Does God's foreknowledge rule out free will?

MyGivenNameIsKeith

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"One of the biggest problems facing the traditional Christian believer is to explain how human beings can have free will given that God has perfect knowledge of the future. If God already knows what you are going to do tomorrow, then how can the decisions you make be free? It seems the only thing you can possibly do is what God already knows you are going to do – and if so, then you cannot have what philosophers call libertarian free will, the kind of freedom that most Christians, and in fact most people, believe human beings possess."

"Not all Christians face this dilemma. Calvinists avoid it by rejecting the traditional (libertarian) concept of free will, while so-called “open theists” reject the idea that God knows everything about the future. But for those in between these two extremes – which is the majority of believers – the problem remains."

"...But now here's the problem: if God cannot be wrong, then it is impossible for there to be alternatives to what he knows you are going to have. In other words, it's not merely that God knows that you are in fact going to have spaghetti, while other possibilities remain. Rather, since it is impossible for God to be wrong, it is also impossible for you to have anything else. Because for there to be another possibility is for there to be the possibility of God making a mistake."

"Another way of putting this is that, if you have free will, then you have the power to make God wrong – and that of course cannot be. God's foreknowledge – his perfect, infallible foreknowledge – is therefore incompatible with the kind of freedom that most Christians believe we have."

IS GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE COMPATIBLE WITH FREE WILL?
Asking the same question in two threads using different words to justify your own perspective isn't fruitful. Some would call that itching ears.
(NIV for clarification of said point)
2 Timothy 4:3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Again, as I answered in your other thread, you're attempting to knock God down a few pegs. You're denying that he is omnipotent and omniscient and that he gave us free will.
We all have a choice to choose God or not. He does not force us.
In Eden they were free to eat of any tree in the garden, even of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God commanded them not to, because the consequences would be death. Free will. They didn't listen. God was right. As always.
16 And the LORD God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
If God the Father did not know everything about the future then when he shaped the world, did he not have you in mind? Did he not have the foreknowledge in making man and giving them free will that they would mess up from time to time and fall because they are not God? Did he not have foreknowledge that he would make a way to atone for us?
Yet you argue using spaghetti, or in conversations past, ice cream.
Do you not understand that you do not live by bread alone?
Why do you insist on your own understanding?
Are your ways higher than God's ways? Are you so holy that you have ascended higher than his throne? That your words are mightier than the Word that was made flesh? That your own words contain knowledge?
No. They do not.
The old adage I believe applies here...
If you love someone, set them free.
Are you not free? Are you not free to choose? Have you not learned that what God has said is true? Has he ever fallen short on fulfilling his promises?
God's foreknowledge does not rule out free will. Your free will at times deceives you into ruling out God's foreknowledge, which can never be taken away from him.
He knows where you want to go in your heart, he directs your steps to get there. If you are on the path to damnation, he will nudge you in the right way because he doesn't want you to perish. You can still choose to walk the path to damnation. As I said, you have free will. He has foreknowledge. They are not exclusive.
 
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MyGivenNameIsKeith

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God does not exist outside of time, he has his timeline to.
He just exists outside the timeline of our universe. In the same way that we exist outside the timeline of a movie we watch.
Could God not rewind the clock? Is that outside of his power? Is he limited by a "God time"?
 
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ClementofA

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Have I missed something, you seem to have put everything in quote marks, but not cited a source for your quote, so who is saying it?

Anyway the problem is not there for Open Theism or Neo-Molinism which both in some way take the future out of what can be known. Further this is compatible with God's character: He is known as all-wise, but wisdom is not a matter of legalistic answers to every situation (that is what knowledge is) but knowing the best answer to a problem. A God who knows everything about the future cannot be wise because no wisdom is required.

A God who knows the future is also powerless to change that future without showing that they don't know something...

This means that any attempt to understand God's knowledge of the future will either make god impotent or foolish unless the future is 'open' in some way. Open Theism says that there is no future to know, whereas Neo-Molinism says that all the potential futures can be known... but not which one will actually be realised.

