If God is omniscient how can free-will exist ?

Question

I'm a Christian so I`d apreciate answers only from believers, thanks in advance.

So does God either know anything we will do, who will go to Heaven and who won't, or is there a little gap, room, for us to chose. Would that imply God is not omniscient ? Do the Scriptures even say that ? The question comes down to : how can an omniscient God that knows all exist with at the same time with "free-will" ?

Answer 1

Anyone who has read the Holy Scriptures knows that they contain literally hundreds of prophecies. Such historical events as the fall of ancient Babylon, the rebuilding of Jerusalem (sixth to fifth century B.C.E.), and the rise and fall of the ancient kings of Medo-Persia and Greece were all foretold in detail. (Isaiah 13:17-19; 44:24–45:1; Daniel 8:1-7, 20-22) The fulfillment of such prophecies is one of the strongest proofs that the Holy Scriptures are indeed God’s Word, for God alone has the power both to foresee and to determine what will happen in the future. In this sense the Holy Scriptures indeed record the future written in advance.

God himself declares: “I am the Divine One and there is no other God, nor anyone like me; the One telling from the beginning the finale, and from long ago the things that have not been done; the One saying, ‘My own counsel will stand, and everything that is my delight I shall do’ . . . I have even spoken it; I shall also bring it in. I have formed it, I shall also do it.” (Isaiah 46:9-11; 55:10, 11) The very name by which God identified himself to his ancient prophets is Jehovah, which literally means “He Causes to Become.” (Genesis 12:7, 8; Exodus 3:13-15; Psalm 83:18) God reveals himself as the One who becomes the Fulfiller of his word, the One who always brings his purposes to realization.

Thus, God uses his power of foreknowledge in the outworking of his purposes. He has often used it to warn the wicked of coming judgment as well as to give his servants hope for salvation. But does God use this power in an unlimited way? Is there any evidence in the Holy Scriptures of things that God has chosen not to foreknow?

All the arguments in support of predestination are based on the supposition that since God undeniably has the power to foreknow and determine future events, he must foreknow everything, including the future actions of every individual. Is this supposition sound, however? What God reveals in his Holy Scriptures indicates otherwise.

For example, the Scriptures say that “God put Abraham to the test” by commanding him to sacrifice his son Isaac as a burnt offering. When Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac, God stopped him and said: “Now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.” (Genesis 22:1-12) Would God have made that statement if he knew in advance that Abraham would obey this command? Would it have been an honest test?

Furthermore, the ancient prophets report that God repeatedly spoke of himself as ‘feeling regret’ over something he had done or was thinking of doing. For example, God said that he “regretted [from the Hebrew na·cham´] that he had made Saul king over Israel.” (1 Samuel 15:11, 35; compare Jeremiah 18:7-10; Jonah 3:10.) Because God is perfect, these verses cannot mean that God made a mistake in selecting Saul to be Israel’s first king. Rather, they must indicate that God felt sorry that Saul turned out to be faithless and disobedient. God’s using such an expression in referring to himself would be nonsensical if he had foreknown Saul’s actions.

The same term appears in the most ancient of the Scriptures where, in referring to the days of Noah, it says: “Jehovah felt regrets that he had made men in the earth, and he felt hurt at his heart. So Jehovah said: ‘I am going to wipe men whom I have created off the surface of the ground . . . because I do regret that I have made them.’” (Genesis 6:6, 7) Here again, this indicates that man’s actions are not predestined by God. God felt regret, grief, and even hurt, not because his own actions were mistaken, but because man’s wickedness became rife. The Creator regretted that it had become necessary to destroy all mankind except Noah and his family. God assures us: ‘I take no delight in the death of the wicked.’—Ezekiel 33:11; compare Deuteronomy 32:4, 5.

So did God foreknow and even decree Adam’s fall into sin, as well as the calamitous consequences that this would bring upon the human family? What we have considered shows that this cannot be true. What is more, if God did foreknow all of this, he would have become the author of sin when he made man, and God would be deliberately responsible for all human wickedness and suffering. Clearly, this cannot be reconciled with what God reveals about himself in the Scriptures. He is a God of love and justice who hates wickedness.—Psalm 33:5; Proverbs 15:9; 1 John 4:8.

The Holy Scriptures do not reveal that our individual future is somehow determined in advance, or predestined, by God. Instead, what they reveal is that God has foretold just two possible destinies for man. God gives to every man the free will to choose which destiny will be his. The prophet Moses long ago declared to the Israelites: “I have put life and death before you, . . . and you must choose life in order that you may keep alive, you and your offspring, by loving Jehovah your God, by listening to his voice and by sticking to him; for he is your life and the length of your days.” (Deuteronomy 30:19, 20) God’s prophet Jesus forewarned: “Go in through the narrow gate; because broad and spacious is the road leading off into destruction, and many are the ones going in through it; whereas narrow is the gate and cramped the road leading off into life, and few are the ones finding it.” (Matthew 7:13, 14) Two roads, two destinies. Our future is contingent upon our own actions. To obey God means life, to disobey him means death.—Romans 6:23.

