I used to reject LFW, and there are some characterizations I still do reject, but due to some discussions here I’m keeping my options open.

But to answer your first question: Yes. If one does not believe that causality and time are linear, then (as far as I know) one can believe in both a fixed future and LFW coherently.

Wait, are you now saying that your belief in non-linear time (whatever that means to you) allows to coherently belief we have a fixed future and LFW at the same time? I thought you reject LFW. If you don’t believe in LFW what is “true freedom” to you? Are you using “true freedom” as a euphemism for compatibilism?

Re #197: When you say the future is fixed you imply we do not have LFW.

I am only familiar with Blake’s argument (in vol. 1 of his Exploring Mormon Thought series) that a fixed future + omnitemporality of truth + linearity of time => no LFW. If I do not assume linearity of time (which is the case–I do not believe time is linear) then his argument fails to prove that a fixed future is incompatible with true freedom. Do you have a different argument?

Yes, the football game analogy is flawed. I can’t think of an analogy that fits our current situation perfectly and perhaps that’s what causes me to stumble. I’m a visual person and so it’s hard for me to get my brain around something that can’t be explained as a parable, analogy, or allegory.

Speaking of allegories – the allegory of the olive tree found in Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon is supposed to represent God’s (or Christ’s?) visits to mankind and the progress thereof. In that allegory, the Master of the vineyard (God/Christ) tends the vineyard along with a servant (prophet?). If you take this allegory literally, it almost sounds like the prophet knows better than God or at least has more patience than God and suggests nourishing it a little longer, etc. Anyway, that’s one allegory of God’s interactions with us.

Combine with this 1 Nephi 11 where the spirit is speaking to Nephi and most of what the spirit says are questions. These are questions that the Spirit would already know but he asks them for Nephi’s benefit. This comes to my mind in the context of the “see if they will obey” statement brought up earlier.

I guess I need to take the scriptures and go through them with these ideas in mind to find out how God interacts with His children and how agency and omniscience can work together.

Again, I don’t want to toss out or modify truths just because I can’t get my head around reconciling them. I guess this is going to take some time and study. If any of you have experience or references to look at (beyond what’s been given so far – I’m already reading those) to get me started, let me know. Thanks again to all for your kind words.

Of course I don’t really know the answer to any of these questions, or countless others like them. And I don’t know if others here have the same challenges I do, but my interest, proclivity, and . . . well, obsession, I guess, for thinking (i.e. coherent, rational, philosophical, systematic theological thinking) often leads me to rather serious doubts about many things pertaining to faith.

So, when you ask above about “spiritual confirmations,” this is a rather complex question for me. I’ve had enough spiritual experiences in my life that I’d probably cling to my faith in the face of rather tremendous rational evidence otherwise. Indeed, there are many things that I believe which fly in the face of what I can understand with my puny little mind, including the way that I put my trust in God regarding my life and my future, even though I cannot give a good explanation for how this faith is justified.

But I think if faith could be rationally justified, it wouldn’t be a very robust faith—that is, I think the essence of faith is more than just believing something in the face of uncertainty; rather, I think it is more like grace and love and free will in the sense that it is ultimately and importantly ungrounded, unjustified, unexplainable—something I do without sufficient reason. And I’m inclined to think that the gap between the insufficiency I face and a hypothetical sufficiency is one way to measure faith as opposed to, say, mere rational belief.

(This is probably more appropriate for the other thread, if it’s appropriate at all, but since rcronk asked the questions I’m addressing here, I’m writing here.)

So I’m not a compatibilist. At one time I was a bit of a semi-compatibilitist but I’ve sort of lost enthusiasm for that as well.

There is no theoretical bar against retro-causation (after a manner of speaking) in a deterministic world, provided a consistent history is maintained, it is just that no one has ever experienced it because we are all moving forward in time and not backward. There isn’t any macroscopic evidence either – like asteroids forming out of chunks of earth and hurling out into space.

Of course LFW advocates will tell you that the whole idea of ‘causation’ is highly dubious in a deterministic world. A good practical definition of determinism is that it describes a world where there are no original causes of anything.

You are right, *seeing* a fixed future would not in itself eliminate our LFW. The seeing part is not the problem at all. The problem would be if our future already exists to be seen. That is what is at issue. If our future already exists then we are not authoring it right now, we are simply playing out a pre-existing, predestined, fated script. But if that is true then the restored gospel is false.

It’s almost like watching a pre-recorded football game. Whether I watch it in real time or pre-recorded, my experience is identical

Once again you are failing to see that God is not just watching us like on a recorded game. He is a participant in the game with us and it is live. You can’t simultaneously officiate a game and watch it on your DVR — especially if you have a physical body as Mormonism teaches that the Father and the Son have. If God were only watching the game after the fact then he could not exactly change the outcome of the game could he? He would be an impotent and useless bystander in such a scenario.

The beauty of recognizing that we have an open future and that God is a participant in the live improvisatory play we call mortality is that we are co-authors of it all with God here and now. That is why life matters so much and why each of our choices is so crucial.

rcronk #209, I think I have the same strong intuition as you, but the problem is when you start thinking about you saying something into the TV and those on the field hearing you—or something analogous to the way God steps into time with his foreknowledge in tact, using it for prophecies and what not…. (What’s that Denzel Washington movie I recently saw with him sort of traveling back in time?)

I still think that there’s a flaw somewhere in the logic that God seeing something in our future eliminates our agency.

It’s almost like watching a pre-recorded football game. Whether I watch it in real time or pre-recorded, my experience is identical – either way I’m on the edge of my seat and wondering about how it’s going to turn out. The only difference is that some guy knows the outcome who has more knowledge than I do. The free will of the players in the game is completely unaffected by someone knowing the outcome. Their choices are not diminished. The scriptures say that it’s possible for God to see the whole “game” at once while we are travelling through it, making choices, having complete free will to do what we want to do and that is unaffected by His knowledge. I think the logical flaw in the “He knows, so I don’t have choice any more” argument is that we are time-based beings in a fallen state and so we’re injecting that broken point of view into the picture and then tweaking the truths instead of accepting that we don’t currently know how to resolve them. It’s just my current thinking. Perhaps as I do more prayerful study of this in the scriptures with this slightly increased clarity I’ll figure something out or change my point of view. I appreciate all of your help and patience.