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If God is omniscient is free will an illusion?
I'm agnostic but interested in the truth so I do a lot of thinking and research on philosophy and religious issues in order to keep an open mind. It occurred to me when I was thinking one day that if God exists and he already knows everything I'm ever going to do then every decision I'm ever going to make has effectively already been made. This would mean that there is no such thing as free will. Since free will is a necessary ingredient for sin to be meaningful this has some pretty astounding implications. Thoughts?
Topics:
religion
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Mary M. 50+
Its advocates reason that God’s divinity and perfection require that he be omniscient (all-knowing), not only respecting the past and present but also regarding the future.
According to this concept, for him not to foreknow all matters in their minutest detail would evidence imperfection.
This concept would mean that, prior to creating angels or earthling man, God exercised his powers of foreknowledge and foresaw and foreknew all that would result from such creation, including the rebellion of one of his spirit sons, the subsequent rebellion of the first human pair in Eden, and all the bad consequences of such rebellion down to and beyond this present day.
So then, it follows that all the wickedness that history has recorded (the crime and immorality, oppression and resultant suffering, lying and hypocrisy, false worship and idolatry) once existed, before creation’s beginning, only in the mind of God, in the form of his foreknowledge of the future in all of its minutest details.
If the Creator of mankind had indeed exercised his power to foreknow all that history has seen since man’s creation, then the full weight of all the wickedness thereafter resulting was deliberately set in motion by God when he spoke the words: “Let us make man.”
The alternative to predestinarianism, would have to harmonize with God’s own righteous standards and be consistent with what he reveals of himself in his Word.
If God already foreknew and foreordained millenniums in advance precisely which individuals would receive eternal salvation and which individuals would receive eternal destruction, then Bible verses speaking of God's ‘patience’ and of his genuine desire that ‘all attain to repentance’ are kind of meaningless.
In summary, I personally have trouble believing that God is omniscient.
Robert Haacke
Adriaan Braam 20+
There are 10 commandments we can obey or not obey.
When the Lord says He will knock on our door and suggest we open that door... we have a choice.
There are prisons because we can change our minds.
This book (actually two books) is about God and His government. In detail.
http://sites.google.com/site/liveitupspiritually/home/writings/DLW_DP.pdf?attredirects=0&d=1
edward long 100+
Random Chance 30+
Okay, so why does God grant the gift of faith?
And what is that gift exactly?
I ask because you seem to be very intelligent, well-read and well-versed in the bible, among
other topics and subjects.
I don't believe in a God, but I do believe there is something that many call faith.
Hope to me is a completely false concept, although one can come to a place
where to continue on, they grasp at something in perhaps a real, but short-lived
form of hope, that the new thing they reach for, might work.
But afterwards, hope goes nowhere because it is false.
Something has to be done. Along the way, faith of a kind, is built but that too becomes
like hope if it doesn't transform into something else. It will remain like hope, blind.
It is that last or next transformation I find to be of utmost importance and,
I believe that most people, along with not really knowing what it is they believe in,
not really trusting what they say they believe in, either.
I don't know if you will see this post or will even care to respond to it and that's okay.
I assume you believe in God, from your posts and quotes and would like to ask another question.
Do you ever become afraid? If so, what would being afraid mean or represent to you?
Hope you don't mind.
edward long 100+
Mary M. 50+
Totally forgot about this conversation, and now I realized that I did not word my ending correctly in my original comment.
What I meant to say at the end of my comment was that I do believe in Gods's "all knowing" but not that he foreordains, or knows how we will choose.
I am more in line with the original thinking by the Jews.......God's purpose "unfolds"....it takes time to see his purpose because He is dealing with humans as well as angelic beings who have free will. And as Ephesians brings out........God's wisdom is....."multi-faceted" or has "rich variety" or another translation says, it is "greatly diversified". So God is able to deal with this free will of ours while at the same time moving towards his purpose. Patiently he waits for us to choose and then mercifully he helps us carry out his will. That is how I have always seen it.
In Ephesians 1:4-5 it says God foreordained individuals, yes, but as to which individuals, isn't it possible that we get to choose if we want to or not? I don't get the meaning that you get. That is, that already God knows who will serve him and who won't ahead of time.
Because if that is the case, why drag out all this suffering. Why not end it all and allow evil to be done away with already?
We have to exercise faith to be saved. The choice to exercise faith or not is ours.
The gift of everlasting life to those who have exercised faith belongs to our Creator through provision of salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord. And note I said "exercised faith".....works are required Ed, it's not just about believing. We have to act on our faith, and we have Jesus' example to lead us.
edward long 100+
Mary M. 50+
You are either not understanding me, or you are choosing not to understand me.
In either case, I've cleared the air on my original post.
edward long 100+