As the author of a story, I have the power to write in the preface, before the story is written at all, “Peter has free will and in chapter 4, he will freely choose to go left.”
It would be ridiculous to say that Peter isn’t free, and that I am wrong about my story. He is free in the story, just as he has certain other characteristics in the story. Of course, he is not free in real life, but that is just because he does not exist in real life, but only in the story, where he is also free.
The same thing would apply to a situation where you are created free by an omnipotent being. In that being’s world, you do not have free will, but that is just because you do not exist at all in that being’s world. In your own world, you both exist and have free will. This is what was meant by the traditional theology that maintained that God is not one being among other beings, but a being above all beings. The creator and the created things exist in very different realms of existence, like an author and the story world created by the author.
It would be ridiculous to say that Peter isn’t free, and that I am wrong about my story.
Since I have no problems being ridiculous, I will say that Peter does not have free will even if you claim so in your story.
Take at a puppeteer with his marionettes on a stage: when he says “Do not look at me, look at the puppets, they are free to do whatever they want!” are you going to believe him?
Being a bit more explicit, the problem, as TheOtherDave noted, is inconsistency. Saying “Peter will freely choose to go left” is self-contradictory.
And the issue with separating things into “worlds”—e.g. the world of the Creator and the world of the created—is that it’s not useful or illuminating. I can do the same thing, too—I can make an abacus and use it to calculate. Can I declare that my abacus has “free will” on its own, lower, plane of existence?
As the author of a story, I have the power to write in the preface, before the story is written at all, “Peter has free will and in chapter 4, he will freely choose to go left.” It would be ridiculous to say that Peter isn’t free, and that I am wrong about my story. He is free in the story, just as he has certain other characteristics in the story.
So, just to clarify my understanding of your claim here… if I write in my story “Peter goes left and simultaneously stands still,” is it similarly ridiculous to say that I’m wrong about my story? Are we therefore similarly committed to the idea that I have created a (fictional) being who both moves and stands still?
If I write in my story “Peter correctly adds 2 and 2 to get 5”, does the same kind of reasoning apply?
Are these things all, on your view, similarly analogous to the relationship of God to beings in the real world?
Discussing the possibility of putting something incoherent into a story is not a clarification but a sidetrack, unless you have some evidence that free will is incoherent.
I don’t think it is a sidetrack, actually… at least, not if we charitably assume your initial comment is on-point.
Let me break this down in order to be a little clearer here.
Lumifer asserted that omniscience and free will are incompatible, and you replied that as the author of a story you have the ability to state that a character will in the future make a free choice. “The same thing would apply,” you wrote, “to a situation where you are created free by an omnipotent being.”
I understand you to mean that just like the author of a story can state that (fictional) Peter has free will and simultaneously know Peter’s future actions, an omniscient being can know that (actual) Peter has free will and simultaneously know Peter’s future actions.
Now, consider the proposition A: the author of a story can state that incompatible things occur simultaneously.
If A is true, then the fact that the author can state these things has nothing to do with whether free will and omniscience are incompatible… the author can make those statements whether free will and omniscience are incompatible or not. Consequently, that the author can make those statements does not provide any evidence, one way or the other, as to whether free will and omniscience are incompatible.
In other words, if A is true, then your response to Lucifer has nothing whatsoever to do with Lucifer’s claim, and your response to Lucifer is entirely beside Lucifer’s point. Whereas if A is false, your response may be on-point, and we should charitably assume that it is.
So I’m asking you: is A true? That is: can an author simultaneously assert incompatible things in a story? I asked it in the form of concrete examples because I thought that would be clearer, but the abstract question works just as well.
Your response was to dismiss the question as a sidetrack, but I hope I have now clarified sufficiently what it is I’m trying to clarify.
Let’s switch tenses.
“Peter has free will and will freely choose to go left instead of right”. Does Peter actually have free will?
This gets us into the standard “can God create a stone so heavy He Himself cannot lift it” paradox territory.
Specifically, creation of true free will requires sacrificing omniscience.
As the author of a story, I have the power to write in the preface, before the story is written at all, “Peter has free will and in chapter 4, he will freely choose to go left.”
It would be ridiculous to say that Peter isn’t free, and that I am wrong about my story. He is free in the story, just as he has certain other characteristics in the story. Of course, he is not free in real life, but that is just because he does not exist in real life, but only in the story, where he is also free.
The same thing would apply to a situation where you are created free by an omnipotent being. In that being’s world, you do not have free will, but that is just because you do not exist at all in that being’s world. In your own world, you both exist and have free will. This is what was meant by the traditional theology that maintained that God is not one being among other beings, but a being above all beings. The creator and the created things exist in very different realms of existence, like an author and the story world created by the author.
Since I have no problems being ridiculous, I will say that Peter does not have free will even if you claim so in your story.
Take at a puppeteer with his marionettes on a stage: when he says “Do not look at me, look at the puppets, they are free to do whatever they want!” are you going to believe him?
Being a bit more explicit, the problem, as TheOtherDave noted, is inconsistency. Saying “Peter will freely choose to go left” is self-contradictory.
And the issue with separating things into “worlds”—e.g. the world of the Creator and the world of the created—is that it’s not useful or illuminating. I can do the same thing, too—I can make an abacus and use it to calculate. Can I declare that my abacus has “free will” on its own, lower, plane of existence?
So, just to clarify my understanding of your claim here… if I write in my story “Peter goes left and simultaneously stands still,” is it similarly ridiculous to say that I’m wrong about my story? Are we therefore similarly committed to the idea that I have created a (fictional) being who both moves and stands still?
If I write in my story “Peter correctly adds 2 and 2 to get 5”, does the same kind of reasoning apply?
Are these things all, on your view, similarly analogous to the relationship of God to beings in the real world?
Discussing the possibility of putting something incoherent into a story is not a clarification but a sidetrack, unless you have some evidence that free will is incoherent.
I don’t think it is a sidetrack, actually… at least, not if we charitably assume your initial comment is on-point.
Let me break this down in order to be a little clearer here.
Lumifer asserted that omniscience and free will are incompatible, and you replied that as the author of a story you have the ability to state that a character will in the future make a free choice. “The same thing would apply,” you wrote, “to a situation where you are created free by an omnipotent being.”
I understand you to mean that just like the author of a story can state that (fictional) Peter has free will and simultaneously know Peter’s future actions, an omniscient being can know that (actual) Peter has free will and simultaneously know Peter’s future actions.
Now, consider the proposition A: the author of a story can state that incompatible things occur simultaneously.
If A is true, then the fact that the author can state these things has nothing to do with whether free will and omniscience are incompatible… the author can make those statements whether free will and omniscience are incompatible or not. Consequently, that the author can make those statements does not provide any evidence, one way or the other, as to whether free will and omniscience are incompatible.
In other words, if A is true, then your response to Lucifer has nothing whatsoever to do with Lucifer’s claim, and your response to Lucifer is entirely beside Lucifer’s point. Whereas if A is false, your response may be on-point, and we should charitably assume that it is.
So I’m asking you: is A true? That is: can an author simultaneously assert incompatible things in a story? I asked it in the form of concrete examples because I thought that would be clearer, but the abstract question works just as well.
Your response was to dismiss the question as a sidetrack, but I hope I have now clarified sufficiently what it is I’m trying to clarify.