If God is all-knowing, how can man have free will?

Michie said:

If God knows everything you’re going to do, can you still be free?

It’s one of the oldest questions in philosophy. For centuries, theologians and skeptics alike have wrestled with the tension between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. If God already knows every decision you will make, are your decisions real? Or is the future already written — unchangeable, mechanical, and determined?

For many, this leads to a fatalistic view of history: that every action, every thought, every choice is merely the outworking of a divine decree. Foreknowledge, they assume, demands determinism. But that only seems true if you start with a false assumption about time and an impoverished view of God.

The dilemma collapses when you stop imagining God as a cosmic spectator watching a chronological timeline unfold. Because the God of the Bible is not bound by time — time is bound by Him.

The problem lies not in foreknowledge itself, but in our insistence on mapping God’s knowledge onto human temporality. We picture God like a being ahead of us on the timeline, peeking around the corner to see what we’ll do. But God is not ahead of us in time — He is outside of time, or better put, time is inside of God. He is not watching history like a surveillance reel. Time is not His limit. It’s His creation.

Continued below.

If God is all-knowing, how can man have free will?

If God knows everything you re going to do, can you still be free

www.christianpost.com

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How do we know some of our Gods, or God in the OT and/or Jesus Christ was not bound by time? Because another issue you're overlooking is that they don't behave like fully omniscient beings, etc. If you already know, you can't be surprised, or have any other kinds of feelings about how anything happens or goes here, etc, but you'd need other, slightly lesser ones for that, etc. Also, you cannot know a thing for 100% certain, and at the same time not know for 100% certain, which is what choice/free will is suggesting, etc. Those two are 100% logically inconsistent/diametrically opposed, and always will be always, etc.

God Bless.

Michie said:

If God knows everything you’re going to do, can you still be free?

It’s one of the oldest questions in philosophy. For centuries, theologians and skeptics alike have wrestled with the tension between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. If God already knows every decision you will make, are your decisions real? Or is the future already written — unchangeable, mechanical, and determined?

For many, this leads to a fatalistic view of history: that every action, every thought, every choice is merely the outworking of a divine decree. Foreknowledge, they assume, demands determinism. But that only seems true if you start with a false assumption about time and an impoverished view of God.

The dilemma collapses when you stop imagining God as a cosmic spectator watching a chronological timeline unfold. Because the God of the Bible is not bound by time — time is bound by Him.

The problem lies not in foreknowledge itself, but in our insistence on mapping God’s knowledge onto human temporality. We picture God like a being ahead of us on the timeline, peeking around the corner to see what we’ll do. But God is not ahead of us in time — He is outside of time, or better put, time is inside of God. He is not watching history like a surveillance reel. Time is not His limit. It’s His creation.

Continued below.

If God is all-knowing, how can man have free will?

If God knows everything you re going to do, can you still be free

www.christianpost.com

Click to expand...

Let's just take this specfic issue/subject for right now as just only one example of just only one specfic point I am trying to make, ok. And it will be about knowing where everything is going to be/has to be at any given moment well before it ever happens, ok.

Either you know where a certain thing is 100% for sure going to be, or there is another possibility of where that thing is going to happen/be, in which case your knowledge is never 100%, and you don't actually know until the choice is made, or thing happens/comes to pass actually, etc, and you're not 100% fully omniscient from the beginning actually, etc, and are still very much bound to time while not being always 100% fully omniscient actually, etc. This seems like Jesus Christ and God in the OT to me, etc.

You also don't have the same kinds of feelings about anything that happens here in this creation when you're 100% fully omniscient about it either, which is another point I am trying to make also, because you also have no way of showing yourself to any other beings, which can be a problem if you're wanting to do that without being deceptive or lying about it to any other beings, etc.

God Bless.

How are the two connected -

All knowing - simply means He knows everything - free will is that man has the ability to choose.

Always in His Presence said:

How are the two connected -

All knowing - simply means He knows everything - free will is that man has the ability to choose.

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If there are ever two or more possibilities, then no being anywhere can know them for sure 100%, because there is only one way everything can ever happen or go when any being anywhere already knows them 100%, or no being anywhere can know them for 100% sure 100%, but they will be some other set of percentages, etc.

How can you not know/do basic math?