God “is telling mankind that they should all everywhere repent. Because he has set a day in which he purposes to judge the inhabited earth in righteousness.” (Acts 17:30, 31) Just as the majority of mankind in Noah’s day chose to disobey God and were annihilated, so today the majority do not obey God’s commandments. Yet, God has not already determined who will be destroyed and who will receive salvation. In fact, God’s Word says that he “does not desire any to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) Even very wicked people can repent, become obedient, and make the changes necessary to gain God’s favor.—Isaiah 1:18-20; 55:6, 7; Ezekiel 33:14-16; Romans 2:4-8.

To those who are obedient, God promises everlasting life in a peaceful paradise, an earth cleansed of all wickedness, violence, and war, a world where there will be no more hunger, suffering, sickness, and death. (Psalm 37:9-11; 46:9; Isaiah 2:4; 11:6-9; 25:6-8; 35:5, 6; Revelation 21:4) Even the dead will be resurrected and given the opportunity to serve God.—Daniel 12:2; John 5:28, 29.

“Watch the blameless one and keep the upright one in sight,” says the psalmist, “for the future of that man will be peaceful. But the transgressors themselves will certainly be annihilated together; the future of wicked people will indeed be cut off.” (Psalm 37:37, 38) What will your future be? It all depends on you.

Answer 2

Why must I be a beleiver in order to answer this? Truth is, if you get a response from a beleiver, it will only concrete teh BS into your mind, rather than giving you what TRUE knowledge does - freedom from lies.

You have said so yourself - there cannot be omniscience with free will. They will try to tell you that free will allows us to make a choice - but that God already knows what you will choose.... So, although youre allowed to free choose, your choice is already known.
This would make sense under normal circumstances...however, Pslam 139 also reads that "All my days are written in your book - from the day I am conceived until the day I die." So then, if my entire life is written out in his book and he is omniscient, then free will cannot exist - he has already written down the plan for my life, and no matter what I choose - my life is only going to go the way he has planned it.

So which is it? Is he Omnisicent, or is there free will? Cant have both.
Of course, the religion also states that God is the only God and that you will worship no others.... But the Christians have worked their way around this passsage by inventing the lie of the Trinity....that way, they can legally, without upsetting this almightly God, worship Jesus AS God, by saying that he is both God and the Son of God at the same time......

They will have it both ways, even if it damns them....

Answer 3

I would say that just because God knows what we will choose does not mean that he controls our choices. We have free will even though God knows what we will choose.

God is outside of time and space - I believe he sees all time as a static instance from the prospective of eternity. He sees the entire drama of human history played out before him, he sees all time at once. We have free will as we are moving along our path, but God sees the choices we will make.

Einstein said that time is an illusion. I believe that to be true.

I think God does know who will go to heaven and who will not, but I also think that the choice is ours.

I read DuckPhup's comment:
"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."

And I do not see how it negates free will - just because God knows exactly which choice you make does not mean that you didn't have free will to make that choice or not make it. He just knows you THAT WELL that you will not choose something he didn't know you would.

Answer 4

Well, that's been a major theological question for about 4,000 years so I don't propose to offer a definitive explanation, but, here's how I see it...

1. Time is a function of the created universe. God, being by definition the infinite creator, exists outside of space and time. Therefore, He has what we might call a holographic view of creation -- He sees it all at once. (Omniscience is actually much broader in scope, but this deals with it relative to the created universe.)

2. God's purpose in creating figures into the equation. As nearly as we can understand, He desired to have other intelligent and emotional creatures capable of appreciating, sharing in and enjoying His nature. Beings created 'in His image'. Part of that image is the capacity of 'will', the ability to choose to appreciate, share and enjoy. Or not. "Love" is a key concept here. Love must be a choice, whereas obedience and even adoration can be productions of autonomic nature and instinct.

3. We are locked into the creation in just 4 dimensions. All these appear linear to us; from our perspective everything is divided into past, present and future. The past is fixed, the present is becoming fixed and we have only a limited comprehension of how all this causes the future.

4. God, however, being infinite, not only knows what we see as the fixed elements of time, He also knows all the possible elements of all possible events from the beginning of creation, given the physical and moral constraints (laws) He has built into that creation.

