How Can We Have Free Will If God Knows the Future?

[Michie]

A lot of people think that if God knows what we’re going to do ahead of time, then we have no free will.

But that’s a huge mistake—and to see why, you’ll need to watch to the end of this short video.

Classical theism holds that God is omniscient, meaning that he knows everything, and this means that he knows the future. This is how God lets the biblical prophets know what’s going to be happening in the future.

However, the terms “foreknow” and “foreknowledge” don’t appear at all in the Old Testament, and they appear only seven times in the New Testament. With that small a number of examples to study, we have to be very careful about how we understand it and what inferences we draw from them.

In Greek the verb that means “to foreknow” is proginôskô, and the noun for “foreknowledge” is prognosis—yes, the same as the English word prognosis.



Foreknowledge in the Bible

Continued below.

How Can We Have Free Will If God Knows the Future? – Jimmy Akin

jimmyakin.com

 

[Bob Crowley]

To use an example posed by CS Lewis (if my memory serves me correctly) it is one thing to watch a thief break into a room and steal something.

It's quite another to make him break into the room and steal something.

I don't have much doubt that God knew what Adolf Hitler would do, and saw him doing it before he did it.

But God also held back and allowed him to do those things. Hitler was given a lot of leeway to carry out the evil things he wanted to do.

I think he'd be paying for it now in no uncertain terms. Like Judas Iscariot he probably wishes he'd never been born.

 

[SavedByGrace3]

A lot of people think that if God knows what we’re going to do ahead of time, then we have no free will.

But that’s a huge mistake—and to see why, you’ll need to watch to the end of this short video.

Classical theism holds that God is omniscient, meaning that he knows everything, and this means that he knows the future. This is how God lets the biblical prophets know what’s going to be happening in the future.

However, the terms “foreknow” and “foreknowledge” don’t appear at all in the Old Testament, and they appear only seven times in the New Testament. With that small a number of examples to study, we have to be very careful about how we understand it and what inferences we draw from them.

In Greek the verb that means “to foreknow” is proginôskô, and the noun for “foreknowledge” is prognosis—yes, the same as the English word prognosis.



Foreknowledge in the Bible

Continued below.

How Can We Have Free Will If God Knows the Future? – Jimmy Akin

jimmyakin.com

Other concepts and doctrinal words not found in the Scripture include "sovereignty" and "control." Yet, so much of our teaching is based on these two concepts. "God is sovereign and in control of everything." I think this concept is a faith destroyer. It also presents a false image of God and His nature. People end up defining God not by the revelation Jesus gave us; rather, they define God by the results of their doubt-filled prayers. "Pray and see what happens; whatever happens must be the will of God." So many times, people will overrule the scriptures and even the words of Jesus using these "omni" factors, A.K.A the "General Attributes of God (GAG). Suddenly, the plain and simple words of Jesus: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: For everyone that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened" get overruled and canceled out by the overriding theological OMNI factors. They tack "if it be thy will" at the end of every clear and simple statement Jesus made about prayer, the will of God, and faith. Essentially all the words of the NT and Jesus get nullified by these GAG principles. Nothing is really concrete. All the promises of God in him are NOT yea, and in him - and NOT Amen, unto the glory of God by us. Every discussion about faith in God and His word are destroyed by this mindset.
Settle back into the Words of Jesus and the NT revelation. Jesus IS the defining revelation of God and do not need to be qualified or modified. He IS the perfect and exact image of the Father. If you trust in God, trust also in HIM!

 

[Diamond72]

A lot of people think that if God knows what we’re going to do ahead of time, then we have no free will.

All things work together for Good. God declares what He is going to do and He watches over His word to perform what He said He was going to do. Romans 8 28 "And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose."