It's probably my favorite "toy" for mental masturbation, and i think i even made a thread on this in the old debate.
I'm currently talking about it with philosophy buffs who will probably end up serving me my ass at the end.
Here is the discussion: http://forums.philosophyforums.com/t...nce-38149.html


Basically here is what I think:

If a being is truly omniscient (and designer of the universe on top of that), it knows the outcome of every single action to ever occur. It has personally set the pendulum of causality in motion as it forged the initial condition out of nothing, long time ago. It made every decision of every human. But I digress.

My main idea is that real omniscience would require no active mind....There are no questions, no calculations, no unexpectedness, no decisions to be made -- all is already known and designed to follow a pattern which satisfies god's innate divine whim (which is the only thing that he didn't design, i guess, which means he didn't design everything after all).

Does this state of mind not resemble a sort of nullity? All motivation dies when one acquires absolute knowledge. Imagine if you knew everything completely, even yourself. You would probably become suicidal, since nothing at all could entertain your mind or keep it active. The outside sources would be dried out; all information would be absorbed in your big head.


What's more, why would existence (or lack of existence) of such god matter in any way, to anyone?
His existence would mean all actions are predestined, even his own (by presence of his innate divine desire to shape existence one way or the other).