The True Nature of GOD!

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux explores a challenging listener question about the relationship between God's omnipotence, omniscience, and the concept of free will. He begins by defining omniscience as God's complete knowledge of all events throughout time, which raises questions about human autonomy in light of divine foreknowledge. We delve into thought experiments on free will, highlighting the interplay between subconscious decision-making and moral agency. Using relatable examples, he argues that true free will exists in our ability to make moral choices aligned with our values. Transitioning to the divine perspective, he discusses how God's perfect nature means He cannot change His mind, ultimately reconciling the complexities of divine knowledge and human freedom. This exploration reveals important implications for our understanding of moral responsibility and the nature of God.  The listener's question:  "I believe you said (forgive me if you haven't) that God can't change his mind, therefore he is not omnipotent. This doesn't make sense to my personal experience. Why would I even want to change my mind if I were omniscient? Why would anyone want to change their mind if omniscient?"  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00All right, quick question from listener. I believe you said, forgive me if you haven't,

00:04that God can't change his mind, therefore he is not omnipotent. This doesn't make sense to

00:09my personal experience. Why would I even want to change my mind if I were omniscient? Why would

00:12anyone want to change their mind if omniscient? It's a great question, and I really do appreciate

00:18that. And so, let us endeavor to answer it as best we can. And just as a note,

00:27this is slightly tired stuff. I had an early morning errand to run, and I am cooking on

00:36slightly less sleep than normal, but I'm sure it will be either fantastic or will be excellent

00:43ASMR for your nap time. But I promise no shouting. So, this is, of course, one of the foundational

00:51challenges of the concept of a God of God is that God is all-knowing and all-powerful.

01:03Now, to be all-knowing is, of course, to have full knowledge of the behavior of every aspect of matter

01:13and energy from here to the end of time and backwards to the beginning of time. And even if

01:20we say, well, there is no such thing as the beginning or end of time for God, that it's

01:27infinity, infinity past, infinity future, infinity everywhere. You know what the exact temperature

01:35and wind speed is going to be 10,000 years from now in every location in the universe,

01:43right? So, even like the eye of Jupiter, right? The sort of red storm that's been going on for 300

01:48years on Jupiter. You know the exact behavior of every atom in every breeze on every planet with

01:55atmosphere in every one of the hundreds of billions of planets that exist in every galaxy

02:01within the hundreds of billions of galaxies. You know the exact precise movement of every

02:08aspect of matter, void, and energy throughout the universe through all time, for all time.

02:15Now, it's really, I mean, we need to really sort of figure out what omniscience actually means.

02:22So, there are these studies that people constantly quote to pretend that there's no such thing as free

02:27will, where they ask people to choose like a red or a blue on a screen to touch them while they have

02:36electrical receptors on their head, and they can sort of dig out from the brain that the impulse to

02:45choose red or blue arises prior to the conscious decision to choose red or blue. In other words, they

02:52can predict people's decisions by looking at the electrical stimuli deep in their brain before the

02:59people say that they're consciously aware of making a choice. And they then say, oh, well, you've already

03:09chosen before you are consciously aware of having chosen. When did you choose such and such a time?

03:16But again, they can predict with some reliability, not perfect, some reliability, what people are going to

03:21decide before the people consciously decide. And I get that. I mean, it's, if people are sort of

03:30randomly guessing in a multiple choice, like, let's say you have a multiple choice exam in some subject

03:37you don't know much about, if anything, like some complicated physics thing about a multiple choice,

03:41then you will, you will be somewhat predictable in your choices, A, B, C, D, you'll be somewhat

03:52predictable in what you choose. Because you say, oh, I haven't chosen C for a while, I should probably

03:56choose C. Oh, I haven't chosen D for a while. Oh, it's probably, you know, whatever, right? So people take

04:01that approach when it comes to multiple choice exams, if they're kind of guessing, they try to do sort of

04:06random distribution. And in the game, like a dice game, or a game where dice are important, like a 10,

04:15what happens is, people, I play the game, and what happens is, people say, well, the six hasn't rolled

