Freewill!

I am not sure if this goes here, but I did want a catholic response.

I am new to christianity especially catholisism (was confimed in Dec last year). I love the church, it has done good things for me emotionally and spiritually.

I am confused on several things...the first of course being freewill:

If God is all knowing....how can we have freewill? If he already knows from the beggining who was going to hell, how can we be saved, and if we do change our hearts to him, doesnt that make him not all knowing?

This is a very serious question, it was posed to me by a friend a while ago, and now it has been soinning around and around in my mind....I need a little explanation to this, if any one can help me out, I would be very grateful.

Thank you and God Bless.

Hi Salvation and welcome to OBOB. You'll probably get more answers if you post this in the main part of OBOB.

__________________

This is a little tricky for me as well. I think the best way to explain is to think of God as existing outside of time. He created time, so He's not bound by it. Thus, it's not really even proper to speak of God seeing the future or the past, because for Him, there is no future or no past.

So... that being said, He knows what will happen to each of us. He could choose to intervene and put us on a different track, but He would rather we follow Him willingly, and thus allows us to make mistakes.

Think of it this way -- you see someone driving towards a cliff. You know that, in a couple moments, he will fly off the cliff, but you can't get a message to him. Hence, you KNOW his fate. Does this make you responsible? Have you caused him to drive off the cliff? No. Foreknowledge can still exist with free will.

Hope that this helps!

(Like Filia Mariae said... you're best off posting questions like this in the main OBOB forum. )

__________________
When in doubt, try prayer and fasting.

Et Verbum caro factum est
et habitavit in nobis.

Perhaps I am being a silly NOOBLET but whats an OBOB?

Oops, sorry! OBOB is "One Bread, One Body" -- the name of the Catholic forum on Christian Forums.

__________________
When in doubt, try prayer and fasting.

Et Verbum caro factum est
et habitavit in nobis.

ok ok i have put lots a thought into this. god doesnt pressure you into anything. but he knows what you are going to do. hes cool like that. the answer may also lie in the physics of time. but lets not go ther because im not sure of its authentisity. plus it deals with complex physics and nobody would understand.

__________________

If you watch a football game and record it at the same time then you can watch the recording again later.

Watching the recording you already know whats going to happen next and who's going to win but all the players playing the game are unaffected by your knowledge and retain freewill because they have already done what you are watching them do. Since God is equally present at all moments of time simultaneously the fact that he already knows the result of each game doesnt affect the choices made by each player.

In other words he knows what you are going to decide to do but you still have to make the decision yourself.

__________________

What is done out of love is not small

St Faustina

It's a bit presumptuous to say that

"God is equally present at all moments of time simultaneously"

I think that's a statement which needs some quantifying!

The supposed fact that God made us in his own image and likeness suggests that he does not have a single fixed state in time.

I woul suggest for God, time exists only as a tool to allow us to develop. Time for God is what it is for us.

But I woldn't say God knows before we do something, what we will do. That suggests an idea that we are destined to do one thing or another.

Hi, guys!

I think that God's ultimate knowledge about our fate does not contradict with our free will. That's because knowledge is theoretical, while determination of our will is a practical thing. No theoretical factor could by itself affect reality, so, unless God uses his knowledge in his practical decisions, his knowledge of our future does not influence this fate.