Did God know if you were going to read this thread?

doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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when one believes in God, one prays "thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

we want to do God's will
we may not always be successful but everyday is a new beginning
Is that relevant to anything said here, or are you just kinda rambling here?
 
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doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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but it is OUR choice to do so, to allow God in our lives
to follow Him
If God knows somebody is never going to follow him, but then that person does actually decide to follow him, is God not all-knowing?

The Bible says Jesus told the disciples that Judas was going to betray him. Did Judas have a choice? If at the last minute Judas had chosen not to betray Jesus, would Jesus have been mistaken?
 
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doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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per your example
no Jesus wouldn't have been mistaken since he would not have said that Judas would betray
God would have known Judas would change his mind at the last moment

The Bible says Jesus had said that Judas would betray him:

Matthew 26:24 The Son of Man goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born.” 25 Judas, who would betray him, answered, “Is it I, Rabbi?” He said to him, “You have said so.”​

At this point, you seem to be saying that Judas no longer had a choice. Once Jesus had said this, there was no way Judas could have possibly changed his mind. That tells me he no longer had free will.
 
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doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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as your example said, if Judas were to change his mind at the last moment
Jesus WOULD NOT have said it (as he would know Judas would change mind at last moment) and therefore it would not have been written in the Bible

yes, Judas had a choice to do good or evil
we all do

everyday of our lives, we have choices
Ah, I see that you will just ignore the question.
 
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Qwertyui0p

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Suppose I ask God what you will have for breakfast tomorrow. Suppose he tells me what you will have. At that point, do you or do you not have the freewill to choose something different for breakfast?
To answer that question, I must ask you one.
Suppose God told you what I ate for breakfast yesterday. If I ate toast He will tell you that, because I chose to have toast. If I ate pancakes He will tell you that, because I chose to have pancakes.

Is God determining my decision?
 
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doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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To answer that question, I must ask you one.
Suppose God told you what I ate for breakfast yesterday. If I ate toast He will tell you that, because I chose to have toast. If I ate pancakes He will tell you that, because I chose to have pancakes.

Is God determining my decision?
No.

Now back to my question. If I ask God what you will have for breakfast tomorrow, and he says "eggs," can I then know for sure that you will have eggs? If so, and you must choose eggs tomorrow, and there is nothing you can do to change that fact, do you really have free will?
 
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fwGod

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No, I think it was the sum total of matter and forces that make up my brain that made the decision to start this thread. If you choose to call that sum of stuff "I", then "I" made the decision. If you choose to call it "stuff", then that stuff made the decision.
Here's what happened.

You used a Calvinist based question to ask if people have free will. So I responded from a Calvinist view that I don't subscribe to. In order to point out the unscriptural position of Calvinism.

I took it to it's most absurd in describing God as someone playing with dolls who have no free will whatsoever.

If you actually believed that I was serious in any of it.. then you have been exposed for your completely erroneous view of Christianity.

You say that you're intelligent but not enough to recognize what I'd done and neither do you apparently have a sense of humour to therefore call my bluff.

I will not be discussing anything with you any further. Have a nice day.
 
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Qwertyui0p

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No.

Now back to my question. If I ask God what you will have for breakfast tomorrow, and he says "eggs," can I then know for sure that you will have eggs? If so, and you must choose eggs tomorrow, and there is nothing you can do to change that fact, do you really have free will?
This might sound strange, but whether God tells you before or after I have breakfast, has no bearing on my free will. Why? Because I choose, and God knows my choice. Thus if God told you beforehand, you know what I will choose, but it is still my choice, because what God told you is my choice. So no, I'm not going to eat something else, but what I do eat is my choice.
In fact, I can choose whatever I want and that determines what God would tell you, not the other way round, even though God would've told you beforehand. It would be somewhat similar to a time traveler coming back from the future and telling you what I will choose to eat for breakfast. Although the time traveler telling you happens beforehand, I am the one who determines what I eat.
Are you still confused?
 
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doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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This might sound strange, but whether God tells you before or after I have breakfast, has no bearing on my free will. Why? Because I choose, and God knows my choice. Thus if God told you beforehand, you know what I will choose, but it is still my choice, because what God told you is my choice. So no, I'm not going to eat something else, but what I do eat is my choice.
In fact, I can choose whatever I want and that determines what God would tell you, not the other way round, even though God would've told you beforehand. It would be somewhat similar to a time traveler coming back from the future and telling you what I will choose to eat for breakfast. Although the time traveler telling you happens beforehand, I am the one who determines what I eat.
Are you still confused?