04:22for a while, but it's okay, because the six is going to roll more later. Like, because if you, you base your

04:30resource acquisition, like the, um, wood, brick, wheat, sheep, and stone, or, or, you base your

04:41resource acquisition on how common the dice rolls are, and so you try to get the hexes, which are the

04:47most commonly rolled, but if, you know, just based upon the law of averages, you get a bunch of 11s,

04:5310s, or 12s rolled before you get sixes and eights, which are the two most common, you expect there to be

04:57more later, because the bell curve is going to have to even out at some point. So, people do that. So, do we have

05:04free will? I think that there's a general calculation of probability that we go through, but the real

05:11question with this is not, do people have an impulse to choose something that is random and unimportant

05:20before they're consciously aware of it? Yeah, I would say so, because we have a calculation engine sort of deep

05:26in our brain that allows us to catch balls, right? We know, I mean, how could you catch the ball if you

05:31didn't have a calculation engine? I mean, basically, you're catching math, right? I mean, almost all

05:37sports is just pushing math back and forth, right? And what is the correct arc to throw to sink a

05:46basketball? Oh, that's math, right? What is the best way to hit that ball so that you get a home run?

05:52That is math. So, it's all a matrix, you know, the sort of green pseudo-kanji that flows down,

05:59right? Math. We're just pushing and pulling math. It's the same thing. Should I invest in this,

06:04that, or the other? You're just pushing math. Should I start this product? You do your marketing,

06:10and then you're pushing math, and so on, right? I mean, I ask donors, do you want a physical copy

06:15of Peaceful Parenting? If everyone said no, or if almost nobody said yes, I wouldn't do it. So,

06:19just pushy man. So, when it comes to making non-moral decisions, then we have a math engine

06:31in our brains that calculates things and tries to even things out, right? I don't want to plant all

06:38of my crops in one little corner of the field. I want to spread them out, right? Spread out my risk.

06:44We have this when it comes to mating. Mating is math, right? Because when it comes to mating,

06:50what you want to do is you want to get the highest quality partner to mate with that you can,

06:57while understanding that if you go too high quality, the person will not mate with you,

07:03right? I remember talking about this math calculation when talking about being at school

07:08dances in grade six, which is the girls are all on one side of the gym, the darkened gym,

07:15the boys are all on the other, and you sail your way over. You take that thousand yard,

07:21no man's march, it feels like, over to the other side of the gym. And then what you do is you say,

07:30well, I want a girl to dance with me. I want her to be attractive enough that my friends aren't going

07:35to make fun of me, but not so attractive that she is waiting for a more attractive guy.

07:41I wasn't at peak attractiveness in grade six. I had a bowl haircut and bad clothes.

07:46But so, yeah, so it's all math. So the fact that we have a sort of math calculation engine that tries

07:52to even things out, oh, I've chosen red for a while, I should probably choose blue. That sort of

07:56evening out engine that occurs deep in our unconscious, you know, like a woman looks at a

08:03guy, glances at a guy who's obviously approaching her to try and chat her up. And she has an instant

08:10calculation of whether she is going to be receptive to his advices or not. And it's kind of triage,

08:19like there's some guys she knows she's not going to go out with. There's some guys she knows she wants

08:24to go out with. And there are other guys. It's a sort of narrow band in the middle, which is where

08:28charm and risk figure, which is where it's like, well, you know, maybe, but let's see what he has

08:34to say. The two extremes, so to speak, which is most, right? Most women know, yes, I want this guy to

08:41approach me. No, I don't want that guy to approach me. And this guy, let's see what he has to say.

