Christians, how can you "sin" when logically, free will can't even exist under a perfect omniscient God?

Question

Basically, you can't have "free will" under a perfect omniscient God, because you would never be "free" to act in any other manner than that God always knew you would act in the first place.

If you COULD act in a manner contrary to how that God "knew" you would act, then he wouldn't be all-knowing, would he?

So how is it that you can "sin" when you don't even have the freedom to act in any manner other than what your omniscient God has "ordained" that you do?

And then you get punished merely for doing exactly what God knew you would do and knew that you never had any choice but to do in the first place?

That's not a God, that's a sadist.

Woah apologists, under Christian doctrine God knows the future, including the exact moment of each human's death. "Even the hairs on your head are numbered." So it's absurd to believe that as a perfectly omniscient being he knows some future contingencies, but not all.

Moreover, it would be illogical for a perfect being to CHOOSE to remain ignorant of some knowledge he could possess. Illogic is imperfect, so therefore under your belief system God is not illogical.

It's absurd to believe a perfectly all-powerful being would choose to remain ignorant of some future events. Being perfect and unchangeable, there would be no reason for him to remain ignorant of those events, as they would not affect him in any manner.
It would be illogical for such a perfect being to do so, and as I've said before, illogic is imperfection, which we know God is incapable of.

So David, God knowingly created some people just to punish them for the actions he knew they would take?

Again, that's not a God, that's a sadist. You do realize you're worshipping a sadist, don't you?

Palomnik, of course I generalize, but would you not agree that how I've characterized Christian doctrine is the most prevalent Christian orthodoxy?

Also, God is "timeless" under mainstream Christian orthodoxy, and therefore not bound by the same strictures of such things as future contingencies.

In my view there's no getting around it, it's simply absurd to believe both in a perfect omniscient God and human free will. Unless, of course, you're willing to do all those mental gymnastics to get around the patently obvious absurdities, which basically means you're willing to do anything to cling to an absurd belief.

Trustdell, umm, yes it would be illogical for a perfect, immutable entity to choose to remain ignorant of knowledge that it could possess. More knowledge is always better than less knowledge, and even moreso when the entity possessing it will not be affected to its detriment one iota by gaining the additional knowledge. Therefore it's illogical that a perfect, immutable being would choose to be less knowledgeable.

You're simply saying "it's not illogical" doesn't make it so. Of course, you have to say that because you desire so strongly to cling to your absurd belief.

Answer 1

Great question, but once again Christians prove the lack of ability to read and understand. They can not understand that with a God that knows what exactly you are going to do then in fact it is not free will. There is nothing that you can do that God does not already know you will do. The weirdest thing is that Christians can not understand that simple concept.

In addition, I have asked this question in the past, and continue to wonder, Is it that Christians can not read or do they not understand what they read? They never answer the question (granted because they can't).

Answer 2

The whole argument revolves around whether we have the ability to look to God for salvation, everything else is arguing about what doesn't exist in theological circles. It has nothing to do with day-to-day decisions and whether God operates us like marionettes. No theology advocates that. Can't believe there is so much misunderstanding of free will.

However, you will continue to get responses like you have for those that believe we have the ability to choose God. The two cannot be reconciled. Either God is not omniscient, or Man does not have the ability to seek out the Lord. I'll go with the latter & give God the benefit of the doubt.

There's far more to discuss on this issue, but I'll just say that theologically speaking, you are absolutely correct, no analogy or "explanation" has ever been plausible enough to convince me otherwise.

Answer 3

Omniscient means all knowing and that has nothing to do with man's free will. The fact is God knows before you are born whether you will accept or reject him. Now if God knew you would reject him so he took you and punished you. You would cry out that God was unjust because you were punished for something you never actually did. But on the other hand He, knowing what you would do before hand, allowed you to live your life all the while telling you the only way to escape the judgement to come was to accept Him, and you rejected Him. Then the punishment would be just because you had every chance to mend your ways and turn from your wickedness.

