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[Nathair Nimheil]

I'm not choosing door number two because the script says so.

Yes you are. If you agonize over the choice, you agonize because the script says so and for exactly as long as the script dictates. If you rationalize the decision you rationalize because the script says so. If you believe you have free will... it's because you have no choice but to believe it.

There's really just no escape from this, that's the trouble with inventing absolute rules. When you actually apply it omniscience just ruins the fun of the whole universe.

[rigron]

As far as I know the Maker is not omniscent, it is never stated that. The Maker supposedly created the world and at some point of his life bang Andraste, that´s all we know about him, his doings and his powers.

[Nathair Nimheil]

You don't know what omniscience means imo.
 
It can be used in several ways. Even a quick definition search will clarify that there is inherent omniscience and total omniscience. There is "You CAN know everything" and there is "You DO know everything". Omniscient can be either.

Ahh, so you want "qualified omniscience", the theologian's "inherent omniscience". OK then, the answer to the original question is "No, The Maker is not omniscient."
 

One can view something onmisciently while deciding to not be omniscient about another thing. All the while being properly called "omniscient"

Er, no. Omniscient actually means "all knowing". It is the very definition of the word. If you want to use the word in a non-standard fashion the onus is upon you to qualify it. (That's why a term like "inherent omniscience" was invented in the first place.)

[Heimdall]

Yes you are. If you agonize over the choice, you agonize because the script says so and for exactly as long as the script dictates. If you rationalize the decision you rationalize because the script says so. If you believe you have free will... it's because you have no choice but to believe it.
There's really just no escape from this, that's the trouble with inventing absolute rules. When you actually apply it omniscience just ruins the fun of the whole universe.

The script isn't dictating anything. The script reflects my choice. It does not make it. That it happens to reflect it in advance doesn't take away my control or change anything.

[SwobyJ]

Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't mean to assert that having knowledge equates with having control. If anyone, anywhere has perfect knowledge then nobody has any control or any real power.
 

There's the rub. If there is omniscience, there are no unknown factors. That is what omniscience means.

 

What I mean is that the Maker can be omniscient about Thedas and the Fade but not about everything everywhere. There is no claim that the Maker has perfect omniscience anywhere in Dragon Age, and there is nothing that says that the Maker is omniscient about himself.

 

'All' does not mean 'Every'. 'All' still limits to all together that is the subject. 'Every' still limits to every piece of what is the subject. But the subject itself can even still be limited. The Maker could very well know all about Thedas, its workings, its people and etc etc etc, while still being surprised by the result of every piece of Thedas doing something together. He may see all the pieces, but maybe not the result of their syncing with each other and everything else in existence. Turn to Flemeth's comments on 'fate' to see what may be Bioware's perspective on this.

 

Lest you think that monsters that are called 'All-Seeing' in RPGs actually see all of everything that exists.

 

Not to mention that omniscience is itself a point of view. One could be deluded to think themselves to be omniscient (while still being incredibly knowledgeable to the point of near perfect omniscience) but still not be. In this sense, it is a descriptor, but not an absolute.

 

Anyway, the focus of the Chantry isn't that the Maker is perfectly omniscient at all times. It is more that he is capable of omniscience of everything in Thedas (as in he can see into your heart and fate if he wished to), and that he has plans for people and Thedas, etc. Being able to know everything doesn't mean that this is the active state that the Maker wishes to be in. He is portrayed much more human than that - along with the willingness to be surprised by what he sees in Thedas.

 

So at this point it comes down to your personal belief. People with more faith in the Maker believe he is omniscient and this is all part of his plan. People with less faith in the Maker believe he is omniscient but not always active with it (we can for example 'know' something without it being an absolute truth). People with no faith do not consider the Maker omniscient, and if they even think he exists, they simply consider him a powerful entity that is being pumped up by legend.

[Ennai and 54 others]

Since when is the maker omniscient?  

 

I don't understand why we assume he does anything but make things,as his title suggests why ask for more than he has already done.He is the maker,not the protector or the freer of slaves or the  judge  or the planner of good futures or the tester of faith or even the vanquisher of evil.

 

My take is that the maker is like a spirit.It will not do more than its nature allows.It is also possible that he is a true neutral like the lady of pain (although it won't put you in a maze for worshipping it)

[SwobyJ]

Yeah, sorry about that. I didn't mean to assert that having knowledge equates with having control. If anyone, anywhere has perfect knowledge then nobody has any control or any real power.
 

There's the rub. If there is omniscience, there are no unknown factors. That is what omniscience means.

 

If the question is 'Does the Maker have omniscience by its strictest definition?' (that it means you know everything about everything at all times, including yourself and everything beyond everything that we could ever conceive of, etc), then sure, he does not. Otherwise he would never have even bothered with Thedas because he knew he would have turned his back on it. Heck, even the claims of the Biblical God's omniscience is more of a sermon thing than anything you could find in the collected texts.