08:46I'm not hostile. I'm not receptive. I'm neutral. Let's see what his, because, you know, he's not that

08:52attractive that I definitely want to go out with him. But maybe he's got some hidden secret charms

08:57that will reveal themselves to me and all that, right? So maybe he's just bizarrely self-confident

09:06and is going to therefore get a lot of resources, even though he doesn't look that way. So with

09:11regards to this scientific experiment about, oh, there's no free will, it's like, no, you just,

09:15you abandon yourself to your mathematical calculation engine. And we know this as well,

09:21because there have been studies, I mean, they talk about this in A Beautiful Mind,

09:25the movie, where people are given mathematical problems, they can't solve them. Those exact

09:30same mathematical problems are translated into who pays for what social resource allocation

09:34and people get the answers intuitively, instinctively. And of course, the essential or basic mathematical

09:42calculation brain, that is common to most creatures, certainly to mammals, right? Or birds

09:48as well. So if you have kids, particularly white kids, they love to feed animals, they love to have

09:56a good relationship with animals, because animals have been essential to our survival for, you know,

10:01tens of thousands of years. And so you have kids, and they want to feed the animals, they want to feed

10:07the birds, they want to take them home, they domesticate them, you know, well, the usual agrarian stuff.

10:12And so you give a snack, some nuts or whatever, and your kid tries to feed a squirrel. And the

10:21squirrel, it's doing its mathematical calculation engine, right? And the mathematical calculation

10:25engine is, well, I want the food, but I don't want to get captured and killed. And birds do the

10:31same thing, of course, right? So yeah, we all have this, at least all of the quote higher animals have

10:38this mathematical calculation engine. Fish don't, is a very funny meme of two guys, I think they're

10:44black guys. It's like imitation of fish, like one fish gets hooked and yanked out, and the other one's

10:49like, yeah, I'll still have the hook, right? They don't have that sort of calculation engine,

10:52so to speak. And predators have it, which is, I want to get close enough to my prey that I can catch

11:00them easily, but not so close, they smell me and run away. So they're aiming for that tipping point,

11:05right? So, oh, calculation engine is very common. Is the, uh, birds do it too, like, uh, hawks

11:14and eagles, owls. Is the prey, is the mouse or the rabbit or whatever, are they out in the

11:21open enough that if I fall, if I plunge to get them, will I waste my energy after plunge,

11:28right? Because then you have to fight to get back up to a sort of scanning area. I mean, you

11:34won't bother. The peregrine falcon will not do its fastest creature in the world drop, like

11:40240 miles an hour, whatever the heck they get to. It's crazy. It's like the, like the

11:43space shuttle burning up on re-entry. But they won't drop from the heights for an animal that's

11:49right next to its burrow, because the animal will probably see them coming and dive into

11:52the burrow, and then they can't, they can't get them, right? So, with regards to choosing

11:59randomly, sure, yeah, that's not important. It's just an experiment. It doesn't really

12:04matter. So, you turn things over to your mathematical calculation engine, which is there to help you

12:10survive and all of that, right? It's, in a way, it's analogous for me to saying, well, I

12:18mean, people don't have free will, because if you look at a baseball game, whenever a ball

12:24comes to an outfielder, he really tries to catch it. He doesn't have a choice. He doesn't

12:28have free will. Well, that's sort of an artificial situation, where the person is only put out

12:34there in the outfield because he will work like hell to catch balls, right? So, it's not

12:43a free will violation to say, well, you know, it's weird, man. In basketball, people don't

12:47have free will because they stay in a confined area. They don't even leave during the game.

12:52They don't even leave the stadium. People don't have free will because when they borrow money to

13:01buy a house from the bank, they pay that money back every month. I mean, of course, some people

13:05don't, but, you know, for the most part, people do, right? So, that's not where free will operates.

13:11Free will operates in the realm of morality. I mean, if you're a business and you're trying to sell

13:20a widget and you sell the widget, sorry, you're trying to sell the widget, let's say you're at a

13:27farmer's market and you've baked a bunch of banana bread loaves and you're trying to sell your banana

13:33bread loaves and people come in to say a banana bread loaves are 10 bucks. It's like saying, well,

13:38people don't have free will because like literally every time someone comes in and offers 10 bucks for

13:45a banana loaf, the vendor sells them like they never say no. They never say, no, I'm not selling

13:52you this banana loaf for $10, even though there's a price that says I will sell this banana loaf for