5. Quantum mechanics gives us a hint about this kind of knowledge. In a quantum universe, everything that can happen, DOES happen, with a different, parallel universe branching off at each option point. Does the particle deflect left, right, up, down or off at some angle when it collides with another particle? Are the two particles fused by the collision? Do they not collide at all?
Given the astronomical number of particles in the universe, the number of parallel realities approaches infinity.

6. If omniscience means being able to know all of this, all at once, it becomes 'simple' to figure in all the possible choices of a few billion individual humans over the course of a few thousand or even million years.

7. So -- God's plan includes all the possible choices every human being could make. From our perspective, locked in what appears to be a partially fixed universe, He knows who will make the choice to love Him and who won't. The moral laws of the universe predesitine those who choose to love to be saved, and those who choose not to love to be damned. "Predestination", if I read Romans 8:29-30 correctly, is just another term for moral cause and effect. The effect is fixed, the causal choice remains up to us. God's design is not altered in either event.

I know this has some rough spots in it. I'm not God to be able to understand it all. But I hope that helps.

Answer 5

Welcome to the question of Arminianism vs. Calvinism!

God is omniscient, and there are tons of verses for that! God being omniscient means that he knows all things past present and future. Some verses for ya:

God is infinite in knowledge: Psalm 147:5, Isaiah 40:13-14, Romans 11:33-36

Things past and present: Psalm 139:16, Hebrews 4:13, Psalm 139:1-3, Job 28:24, 2 Chronicles 16:9

Things future: Isaiah 46:8-11, Isaiah 40-48, Psalm 139:4, Acts 2:22-23

and there are tons more, i promise! So God does know all things that did happen, will happen, has happened, are happening, and might happen. there is room for us to choose, but God knows every choice you might choose and what choice you ARE going to choose. We have free will, because the bible is clear that God gave us free will, usually the biggest question is wheather or not we can use this free will to be saved (arminianism) or if God can change and alter our wills to see him, and want to be saved (calvinism). there is a lot of evidence for the latter. Arminianism generally will pray for a person to be saved but don't believe God will change their will (contradiction? I think so...) whre as calvinists believe we have free will, but God can change our hearts. Think about it, Would you have found God if God hadn't changed your heart? Do you feel like you had (and on a daily basis HAVE) free will to choose to follow him or stray and sin? Don't you have the choice to draw near and far from him? Being sinful and in a fallen world, we don't love God's glory as much as he does or hate sin as much as he does so without him changing our wills....

So to answr your question, yes! God is omniscient and yes! We have free will, but God has the power to change a person's heart and will (i believe....along with calvinists)

Hope that helps!

Answer 6

God is omniscient. You aren't. Making personal decisions involves free will because you have no way of knowing the outcome. However, just because you don't know the outcome and are free to choose does not preclude the idea of the omniscient "whole of creation" (what we call God) that already includes the choices you make as well as their outcomes.

Answer 7

'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 8

There are Levels, and LEVELS!!!! of understanding as well of Awareness, remember the Movie were the words, "You can't Handle the true", were said?, think about, the true freedom we have, it depend of our own Level of Awareness, and the conditions that God Gift of Intelligence, can achieved for our self's, after what we can enter and into a new Level of awareness, achieved also a new Level of consciousness, were common senses are nothing because we are to become ready to use the power of our own reason, to conduct our self's i n Life, and listen only the things we which the most to listen ad nothing that it can become derogatory to God, His Son Jesus or His Holly Family. God is Infinite, and he is a much advance? a/o a head time in which we are, in the material World, even if God a/o Jesus are part of this World, their time its Fur a head of our own God bless you, in Jesus name.Amen.

Answer 9

I still do believe we have parts in making a decision either to go to hell or heaven. That ambigious thing called free will plays the role.
I have certain occasions where I was so tempted into doing something, and almost on the verge of doing it and I used my mind to know that it is wrong and asked God "please help me not to do it" and there He was closing every door lest I fall into the trap.
So I think this free will stuff has something to do with using your brain and not your feeling nor emotion. And I think we can choose either to use or not use our brains.
Let me here what you think on that.

Answer 10

God's omniscience does not interfere with our free will.

If you see a boy jump off of a diving board into a pool, you know that he is going to get wet. Your knowledge that water makes things wet did not cause him to get wet. The boy decided to jump off the board and that is how he got wet.

The same thing works with God. Yes, he knows every action that we will do. Nothing surprises God. We still have free will. WE decide whether or not we will jump off the diving board. It is just that God knows us so well, that He knows what we will decide to do.

Answer 11

Its like this...... if you are in china and you get this vision that in five minutes a person in the U.S. is going to get hit by a car then you can't really do anything about it. It is their choice to walk across the street and it is the drivers choice whether or not to pay attention. So those people still had free will even though you new what was going to become of them before it happened.