Both of these views solve the problem and far from being held by a minority, are actually growing substantially. I go to an entire church that follows the Open Theistic model of God. While individuals in the church might not understand the point, the leadership certainly does.

The source of the quote was at the link provided, here:

IS GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE COMPATIBLE WITH FREE WILL?

Is Open Theism biblical?
 
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God's foreknowledge and sovereignty are compatible with a limited freedom within a will, compatible with making choices according to the nature of a will. To put it another way, God's foreknowledge and sovereignty are compatible with the responsibility of man. To put it another way, fatalism is false and the puppet caricature is false, and neither represent historic Reformed theology. Thank you and God bless.
 
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Sorn

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Could God not rewind the clock? Is that outside of his power? Is he limited by a "God time"?

God did not invent time. Time just arises out of events, in the same way that 2 + 2 = 4. Its a logical truth God can not change.
What is true is that the timeline in our universe is likely not the same as the timeline in Heaven or other spiritual realms but time still exists there and always has.

Time at its simplest is just the expression of the changing state of a reference point. So event 'A' happens, then we can say that there was a time before event A (a time when event A had not occurred yet) and there was time after event A (had occurred). We can therefore measure and mark time based on event A happening if we want to. This applies to God as well.

God is timeless in the sense that nothing can change him if he does not want it to, unlike us who are constantly changing over time, as measured by the ticking of a clock or the rotation of the earth around the sun etc.
So God is timeless but he still experiences time.

Some examples:
A time before the fall of lucifer and the time after that event
A time before the '7 day' creation and a time after it.
A time before Jesus came to earth and a time after it.
The time before the second coming and the time after it.

The above 4 are examples of events in the heavenly timeline that may also be reflected in our earthly timeline. Incidentally, the 3rd event along with the rotation of the earth around the sun is our reference point for measuring the 'passing' of time. ie BC and AD.

In eternity if you have so much as one thought then there will be a time before that thought and a time after that thought.

In eternity we will be timeless also, unaffected (ie unchanged) by events unless we want to be changed but we will still experience time and time will still be measurable against some reference point.

According to the bible God has never reversed time and it never says he ever will. He can nullify the consequence of an event and he has done so in the past many times (ie miracles etc ) and will do so again, but the original event is never erased, it happened. There was a time before it and a time after it.
 
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MyGivenNameIsKeith

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God did not invent time. Time just arises out of events, in the same way that 2 + 2 = 4. Its a logical truth God can not change.
What is true is that the timeline in our universe is likely not the same as the timeline in Heaven or other spiritual realms but time still exists there and always has.

Time at its simplest is just the expression of the changing state of a reference point. So event 'A' happens, then we can say that there was a time before event A (a time when event A had not occurred yet) and there was time after event A (had occurred). We can therefore measure and mark time based on event A happening if we want to. This applies to God as well.

God is timeless in the sense that nothing can change him if he does not want it to, unlike us who are constantly changing over time, as measured by the ticking of a clock or the rotation of the earth around the sun etc.
So God is timeless but he still experiences time.

Some examples:
A time before the fall of lucifer and the time after that event
A time before the '7 day' creation and a time after it.
A time before Jesus came to earth and a time after it.
The time before the second coming and the time after it.

The above 4 are examples of events in the heavenly timeline that may also be reflected in our earthly timeline. Incidentally, the 3rd event along with the rotation of the earth around the sun is our reference point for measuring the 'passing' of time. ie BC and AD.

In eternity if you have so much as one thought then there will be a time before that thought and a time after that thought.

In eternity we will be timeless also, unaffected (ie unchanged) by events unless we want to be changed but we will still experience time and time will still be measurable against some reference point.

According to the bible God has never reversed time and it never says he ever will. He can nullify the consequence of an event and he has done so in the past many times (ie miracles etc ) and will do so again, but the original event is never erased, it happened. There was a time before it and a time after it.
And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What is the sign that the Lord will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of the Lord the third day? Then Isaiah said, This is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do the thing which He has spoken: shall the shadow go forward ten degrees or go backward ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered, It is an easy thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees, no but let the shadow go backward ten degrees. So Isaiah the prophet cried out to the Lord, and He brought the shadow ten degrees backward, by which it had gone down on the sundial of Ahaz (2 Kings 20:8-11).

