A Way to Look At Free Will is to Consider What Merely Actually Happens.

[Mark Quayle]

But you're insisting here that the mere fact of God knowing it, is the sole cause of its happening. In some hypothetical world where God doesn't even exist but man does, should/would that fact of His non-existence, alone, necessarily change our choices, or perhaps suddenly render them to be free whereas otherwise they wouldn't be? And I'd submit that, from man's side of the fence that's exactly what we have, a world that's effectively free from His overt presence and therefore His moral authority and control, at least until we begin to recognize and believe in Him for ourselves. What will the servants do when the Master's gone away-and belief in His very existence is optional? We really show our faith by how we live-and that's why it's so important that people do not think that it's possible to be declared righteous apart from being righteous; the two are inseparable.

'The mere fact of God knowing it' is a lot more substantive a thing than you seem to take it to be. To my thinking, at least, God knows all fact because he is the cause of all fact.

But your hypothetical is, to me, like suggesting that God make a rock too big for him to pick up. The two notions you present are self contradictory. There can be no existence apart from God, so why conjecture on how it would be? More, the argument is circular, to suggest that such a thing happens apart from God as proven by a universe apart from God. But look up "God's Immanence."

I like your description of the fact that God's overt presence is lacking, 'from man's side of the fence', apart from faith. But while I more or less agree with you there, I'm not sure what that has to do with the hypothetical. Perhaps you only mean to say, "Since it is as if God is not here, to some of us, are not our choices then free, since they are [as if] free of causation?" No, whether a person considers God to be non-existent or irrelevant or not, as even many atheists would admit, everything we do, think and are is caused. Our will is not free, in the sense that it can violate cause-and-effect.

But to deal with what I think is the reason for your hyposthetical

 

[fhansen]

But your hypothetical is, to me, like suggesting that God make a rock too big for him to pick up.

Not at all-it's not about what God could or cannot do, but what He wills to do. He could squash all creation like a bug but instead allows it and the evil that results from the abuse of its free will to have its way, for a time, and for His purposes until He'll finally separate evil from from good eternally. Again, unless God, Himself, is evil, evil can only have its day if He allows it.

 

[Mark Quayle]

God necessarily enables and sustains every human act, whether good, evil, or indifferent. But He allows man to decide upon the act itself, and that’s the essence of man’s freedom. There’s a reason that Jesus never tortured, killed, lied, etc while on earth; it’s because those things go against the nature of God, outside of His will IOW.

You say "outside his will" -- 'Outside his command', I expect you mean, no? The reason Jesus never did those things is because he did not sin against God. God's command is indeed according to God's nature, and truly, the more we know God, the less we are inclined to disobey, not only because he commands, but because of his very nature that we increasingly love.

But your construction here supposes, I think, that God is hands-off concerning man's actual decision, while orchestrating everything else. Where do you draw that line? Or more to the point, perhaps, WHY do you draw that line? Besides that, logically, man's decisions, though he be such a small part of the chain of causation, are necessarily within the chain of causation, not just as effects, but also as causes. God controls all causes, since other effects result.

 

[fhansen]

I like your description of the fact that God's overt presence is lacking, 'from man's side of the fence', apart from faith. But while I more or less agree with you there, I'm not sure what that has to do with the hypothetical.

The scenario was meant to highlight the fact that with or without God's existence (as if His non-existence were possible), and therefore with or without His foreknowledge or predestining, etc, man is simply a morally responsible being, sufficiently responsible to be culpable for his actions. God's existence doesn't change that fact, at least for the purpose of this hypothetical case. And this is why we hold people morally accountable regardless. On our side of the fence we simply possess that sense or knowledge of justice.

IOW, just because God knows what will happen before it happens does not imply that He's necessarily the direct cause of it. He exists outside of time while we experience everything chronologically, sequentially, within the dimension of time. It's as if you were given the gift of foreknowledge about future events. That would not mean that you caused them any more than a biblical prophet causes the events he foretells.

 

[fhansen]

You say "outside his will" -- 'Outside his command', I expect you mean, no? The reason Jesus never did those things is because he did not sin against God.

No, the reason Jesus never did those things is because He is God. "When you've seen Me..."

 

[Mark Quayle]

But I strayed here. Why can't God allow man to freely make his choices even if that means allowing evil to enter the scene in the beginning by an act of disobedience directly opposing His will, and even if it might mean some men continuing to oppose His will later by resisting and rejecting subsequent grace (His calling us to make the better choice, back to Him)-and then, looking down through history, knowing the beginning from the end and the ultimate outcome that He's after, deeming creation to be worth it, as is?

