You and I have already discussed this, but I think I'll post anyway so everyone else can see my brilliance (and also knock down my ideas, if they have a mind to.)

I can think of at least one way in which god can exist, create a universe with beings that have free will, have a plan for that universe, make changes in the universe to bring it more in line with his plan, and yet still not negate free will or have him be "responsable" in any real way for evil. (Man I'm good. Philosophers have been trying to do this for *millenia* ;-) ) However, it requires some limitations be placed on this god, some of which just "are", and some of which are of his own choosing.

First, assume a god. This god exists in some universe, or some dimension, or some plane of being. Assume then that he creates a universe. He creates it with certain starting conditions, with free will and beings that possess it, and with a mechanism (QM, chaos theory, whatever) that allows for non-determinism. He creates something called "time" for this universe, but since he sits outside of that time (in his own dimension or universe or what have you) he is not subject to it. That means, from the moment of its creation, he knows everything that will ever come to pass in that universe, simply because he is not bound by the time of that universe and can see the "future" as readily as he can see the "present" or the "past". Because of this, he has no need to "predict" what I will do--and, in fact, if free will is real (and we're assuming it is for this argument) I submit that what I will do is *not* predictable in any way that is subject to the constraints of the timeline of this universe--merely that he sees the whole of time as one bundle, and so knows what I will do without any need of prediction.

Those of you following closely can see the first limitation I must place on this god, and it is a limitation that simply "is", if any of the argument is to make any sense. That limitation is simply this: God cannot know, *before* he makes a universe, what will happen in it, if indeed he creates it with QM and agents with free will. It is a limit to his omniscience, at least in *his* plane of being. Clearly, *after* he makes a universe, he knows exactly what "will" happen. In that respect, his omniscience with respect to his created universe is intact. I submit this must be so in order for free will to have any meaning. If this god could know what I would do before he even creates me, then I can't have really had free will. In order for me to *both* have free will *and* god to have omniscience, it must be that he did *not* know what I would do before he created the universe in which I live.

The second limitation is one this god must put upon himself. Assuming he created this universe with true free willed beings and QM and chaos, and assuming even he could not have known exactly what it would look like before he created it, and assuming he has a "plan" for this universe, he must restrict himself. He must not "cheat" and simply scrap the universe once it is created and start again, trying until he gets one that comes out in line with his plan from the get-go. And if he still wants it to come into line with his plan, he must not do so in a way that tampers with free will. This last part is crucial. Since this god *does* have perfect knowledge of this universe that he created now that it has been created, and since we are assuming he has total control over it still, it would be all too easy for him to simply go back to where it first went wrong, fix that one part, see what comes of it, and keep doing that until the whole thing is in line with his plan. And in doing so, he would essentially negate his lovingly crafted free will, because at every point where some being chose to go off on a path not of this god's liking, he would simply whack them back into line and keep repeating until the whole thing came out "right". So if he is truly going to get things back in line with his plan, he must do so without manipulating free will, and without making it so that he can "predict" what will happen before he even makes the change. In a sense, what he does is the epitome of chaos theory itself. He makes one small change, using either an agent that does not have free will to begin with (the wind, a storm, a meteor, whatever) or by somehow convincing free willed agents to choose the "right" path, then steps back and see how that affects the whole. If he changed the rules so that he could *know* what would happen *before* he makes a change, that would invalidate free will. So he must not do that.

If we assume these things, then a god, with these limitations, could create a non-deterministic universe and still have a "plan" for it. He could be wholely omniscient within the framework of that universe and yet not be able to "predict" the future and not negate free will. He could work within that universe and try to bend it to his will and yet not invalidate the non-determinism of his universe. He could even show a free-willed agent the "future" and not negate free will, because in this scenario that god only knows the future because he exists outside of what we call time. If he were to show me tomorrow that I would cut myself shaving and die two days from now, it would not negate my free will, because I could now *choose* to not shave on that day and thus avoid dying. God would know with 100% certainty that I would die if he did nothing, but he *couldn't* know what I'd do if he forewarned me of that knowledge. However, once he *does* forewarn me, he again knows with 100% certainty how it all comes out, because again he exists outside of our time and thus sees the whole of it as one.

Also in this way, god is not "responsible" for evil. Evil just happens. He didn't know it would happen before he created the universe, and although he could change it now, he "lets" it happen in many respects because to do otherwise would contradict free will.

So there's my thoughts. Please understand, I am *not* in any way talking about the Christian God in this example (which is why I was careful not to capitalize the word "god"). If I were, there are a few things else I would have to reconcile as well. One is omnibenevolence, the idea that God is all good. If He is all good, and He also created free will, which one wins? Clearly, if you look at the world around us, free will appears to be winning. But how could a being that is all good suffer such evil in His creation? It's a question I don't care to go into right now. Another question is the first limitation I had to put on this creator in order for things to come out. Would any Christian accept the idea that God cannot in fact predict the future unerringly? Would any Christian accept the idea that God would have to tinker in such a way in order to get things to come out "right"--surely God would know exactly which magic bullet to fire into the mix to make *everything* come out perfect in its own way and not hamper free will etc. etc. etc., right? I don't know, and again, I don't much care to discuss it. Others can if they wish, but it doesn't interest me much right now.

And yet... If I accept my own hypothesis, *and* I look around me and think about what kind of being could create such an existence, doesn't it look *more* like we have a slowly tinkering god than one who already knows exactly which buttons and knobs to twirl to make everything perfect?

-- Dave

P.S. I just realized I never addressed what your *actual* point was, which is "do we actually have free will at all?" Instead, I went off on a wild tanget. But dammit, it was an *interesting* tangent, so I'm posting this anyway.