What if I do something different than what God's foreknowledge says I will do?

oi_antz · Jan 16, 2014

You would never have chosen A on day two because the circumstances made you choose B. If the circumstances on day two were exactly the same as day one (which is impossible) then you would have chosen A on day two. But, even though the circumstances on day one would have led you to decide A, God knows that given the circumstances on day two, you would choose B. Your question is illogical. How can the future be any different from what it will be? It's just history that has not yet happened. It is just as sure as it has already happened, there can't be two different futures because then there would be two different histories. I don't know how someone can get so confused about it.

Scott1979 · Jan 16, 2014

God knows what were are going to head of time but he doesn't affect the outcome of our choices. He doesn't interfere with free will. He knows in advance if we are going to pick A, B, C, D or whatever. We however have the ultimate choice in what we are going to do. I don't get what's so hard to understand about that.

God wants us to make the right choice but He doesn't interfere with us making the choice. Now when people choose to follow God they choose to accept what He believes is right and wrong. That could be deemed as influence to a certain degree. It's really no different than a parent teaching there child what is right and wrong. We choose to believe what are parents teach us or we don't. In the end we have the choice.

I believe in God and in 2012 I learned a lot about free will. My grandmother was sick for a awhile and passed away in August of 2012. Less than month later my "father" took his own life. I was so mad at God for that. I thought that He could have intervened and stopped the suicide since we were hurting so bad from my grandmother passing away. What it boils down to is that my "father" chose to end his own life. God didn't influence at all. He had free will to choose to end his life or not. He was a very selfish, self centered person who cared about nobody else but himself.

What I have expressed here in regards to God is what I choose to believe. It's not concrete fact.

Scott1979 · Jan 16, 2014

So it goes on and on with a thread going nowhere. Yes He does have the power but He will not interfere with free will. He will not interfere with us making a decision. He wants us to make the right decision but it is ultimately up to us. God will not get in the way of us making a decision. All I am talking about here is free will. Nothing more, and nothing less. We have total power of the decisions we make.

oi_antz · Jan 16, 2014

Yes, I would like to see biblical evidence that He doesn't "interfere" with our decisions. There is biblical evidence that He sometimes does.

Scott1979 · Jan 16, 2014

I also would like to see evidence He does. That would blow free will totally out of the water.

Joshua260 · Jan 18, 2014

Good discussion, though I think it's wandered off into a discussion of God's sovereignty versus free will. However, I think that neither view neccessarily requires that God cannot not know what one would eventually choose, whether it be through free will or through a forced decision.

So going back to the OP, I think it includes a false assumption that God does NOT have foreknowledge. But I believe that is an incorrect assumption. God sees all of time at the same time, so whichever one chooses (a or b)and for whatever reason, God knows what that choice will eventually be.

Akureyri · Jan 21, 2014

Scott1979 said:
When people choose to believe in God they accept the notion that God knows everything. He knows what's going to happen in future. We don't He already knows if we're going to pick A, B, C, D or whatever. We're not going to fool God. The decision we make at the time we make is already known by God. I don't know if your over analyzing this or what but it sounds to me you are comparing God to a human who can and will change there mind. He knows all plain and simple.

I would like to ask what you hope to accomplish by this continued thread? You have shot down pretty much every answer in here. What are you looking for? Any religion out in the world is based partly on faith. Faith is a belief in something that we do not know whether it exists or not. Those who choose to believe in God, believe He is an all knowing, all powerful God. That's what a person chooses to believe, and there is nothing wrong with that. If YOU choose to believe in God then you will learn that what you are asking isn't possible. We do have free will to choose what we do in our life. For those that believe in God they come to the understanding that God wants us to make the right choices. He offers the promises of the Bible and Heaven for those who live there life for Him. Once again, that's what people choose to believe. The argument you have going here doesn't have a logical outcome because you are getting into what people believe and not concrete fact.

Before you and other Christians accept notions such as "God knows everything" and "God can do anything", do you evaluate such assertions to see if they are logically coherent? If not, why not?

oi_antz · Jan 21, 2014

Akureyri said:
Before you and other Christians accept notions such as "God knows everything" and "God can do anything", do you evaluate such assertions to see if they are logically coherent? If not, why not?

Let me answer for one of those "other Christians". I think that should God be responsible for everything we call existence, then He should be capable of doing anything with it and most likely capable of calculating everything there is to know about it. That does seem logically coherent to me, how about you?

AvgJoe · Feb 16, 2014

Akureyri said:
Let's say on day 1, God knows I will choose A out of a day 2 A/B choice. When day 2 comes around, I freely choose B instead of A. What happens to God's foreknowledge that I would choose A?

God knows what you will do before you do it but God does not make you do anything and if you decide to do B instead of A He already knew that you would make that choice too.

LilLamb219 · Feb 21, 2014

MOD HAT ON

This thread has gone through a Clean Up.

Please remember that the SOP states that only Christians may respond to the OP.

If you notice a post of yours missing, it is because you either violated the SOP or responded to a posting that did.

MOD HAT OFF

oi_antz · Feb 21, 2014

LilLamb219 said:
MOD HAT ON

This thread has gone through a Clean Up.

Please remember that the SOP states that only Christians may respond to the OP.

If you notice a post of yours missing, it is because you either violated the SOP or responded to a posting that did.

MOD HAT OFF

Do you have a backup of the deleted conversation? I would like it for reference and to approach DogmaHunter for further discussion.

Glico · Feb 24, 2014

This is quite an interesting question. Hmm...

