in the existence of a God simply believe that God is omniscient about people in a weaker sense of "knowing what people would do given their choice of virtues". In other words, people have the free will to choose virtues that they desire, but based on those choices their lives are essentially determined. One variant of this is found in the Jewish psalm:

A man's heart devises his way, but YHWH directs his steps.

Different people interpret its meaning differently, but it is consistent with belief in a limited form of free will with a limited form of omniscience.

Reason for creation?

Question: Why would an omniscient God create anything if he already knows what is going to happen? Knowing how it will turn out to be, one does not need to create anything, since creating it is a waste of effort.

Firstly, "waste of effort" may mean two different things to a human and to a God. Even more so, if a God really exists, who created the world and living creatures, and humans can appreciate the (natural) world for its beauty and not just for any material benefit, so also it is reasonable to expect a powerful creator to also be able to enjoy creating and his creation even if he knows how it will turn out.

Secondly, the reasons for doing things usually are much more important than just to find out how things will turn out. We eat food not so that we can find out how they taste, but because we need food. On a higher level, we institute laws and live by them not to find out anything, but because we want to preserve peace and order (social stability). And we want to find out how the natural world works not for curiosity alone, but often also so that we can learn from it to be able to do things better, including feeding ourselves and those around us, and maintaining peace and order.

Thirdly, by the previously mentioned considerations, it is not necessary that belief in a God entails believing in omnipotence or omniscience in the usual sense that people talk about. If for example we have limited omniscience and limited free will in the specific form mentioned above, it is reasonable for God to want to create the creation in order to allow people's choices to be played out, because then choices made would have real consequences that (usually) coincide with the intentions, because the laws governing the world are not chaotic but predictable. So far from predictability being useless, it is in fact extremely meaningful because it gives our choices meaning. Of course, in this view not everything is predictable, such as our choices and those of others.

Answer 2

One could argue that knowing, that something will happen, and experiencing, that and how it actually happens, are two different things. And the latter could be even motivation for creation.

But apparently these and other speculative answers - as well as the question itself - are based on an anthropomorphic conception of god. We try to put ourself in gods position.

Aside, I consider the god concept highly problematic. Hence I doubt whether it is suitable for any philosphical investigation. - Of course I know, that such investigations are just the point of Christian philosophy.

Answer 3

Matas, In one of your comments to the original question, you wrote, "why create something when you know what it will be like by thinking of it anyway?" I really like that way of expressing your question.

So you are making a distinction between the thought and the creation... a valid distinction in our own experience. But in what sense would a being that is omniscient and omnipotent really need to "create" anything anyway? Isn't it just as likely that we are the thought? The act of creation implies that God did not know in advance that it would create our experience, or that our experience did not always exist somewhere in God's infinite "mind."

Even the idea that God had a thought seems counter-intuitive to me. These kinds of temporal limitations are for us.

But the more I go down this line of reasoning, the more convinced I become that God cannot change at all. It is at the beginning & at the end exactly as it always was, and our universe, being a subset of God, is as well. Then how does all this (looking around) come from something that is completely "static" in some sense?

Answer 4

I have many terabytes of digital media at home on a media server that I "built." It amounts to thousands of hours of TV and movies, all of which I have watched, and most of which I remember.

However, even having watched them all before, and "knowing" what's in any given movie or TV episode, I still watch them again. (Why else would I have them?) Knowing what's going to happen is not the totality of the experience; seeing it, even seeing it again, has some value or worth above and beyond the simple knowledge of what the experience entails.

I could say the same of games I've played repeatedly, or computer code I've written, or really anything else I've done. There is more to any given experience than simply knowing what will happen, and so, even if I know with absolute certainty what will happen from repeating an enjoyable experience, there is value in repeating it.

I would assert that an "all-powerful" or "all-knowing" being would not necessarily be different from us in that regard, and so could or would find value in an experience beyond the mere knowledge of what will happen. I like to watch reruns of the Simpsons I've seen a thousand times before... perhaps God creates universes for the same reason. I have to imagine that seeing supermassive blackholes collide is an incredible experience, even if you've seen it before.

Answer 5

Conway's Game of Life provides one solution to this paradox. It is a mathematical algorithm with extremely simple rules that leads to arbitrarily complicated outcomes. Much like "real" life.

When you run a Game of Life, you are:

• Omniscient. You know all the rules by which the universe moves. You know the exact location of every particle in the universe.
• Omnipotent. At any time, you can add, remove, or modify any object anywhere. You can stop everything, turn back time, and try different paths. You also can change the rules.

Nevertheless, when you create a wholly new pattern and set it in motion, the only way to determine the outcome is to run the algorithm, step by step, turn by turn. There is no shortcut.

By analogy, assume our universe was created by a sentient being in a higher level of existence, who knows all the laws, sees everything in perfect detail, and can do anything (in our universe). It is still possible for that being to not (yet) have the exact details of how our future interactions will change the universe.

Humans can (and do) create questions so complex that they don't know the solution (or even if it is possible to find out whether or not a solution exists). A being with infinite knowledge and infinite power should be able to create questions that are infinitely more complicated. I like to think that this universe is one of them.

A Note on Omniscience

Based on the Game of Life, incompleteness, et al, I posit that a being with set of knowledge A can construct questions of complexity k^A (where k > 1). Hence, an omniscient God with infinite knowledge ℵ(0) might have an ℵ(1) level question, which is my personal belief about the nature of our universe.

Nevertheless, even if you posit a God whose omniscience is not just ℵ(1) but ℵ(x) (where x is arbitrarily large), who understands not just our future but all possible futures for all possible combinations of natural law, with so many levels of knowledge and meta-knowledge that we cannot comprehend the scope of it... such a God can have a question of complexity ℵ(x+1), where our universe is a tiny but essential subcomponent.

Answer 6

As Apologist to the Arts?

Perhaps these questions could clarify the issue: Is omniscience relevant, or is this a question about valuation? If you create something you intend, say a painting, is it less valuable for your having done it as intended? What made it valuable in the first place? If you are omniscient (or think you are), how does that change the value of your output? How does it change the process of creation, or the experience of creating? Do any of these inform value (and to whom)? How is a painting different from a world?

I think the short answer to your question is that, while the point of a creation (reason for being) may be, or seem to be, novelty (to someone), the point of the act of creation (reason for doing it or expected outcome) may not necessarily ever be novelty. Certainly we can imagine our artist feeling compelled by the artist's vision (known or unknown) to place each brushstroke exactly as it must be placed to fulfill the vision. The nature of the compulsion is not (necessarily) to make something whose future (or outcome) is uncertain (to surprise the artist), but simply to do the thing which comes next (even if the purpose of the outcome is to surprise someone else).

You might contend that in the analogy, having a vision is the act of creation, and the act of painting is the deterministic process. In this case, still, the point of having a vision may not be to produce novelty, but simply to have (or want) it made manifest.

Thus omniscience may be irrelevant to the point of creating. (Although perhaps it's absolutely necessary to be some kind of omniscient to create a deterministic world!)

There are other concerns--(im)mortality (duration) comes to mind. But within the scope of your question as stated, I think all we need to do is identify another reason to make things (other than novelty), if having a reason gives creation the (relatable, implicit) value you require.

Answer: the same as the point of creating for a non-omniscient being (if there is such a point).

Answer 7

I agree - what is the point? My conclusion is that for this Omnipotent and omnipresent being to still go ahead and create me in all my flaws - even knowing how I am going fail his standards - they must have still wanted me despite these facts and outcomes.

Seems to me the real question is what do they want with us?

Example - So as an adult, I chose to create children. These kids of mine do the darnedest things. They can drive me crazy - push me to the brink of heart break. But would I choose to have lived life without them? Just cause they caused pain? Even if I knew they would cause me pain - if I knew their future? NO! I love them! they are my all - my heart! Even if the eventual outcome of their life is not what I desire for them - I still love them!

Answer 8

Your reasoning is wrong: God - from the past - could maybe have the power to DIRECTLY OBSERVE in the future what happens. His knowledge of the future - and omniscience - could be obtained also by means of this power. This kind of observation has of course no influence whatsoever on one's actions. If free will exists, it certainly remains unaffected by a God's observation, it remains free.