Does Jesus know who is ultimately going to be in heaven?

Question

If you are an Armianists answer me this: If as you say, Jesus died for everyone and is trying to save everyone, yet he knows who will ultimately end up in heaven, why then is Jesus trying to save those he knows will NOT end up in heaven? Seems he is waisting his time because he cannot change what he sees in the future. If they are not there in the future nothing he does to try to save them now is going to make a difference.

Answer 1

Christ does not "pre-determine" those who are going to die. Everyone has an equal chance and he will leave them that chance, until their deaths. Pre-judging them would take away their "free will" which is what "this whole mess is about" and therefore invalidate his sacrifice, which HE WOULD NOT DO!

Answer 2

You make a statement about Jesus "trying to save" someone. It's not like that. When Jesus died on the cross, remember He said "it is finished". It is up to each person to decide what they will believe in. Are you going to see, honestly, that you have sinned, are you going to believe that faith in Jesus Christ will erase that sin? Will you believe that He is the son of God, who died on a cross, rose again, and is the only way to salvation?

That is the choice each person must make. Jesus died so that we may live. The next step, is ours.

Answer 3

Everyone has been given free will to choose where they what to go when they die. Jesus paved the way so that every one is capable of going to heaven, but some made their own choice not to go and refused that free pass to heaven by not accepting Jesus as their savior.

Don't placet the blame on Jesus. He paved the way for ALL men and women to enter into the kingdom of heaven, When Jesus died on the cross for everone's sins. Yes, i said everyone's sins.. The choice is all yours as is the responsibility for your actions for choosing God or choosing satan over God.

Answer 4

Contrary to popular belief, everyone who has come through the flesh age will live for 1,000 years in 'heaven' with Yahshua as our King. After this period, and Satan is loosed again for a while, it is the people who make their choice who to follow and either live eternally in Yahshua's Kingdom, or go off into destruction with Satan. We will all have a taste of both systems to make our minds up who we like better.

YHVH is very fair, and lets us all make our own decisions on where we spend eternity.

Answer 5

These are just more reasons to conclude that religion... particularly the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) are utter, absolute nonsense. Let's look at 'omniscience', since you brought it up. 'Omniscience' is logically incompatible with 'free will'. 'Omniscience', all by itself, is sufficient to put the lid on 'free will'; omnipresence and omnipotence are irrelevant. It is not necessary for god to intervene in order to negate 'free will' as a possibility. Omniscience negates free will all by itself.

If we really DO have 'free will', then an omniscient god is logically excluded. The logical fallacy lies in the premise that if god is omniscient, all outcomes are already known to god... everything that you think, decide and do... and everything that you WILL think, decide, and do.

For an omniscient being, all of existence over all of time is laid out as a tapestry before him... past, present and future, down to the smallest detail of material, of thought and of deed, and all is constantly in his awareness. There is no past, present and future from that perspective... there is only an eternal 'now'.

If that is the case, since god already knows everything that will happen, then everything is already decided... and as we go along through life, we are merely doing what has already been seen by god. Since god knows and sees everything that will happen, NOTHING that we think or do can be contrary to what god already sees and knows. We might THINK we have free will... but since we are merely acting out what god already sees and knows, this can be no more than an ILLUSION of free will.

Put another way, if you come to a point of decision, you have no choice but to take the path that god already knows you will take... there is no other option. That works all the way down the path of cause-and-effect... and, along the way, it even casts doubt on the validity of the concept of cause and effect. I don't want to get into that, though... it makes my hair hurt.

So, imagine that since before time began, since before the universe was created, god has 'known' that you would come to a point of decision at some spatial and temporal coordinate, and that faced with the possible paths A and B, you would take path A.

Now, during the course of your life, you arrive at that spatial and temporal coordinate where this choice exists. You evaluate the potential outcomes, and you have it in your head that you have 'free will', and thus, you are free to choose between path A and path B. However, since god is 'omniscient', and god 'knows' that you will take path 'A', then path B IS NOT an option... it IS NOT a matter of choice... it is a 'NECESSITY'. OF NECESSITY, you WILL take path A. Not 'must'... not 'can'... WILL take path A. You DO NOT have a choice. Path B is NOT an option... it is not even a POSSIBILITY. The best that you can achieve is the ILLUSION that you are free to choose.

So, either god is omniscient OR we have free will. It is QUITE IMPOSSIBLE for BOTH of these conditions to coexist.

The only way out of this logical dilemma is to limit god's power; i.e., start taking away things that god can see and know, until we get to a point where free will BECOMES a possibility. But when we start doing that, then he ceases to be omniscient... and thus ceases to be a 'supreme being'.

So... free will is an impossibility concomitant with an omniscient diety. The following sums up the possibilities:

1. There is no omniscient diety... therefore, the whole argument is stupid and irrelevant.

2. IF we possess 'free will' AND god exists, THEN, of necessity, it is IMPOSSIBLE that god is omniscient. (This does not preclude the notion of 'god'... it just means that he can't be as 'supreme' as one might think he is... or wish him to be.) You are (logically) obliged to acknowledge that god CAN NOT BE all knowing... and since omniscience is one of the things that makes god 'all powerful', then this means that god CAN NOT BE omnipotent, either.

3. IF god exists AND god is omniscient THEN, OF NECESSITY, it is IMPOSSIBLE that that we have free will, and you are (metaphorically speaking) nothing more than a piece on god's eternal game board; and, thus, "... man is not responsible for his actions."

Personally, I vote for number 1. You can pick any one you want... but YOU MUST PICK ONE, because there are NO OTHER possible outcomes... NO OTHER logically valid choices.

It is unfortunate (for the Abrahamic death cults of desert monotheism) that the concepts of god were solidified as dogma a few thousand years before the philosophical discipline of 'logic' was dreamed up by the Greeks. Those that concocted the religion did not have access to the intellectual tools that would have enabled them to realize that they had 'screwed the pooch' with respect to assigning god's impossible attributes. It wasn't until the 4th century that this logical impossibility garnered serious attention, and churchmen got their theological 'dancin' shoes' on, trying to weasel their way out of the logical dilemma.

They did not succeed, and this issue continues to be debated even 'til this day. This logical dilemma (and the resulting 'cognitive dissonance') was a key element in some of the various 'heresies' that were spawned in the early days of Christianity.

However, the simple observation that these impossible beliefs still exist shows that this does not seem to have been a very big hindrance, under the simple expediency that "There is no problem so big that we cannot ignore it, until it will go away." Too bad for them, though... it DOESN'T go away.

Corporate religion is helped along by the fact that most 'believers' do not employ logic or critical thinking skills; heck... that's why they're believers in the first place. If they employed logic and critical thinking, they WOULD NOT BE believers. So, even though these concepts create a logical impossibility, it does not seem to present a significant problem for them.

Answer 6

Jesus does not know. Only his Father knows.

Read the New Testament. It will help clear up some of your fundamental confusions about obvious points of Christian theology.

Answer 7

I believe we all benefit like you may be the one to go to hell but some one might change your mind and that's why it's free will you gotta do it your self no one can do it for you....God uses ppl in all ways like he using any one to try to answer this question for you so you can be saved and not go to HELL so that's why i think he knows but don't think he said it can't change if you ask him to save you and live for him....... GOD BLESS YOU ......

Answer 8

Of course he knows. He got the Teacher's Edition of the bible from his dad. It has all the answers in the back.

Answer 9

You bet kimo-sabie.
He knows about the atheist today that is the born again christian of tomorrow.
What do you think, that we were born Christian?
Wrong.
We were not born Christians.
We were born sinners. All of us.

Answer 10

God knows all things. He gives us free will for us to determine our own fate.