The time traveler coming back from some future time into the present presents all sorts of issues. If he tells me he knows for sure I will eat eggs tomorrow, then what happens if I don't eat eggs? And if you tell me that it would then be impossible to choose otherwise, how so? As long as I am free to choose what I want, why am I not free to avoid eggs in that situation?

So what happens if God tells you that I will freely decide to eat eggs tomorrow and you tell me what God told you?. Suppose that I then decide to deliberately avoid eating eggs. Are you saying that it would then be impossible for me to decide to avoid eggs?
 
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doubtingmerle

I'll think about it.
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I took it to it's most absurd in describing God as someone playing with dolls who have no free will whatsoever.

If you actually believed that I was serious in any of it.. then you have been exposed for your completely erroneous view of Christianity.

You say that you're intelligent but not enough to recognize what I'd done and neither do you apparently have a sense of humour to therefore call my bluff.

I will not be discussing anything with you any further. Have a nice day.
So here we have a Poe, huh?

I have heard many ridiculous things here. It is impossible to tell if somebody is saying ridiculous things because they believe those ridiculous things, or because they are pretending to believe them. If you want to be taken seriously around here, cut out that silly game.
 
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fwGod

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So here we have a Poe, huh?

I have heard many ridiculous things here. It is impossible to tell if somebody is saying ridiculous things because they believe those ridiculous things, or because they are pretending to believe them.
No. You expected to read of such ridiculous things. It's obvious in the manner that you responded.

What a shock it must of been for you to find that you walked into your own presuppositions turned against you.
If you want to be taken seriously around here, cut out that silly game.
If you wanted to be taken seriously then you should not have played your silly game in setting anyone up for being made a fool of by asking that question, then responding the way that you wrote back to me.

You should have instead said what you have in this post, on that post. You should have asked "is that what you really believe? Is that really what the Bible is saying?" But no you didn't because you've probably asked that question about God's free will before at other discussion boards.

You do it because you like to think that you're smarter than any Christian on the board. But not this time.

I've already stated that I was finished with this exchange due to your lack of awareness in not realizing that what I said was absurd. I've freely admitted it so your belated comments after the fact are just too late.

If nothing else that you get out of this, speak what you know of your level of intelligence regardless of what level of intelligence you would think the person you post to has. Don't try to pretend to talk on what you think is their level. I spotted you right away so I did that to you and you didn't like it.
 
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Qwertyui0p

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The time traveler coming back from some future time into the present presents all sorts of issues. If he tells me he knows for sure I will eat eggs tomorrow, then what happens if I don't eat eggs? And if you tell me that it would then be impossible to choose otherwise, how so? As long as I am free to choose what I want, why am I not free to avoid eggs in that situation?

So what happens if God tells you that I will freely decide to eat eggs tomorrow and you tell me what God told you?. Suppose that I then decide to deliberately avoid eating eggs. Are you saying that it would then be impossible for me to decide to avoid eggs?
Okay, so the time traveler analogy is flawed.

God would know that if He told me I would tell you, and He would know if you would choose to eat something else as a result, so He would know that telling me would (indirectly) make what He is telling me false. And since God doesn't lie, He wouldn't tell me something that would be false if He told me.
 
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doubtingmerle

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Okay, so the time traveler analogy is flawed.

God would know that if He told me I would tell you, and He would know if you would choose to eat something else as a result, so He would know that telling me would (indirectly) make what He is telling me false. And since God doesn't lie, He wouldn't tell me something that would be false if He told me.
Ah, so if God told you what I was choosing for breakfast tomorrow and you told me, that would be a problem. I would just choose something else, and the wave collapses.
So no, I'm not going to eat something else, but what I do eat is my choice.

Uh, huh. It is like eating at an ice cream shop that serves any flavor you want, provided you want vanilla. ;)

Likewise you can do anything you want to do tomorrow, but you can't possibly want to do anything different from what the script says you will want to do.

In your view every thing you do today is already written down. Every breath you take. Every move you make. Every bond you break, every step you take. (He'll be watching you.) Every single day and every word you say. Every game you play, every night you stay, it will all be scripted beforehand. You will do nothing more than act out the script that had been written out for all eternity. And in your view you cannot possibly do anything different from what the script says you will do today. It is all cast in stone. If the script says you next move your left foot forward, you cannot possibly even want to move your right foot forward. If it says you will hit reply, you cannot possibly choose not to. If it says you will ignore my post, you cannot possibly respond. It has all been scripted. There is not a thing you can do to change it.

If you want to call that freewill, fine. But that does not sound like freewill to me.
 
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