100% cannot also be some other (set of) percentage(s), or no being anywhere can ever know them for sure 100%. At least not until they have happened or occurred anyway, etc. They'd be trying to calculate on or about/between the most likely/least likely based on partial knowledge until then, etc.

God Bless.

Neogaia777 said:

If there are ever two or more possibilities, then no being anywhere can know them for sure 100%, because there is only one way everything can ever happen or go when any being anywhere already knows them 100%, or no being anywhere can know them for 100% sure 100%, but they will be some other set of percentages, etc.

How can you not know/do basic math?

100% cannot also be some other (set of) percentage(s), or no being anywhere can ever know them for sure 100%. At least not until they have happened or occurred anyway, etc. They'd be trying to calculate on or about/between the most likely/least likely based on partial knowledge until then, etc.

God Bless.

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Ok, let me put it to you this way?

You have a choice that you are right now about to make, and it can be anything, so just pick one that you're about to make, ok. If it is already known which way you're going to choose it, and that has always, always been known 100%, then can you choose something else, or can it happen another way?

And I first want you to answer Yes or No to this question, etc?

Cause your answer should be "No", etc. And that there is no possible way anything can happen any other way if it is already known by any being anywhere 100%, etc.

And then, if it's not 100%, but is some other set of percentages, then how can any being claim to know them all for sure 100%, when they are no longer 100%, but is some other set of percentages of possible ways it can go or happen now, etc?

How can any being in existence know them all 100%, when they are not all 100%?

There cannot be free will if there is 100% full omniscience about every single thing, etc, nor multiple possibilities either, etc.

God Bless.

God is not limited by time and we experimentally have shown over the last 100 years; time is relative.

Time has been shown experimentally over the last 100 years to be relative and no experiment has shown time to not be relative. God may have created time, but even if God did not, He still would not be limited by time, His relative time does not have to be controlled by our relative time.

Think about this: If I know a truly free will choice you made yesterday that choice is fixed and cannot be changed, since it is history and history cannot be changed (it happened). The fact I know your free will choice of yesterday does not keep it from being your free will choice.

Just because your free will choice tomorrow is fixed does not mean God is the one fixing it, since you are the one who fixed the choice by making the choice of your own free will.

History cannot be changed even if God was the only one to know about something that has happened, since it still happened it is history. Since God does everything right perfectly the first time, there is no reason to do it over again.

God is outside of time and omnipresent throughout time, so God at the end of time knows everything historically that has happened throughout time, making it unchangeable (fixed). Yet again just because God at the end of time knows all things that happened throughout time perfectly, does not mean human autonomous free will choices were not made and thus “fixed” by man making the choice.

God’s actions are also fixed and can be called foreordained or predestined.

God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future, but that is not unusual while communicating to man from man’s perspective is also God’s way.

With Peter, God at the end of time, this same God throughout time, knows what Peter and Christ chose to do with Christ being supplied the information by God of the end of time. Christ knowing the unrepentant state Peter was in can also realize His words will not keep Peter from sinning, but will help Peter to repent in the end, but it is still Peter’s choice.

There is another reason the Bible does not explain God’s time being even different from human time and thus presenting the idea of “time being relative”. If the Bible did say, “Time is relative”, then there would be scientific “proof” of the Biblical God, since the idea of time being relative comes up thousands of years later. The nonbeliever does not need “knowledge” of the Biblical God, but faith in the Biblical God, so this knowledge is kept from us.

There are other ways God can know stuff, but He is outside of time, so He also knows everything historically throughout time?

God is very much interacting with humans, and He does the absolute best thing, so there is no reason for a do over.

Jesus knew when He was teaching His disciple, what He would be going through on the cross as pure history, but that does not mean He was on the cross constantly or it would not hurt him.

You guys are all going to insist on having free will no matter what I try to do, etc. You're all afraid of the implications if you don't, etc. So, for these reasons (and more) I give up in trying to tell you about it, etc.

Ultimately this issue is never going to fully settled ever because all of the people who always stand against it are all still going to always insist on having their own way always, etc.

Or it's for the other reason I just mentioned, not wanting to wrestle with the implications of how it might affect or force you to alter/change some of your current understandings, etc.

The moment that many are faced with quote/unquote "blasphemy", many will give up trying, and will automatically go back to the positions they had previously, etc. Truth never comes easy, etc. And so many will give up trying, etc.

Funny thing is, it's most usually not all that difficult to understand, but it's just always hard to accept, which is why many will turn their backs on it, or will give up trying, etc.