And this is the sign to you from the Lord, that the Lord will do this thing which He has spoken: Behold, I will bring the shadow on the sundial, which has gone down with the sun on the sundial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. So the sun returned ten degrees on the dial by which it had gone down (Isaiah 38:7,8).

Don't know about your Bible, but my Bible says he can reverse it, and apparently he kinda did.

And yet another example of "adjusting time" is Joshua 10:13 And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

So again, I reiterate that the Bible does say that is within the Lord's power and that he has done it.

God cannot change who he is, won't change who he is, and will always be who he is. He exists outside of time, for he created it. Time has no meaning to the creator. He speaks and causes the thing to come to pass. He will cause heaven and earth to pass away at some point as well. Everlasting to everlasting. He was in eternity, timeless, before and after any event. He can go back and see the man he made in Adam or he can go forward and view the end of all things in the same stroke as if they exist side by side. a Thousand years are as a day, and a day is like a thousand years in his sight. It's a time paradox to us. To him, it's normal.

B.C. and A.D, regardless of its moniker as before Christ and anno domini, signified the dividing of time as the Lord said would happen. This was long after the resurrection and has to do with how mankind perceives time. Time itself did not change for the creator. This was simply an era that had moved forward. This dating system was devised in 525 by Dionysius Exiguus of Scythia Minor, but was not widely used until after 800.

Coincidentally, the "dividing of time" in 525, was
Daniel 7:25 King James Version (KJV)

25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

in 538 not long after, the pope assumes power by military force, thus beginning the 1260 prophecy to conclude in 1798.

Time in the creator's eyes is a tool he uses to explain things to us. Truth is truth no matter what time it is. God has, is, and always will be God. Nothing is beyond his power.
Nothingness is not even beyond it.

You get the gist.
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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Sorn

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Don't know about your Bible, but my Bible says he can reverse it, and apparently he kinda did.

As I said the Bible (even yours) never ever, NEVER EVER, says God has ever reversed time. The two examples you are giving you are assuming or interpreting them to mean that God reversed time.
In the 1st example God could make a shadow appear or change by any number of ways, including commanding the photons that would normally light up the area of the stairs to cease to exist so a shadow is formed.
Alternatively, he could have caused the Earth to reverse its spin for a time.
We are simply not told how God did that miracle.

As for the the 2nd miracle, the sun stopping, that can be accomplished by having the Earth stop rotating for a time (which lends weight to the earth reversing rotation in the 1st example). The fact that people were fighting WHILE the sun was stopped means that time was not reversing but events were still unfolding in one direction, no event on the timeline was erased at any point. The sun stopping meant daylight was extended for that day (and maybe that day was 26 or 27 hours long or longer all up) but not that time was reversed, you are assuming too much.


25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

This is about the end times and the Beast / Antichrist & how they will impose their own calendar of worship and holy events etc. It has NOTHING to do with reversing time. What has the Pope got to do with it? Your interpretation of end time events has nothing to do with time reversal.


He exists outside of time, for he created it.

Even your statement that God invented time (assuming it were true) shows that as there would have been a time when time did not exist and then a time when time did exist, so even non-time is measured by time showing time was there all along. I hope you get the gist now.

Time is not something God invented!

As soon as there was an event, any event, even God having a thought, then there was a reference point by which something else could be measured, ie a time before that thought and a time after that thought. The fact that there may not have been anything else to take advantage of that reference point is irrelevant.
However I can simply make that reference point (Gods 1st thought) relevant by using it to measure the existence of things by saying 'before Gods first thought I did not exist but after his first thought I did exist'.
In fact before Gods 1st thought nothing existed except God himself but after his first thought everything else existed even if it was only for a while.
So that if someone had a time machine that could go back in time and across dimensions then they would know that if they traveled back before God's 1st thought they would see only God but after that first thought they would be in the time period in which everything else came into being.

