Is free will possible in a universe that was created by an omniscient deity that creates everything for a purpose and knows what will become of everything that it creates? Wouldn't such a universe be fatalistic?

Is free will possible in a universe that was created by an omniscient deity that creates everything for a purpose and knows what will become of everything that it creates? Wouldn't such a universe be fatalistic?

You've got it turned around. Knowing what happens in the future doesn't determine the future. The future determines what is known. If an omniscient deity knows I will wash my car next Thursday it's because I will freely choose to do so. If I would have chosen Friday instead then it would have been Friday that the omniscient deity knows about. Whatever I choose is what is known, including any freely done last minute changes.

This would all be true if it weren't for one thing. The deity creates everything for a purpose and he knows what will become of his creations and therefore his purpose for them is what will become of them. This means that everything goes according to his will. This would mean that the universe is fatalistic, and fatalism is incompatible with free will.

You were trying to make some kind of argument for omniscience and free will incompatibly. I think I've rebutted that. This is a different line of argument. Of course, the deity can also will humans to have their own free wills. There's nothing incompatible with a deity that chooses to give humans free will and at the same time knows exactly how we will use it.

Actually I think he implied more about being created with a goal already planned out. Sort of like you construct a robot to wash your car and that is your plan for it's creation but you give it free will? What if it never washes your car, that would mean your plan isn't being fulfilled. Or the other way you can look at it is, if the robot is stuck washing the car all the time, how does it ever exercise it's free will? Or is it limited to picking the sponge or soap products exclusively for it's free will?

Long explanation short, you can't have both a free will and a plan. They contradict and cancel each other. So which is it?

The original post doesn't say anything about our entire lives being planned out from start to finish. It says that the deity creates everything with a purpose. So, assuming the deity created us with the purpose of having free will, how is that incompatible with anything?

So the plan is to just construct a series of barriers and see which one you pick? A series of tests? The god exam? Then terminates the quality assurance test and decides which bin you qualify for? The landfill or trophy shelf?

Sounds like a great purpose to me.

I'm an atheist. I'm only speaking hypothetically. There are no incompatibilities between free will and omniscience. There are plenty of good reasons to be an atheist. This fallacious argument isn't one of them.

So the plan is to just construct a series of barriers and see which one you pick? A series of tests? The god exam? Then terminates the quality assurance test and decides which bin you qualify for? The landfill or trophy shelf?

Sounds like a great purpose to me.

You can't say the purpose itself is to exercise free will. Because then no matter what it did, it would be already fulfilling it's purpose.

You were trying to make some kind of argument for omniscience and free will incompatibly. I think I've rebutted that. This is a different line of argument. Of course, the deity can also will humans to have their own free wills. There's nothing incompatible with a deity that chooses to give humans free will and at the same time knows exactly how we will use it.

Wrong. If your purpose is to exercise free will then as long as it's done freely, it doesn't matter what is done. The purpose is fulfilled. It's only if you don't exercise your free will, such as having fixed programming, like a robot, that your purpose isn't fulfilled.

So, as you can see, there's nothing wrong with saying our purpose is to exercise free will. There is a way in which we could fail to fulfill our purpose.

You didn't take the entire post in account. I was implying that a universe which is created by a deity for a set purpose would be fatalistic and fatalism is incompatible with free will.

Organisms are mechanistic in form, so they can be compared to programmed robots. Now being programmed by nature is impersonal, but being programmed by a deity is intentional or willed. Therefore, how could there be such a thing as free will in a universe where the destinies of organisms are already pre-determined by the will of a deity?

Only if that purpose doesn't include us having free will.

There's no logical contradiction in being programmed to have free will, by nature, a deity, or otherwise.

The robots humans make have fixed programming. Those robots don't have free will yet.

What does it even mean to have free will in a fatalistic universe? When did fatalism become compatible with free will? How is free will possible in a universe where every action that an agent makes was pre-determined by a deity? Sure an agent can still exercise control over their actions, but that becomes somewhat of an illusion if the actions of the agent have already been pre-determined by the will of another.

In your original post, you said "creates everything for a purpose and knows what will become of everything that it creates" which is not even close to being the same as "every action that an agent makes was pre-determined by a deity".

If the purpose for humans is to exercise free will then every action isn't predetermined by a deity. It's determined by the agent. The deity simply has foreknowledge of the free choices made by the agent, which we have already established is compatible with free will. Foreknowledge of a free choice doesn't force anything.

I understand all of that, but a universe that was created by a deity for a set purpose would be fatalistic. Don't you agree?

Also, in reference to an earlier comment you made, this is not an argument for atheism. This is simply a metaphysical inquiry.