I guess what you are thinking is, can we overwrite something that God thinks or plans to happen?

Akureyri · Mar 1, 2014

dhh712 said:
Are you aware that would not be possible if God knows everything? If God knows everything, then he would know what his yet to be made choices will be. For example, if God knows he will choose A out of an A/B choice and has a choice to choose either A or B, then to choose B, he would have to jeopardize his knowledge of everything. Or he could be precluded from choosing B, in which he wouldn't be able to choose B and thus wouldn't be all-powerful.

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It's clearly something beyond my capability to understand and thus I can't furnish you an answer (which is also why I said I imagine He makes choices, yet to me a choice is something intrinsic to a human's nature; since God is immutable and infallible, I suppose a choice would be something which isn't compatible to His nature. However, it can only be understood as a choice to us that He created us. Could that be understood in a different way, one which is biblically accurate? It seems the question is best suited for someone who has way more theological and biblical knowledge than I do that the moment).

Who set up the rules by which some people go to heaven and other don't (or go to hell)?

It seems you want me to explain God to you in terms which can make logical sense to you and as I emphasized before, that I can not do.

So you believe in a logically impossible being?

Would it not have been easier to simply type "yes" or "no" rather than "See my previous answer for the question as to whether God loves everyone."?
Again: Do you believe your God loves everyone? (this question should require either two or three keystrokes)

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Well, it may be easier, but that is the way I write. I usually do not have simple yes or no answers and I will not give one now. If you do not care for the manner in which I write, you simply do not have to write to me; yet I do not care to change my writing style when I do not recognize a purpose for it. I already directed to where the answer can be found, the bottom of post #93, and I do not care to reiterate it.

If you believed God loved everyone, I'm sure you would say yes. So I'll take that answer to indicate you don't believe god loves everyone. Why do you not hold the belief that god loves everyone?

1) I'm not asking why he is worthy of my worship. I'm asking why he is worthy of anyone's worship.

2) Why are you willing to worship something which is capable of preventing mass suffering but does absolutely nothing about it?

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1) The question can only be answered once someone has a relationship with God. Clearly there are many who do not feel He is worthy of worship. For me, He is worthy of my worship because of the relationship I have with Him. And by worship, I mean the center of my life.

How do you know that what you have a relationship with is really a god?

2) The center of my life is God and not humans, though they are second. If the choice comes to God or humans, I will choose God.

Really. So if God has commanded you to slaughter 100 children, you would slaughter the 100 children. Why?

What do you suppose is a more reliable guide to how the world works?
A) a book which was written some 2,000 years ago by authors whose credibility cannot be verified
B) the studies of advanced modern science of the 21st century?

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The book to which you refer in A does not explain how the world works according to the way I perceive you are meaning it, as in scientific objectives and purposes; therefore, of course choice B would be a better source for this.

Then why do you rely on the Bible as a means to understand how the world works?

Once again, what will happen if God knows on day 1 that Pete will make a freely made day 2 A/B choice of A, but Pete instead chooses B? If you don't know, then just say so. If you do know, please share with me what would happen. Thanks!

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Since it can't happen, I of course would not know what will happen in the situation as you state it.

Why do you think Pete can't choose something in conflict with what God knows he will choose? Are you saying Pete can't freely make choices? Or are you saying God can't have infallible foreknowledge of Pete's future choices?

If God's foreknowledge can't be compromised, then either:
A) God doesn't have infallible foreknowledge
B) Humans and God can't make freely made choices

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This is the way we would understand it. Yet, as opposed to what our worldly logic tells us: God has infallible foreknowledge and humans have free will. And He probably can make choices, yet I don't know this from Scripture, so that is just a speculation.

So which is it?
If God's foreknowledge can't be compromised, then either:
A) God doesn't have infallible foreknowledge
B) Humans and God can't make freely made choices

Since you already asserted that God can make choices, then you must agree that God doesn't have infallible foreknowledge. Is that correct? Or do you wish to retract your assertion that God can make choices?

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I wouldn't say I asserted it since I was more or less speculating. It seems the matter of God having choices is something I'm not sure of though it seems perhaps He has them in a way which doesn't compromise His infallible foreknowledge and our own free will. This of course, will not make any logical sense to us, but then so much of God can not be explained by our logical minds. You may get more informed answers to this question in the Christian Apologetics forum; I would imagine the people on there are more versed in logic and biblical understanding than I am at the moment.

Do you see the logical fallacy I am pointing out?

lesliedellow · Mar 4, 2014

Akureyri said:
Let's say on day 1, God knows I will choose A out of a day 2 A/B choice. When day 2 comes around, I freely choose B instead of A. What happens to God's foreknowledge that I would choose A?

God's foreknowledge is determinative, so you can't falsify it.

It is true that many Christians are squeamish about the fact that that limits human free will, but there are many passages of scripture that leave no doubt about that being the case:

"Praising God, and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." (Acts 2.47)

In other words they felt as if they were acting freely, and to the extent that nobody was holding a gun to their head, they were, but ultimately their conversion was God's doing.

"And he said, Therefore said I unto you, that no man can come unto me, except it were given unto him of my Father." (John 6.65)

Again, nobody can come to God, unless God chooses to incline him in that direction - and then he will come.

"The king's heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water: he turneth it whithersoever he will." (Prov 21.1)

Self explanatory.

" The Lord hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil." (Prov 16.4)

God predestines some to salvation, but those destined for hell were similarly created by him for his own purposes.

What if I do something different than what God's foreknowledge says I will do?

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