One of the more common objections I hear to Christianity is “If God knows everything in advance, how can we possibly have free will?” This always seemed like a strange objection to me. So, when I stumbled on it being made in a blog today, I figured I’d respond. I’ve copied a brief snippet of the objection along with my response. Hope it’s helpful to someone.
Hollow Earth Philosophy Wrote:
The bible tells us that there is a definite end and there is nothing we can do to change this end. WAIT JUST A MINUTE! If there is a definite end how can you have freewill? He tells me that he can still make his own choices it just will not matter in the end.
Abyssal Wrote:
Your friend doesn’t seemed to have articulated a point very clearly, but I think he may be on the right track and that your objection is somewhat illogical. There would be a definite end whether there is a God or not. What I mean to say is that you will, by definition, make the choices that you are going to make. If you can choose between A and B, and you’re going to choose A, then A will result.This is true regardless of the veracity of the idea of God. It’s just reality. Although having an omniscient God, who knows everything in advance, sort of drains the meaning out of speculating about “what could have been,” because He knows with absolute certainty what would happen. Speculation is therefore useless, as there’s no conceivable way to get around His foreknowledge.
Nothing can be changed because if you would have taken the alternate route He would have known in advance. And, then we’d be talking about whether you were forced into making that decision.
God’s knowledge of the end result didn’t hinder your ability to actually make the choice, or diminish its moral significance, so I’m not sure that your (very common) objection has merit.
December 26, 2007 at 9:59 pm |
So what you are trying to tell me (putting god aside) no matter what, if I pick A I was always going to pick A. This has always been a problem for me. The reality of things makes me want to believe that I can have the ability to choose each and every time something comes up, and change my option if I had a chance to do it again.
I do not see a problem with having an omniscient god and still having the ability to choose any possibility with no set path in front of me.
You make an extremely clear point. Yet in your point I see no argument why I will choose A and why if I were to choose an alternate option I would have always chosen that option. There is still the possibility of me changing the path I am on without anyone knowing that I changed the path.
For example I may be on a path right now that has all the answers to all my questions laid out. In two days I will board a plane to Phoenix, and I will have a dinner, and I will land, and so on. The choices are laid out for me, but then suddenly the plane I was suppose to be on is no longer going to Phoenix. Now my path is different, and I re-decide everything again. A freak occurrence that has offset where I was suppose to go and now I have many different paths I can take.
This gives me the option to set my destiny yet again. Now for argument sake the omniscient being could not have known this was going to happen because if he did know then the path I was on was planed past the plane ride, it had me eating meals and landing, but if the all knowing being had knowledge of this the path should have never made it to the meal and landing. That path is still there and one of the options that I had the ability to take until the freak occurrence.
The freak occurrence is out of my control thus spinning me onto another path.
December 27, 2007 at 12:09 am |
Nice try Bixfix but no sale. Abyssal is right. The fixation of the future is a truth recognized by theists of every stripe as well as athiests. The very concept we call “future” necessitates the inevitability of its events. “What will be, will be”. The critical aspect of this knowledge is whether one accepts the idea that the inevitable is determined by blind fate or by a omniscient being – otherwise known as “God”.
Atheistic fate can only lead to pessimism; theistic determinism leads to optimism, for we believe that an all wise God has determined to bring about righteousness, justice, and mercy in the ultimate end of things.
“Doesn’t that make us robots?” Glad you asked.
No, because in between cause (God) and effect (the future, or, the ultimate end) is “means” (we the people). “Can we change the future?” Again, glad you asked. 
Believe it or not, YES, you can change the future! Every thing we do effects the outcome of the future. But we can only act in a way that God has determined. Our experiences and motivations do not appear from a void, but are provided by God in accordance with His determinate council. Yes, God determines the future, but we are the way He has determined it. We are not robots or puppets, but we are the recipients of the wonderful blessing of seeing God’s plans fall into place for His Glory and the good of the elect and the justice of the damned.
The shame is that many people that consider themselves Christians miss out on this wonderful truth as they try to put the power of their own wills on the throne of sovereignty.
God bless. http://www.sovereigngod.wordpress.com
December 27, 2007 at 9:27 am |
So try this on for size. God is not all-knowing. God does not know all the details of how things are going to happen. He has a plan. That is where he is going to. Pretty good chance he will get there, but all of the details are unknown, even to God.
God is not all-powerful. There are some things he simply can’t do. That is why he has a plan because he can’t just make it so without actually doing the work to make his plan come true.
In the KJV version of Genesis 3:14 God is supposed to have said to Moses that “I AM.” But in the Hebrew the verb is actually in the future tense. The footnotes in the NIV give it more accurately as “I WILL BE” – God is becoming that which it chooses to become.
December 27, 2007 at 4:11 pm |
Joel you are only correct if the future is unchangeable. If you are saying we have the ability to change the future then the future can be changed and that my friend is a contradiction to “What will be will be.”
Also you say, “YES, you can change the future! Every thing we do effects the outcome of the future. But we can only act in a way that God has determined.” I believe that is determinism which means that no we do not have the ability to change the future, and no we do not have freewill. At least thats what it sounds like you are saying. Did I miss something?
December 27, 2007 at 11:25 pm |
bigfix, you are right, in my haste I said “change” where I should have said “affect” the future. Everything we do affects the future, a general truism. So we do not change the future, but rather the future is established through or actions, which were predetermined.
lwk: I appreciate your use of scripture to support your views. I don’t know how familiar you are with the Bible, but just in case you are a novice, I will ask you to check these verses out:
Isaiah 46:9-10 (KJV)9 Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, 10 Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:
Ephesians 1:11 (KJV) In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel of his own will:
Acts 2:23 (KJV) Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain:
[If God "foreknew" the crucifixion of Christ, then there was no chance that it would not happen. It was fixed in time. And not only did He foreknow it, in fact He determined it to happen.]
Romans 8:29 (KJV) For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Here we see that God foreknows people, and predestinates them.
Romans 8:30 (KJV) Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
In this verse, we see that those predestinated were predestined to an ultimate end = “glorification” – popularly know as “heaven”.
As far as “I AM” is concerned, I think the word conveys a continual state of being, as when the Bible describes God as Him who “was, and is, and is to come”. It speaks to His eternal existence, not specifically His omniscience or omnipotence.
January 6, 2008 at 4:21 pm |
[...] my first post I had some responses and carried on the discussion on another blog you can find that here. What I would like to talk about is a point that came out of that [...]
November 6, 2009 at 5:27 am |
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