In other words time is not something you create, you create events and time is a natural consequence of that, or it reveals itself at that point.
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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Sounds like you want to blame God for your decisions.

God can do anything He wants to do, but because He chooses not to and to let you have free will that negates your free will?

That makes no sense.

If my one year old child jumps into a 5 foot deep pool, I know they cannot swim and will drown. Just because I know they will drown, doesn't mean that that child did not use their own free will and their own body and legs to jump into that pool, even if they had no idea of the danger.

God does not take away our legs so we cannot jump. But God is Holy and knows that if we jump that He has sent a Savior who is able to save us.

That doesn't remove our responsibility for jumping into the pool (or sinning in your example).

If you know that your 1-year old will drown IF they go into the water, that is wisdom because they haven't gone into the water and your knowledge contains their ability to swim (non-existent) and what happen if someone sinks in water (drowning)... but the actual getting into the water hasn't happened yet.

So the contingent event is, 'will the child get/fall/jump into water' and that is something that cannot be KNOWN before the event, only speculated (a toddler won't automatically jump in the pool, but they might if there are other children doing it, or if they have done it safely in the past).

If you can see the future and know for certain that the child will jump in the pool then you cannot prevent that without your future knowledge being compromised. Nor can they prevent it without your future knowledge being compromised, so the only solution to avoid compromising your knowledge of the future is that you don't actually KNOW the future, you can just predict it's likelihood - which is WISDOM, not knowledge.

Wisdom also means that you can be an outside agent and prevent the falling in or be ready to dive in and save the child, or even be ready in the pool if they fall in... which they may not.

Knowledge that event A will happen means that A MUST happen, else your knowledge is false.

Wisdom that event A is likely to happen means that event A could happen, but does not mean that it might not, nor that it can be prevented.
 
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Sorn

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Knowledge that event A will happen means that A MUST happen, else your knowledge is false.

If God is sovereign in our universe and outside our timeline it may be that he can see the future as it will be if he does not change it (ie let things run their current course) but has the ability to over ride that future and change it. I guess without knowing fully what his abilities are exactly in regard to future seeing, we are limited to speculating.
I guess the question is 'is He predicting the future and can predict how something he does changes that OR is he actually seeing the future but can somehow override it'?
 
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Sorn

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Don't know about your Bible, but my Bible says he can reverse it, and apparently he kinda did.

Just more on this, if God was reversing time for the 2 miracles that you mentioned, then that would mean that a baby born just before the time was reversed would go back into the womb only to be born again once time was going forward again.

Someone who died just before time was reversed is then brought back to life, (is their souls commanded to back into their body?) only to die again once time flows forward again? Someone just finishing a number 2 before time reverses... well I'll leave that up to your imagination!
 
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fhansen

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"One of the biggest problems facing the traditional Christian believer is to explain how human beings can have free will given that God has perfect knowledge of the future. If God already knows what you are going to do tomorrow, then how can the decisions you make be free? It seems the only thing you can possibly do is what God already knows you are going to do – and if so, then you cannot have what philosophers call libertarian free will, the kind of freedom that most Christians, and in fact most people, believe human beings possess."

"Not all Christians face this dilemma. Calvinists avoid it by rejecting the traditional (libertarian) concept of free will, while so-called “open theists” reject the idea that God knows everything about the future. But for those in between these two extremes – which is the majority of believers – the problem remains."

"...But now here's the problem: if God cannot be wrong, then it is impossible for there to be alternatives to what he knows you are going to have. In other words, it's not merely that God knows that you are in fact going to have spaghetti, while other possibilities remain. Rather, since it is impossible for God to be wrong, it is also impossible for you to have anything else. Because for there to be another possibility is for there to be the possibility of God making a mistake."

"Another way of putting this is that, if you have free will, then you have the power to make God wrong – and that of course cannot be. God's foreknowledge – his perfect, infallible foreknowledge – is therefore incompatible with the kind of freedom that most Christians believe we have."

IS GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE COMPATIBLE WITH FREE WILL?
God exists in eternity; He cannot help but know all things in the immediate presence. And the truth is that, no matter how you slice it, humans aren't brute beasts; we're morally accountable beings. And this is true whether or not God even exists (regardless of the fact that morality makes little sense and has little ultimate worth if there were no God).
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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I think you are confusing yourself. Foreknowledge of a future choice is not equal to a demand that you make that choice, it is simply foreknowledge of the choice you are going to make before you make it. Just because God knows what you are going to do doesn't mean God makes you do it.

The traditional view of God's foreknowledge has him seeing time from a great height and seeing it equally throughout. God looks at my past, present and future and can see all of them equally. Every step of my life is mapped out in God's knowledge. Every key moment, every life-changing event, every sin, every act... right up to the moment of my death.

Now at any of those events, can I actually do anything other than what that map shows I will do? If I can, then everything from that point on is false knowledge on God's part, worse since I can impact other people's life by escaping from that mapped-out life, it means that God's knowledge of their maps is now wrong and this continues on... from the moment I step outside of that mapped out life. Likewise God is powerless to change my path because it will have the same effect - his future knowledge is compromised by his own actions. If God intervenes in my life he would perfectly foreknow that he had intervened, but is then powerless to stop his own intervention. God is as much stuck in that 'map' as we are.

If the events of my life are labelled as ABCD... etc., then if my life does not end up as ABCD... then God's knowledge is deficient. So if God foreknows D follows on from C then we are all then powerless to do anything about it... D is inevitable, I cannot freely choose to do anything other than D because then God is not omniscient as we know omniscience. Nor can God intervene and cause anything other than D, because then God is not omniscient. But if he cannot intervene, then he is not omnipotent because there is something he cannot do.

Which means that if God knows my future in that detail, then that future is fixed and neither God nor I can change it in any way. Foreknowledge precludes omnipotence.

It is also fallacy to say that God is not omnipotent, because He has foreknowledge. Maybe He has a reason why He doesn't stop the things He doesn't. And, why can't God manage the consequences without managing the choices and thereby achieve the promised outcome while letting everyone make their own individual choices?

If the consequence of a free will action is 'A', then if God changes it to 'B' then once again his foreknowledge is shown to be deficient because of the 'map' which shows the consequence of my action to be 'A'.

On the other hand God could foreknow that 'B' would be the consequence because He intervened after my free will action... but then he is forced to intervene because of my stupidity. He cannot NOT intervene... making him powerless to prevent his own intervention.

This whole idea that the future is mapped out causes everyone (including God) to lose their free will - they are slaved to the map of the future.

The open theism view, however is closer to having milestones or goals. How we get to that milestone and when we get there are things we are all involved in, humans and God. In this view God's foreknowledge only extends to things that are about to happen and those milestones, but God is free to intervene at any point to bring those milestones closer.

One simple way to look at this is to think of rolling a die. From our perspective this is a random event, but from God's it is not. His perfect knowledge allows him to calculate the trajectory of the dice from the moment it leaves the hand (our free will) to the moment it comes to rest and know what the result is before it happens. But he also knows that it is possible to intervene and change the result of that roll and what were to happen if he does so.

So in the classic foreknowledge view (Arminianism) God knew a thousand years ago what the result of that dice roll was, but cannot change it else his foreknowledge is compromised.

In the open theistic view, God knows the limits of the dice (a result of 4 1/2 is not possible) and once the die has been rolled can know the result by calculating all the variables and angles but also knows that he can change that result if he wants a particular one.

Molinism implies that God knows all six outcomes and what the consequences of each is and then determines which one is the best result and makes that one happen (even against our free will - which is why I don't like it).

Neo-Molinism implies that God knows all six outcomes and their consequences, but not which one will occur until the dice leaves the hand at which point a nudge can be made or not.

I prefer Open Theism or Neo-Molinism tending towards the latter as it gives God absolute knowledge of all possible futures, but allows free will by himself and humans to determine which one will end up being the actual past.
 
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jamesbond007

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Clement: "One of the biggest problems facing the traditional Christian believer is to explain how human beings can have free will given that God has perfect knowledge of the future. If God already knows what you are going to do tomorrow, then how can the decisions you make be free? It seems the only thing you can possibly do is what God already knows you are going to do – and if so, then you cannot have what philosophers call libertarian free will, the kind of freedom that most Christians, and in fact most people, believe human beings possess."

This complex question must confront these 3 points:
(1) Our omnipotent, omniscient God is a later church concept, not a biblical concept. We conceive of omnipotence and omniscient in Greek terms as the ability to do and foreknow everything that is logically possible to do and foreknow. The Hebraic concept is less precise; it implies that God can do and foreknow everything that it is actually possible to do and foreknow and thus allows for the possibility that somethings might not actually be possible to do or foreknow. Such a limitation is already implicit in the frequent puzzling biblical expressions of divine repentance or regret.

(2) The implication that God cannot predestine human fate without depriving us of our free will is implicit in Romans 8:29 which makes it clear that divine foreknowledge logically precedes predestination and not vice versa: "Those whom He foreknew He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son." From His perspective outside time, God can foreknow our choices, good and bad, and fit that into His plan. If instead God perceive an X factor in our minds that allowed Him to predict our course of action, that X factor would predestine us to such choices and thus deprive us of free will. Remember, the scientific Big Bang theory teaches not that matter/energy expanded into space and time, but rather that this expansion created space and time--a view that supports the concept of a God outside time.

(3) Clement: "...so-called “open theists” reject the idea that God knows everything about the future."

This way of thinking still accounts for the possibility of Bible prophecy. But here is an analogy that offers another way of understanding prophecy. A chess grandmaster doesn't know which piece a novice opponent will move and where. But the grandmaster can counter the novices moves with moves that will shape the outcome to His liking. Bible prophecy is often couched in ambiguous imagery that can be construed in different ways. Perhaps the reason for this is that God cannot anticipate precise outcomes, but can "move pieces" in such a way that His grand design is fulfilled.

God is omnipotent and omniscient as described in Job 42:2 and 1 John 3:20. You frame the problems of the question well. Yet, I'm not sure I can accept #3 because of the way God is described in the first sentence. The rest is okay.

In #1, are you saying because God is omnipotent and omniscient that he controls our decisions or behavior, i.e. because of his foreknowledge we cannot act any other way or he determines our actions? How can we have free will then in either case? Or is free will not really free, is not of our doing or merely an illusion? Logically, God can let us decide or do what we want even if he knows ahead of time what we decide or will do. However, we are not influenced in any way because he has foreknowledge. I guess I don't see the logic of how our decisions are made with his foreknowledge. How do we know what he knows?

To illustrate this point, let's look at #1 another way. Let's say it's not God, but another human who is quite intelligent and has studied you enough to understand how you would play a game. In other words, he is omniscient about how you play a game. Thus, he plans his moves based on this. If you didn't know he had this advantage, then you may end up losing more than winning. However, if you knew about the way he plays, i.e. you had some omniscience that plays the game by studying his opponent. Thus, in order to win you do the opposite of what you normally do. It doesn't follow that your opponent being omniscient means that you will play the way you are expected to do. It depends on what you know. You have free will, so you can play the way you normally play or not.

Here's another example of the latter in the prisioner's dilemma game.

"Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of communicating with the other. The prosecutors lack sufficient evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They hope to get both sentenced to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the prosecutors offer each prisoner a bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to: betray the other by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. The offer is:
  • If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison
  • If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)
  • If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge)"
How do you play? What the best strategy? If the other is God and not another criminal, do you change your strategy?
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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If God has the ability to see the future, he may not use it to see everything. Maybe he just sees who gets saved but not how they get there in their particular life's journey.
The problem with this view is that it implies that there is something that is knowable that he doesn't know. And also that there are people who are not saved that he doesn't know why they are not saved (has no interest in them?)
 
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Silly Uncle Wayne

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God exists in eternity.
The definition of eternal is without beginning or end. The Greek (and, I believe the Hebrew) uses a different term, 'ageless'. Neither understanding actually implies timelessness and 'ageless' in fact implies that time still occurs but that God is not affected by it.

Most of our ideas of timelessness and God come from Greek philosophy, not from the Bible.
 
