In other words, if God is all knowing, then you cannot possible make a decision and God not know you are going to make it. In simple terms, lets say that you have to choose between Coke or Pepsi. God, being all knowing, has to know what you will choose. Let's say God knows you will choose Coke. You cannot possibly choose Pepsi then, since that would prove God wrong, thereby, dispoving God. So, if you cannot possibly choose Pepsi, how can there be free will?
2006-07-26 04:54:48 · 31 answers · asked by works_out_a_lot_27 1 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Most of these answers are saying the same thing. but I think what is being missed here is that you can't choose Pepsi. So, in effect, you never were even given a choice, you only thought you were.
2006-07-26 05:00:59 · update #1
Ok, no more on the "I know this or that" We (people) are not God, so we cannot take a mortal arguement and apply it. Saying you know the sun is going to set so you made it set does not apply. First off it is not a choice. 2nd, you do NOT know if it WILL set, you only know that it has every day since God made it so.
2006-07-26 05:20:48 · update #2
Finally, this was not asked to question anyones' faith. It is merely a question worth pondering. I am not saying one way or another whether there is a god or not.
2006-07-26 05:30:40 · update #3
You're absolutely right -- get into the philosophy in depth, and you will come to the conclusion that exhaustive divine foreknowledge and free-will are logically incompatible.
And don't tell me God can do the impossible -- God can't do self-contradictory things. (And that doesn't mean that there is some specifiable thing of which God is incapable -- it means that your proposition was devoid of meaning.)
If God knows what you'll do in 10 minutes, then you're not free to do anything else: that's the bottom line. God doesn't know the future because the future doesn't yet exist to be known! God may know possibilities and probabilities, but since every being in creation has at least an iota of self-determination, God can always be surprised.
There's a link at the bottom to a very chewy philosophical text if you want to read more. There are theists who accept this -- process theists. It has interesting theological ramifications, to say the least. I hope you stick to your process of reasoning and pay no attention to the "it may be absurd, but it's a mystery you just have to accept" chorus.
And BTW, God isn't omnipotent either ;-).
2006-07-26 05:01:02 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
God may be all knowing, but that doesn't mean he controls minds. If you have the choice of Pepsi and Coke, and God knows you will chose Pepsi he has not forced you to do anything. He simply knows you very well and therefore what you would pick.
Although God is all knowing, I don't see him being a fortune teller. Man does have free agency and can thus act as he/she sees fit. We can make decisions God doesn't agree with or hope we would do.
2006-07-26 05:04:17 · answer #2 · answered by Andrew B 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Since God is [NSgy], or Neutral Spiritual energy, God is not involved in ones life [with rare exceptions] but has set up a system in which everyone is operating under the Laws of Karma. We lost "free will" when we took on an individual MIND in order to operate in the realms controlled by the MIND. Being [NSgy], the Soul cannot be other than it is, ever. So, the Soul has an operating system I refer to as the Apapsyche, with two aspects: Attn, and Awar.
Man consists of three simultaneously existing, and yet separate realms of vibrational energy. The inner core is ones Soul, then the MIND, and finally, the physical realm including the brain and physical senses.
What determines ones actions is ones Fate Karma, administered by ones MIND. Part of what goes into ones Fate Karma is unfulfilled desires from ones past life, and these are to be worked out in this life. So, ones Karmic activity in this life is not a matter of present choice, but has been set by one while determining ones Fate Karma for this life while in the Astral plane.
Actually, there is no "free will" in an absolute sense. There is only a conditioned will that is mostly set psychologically, socially, and determined by ones Fate Karma....which is automatically interfaced with those individuals with whom one has Karma.
2006-07-26 05:23:24 · answer #3 · answered by docjp 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
This is a great question. In essence you've captured the paradox of an "all-knowing God."
I agree with you. If there exists, anywhere, a being that KNOWS the future without a doubt... then we all live in a system of predestination. Apologists can twist it all they like, in the end it doesn't change the fact that if your choice was known to God, then you never had a choice at all. That no matter what happened, things were going to work out in a specific way.
2006-07-26 05:08:04 · answer #4 · answered by Eldritch 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It seems like your mind is already made. Think about possibilities and alternate realities. How you ever played a video game and saved it, then played a little more and got stuck. Then went back to the saved game file and played it another way. Try repeating that scenario and still retaining the knowledge of all the possible scenarios. But also try to do this in a non timespace environment and with other levels of consciousness doing some of the work for you. Like a fractal. Each consciousness has it's work to do but still representing the whole.
2006-07-26 05:03:13 · answer #5 · answered by Corey 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
You somewhat are silly. In your quesiton you said, decisions we make... how can that be free will? If we make decisions then it is indeed free will. God does know our thoughts, he knows all about us. He knows the number of hairs on our heads, our rising, our lying down, etc. But he's not the one making the decisions for us, is he? He's not constantly taking over and making up our minds for us. We do have free will. You're argument is completely absurd. You seriously need to sit down and rethink everything, because it's absolutely ridiculous.
2006-07-26 05:02:49 · answer #6 · answered by ridersinthesky11 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
If I know you are going to choose Coke, how is it that I did anything to MAKE you choose Coke?
Just because you know ahead of time what someone will do, doesn't mean you had anything to do with the decision that person made. It just means you know.
2006-07-26 05:00:08 · answer #7 · answered by Kithy 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Correct. Free will and future omniscience are incompatible. Thus, making any arguments of the form "God gave us free will" to be foolish. Such a being would be able to just create us IN heaven or hell, since he already knows the outcome. Or not create some of us at all. Whatever, it is inherently foolish and one of the many, many, many, many, MANY basic logical flaws within Christianity.
2006-07-26 04:58:17 · answer #8 · answered by ? 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
God can know all, but it's whether he chooses to or not. He didn't create Adam and Eve to disobey, but gave them free will. They chose to disobey. To create them knowing they would disobey would have been wrong, and God cannot do evil.
Imagine it like this: you have a radio. You can listen to any station you wish. However, you can also choose NOT to listen to a particular station or even choose NOT to listen to the radio at all. God can do the same way. He can choose to know or not to know.
2006-07-26 05:00:48 · answer #9 · answered by CulturalWiz 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Freewill has been around since Adam and Eve, they had the choice to obey God or disobey what he told them. Freewill falls in to whether we chose to be saved or not and whether we choose to serve God. Everyone has that choice.
2006-07-26 06:40:38 · answer #10 · answered by judy_derr38565 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