Free will vs. Omniscience?

Question

So, Ive been thinking about this problem I see with the concept of Free Will and an Omniscient God...

I understand that God is responsible for the creation of EVERYTHING in the universe. I understand that, according to Pslam 139, "all my days are written in Your Book" - meaning that God already knows what choices I will make, but that I have the Free Will to make those choices.

The problem I have then is that, if God is truly omniscient, then why did he bother to create me as a Hellbound Atheist? Surely, I have the Free Will to choose to beleive and to go to Heaven as a saved one of his flock - but then doesnt this cancel out his omniscience, as he has me pegged as a Hellbound Atheist?? Or, if He really already knew I was going to change my mind in the end and convert - doesnt that rule out Free Will??

I cannot grasp the concept of Free Will and an Omniscient God.

Sorry JC - that sounds like a cop out. Now God limits himself?

luvdalz - you know nothing about me. I was born and raised a Christian. I wasnt brainwashed by the public school system - I was brainwashed by priests.

Answer 1

Try thowing 'omnipotence' in the mix and see if it gets easier. If God is omniscient, he already knows the course of the entire universe, start to finish, including his own actions. If he is omnipotent, or even has any power whatsoever, he would be changing what he already knows, and the former 'what he knew' would have been wrong. If you say he always knew he would change his mind, then his original knowledge or plan was a lie. The ****'s too deep to be believeable, unless you don't care or understand common sense and logic

Answer 2

Excellent question, and although I disagree with all the responses so far, I'm going to especially target luvdalz68's "inborn desire to know Him" and palomnik's assumption that Calvinism "does indeed create beings destined for eternal torment".

Palomnik's answer is somewhat correct in that Calvinists deny free will. However, free will involves the ability to look to God for salvation, not the day-to-day decisions that we make. No theology disputes that we have all the free will we want, but to the Calvinist, it's not a desirable thing, if we are unable to seek God out on our own, then no decision that we make will merit heaven. And if that's the case, God would be fully justified in doing absolutely nothing and condemning the entire human race to hell. Given our sin nature, everyone throughout history, save for God's intervening grace, has stood guilty before him. And luvdalz68 is wrong, there is no inborn desire to know God, too many people give man far too much credit for who the Bible says he really is. Man's nature is yours, hell-bound atheism, save for God's grace.

Looking at Man this way opens the door for God's omniscience, and a loving grace that chooses -- no, rescues -- his own from that destruction. God's foreknowledge was not a plan, not hoping or wanting, not an offer or negotiation or humbling of himself. He rules the universe and keeps his glory. I have no faith in a damaged mankind having any ability to make a choice for God.

Answer 3

Simple. You are a linear creature, meaning you exist in one time in one place. You can only see the present, the things that happen now. Your future is shaped by the choices you make in the present, choices that becomse past events that can never be changed. You are always going forward at a set pace that can not be changed by anything you do.

Omnicience is "to know everything", all the possible twists and turns that can happen in every event that has ever transpired. Such a being would have to live outside of linear, an observer and one who can manipulate linear existance but does not dwell in it.

Let's try to explain all this in lay-men's terms;

Your Present is you wake up hungry and decide to eat a sandwich you bought last night but did not finish and neglected to put in the fridge. Your past is solid, you did not put the unfinished sandwich in the fridge, and is something you can not change but it is constantly affection what could happen in your future. Your Future is (for simplicity) one of the following, a possible upset stomach, food poisoning or nothing happening at all ... and to be nice, I will say that nothing happens to you and you have a nice day.

Now, you will never know what your Future choices would have been or what possibly outcomes would have happened if you had put that sandwich in the fridge before going to bed because the choice to do so is no longer available to you and you can not fix the past. You will also never know, after your outcome has come to be, how the other outcomes would have affected the rest of your day, how that day would have affected you week, month, etc.

An omnicient creature CAN see every possiblity. He/She knows all the possible outcomes of putting the sandwich in the fridge before going to bed, and all the outcomes of those outcomes, and so forth and so on. He/She knows what would have happened if the other outcomes had happened, how they would have affected other outcomes and so on.

Also, you are assuming there isn't another you out there. Ever hear of the theory of Parallel Universes. Yeah, the Sci-Fi channel has beaten that horse to death, but the theory is based on the fact that if a person is presented with two choices, each with a unique outcome, two possible realities will stem from it: in one reality choice A happened, in the other choice B.