Take Care/God Bless.

It is unfortunate that people want to see God through our own eyes. We can choose whatever path we want because our timeline is not His. There is no past, present, or future for God. Everything just is. He is not sitting there with all this stuff and all these realms all around Him. They are Him.

First you have to define what 'free will' is...

Our very nature limits what we can choose.

This means that so called human 'free will' is a misnomer.

The ability to choose within limits is given us but He controls the boundaries.

Consider the Testimony of John...

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.

And Paul... "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God...

I had trouble getting onto the referenced article. It seemed to hang up about deciding if I was a "bot" or not.

In any case, CS Lewis summed it up in his usual succint style.

He remarked "Watching a thief break into a house is not the same thing as forcing him to break into the house."

The thief made the choice - all God did was watch him.

The thief will answer for the break and entry when he dies, if he isn't caught by human agency beforehand. But it was his decision.

As for God knowing our future, I've often indicated my father turned up in my room the night he died. That was in January 1979.

A few years earlier he and I had an argument - one of many, thanks to his foul temper. That night I had a vision where "Someone?" said "I've had enough of him! He's doomed! All he's done all your life is ridicule you and destroy your confidence. And it's deliberate - I know!"

Then He(?) added "He's only got about five years left to live!'

Continuing "You'll tell him this! It would have been better if you hadn't because he'll only get worse!"

Sure enough another argument broke out the next day. In anger I related the vision, which I didn't really believe anyway. To my astonishment my father broke down and cried. Then he said "If I'm doomed, I'll make sure I take you with me!" (PS - I changed this from my original post as I was trying to recall a conversation which took place in 1974, 52 years ago).

That was in 1974 sometime. He did indeed get worse and towards Christmas 1974 I moved to Perth on the other side of Australia for 2.5 years to get away from the toxic home environment.

To cut a long story short he lived "about five years" after the vision.

As for getting worse, after I left more of the vitriol fell on my sister and she tried to commit suicide twice when she was about 15 or 16, so our parents sent her over to me in Perth. She was no shrinking violet either.

Anyway God knows our future. Meanwhile my father's temper just got worse and worse. THAT was HIS decision, even if God already knew how he would continue to behave.

We have free will even if God sees how we will use it.

God has the ability to choose not to know. For example, in the permanent separation God chooses not to know what the wicked doing. God cuts ties completely with the unsaved. The unsaved still live on their own with free will.

We took the knowledge. We deserve the consequences. Even the elohim failed and three times took us down with them into chaos. We no longer have any concept of life in the neutral zone. We can only do as the entire Bible tells us, act in servitude to the Father and each other in this life to make the best of a bad situation.

Michie said:

If God knows everything you’re going to do, can you still be free?

It’s one of the oldest questions in philosophy. For centuries, theologians and skeptics alike have wrestled with the tension between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. If God already knows every decision you will make, are your decisions real? Or is the future already written — unchangeable, mechanical, and determined?

For many, this leads to a fatalistic view of history: that every action, every thought, every choice is merely the outworking of a divine decree. Foreknowledge, they assume, demands determinism. But that only seems true if you start with a false assumption about time and an impoverished view of God.

The dilemma collapses when you stop imagining God as a cosmic spectator watching a chronological timeline unfold. Because the God of the Bible is not bound by time — time is bound by Him.

The problem lies not in foreknowledge itself, but in our insistence on mapping God’s knowledge onto human temporality. We picture God like a being ahead of us on the timeline, peeking around the corner to see what we’ll do. But God is not ahead of us in time — He is outside of time, or better put, time is inside of God. He is not watching history like a surveillance reel. Time is not His limit. It’s His creation.

Click to expand...

If the question asked makes sense, it is because for God to know is to do. It is not only time that is his creation, but existence is, and reality itself.

But the will itself need not be free (uncaused) to be real. Considering that God is the cause of all that is not himself, the will cannot even be, and its deeds and decisions cannot be real, unless God establishes it. WCF 3.1

Michie said:

If God knows everything you’re going to do, can you still be free?

It’s one of the oldest questions in philosophy. For centuries, theologians and skeptics alike have wrestled with the tension between divine foreknowledge and human freedom. If God already knows every decision you will make, are your decisions real? Or is the future already written — unchangeable, mechanical, and determined?

