Would logic be respected if we assume that the God's omniscience includes the ability to DIRECTLY OBSERVE future events?

Question

If we assume that God knows the future, we think that the only possible way He could do that would be if He knew all possible states of the system. He could thus "compute" that future. But this "computation" might imply that no "free will" exists.

A SECOND WAY to get that information is hereby proposed: if God used a time-machine, then God's eyes could move in the future and simply OBSERVE it. By doing so a) the above doubts of lack of "free will" are cancelled and b) God should commit not to modify at least the part of the future that has been observed. Since it has been observed by Him, that future must really take place.

Are there concerns about the logical validity of the proposed "second way"?

Answer 1

For logic to be respected we need to specify all the assumptions to the best of our abilities. Also there is no point in assuming that God's omniscience includes knowing something that is not knowable.

In addition to assuming that God can know future events, we need to agree on a premise that there actually are future events that can be known. We can't use a belief in God's omniscience to guarantee that the propositions that we happen to come up with refer to anything real.

This is nothing against God's omniscience nor even against God's existence.

Michael Dummett made a similar point in presenting arguments about realism and anti-realism: (page 351)

It is a persistent illusion that, from the premiss that God knows everything, it can be deduced that he knows whether any given proposition is true or false - that is, that he either knows that it is true or knows that it is false, and that his omniscience therefore entails that the proposition is either true or false. On the contrary, its being either true or false is required as a further premiss in order to deduce from his omniscience that he knows, in the sense stated, whether it is true or false.

So the assumption that "God knows the future" requires an agreement on another premiss that there is a future that God can know. One cannot argue for this premise by claiming that God's omniscience guarantees such a premise to be true. Omniscience does not require knowing what isn't there to know.

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Michael Dummett. The Logical Basis of Metaphysics. 1991. Harvard University Press

Answer 2

We don't need the detour via a deterministic universe to get the issue with "free will" and "knowing the future". Provided that your god can reveal information to people[1], they could tell a person what that person will do tomorrow. The question then becomes whether that person can decide to act differently from what is fortold.

If they cannot, this is a problem for free will.

If they can, you would need something like changing timelines to reconcile. Then you can either have your god being able to observe "future timelines", and repeat the problem; or you can prohibit them from that and get an issue with "omniscience".

[1] Of course you could have a god that observes the entirety of spacetime, but never acts. Since this god is completely irrelevant, it causes no problems for free will or anything else.