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Neogaia777

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"One of the biggest problems facing the traditional Christian believer is to explain how human beings can have free will given that God has perfect knowledge of the future. If God already knows what you are going to do tomorrow, then how can the decisions you make be free? It seems the only thing you can possibly do is what God already knows you are going to do – and if so, then you cannot have what philosophers call libertarian free will, the kind of freedom that most Christians, and in fact most people, believe human beings possess."

"Not all Christians face this dilemma. Calvinists avoid it by rejecting the traditional (libertarian) concept of free will, while so-called “open theists” reject the idea that God knows everything about the future. But for those in between these two extremes – which is the majority of believers – the problem remains."

"...But now here's the problem: if God cannot be wrong, then it is impossible for there to be alternatives to what he knows you are going to have. In other words, it's not merely that God knows that you are in fact going to have spaghetti, while other possibilities remain. Rather, since it is impossible for God to be wrong, it is also impossible for you to have anything else. Because for there to be another possibility is for there to be the possibility of God making a mistake."

"Another way of putting this is that, if you have free will, then you have the power to make God wrong – and that of course cannot be. God's foreknowledge – his perfect, infallible foreknowledge – is therefore incompatible with the kind of freedom that most Christians believe we have."

IS GOD'S FOREKNOWLEDGE COMPATIBLE WITH FREE WILL?
God the Father, the "One and only true God" or highest God, Jesus and our Father, knows the outcome of EVERY CHOICE...

No one has seen or heard from him at any time, Except God, the Son, or Christ or YHWH our God... That is: the God in the OT and the one who interacts with us... God, the Son is nearly omniscient, but not fully, not like God, the Father is... God, the Son knows the outcome way ahead of time, of many, very many choices, but, not all... The exception probably being, the choice that we make that either saves (us), or otherwise condemns, or damns us forever...

That/those/that choice only God the Father alone knows and always knew from the beginning of time, to the end of time, from the moments he created and birthed everything...

Because we don't know, what is, or isn't a true choice, we all, (including God, the Son), our God, we, (all of us), have to proceed as if we do have free will, or a true choice, even in, and especially with, involving our salvation, when we may not actually...

God Bless!
 
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Neogaia777

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God the Father, the "One and only true God" or highest God, Jesus and our Father, knows the outcome of EVERY CHOICE...

No one has seen or heard from him at any time, Except God, the Son, or Christ or YHWH our God... That is: the God in the OT and the one who interacts with us... God, the Son is nearly omniscient, but not fully, not like God, the Father is... God, the Son knows the outcome way ahead of time, of many, very many choices, but, not all... The exception probably being, the choice that we make that either saves (us), or otherwise condemns, or damns us forever...

That/those/that choice only God the Father alone knows and always knew from the beginning of time, to the end of time, from the moments he created and birthed everything...

Because we don't know, what is, or isn't a true choice, we all, (including God, the Son), our God, we, (all of us), have to proceed as if we do have free will, or a true choice, even in, and especially with, involving our salvation, when we may not actually...

God Bless!
Imagine a deck of cards, to us 52 cards, all different, to God the Son, our God, red or black, only difference, to God the Father, all the same and none different...

This is like us with choice and choices...

God Bless!
 
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Sorn

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The problem with this view is that it implies that there is something that is knowable that he doesn't know.

It may be. Maybe God has access to all things that are knowable but he may nevertheless not access all that knowledge as many things would be trivial and irrelevant. Does he need to know the tyre pressure of every tyre on every vehicle at all times?

And also that there are people who are not saved that he doesn't know why they are not saved (has no interest in them?)

He may choose to know that, but doe he do anything about it? Back to free wll.
I'm sure that at some point the reasons that someone is not saved are fully understood by God and the person. ie At Judgement (if not before) then the opportunities that person has to hear Gods word, and their circumstances and decisions will all be taken into account.
After all there are many who have lived and died and never heard Gods word (while alive anyway) but I'm sure God has ways to allow them to choose also.

Anyway it was just an example that seeing how something is in the future is not the same as knowing how it got there.
 
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