13:57$10. And anytime that I have shopped and wanted to buy something on a price that the vendor has set

14:03and assuming that the event that the object or the widget is available, I have never once had a

14:09vendor say, I'm not selling that to you. I've never gone to a restaurant and had people say, I'm not

14:15seating you, assuming that there are seats available. They have, of course, like most of us, there have

14:19been occasions where seats appear to be available, but they say, no, those are reserved. But so it's like

14:26saying, well, I mean, people in business, they've got like no free will, man. They got like no free will

14:32because those people in business, man, they just never say no to sales. They've got an object to

14:41sell and somebody wants to buy it at a price the vendor has set. They never say no. They have no

14:45free will, right? Doesn't make any sense. Free will operates in the level of ethics. So free will

14:55is the following. If a person has a dedication to honesty, are they more likely to tell the truth

15:07or less likely to tell the truth? I mean, not just the public, but a genuine, they want to be honest,

15:13right? They value honesty. Are they more, in a non-coercive, non-manipulative situation,

15:18are they more likely to tell the truth, right? If someone has a commitment to honesty, even if it's

15:24uncomfortable for those around him, is he more likely to tell the truth? And if he understands

15:32that telling the truth will cause a lot of negative pressure against him, is he more or less likely

15:38to tell the truth? Or in other words, is he more or less likely to fold under social pressure

15:44if he has integrity? So that's where the free will is. So I've defined free will as our capacity

15:51to compare proposed actions to ideal standards. That's our capacity. So if you don't have any

16:00ideal standards, right? If you are a relativist, an atheist, a subjectivist, you don't have functional

16:07free will. Because you have no ideal standards to compare your proposed actions to. I mean,

16:16you may have a general preference. Oh, you know, well, telling the truth is nice and it's good,

16:20but you have no, it's not an ideal standard. So compare proposed actions to ideal standards.

16:26That is free will. So somebody without morals, somebody without virtues and values, ideal standards,

16:34has no free will. Now, again, I'm not saying people have zero free will, but you have a free will

16:40to the degree and only to the degree that you have ideal standards. So if you have vague preferences,

16:46yeah, you know, generally it's better to tell the truth than you have free will to that degree.

16:52Generally, vaguely, you kind of have free will. So when I am spreading ideal standards,

17:00I am forging free will in the hearts and minds of others. I mean, that's a bit of a

17:06a little dramatic way of putting it, but it's a very real in a way, right? By spreading ideal

17:13standards, by spreading UPB, I am creating free will in others. Now, of course, I'm not doing it,

17:19right? I put the arguments out. And if people choose to have, to accept and start acting according

17:26to ideal standards, then they have generated and created free will in their hearts, minds,

17:32and bodies to the degree that they're willing to accept and act upon ideal standards. UPB is free

17:43will. By having an abstract ideal standard, then UPB creates the capacity for free will and for

17:55absolute free will. So for example, if somebody says that hitting children is the good, right?

18:04That children need correction, that children need consequences, that the world is tough and you

18:10don't want your children learning horrible, brutal lessons when you can give them a swat on the butt and

18:17have them learn those lessons in the security of the home with someone who loves them rather than out

18:23they're in the brutal world where the consequences could be dangerous or fatal. So, you know, you have

18:27your justifications, your standards, that if you love your children, according to the Bible, if you

18:32love your children, you will punish them so that they turn to virtue rather than go to hell, right?

18:39In the same way that you will grab a child who's about to run into traffic, you spank a child who is

18:44dabbling in sin to make sure that they avoid sin, get to heaven, all that kind of stuff, right? So if you

18:51have those justifications, you will hit your children. You have no choice not to hit your

18:59children should the circumstances arise and you be genuinely dedicated to those values, right?

