If God granted us free will, how is it that during the last supper Jesus (God), told the gathered apostles that "one of them would betray him", the one being Judas. Where was Judas' free will? Just before his arrest Jesus, (God) told Simon Peter that "before the rooster crowed three times he would betray him", again, where was Peter's free will? Is free will selective? It seems to me, either we have free will or we do not. If we do not, how can we be held accountable for anything we do by a just God? If we have no free will as my examples seem to indicate, the atonement is meaningless, since we had no choice in the matter.
How do you correlate free will with an all knowing God? The two concepts are mutually excluding.
2006-06-22 13:46:05 · 8 answers · asked by Paul S 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Just because God knows what you are going to do doesn't mean that God is the one that makes you do it. You still do that. God just doesn't prevent it.
2006-06-22 13:50:45 · answer #1 · answered by LindaLou 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Jesus knew the future because Jesus is the Son of God. He was not issuing commands, forcing anyone to do any of those things. Peter was bragging about his loyalty when Jesus issued his prediction of the three denials. Jesus wasn't commanding him to betray him, he was showing Peter that his pride was unfounded.
You have a stronger case if you point out that Jesus told Judas, "Hurry, do it now," when Judas left Him. However, the book also mentions that Satan entered Judas.
So an all-knowing God and an all-commanding God are two different things. You cannot have an all-commanding God and free will, but you can have an all-knowing God and free will.
Hope this helps.
2006-06-22 20:54:24 · answer #2 · answered by sideshot72 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Judas example is quite good for your argument but the Peter one is kinda weak. He just didn't want to be killed and wanted to protect his own life.
Now then, for Judas... where was his free will?
Let me first clarify this, if Judas has no free will then we have no free will? Is that what are getting at? No, you know you have free will, that can't be it.
We either all have free will or we all don't have free will.
If you have free will right now,
Judas had free will at the last supper.
The correlation of God and Free Will ( sounds like a book title).
God is all knowing because He exists outside of time and exists at points of time simultaneously. The fact that He is able to know what our free will produces in life shouldn't be hard to understand.
Just because we haven't chosen yet doesn't mean He hasn't already witnessed our choice.
2006-06-22 21:06:35 · answer #3 · answered by Tom C 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First of all Jesus is NOT God, the Father is. 'and the Father reconciled the world unto Himself through Jesus', 2Cor 5:18. God knows everything, He knew that Eve would eat of the forbidden fruit, He warned them, His angels warned them, but they did it anyway. That is why, when He looked down the history of time itself, He knew that we would need an intercessor between us and Himself, So He Begat Micheal (Jesus) Rev 3:14; Ps 2:7; King David knew him, Ps 110:1 Mark 12:36. 'The Lord (God) said to my lord (Micheal) sit thou on my right hand, until I make thine enemies thin footstool'.
2006-06-22 21:09:04 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Good argument. I choose free will over all-knowing. And I think that by the time the Gospels were written, there was some editing that went on to make sense of how things went down.
2006-06-22 20:51:36 · answer #5 · answered by keri gee 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I believe we have free will,it's just that God knows what we are going to do before we do it.I don't know why God has gone to the trouble of making us if God already knows what it is we will do with our free will.But I do think you like many if not all of us in the world are searching for the meaning of life and for life.When you think about it too much your head will hurt.
2006-06-22 21:18:06 · answer #6 · answered by wolfpackfour@ameritech.net 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Just because a rainmaker knows it will rain, is he the one who chooses when it does?
This is the same case.
Just because Jesus knew he were gonna commit these acts, doesn't neccessarily mean he didn't have a choice within it.
Hope that helps. ;)
2006-06-22 20:52:16 · answer #7 · answered by tonytheboyy 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
All-knowing isn't the same as all-manipulative.
2006-06-22 20:49:58 · answer #8 · answered by Iamnotarobot (former believer) 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