A good God could not be the direct cause of evil, as in willing a malicious act, but could allow evil for His purposes, presumably to bring about an even greater good from it in the end. By allowing evil God is saying to us, "Look what occurs when My will is not done, when creation is turned away from Me". Here we experience, we literally know, evil, and can therefore identify and know good by contrast-and have the option to choose between the two. Anyway, if the distinction between God's allowing vs directly causing evil isn't acknowledged, then God would be evil, and untrustworthy, and heaven may really be worse that hell for all we can know.

You are conflating two things, I think. You ask, "Why can't God allow man to freely choose? God DOES allow man to freely choose, and man does precisely what God planned.

It occurs to me as I write this, that maybe it is because you don't see the way the Reformed think of God himself, that you don't understand why we use the notion of two wills of God. The one will is not stoppable, not violable ---the decree, the plan, indeed the purpose in creating, show this use of the term, "will of God". This is all according to what God does. There is no consideration (on our part) of "allow", "obedience", "disobedience" in the meaning of this will, though "allow" etc are part of what God uses to accomplish it. He consults nobody, and waits for nobody before deciding. This is also according to his nature, though so is the second will, which can be violated --his "command" is also his will. He uses his command to present his nature to us, and to accomplish his sovereign will, his plan, his inviolable decree. God IS going to accomplish everything he set out to do, and he is not going to be accomplishing it by flying on the seat of his pants. God's nature is definite, not changing, not ambivalent.

As for the idea of God directly vs indirectly causing evil, I'm not sure the distinction is valid except in our minds. Evil is indeed contrary to his nature, and he even says outright that he is not the author of sin, nor does he sin, nor does he tempt anyone to sin. God can cause us to do what we do, but we are, nevertheless, the ones that do it. That might be hard to swallow, but the Bible gives us several passages that demonstrate it, including the story of Ahab's death, and the verse, "The heart of the King is as a watercourse in the hand of the Lord. He directs it wherever he pleases." What we go through, even in our rebellion, God takes us through.

We can be 'outside the will of God' in our lives, but realize confidently upon our repentance that all along we were 'within the will of God' for my life. Nothing we do can separate us from his ability to govern what we do.

How do you draw the line between "willing a malicious act" and "willing that a malicious act happen" -- to me it is pretty simple. God caused the act by causing someone to will and to do the act. But God did not do the act himself. That might be hard to stomach, but it happens all the time. As some unbelievers have pointed out, believers want to excuse God by claiming free will, yet we have no answer when it is pointed out that when God created, even knowing ahead that sin will be, he created us anyway. Their question is not why God created us, but why should we excuse him?

I think it is revealing to point out that God when he causes someone to will and to do a sinful act, while this intimately involves the will and nature of the person involved, God says he does not tempt anyone to sin. To me this indicates a definite difference between "free will" and God causing.

 

[Mark Quayle]

No, the reason Jesus never did those things is because He is God. "When you've seen Me..."

The reason he did not sin is the same reason we should not. While I agree it is impossible for God to sin, this was done in a human way --he EARNED what we are given. He could have claimed sonship as the heir, and inherited what he instead earned by his righteous life, but he did not go that route. To me this is a great pun --that this PROVES he was God.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The scenario was meant to highlight the fact that with or without God's existence (as if His non-existence were possible), and therefore with or without His foreknowledge or predestining, etc, man is simply a morally responsible being, sufficiently responsible to be culpable for his actions. God's existence doesn't change that fact, at least for the purpose of this hypothetical case. And this is why we hold people morally accountable regardless. On our side of the fence we simply possess that sense or knowledge of justice.

IOW, just because God knows what will happen before it happens does not imply that He's necessarily the direct cause of it. He exists outside of time while we experience everything chronologically, sequentially, within the dimension of time. It's as if you were given the gift of foreknowledge about future events. That would not mean that you caused them any more than a biblical prophet causes the events he foretells.

Agreed, as far as it goes....

Not so sure about what you may think I'm agreeing to, though, haha. You may mean something here I am not taking you to say.

 

[fhansen]

The reason he did not sin is the same reason we should not. While I agree it is impossible for God to sin, this was done in a human way --he EARNED what we are given. He could have claimed sonship as the heir, and inherited what he instead earned by his righteous life, but he did not go that route. To me this is a great pun --that this PROVES he was God.

It's both/and. In His human nature He was obedient to God's will-but He was also God incarnate-and so the express image of God. Anything we think we know about God must be weighed in light of the person of Jesus as revealed by His every word and deed.

 

[fhansen]

Not so sure about what you may think I'm agreeing to, though, haha. You may mean something here I am not taking you to say.

I'm not sure I thought your were agreeing . Didn't think you were, in fact. Anyway, the point is simply that God foreknowing the future choices of man does not mean that He causes them.

 

[Clare73]

.......

 

[5thKingdom]

That argument is based in wrong understanding of the Biblical usage of "God's foreknowledge," which is about himself, not others.

How very true.
A Sovereign and Autonomous God.