19:05The hitting is the values. In the same way, if you have a dedication to the non-aggression principle

19:11and peaceful parenting, you have the choice to not hit your children, right? If you think hitting

19:15your children is the good and the necessary and the moral and the virtuous, and if you don't hit your

19:20children, they will turn into criminals and sinners and they will go to hell and they will go to jail,

19:27nobody will like them, they will be socialist, communists, they will work to the degradation and

19:33destruction of all that is free and noble and virtuous in Western society, then you don't have

19:41the choice to not hit your children, right? You just don't have that choice. It's not a thing that

19:46exists. You don't have that choice. If you are dedicated to peaceful parenting, the non-aggression

19:51principle and reasoning with your children, well, then you have the choice to not hit your children.

19:57Now, if you're transitioning from one to the other, like I've never been close to hitting my child,

20:02like never, like never, in a zillion years, never been close. I mean, obviously, we annoy each other,

20:08which is obviously my fault as the Barrett, right? But we annoy each other on occasion, but we've never

20:13said a harsh word to each other, we've never raised a voice to sit each other, and so on.

20:19So I have the choice because I have the ideal standard called don't hit your children. So I

20:25have the choice to not hit my child. And of course, I don't hit my child. Now, again, having the ideal

20:29standard, there's still a free will element, having the ideal standard doesn't mean that you won't hit

20:34your child. You could have the ideal standard of don't hit your child, but you might have a lot of

20:40unresolved trauma from being beaten yourself. And you might slip up and in a moment of extreme

20:46anger, hit your child. But at least then you will feel bad about it. And you will apologize or whatever

20:53it is, right? So you have the standard. So without an ideal standard, you have no free will. Because

21:02you have nothing to compare proposed actions to. You're like a goldfish with food, right? As I mentioned

21:07the other day, like every kid who gets goldfish is told, don't overfeed them or they'll eat until

21:11they die or whatever, right? They'll just keep eating, right? And you see these fat dogs or fat

21:18cats, whatever they call them, chonk, chonky. You thick boy, you thick. So you have these cats and

21:26these dogs that are overweight. And we don't say, gee, gee, those, those cats and dogs really lack

21:33self-discipline. And they're not really thinking about their overconsumption of resources and the

21:38strain they're putting on the vet care system or anything like that, right? They are. They're not

21:41doing any of that. Well, we don't look at that. We say those are irresponsible, onerous, right?

21:48And they're feeding them too much. Because of course, dogs and cats are not exactly in their natural

21:53state, right? I mean, they're usually locked up inside or a lot of times. And they get food without

22:01effort. And a lot of them get, the males get castrated and so on, right? So we don't look at

22:09dogs and cats and say, well, there's an ideal standard called good health. And they're deviating

22:14from it by choice. I mean, if you've ever been around dogs, I don't know much about cats, but I've

22:19been around a lot of dogs. And if you have ever been around dogs, you know that they just will eat

22:25all the time. And at least the dogs that I've known, they just eat all the time.

22:30They're constantly putting their nose on your legs under the dinner table. And you're constantly

22:36being told, don't feed the dog at the table, but you constantly want to, right? So they just keep

22:40eating, right? Most animals will eat to excess because that's how they survive, right? So dogs

22:46will eat to excess because they don't know when their next meal is coming. Like lions will eat till

22:51they're bloated because they don't exactly know when they're next. Prey is going to cross their

22:56path. Or I guess the paths are going to intersect, if that makes sense. They're not like trap spiders.

23:03So the question is not, do we have sort of mathematical calculation engines that give us

23:08impulse to even things out or to catch balls or something like that? We do. Those are not

23:14violations of free will. It's a comparison of proposed actions to ideal standards. So

23:21the ideal standard when you're an outfielder in a baseball game is to catch the ball and

23:27throw, hopefully you can get two outs. You can catch the ball and then you can throw to the guy

23:30running to third or throw to the third baseman to tag the guy running to third. Sorry, I played some

23:37baseball. So yeah, that's, uh, that's what you're up to. That's what you want to do. So a, an outfielder,

23:45if there's a fly ball, right, it's coming his way, the outfielder is comparing proposed actions

23:51to run and catch the ball to ideal standards. You want to catch the ball. That's what you're paid

23:56for. That's what you have been doing since you were three years old or whatever. And that's how

24:01you keep your job. And that's how you keep the happiness and respect of your teammates and the

24:06approval of the crowd and so on, right? So you'll run and catch the ball. That's the ideal standard.