 

But I don't think anyone, in game or out of it, is claiming omniscience of the Maker by its strictest definition. I've certainly seen nothing in-game about that. So count me in the 'inherent omniscience' camp. I'm willing to go in the 'total omniscience' camp for other things, but not The Maker.

 

~~~~

 

Sidenote - when it comes to the Maker, I don't think we'll ever get absolute narrative proof that he exists, or at least exists as Andrastans believe. What may happen is a little bit of the pro side and a little bit on the con side about it with every game. Eventually we may learn of an entity strongly tied to (but maybe also separate?) from the Fade that may have created it all, but it may still come down to faith whether the narrative of the Chantry is the correct one about it all.

 

I mean, when it comes the Inquisitor, the 'Herald of Andraste', it may still end up true that the Inquisitor is the herald, the harbinger of the arrival of an Andraste-figure-of-some-sort, and it may still end up true that the events so far fit the believed-to-be Maker's plan. If it keeps going as generally expected, how is it exactly wrong?

 

I expect something along those lines. I don't think we're done with the Chantry if we get a DA4 - I just think the focus will change.

[Nathair Nimheil]

The script isn't dictating anything. The script reflects my choice. It does not make it. That it happens to reflect it in advance doesn't take away my control or change anything.

So you keep saying. The problem is that if I know what you are going to do then you are going to do that thing. You can not choose not to do it. You can not choose to do something else. You may call it "choice" but what are you choosing between?

 

Consider it this way: When presenting you with the two doors I could simply say "Open door number two" knowing that you will do so. I could just as easily be at home watching TV and you, on some other planet in some other galaxy, would still open door number two. I know what you are going to do. It is only when I say "Please, pick a door" that the illusion of choice enters the situation. Likewise, when you say "your script merely reflects my choice" that is the illusion of choice. You are opening door number two. There is no other possibility, there is no other option. I could remove the other door and it wouldn't affect anything. When there is only one possible path there is nothing to choose choice is, by definition, impossible.

 

We may as well say that, dropped from a high building, the rock chooses to fall. It may make the rock feel better but that's all we accomplish.

[Heimdall]

So you keep saying. The problem is that if I know what you are going to do then you are going to do that thing. You can not choose not to do it. You can not choose to do something else. You may call it "choice" but what are you choosing between?
 
Consider it this way: When presenting you with the two doors I could simply say "Open door number two" knowing that you will do so. I could just as easily be at home watching TV and you, on some other planet in some other galaxy, would still open door number two. I know what you are going to do. It is only when I say "Please, pick a door" that the illusion of choice enters the situation. Likewise, when you say "your script merely reflects my choice" that is the illusion of choice. You are opening door number two. There is no other possibility, there is no other option. I could remove the other door and it wouldn't affect anything. When there is only one possible path there is nothing to choose choice is, by definition, impossible.
 
We may as well say that, dropped from a high building, the rock chooses to fall. It may make the rock feel better but that's all we accomplish.

Then you know what I am going to do because I make the choice. Knowing my choice doesn't mean I didn't have it. It's not an illusion of choice. Knowing what the choice will be does not determine what my choice will be. My choice determines what you know. You think it's the illusion of choice because you think I can't deviate from a prewritten script. I don't see it as a prewritten script. A script is a horrible analogy for the way I think of it really. The script knows what choices I will make because I made them. Whether the script has this knowledge beforehand or after really doesn't matter.

[Nathair Nimheil]

Then you know what I am going to do because I make the choice

No. I know what is going to happen, there is no "because" about it. I know that the coin is going to land "heads" and I know that you are going to open door number two. Neither of you chose.

 

I'm going to try this one more time, then I'm going to let you have the last word. Please consider this: In order to actually choose, you must have an actual choice to make. There must be at least the possibility that you could open #1 instead of #2. With omniscience there is no such possibility. You are opening door #2. You are not actually making a choice because you can not choose. You can not choose because there is nothing, absolutely nothing to choose between. It does not matter what you think you are doing when you open the door. It does not matter why you think you "decided" to open #2 or what you believe you might have done. You did not choose because you had no choice.

[Stakrin]

I think the maker is real but something happened that people don't talk about.
Maybe his power was drained from creating thedas or maybe the Kossith did something to him.
I don't think he is just not there but I don't think he is just abstaining from his people.

[LordParbr]

It isn't your script. Knowing what my choices will be doesn't mean you control them or that I lack control, only that you know.

You can't "know" if there's no certainty. Since the "decision" you are going to make is known, then there is certainty. If the decision you're going to make is certain, then you never had a choice. You were always going to do exactly what you did. You had options, but the course of action you took was planned. Foresight and free will are mutually exclusive.

 

 

It doesn't hurt to be open minded

That kind of open-mindedness has been, historically, harmful.

[DarkSeraphym]