Movies such as "Terminator", "The ONE", and "Back to the Future" deal with this subject and there several science fiction short stories that deal with it as well. Omniscience is not impossible, but to understand it you have to accept the fact that what you see is only ONE aspect of a larger picture no mortal will ever see or fully comprehend. Not to sound snotty and I appologize if it come off that way, but that's what most people call "faith".

Also, who said there was only ONE omnicient divine?

~~ Abaddon

Answer 4

You weren't born an atheist. God created you with the inborn desire to know Him, but along the way you were brainwashed by your public school system and you turned away from Him. That was your Free Will. Knowing what choice people will make in the future does not affect your Free Will, because God will not interfere with that choice, even if He knows what you will do. He can only use the power of the Holy Spirit to convict your heart and encourage you to change.

Answer 5

Only Calvinists are consistent in their belief in divine omniscience; that is, they deny free-will, and believe that God does indeed create beings destined for eternal torment.

Other theists either ignore the problem or reconstrue their notion of divine omniscience.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molinism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Process_theology

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Theism

EDIT: To Gothic Angel: the MWI, like some other interpretations of quantum theory, is deterministic. But there are non-deterministic interpretations as well, such as the Penrose-Hameroff Orchestrated Objective Reduction interpretation, which dovetails very nicely with developing quantum-vacuum interaction hypotheses.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orch-OR

Answer 6

The two concepts really can't co-exist.

Much like the whole "good" god concept. If God created everything, then he created the devil, evil, etc. as well as what ever you consider "good", then how can he be "good".

PS Atheists don't have "hate in their hearts" they have Truth in their minds. Almost everyone of us realizes the importance of moral behavior, helping your fellow man, being truthful, etc. We don't "hate" christians (or other religious types), but we feel sorry that your eyes are closed and put your trust into a non-existant diety instead of taking care of yourself and those around you.

Answer 7

How does knowledge of what is to come cancel out your choice?

The fact that you deny God proves that you have free will, because the bible teaches that God's will is for all to be saved. If you're lost, you're acting against God's will. That means you're acting on your own will.

Furthermore, His omnipotence further reinforces your free will. You see, if he has the power to force you into his will, but does not, then you clearly have CHOSEN the path you're on.

Answer 8

they're completely inconsistent. there is yet another measurement to the argument that persons do no longer in many cases evaluate. for hundreds of years, people have argued the character/nurture subject. How a lot people predetermined via our genetics, how a lot via nature. in the 70s, people have been heavily into environmental determinism. Now, with our extra appropriate information of genetics, and learn of comparable twins, individuals are leaning in direction of genetic determinism. yet in the Adam case, God created the two Adam AND our surroundings. Therefor, God created guy with regardless of weaknesses or dispositions God knew he might have. it relatively is in basic terms to those who have not concept approximately it a lot that "unfastened will" is a given. If I also have a baby, I also have a constrained quantity of administration over his habit, on account that that youngster's habit be desperate via a mix of my genes, my spouse's genes and our surroundings. in spite of the incontrovertible fact that, it relatively is absurd for an all-understanding God to punish a guy if the God is familiar with in the past each little thing the guy can likely think of, think of or do. Christians make it like slightly test, wherein God isn't specific of the end result. in spite of the incontrovertible fact that, this is in all probability simply by fact, regardless of how a lot people take a concept like God, they continually do some anthropomorphizing , giving God guy-like questioning, thoughts and behaviors. The extra we comprehend genetics, the extra we would desire to continually learn the full question of unfastened will. for many persons, unfastened will is in basic terms a given. in spite of each little thing, without unfastened will, how might desire to we justify putting people in detention center? yet, it relatively is something yet a given

Answer 9

Good and philosophical question:

God knows the future, this is true. However:
Does this mean that all our actions are not a result of free will? Or does it mean that we truely do have free will and that God simply knows our decision beforehand?

From what I understand of quantum mechanics, all past and future events are alread determined, and we have little control over which outcome we are stuck with (See "Many worlds interpretation"). So although many possibilities may exist, we can only be stuck with one (in this reality).

Answer 10

It would only make sense if God lived in the future, in which case you have free will AND he has omniscience.

That aside, the "good book" is FILLED with contradictions, there's no point in really pointing them out because the only ones who look at the book critically are the ones who don't believe it anyway.