24:11You can compare and propose actions to ideal standards. You're there because you will do just about

24:15anything. And you've seen people plunge over the bleachers, right? To catch the ball.

24:18So with regards to God, God has no ideal standard with which to compare proposed actions to, right?

24:29This is one of the challenges of the conception of God. Now, God, of course, has proposed actions.

24:36Let's say, tell the truth. Now, of course, God has already spoken the truth past, present,

24:42and future. God exists outside of time. God knows the future because God can't be limited in his

24:47knowledge of the future. God can't say, well, I don't know if Noah's going to build the ark or not

24:51because God is all-knowing. Therefore, God knows for sure that Noah is going to build the ark.

24:57So God has already spoken the truth past, present, and future. There's no more free will

25:04in God's actions than there is in a movie that has already been filmed, right? You've got a movie

25:10from Casablanca, right? Casablanca has an ending. No matter how many times you play the movie Casablanca,

25:17the ending will always be the same. I mean, your feelings may change and whatnot, but the dialogue

25:20and the pixels and the film will always be the same. The characters in the movie Casablanca have no

25:29free will. You don't watch the movie again, hoping they'll make a different decision because they

25:34won't because their decisions have already been made. It's already been filmed. The actors are all

25:40dead and the movie is not being reshot. And if it was, it would be a different, you could have a

25:45different ending, but it wouldn't be the same movie. So there's no free will. And of course, you know,

25:49we've, I've, you've ever been to those movies where, you know, a character's making a bad decision

25:53and there's some low rent people in the back row yelling at them, don't go, you know, and the

25:57character says to you, you go for help. I'll follow the bloody footprints. Okay, you're going to die,

26:02right? So God has already acted with perfect virtue, past, present, and future. So God has no

26:12ideal standards with which to compare proposed actions to, because for God, there are no proposed

26:19actions. He has already acted past, present, and future for eternity. The decisions have already been

26:25made. And God has always done the perfectly right and moral thing, right? There are no possible

26:34actions for God. There are no choices that God will make. So for instance, when you pray and you say,

26:42my dog is sick, dear God above, please make my dog better. Well, God already knows whether your dog is

26:50going to get better or not. God already knows whether he's going to answer your prayer, because

26:55God has already done everything past, present, and future. Because if God is contemporaneous,

27:01in other words, God is moving with us through time, then God does not know the future, which means God

27:06is not all-knowing. Which is why prayer is funny, because God already knows that you're going to pray

27:12and already knows what he's going to do and already knows whether your dog is going to get better or worse.

27:16You don't know as an individual, but God already knows, because he knows the actions and motions of

27:21every cell, atom, whiff of matter and energy throughout the entire universe for all time,

27:28because that's what omniscience is. So God does not have free will in the way that we would understand

27:35it. So if somebody makes a really bad decision, right, let's say that you're married and your wife

27:42cheats on you. You can say, I wish you had chosen differently, but you can't say, I now demand

27:48that you go back in time and choose differently. She had free will to cheat on you because you had

27:54an ideal standard called fidelity, but your wife has no capacity to cheat on you, sorry, to undo

28:02cheating on you. She cannot go back in time and undo the cheating. So I've never, I can't imagine an

28:10argument where somebody says, oh, you cheated on me a year ago. I need you to go back and undo that.

28:18I need you to create a different timeline where I'm not cheated on, right? I mean, if you were insane

28:24or heavily sarcastic, but nobody, nobody's sane who's honest has that as a rational demand.

28:30So the action has already occurred and therefore your cheating wife has no capacity to go back and

28:41undo the action. The action has already occurred. She has no capacity to go back and undo the action.

28:48She cannot travel through time. So for God, all of his actions have already occurred.

28:53God, all and everything that God does has already occurred. Past, present and future is all known.

