I have't answered the poll question because it doesn't quite address the nuance of the issue, in my view. If there is is a Judeo-Christian God, drplokta's response covers what it's capable of.
Going with the Judeo-Christian concept of God, since that's the one I know most about.
Free will for the humans is a critical point. If God can travel forward in time (at more than one second per second), that tends to imply, and back again. The that seems to imply that the whole universe is deterministic, and we don't have free will, but just follow a set course (which God can alter).
Well, if one accepts the Many Worlds theory, God simply travels up and down all the various chains of causality. Free will isn't interfered with because somewhere, every result of every possible choice is played out, and God can hop back and forth along each link.
But I don't really think it's a question of time travel, per se. The sort of God we're talking about must exist outside time and therefore perceives every instant, from the beginning of the universe to the end, simultaneously. Without that problematic moving backwards through time thing, free will is again not compromised.
Many Worlds If you use the Many Worlds theory, the same argument holds. If he can whiz up and down all possible timelines, then all possible actions are predetermined (and occur) in some sense. So again no free will. Breaks the rules.
The sort of God I don't think that is the sort of God we are talking about. I could be wrong, the "outside of time" bit isn't in the Bible. Doesn't the Bible just say that he's eternal, and kind of imply by his actions and speach that he's experiencing time linearly too?
Well, I suppose the question of free will in the Many Worlds multiverse remains, whether or not God is involved. If all our possible choices are ultimately played out, are we really making choices at all? But that, perhaps, is a discussion for another time.
As for the type of God under discussion, I'm hardly a Bible scholar, being cheerfully agnostic myself, but while the Good Book might imply God experiences time as mortals do, I've seen modern philosophers and theologians discuss Divine nature in the terms I was suggesting.
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Free will for the humans is a critical point. If God can travel forward in time (at more than one second per second), that tends to imply, and back again. The that seems to imply that the whole universe is deterministic, and we don't have free will, but just follow a set course (which God can alter).
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But I don't really think it's a question of time travel, per se. The sort of God we're talking about must exist outside time and therefore perceives every instant, from the beginning of the universe to the end, simultaneously. Without that problematic moving backwards through time thing, free will is again not compromised.
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If you use the Many Worlds theory, the same argument holds. If he can whiz up and down all possible timelines, then all possible actions are predetermined (and occur) in some sense. So again no free will. Breaks the rules.
The sort of God
I don't think that is the sort of God we are talking about. I could be wrong, the "outside of time" bit isn't in the Bible. Doesn't the Bible just say that he's eternal, and kind of imply by his actions and speach that he's experiencing time linearly too?
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As for the type of God under discussion, I'm hardly a Bible scholar, being cheerfully agnostic myself, but while the Good Book might imply God experiences time as mortals do, I've seen modern philosophers and theologians discuss Divine nature in the terms I was suggesting.