For many, this leads to a fatalistic view of history: that every action, every thought, every choice is merely the outworking of a divine decree. Foreknowledge, they assume, demands determinism. But that only seems true if you start with a false assumption about time and an impoverished view of God.

The dilemma collapses when you stop imagining God as a cosmic spectator watching a chronological timeline unfold. Because the God of the Bible is not bound by time — time is bound by Him.

The problem lies not in foreknowledge itself, but in our insistence on mapping God’s knowledge onto human temporality. We picture God like a being ahead of us on the timeline, peeking around the corner to see what we’ll do. But God is not ahead of us in time — He is outside of time, or better put, time is inside of God. He is not watching history like a surveillance reel. Time is not His limit. It’s His creation.

Continued below.

If God is all-knowing, how can man have free will?

If God knows everything you re going to do, can you still be free

www.christianpost.com

Click to expand...

The analogy I always come back to is this:

You and I go to a coffee shop and I see you order your coffee, so I know what you ordered at the coffee shop. I was present there when you made your coffee order.

Let's now say that I get into a time machine and go back two days. I now exist before you order your coffee, I have knowledge of what you will order because I was there--already--when you made your order. Does my knowledge mean you lose your ability to choose what to order? Are you now bound, fatalistically, to order that coffee? Or, rather, do I have knowledge because I'm present when you make your order?

If God stands outside of time, then His knowledge isn't that all events unfold deterministically or fatalistically; it's that He is present in all moments. It means that His omnipresence is not just about where-ness, but also when-ness. God is every-where and every-when. So the fact that He is there when you order your coffee doesn't mean you lacked the free agency to order your coffee; even though He knows this eternally. I would require a time machine, or some way to send information backward to my previous self in order to know this before you do it; but for God there is no before or after. He is all the time.

Carl Emerson said:

First you have to define what 'free will' is...

Our very nature limits what we can choose.

This means that so called human 'free will' is a misnomer.

The ability to choose within limits is given us but He controls the boundaries.

Consider the Testimony of John...

12 But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name, 13 who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of a man, but of God.

And Paul... "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God...

Click to expand...

The pragmatic semantic structure of scripture verifies the distinction you are calling for right here ->
John 8:32
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Romans 6:18
Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Romans 8:20
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
1 John 2:29
If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

childeye 2 said:

The pragmatic semantic structure of scripture verifies the distinction you are calling for right here ->
John 8:32
And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
Romans 6:18
Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
Romans 8:20
For the creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly, but by reason of him who hath subjected the same in hope,
1 John 2:29
If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him.

Click to expand...

John 8:36
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Mark Quayle said:

John 8:36
If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

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Exactly. The neutral mode of the term "free will" is illusory and only serves to obfuscate the reality of the eternal power. This can be proven in the moral/immoral context, using pragmatics. --> The problem with leaning towards agape in the context of a neutral free will is it doesn't indicate that caring is a mover not an option.

When Agape is framed merely as an orientation or an "option" for free will to select, it implies that the "self" exists independently of that care and simply chooses to apply it.

Vanity becomes the vehicle for revelation so that ego cannot claim the eternal in vanity. It means the universe is emergent and the Eternal is an objective positive, wherefore revelation is Gift, NOT an achievement.

ViaCrucis said:

The analogy I always come back to is this:

You and I go to a coffee shop and I see you order your coffee, so I know what you ordered at the coffee shop. I was present there when you made your coffee order.

Let's now say that I get into a time machine and go back two days. I now exist before you order your coffee, I have knowledge of what you will order because I was there--already--when you made your order. Does my knowledge mean you lose your ability to choose what to order? Are you now bound, fatalistically, to order that coffee? Or, rather, do I have knowledge because I'm present when you make your order?

If God stands outside of time, then His knowledge isn't that all events unfold deterministically or fatalistically; it's that He is present in all moments. It means that His omnipresence is not just about where-ness, but also when-ness. God is every-where and every-when. So the fact that He is there when you order your coffee doesn't mean you lacked the free agency to order your coffee; even though He knows this eternally. I would require a time machine, or some way to send information backward to my previous self in order to know this before you do it; but for God there is no before or after. He is all the time.

Click to expand...

If there is a possibility for them to order differently, then you can't be all-knowing about it, and if there isn't another possibility of them ordering/choosing differently, then they can't have free will about it, etc.

God Bless.