29:02Now, of course, the fundamental implication of this is you also have no free will, because if God knows

29:07what you're going to do tomorrow, next five minutes, 10 years from now, and God knows everything that

29:14you're going to do over the course of your life, which is omniscience, do you have free will? If you know

29:19ahead of time, what someone is going to do, in other words, if the closing lines of some movie

29:25you've memorized, right? Problems of two people like us don't amount to a hill of beans. Here's

29:31looking at you, kid, right? If you already know what Humphrey Bogart is going to say in Casablanca,

29:37does Humphrey Bogart in the movie Casablanca have the free will to change his lines? He does not,

29:43because you already know what he's going to say. If you've watched the movie 20 times,

29:47you know, round up the usual suspects, right? You already know what the people are going to say.

29:54You know, there's a funny bit in Friends where Ross is playing bagpipes, and Phoebe is singing along,

29:59and the funny part is watching Jennifer Aniston try not to crack up, because I think that was ad-libbed.

30:04So you can watch that 10,000 times, and Phoebe will never make a different choice.

30:10So does the character Phoebe have the character, have the choice to change what she does in that

30:17scene? Nope. It's already been filmed, it's already been recorded, it's already happened,

30:21and you cannot go back in time and tell the actress to make a different choice. No, don't sing along,

30:28right? Lisa Kudrow, jeez, I couldn't remember her name for a second, Lisa Kudrow, the older one.

30:34So, God, all of his actions have already occurred. They are as fixed as a movie. And therefore,

30:46God has no free will, because his actions have already occurred, and they're all perfect.

30:54Now, you can say, well, God could have chosen to do something different, but God chose virtue.

30:58But God is all perfect, all good. Therefore, God can only be all perfect and all good if he could

31:05never or would never choose to do evil. But all of those choices have already been made,

31:11right? And because all of those choices have already been made, God has no capacity to change

31:17them, right? Any more than Lisa Kudrow has the choice to go back a couple of decades and not sing

31:24along to Ross's bagpipes on the sitcom Friends, right? That's not possible. Lisa Kudrow has no

31:34historical free will, because no human being has historical free will. If somebody makes a bad

31:42decision, they can choose to learn from that decision and hopefully not repeat it, but they

31:46cannot go back in time and undo that bad decision. So, omniscience and omnipotence are contradictory.

31:57For God, omniscience means God knows what God will do through all of time, because God's actions,

32:04being outside of time, have already, always and forever, in an absolute fashion, God's choices,

32:12so to speak, have already been made, because God knows the future. So, God knows the future,

32:16absolutely God knows whether Noah is going to build the ark or not. We can't say God doesn't

32:21know, because then God is not omniscient and God is coming with us through time. God's crossing his

32:26fingers and hoping that Noah makes the right decision. But of course, if God doesn't know

32:31what Noah is going to do, then God should not be interfering. Right, but God interferes all the

32:38time, answers prayers and creates miracles and talks to people and so on. So, God knows what Noah

32:45is going to do. God knows that Noah is going to build the ark. All right? So, God knows that,

32:52and what that means is that Noah has no functional free will, and God cannot choose for things to be

32:59different, because the moment God chooses things to be different, then God has invalidated his prior

33:04knowledge. So, let's say he knows that Noah is not going to build the ark, but that's too upsetting

33:10for God. God says, oh man, Noah is not building the ark. You know what I'm going to do? I'm going

33:15to build the ark for him so it's easier, because I want all of my creatures, my lovely creatures,

33:19to be saved, right? Everything but the unicorn. So, that's what God decides. So, then God thought

33:28that Noah was going to build the ark or didn't know, and then is putting some on the scale by building

33:32the ark for Noah and so on. But then it means that God's prior knowledge of whether he was or

33:38wasn't, is invalid, because he's now changing it. Oh, I thought you were going to show up,

33:43but you didn't, so I took a bus, right? So, this is why we say that being all-powerful

33:49and all-knowing is a contradiction, and it's one of the challenges of conceiving of and thinking

33:56about God.

33:58fredomain.com. To help out the show, I really would appreciate it.

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