Then you know what I am going to do because I make the choice. Knowing my choice doesn't mean I didn't have it. It's not an illusion of choice. Knowing what the choice will be does not determine what my choice will be. My choice determines what you know. You think it's the illusion of choice because you think I can't deviate from a prewritten script. I don't see it as a prewritten script. A script is a horrible analogy for the way I think of it really. The script knows what choices I will make because I made them. Whether the script has this knowledge beforehand or after really doesn't matter.

 

A script is a terrible analogy because you are presenting it as if the script is being written as you make your choices, thus the "my choice determines what you know." I have a suspicion that this isn't how omniscience works. Rather, I'd imagine that such a being would know not only the consequences of any choice you make, but which choice will actually be made. For example, let's get Matrixy and suppose that I invite you into a white room where there is nothing but an old man sitting at a chair behind a table with another chair, as well as an orange and an apple. This man invites you to take a seat and informs you that he is the creator of the universe and would like to have a word with you.

 

For the sake of pleasantries, he offers you either the orange or the apple. An omniscient being already knows which of the two you are going to pick. What Nathair is saying is that this is an illusion of choice because, from the perspective of the being, he could easily just take the apple out of the equation if he knows you will take the orange. The choice between the two is merely an illusion because you will go for exactly that item which the omniscient being knows you will take. It's the only real option that you have, despite the perception that it is a choice you get to make. It wouldn't make any difference to the omniscient being because it knows precisely what choice you are going to make.

 

To get this thread back on track though, where does it state that the Maker is omniscient? I was under the impression that the Maker turned away from humanity out of the hope that it would hear the Chant of Light again. Hope, to me anyway, suggests that it isn't omniscient. Omniscience would leave the Maker with it's answer.

[LordParbr]

A script is a terrible analogy because you are presenting it as if the script is being written as you make your choices, thus the "my choice determines what you know." I have a suspicion that this isn't how omniscience works. Rather, I'd imagine that such a being would know not only the consequences of any choice you make, but which choice will actually be made. For example, let's get Matrixy and suppose that I invite you into a white room where there is nothing but an old man sitting at a chair behind a table with another chair, as well as an orange and an apple. This man invites you to take a seat and informs you that he is the creator of the universe and would like to have a word with you.

 

For the sake of pleasantries, he offers you either the orange or the apple. An omniscient being already knows which of the two you are going to pick. What Nathair is saying is that this is an illusion of choice because, from the perspective of the being, he could easily just take the apple out of the equation if he knows you will take the orange. The choice between the two is merely an illusion because you will go for exactly that item which the omniscient being knows you will take. It's the only real option that you have, despite the perception that it is a choice you get to make. It wouldn't make any difference to the omniscient being because it knows precisely what choice you are going to make.

 

To get this thread back on track though, where does it state that the Maker is omniscient? I was under the impression that the Maker turned away from humanity out of the hope that it would hear the Chant of Light again. Hope, to me anyway, suggests that it isn't omniscient. Omniscience would leave the Maker with it's answer.

Well, the Abrahamic religions use language like that, despite their god being omniscient.

[TK514]

The Chant itself would tend to denounce the idea of the Maker as omnipotent or omniscient.  Certainly immensely powerful, but not all powerful or all knowing.

 

When he created his first children, they are flawed.  He makes them imperfectly, and then is disappointed when they are imperfect.  Those two things alone are enough to disprove both omnipotence and omniscience.

 

Further, when He discovers his first children are flawed, he doesn't repair them, he creates something else.

 

What this suggests to me is that the Maker is a creator god with a side order of incomprehensible powers of observation.  He can create anything and observe anything, but beyond that His powers are limited.  He is either incapable or vastly diminished when it come to repairing or changing things that already exist.  This could be why He, if He exists, works through mortal agents rather than directly.  He has no choice.

[Aren]

This is kind of a philosophical problem that exists with any religion with an omniscient god. It gets more fun when you factor in free will. If the deity is omniscient, then we can't have free will because he knows exactly what we'll do always and that means everything is pre-demerited and we're just along for the ride.

But anyway, as I've said before, if the Maker is real then he's the purest and most absolute evil Thedas has ever known. Even if he didn't know what the magisters were going to do, Chantry doctrine openly says that the Maker has the power to end the corruption with little more than a thought but simply chooses not to. The suffering of the blight is beyond comprehension, and the Maker lets it run rampant for the crimes of 5-7 people (varying reports on how many magisters were in that group). And the magisters who he tainted for weird super powers for it instead of horrible suffering and death that the rest of the world, innocent of the crime, got for it.

How is the Maker not pure evil? The rules of right and wrong don't change if you have more power than everyone else. Look at the first broodmother we met in DA:O and the buildup with Hespith and think "the Maker did this to them for the crimes of someone else." The Maker is either non-existent or evil beyond description.

????  this is your frustration or what?  i mean, if many Theodosian are bastards the fault is of the Maker, if the Maker is non-exsistent the fault is of the Maker, if the Archedemons commands the darkspawn's army the fault is of the Maker.

He is the pure evil yes yes ahahaha.... 

[Sylentmana]

If the Maker is "all-knowing" then he must be a teenager.