I must say I have read many questions from many non-believers and yours is by far the stupidest. The reason is because free-will can only exist under a perfect omniscient and just God.

Quite trying to justify your life of sin by trying to eplain away God. Especially when you know in your heart that there is a God. You try to get rid of God through your faulty "logic" because if there is a God you are headed for judgement.

Answer 4

Many theists, starting with Molina in the 18th century (EDIT: 16th century, sorry), have reconstrued their notion of divine omniscience in this fashion: God knows all actualities as actualities, and all possibilities as possibilities, but does not know future contingencies as settled facts. Google "scientia media." This is also the approach taken by process theologians.

EDIT:

You say "under Christian doctrine..."

There is no monolithic "Christian doctrine." There are many forms of Christian doctrine which diverge from one another in fundamental ways. You can't generalize. You are correct that the particular construal of omniscience that you criticize is incompatible with free-will of a libertarian variety. However, "omniscience" simply means that God knows "all." Future contingencies exist as possibilities, not as facts. God cannot know a non-existent thing to be existent, because that would be divine ignorance. On the other hand, if he knows a future possibility as a possibility, his omniscience is maintained, and so is the reality of the agent who will cause one or another possibility to be actualized.

You're in very, very deep philosophical waters here, you know. Try reading William Hasker's "God, Time, and Knowledge."

Answer 5

Does God make us sin?
God created the conditions where free will creatures would be able to make a choice between obedience and disobedience to God. God does not cause anyone to sin (James 1:13). In the freedom of our own wills, we decide to rebel against God. God simply allowed the condition to exist where sin was possible.


God knows the future of what the free will creatures choose. Free will does not stop becoming free because God knows what will happen.
If we are going to choose" something, then we really are making the choice -- otherwise it wouldn't be logical to assert that God knows what we are going to choose. Choice implies the ability to decide between different options. Again, by definition if God is knowing what we are going to choose, then He knows what we are going to choose between options...otherwise we are not choosing anything and the statement is illogical.

God's knowing what we will choose is a function of His omnipresence since He is in all places all the time. If He were not, He would not know what choices were were freely going to make. To deny that God is all knowing, even of the choices we make, is to deny His omnipresence and reduce God's nature to something more like ourselves, which would be a mistake.

Answer 6

You have the choice of sinning or being true. God gives us that choice to make us pure. If you ask questions like this then you will only find that there is aways an answer. You atheists think that you can trick people out of feeling the way that they do. Well I for one have more faith than that. I will not be tricked by some little sleeve bag who thinks that he is so much better than everyone else just because he doesn't believe in anything. It's people like you that will be filling the pits of hell. You are an agent of the Devil himself. He sends people like you to test us true christians and we will be rewarded for standing up to people like you. If you deny God then God will deny you.

Answer 7

Bottom line:
God does NOT ordain anyone to any eventuality.
Deuteronomy 30:19 and Joshua 24:15 indicate we can choose.
There exists categories.
There is the category of those that will receive harsh judgement and destruction.
There is the category of those that will receive blessings and positive results.
Our decision is:
INTO WHICH CATEGORY DO WE WISH TO PLACE OURSELVES?
Are we willing to make any kind of sacrifice to ensure our placement into a particulat category?

Answer 8

You try to trap the Holy ones, that is why God will not listen to you, you ask, say, make fun and be wicked is all you can ever do. But you can never know the none stop of things God made. And the God whom you talk about is the one who created and you people know every well. But God's understanding is far off and he is the one who calls you demons. why can't you understand that the God is hiding from you because your sin is very open to us? If anyone talks about God and not that God wants are called Blasphemies against the Holy Spirit.

Answer 9

There is no doubt God knows what we will do but that doesnt me we continue to sin! Sin still exists even though we have free will - we have free will so we chose NOT to sin.

Catechism Says -
1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one's own responsibility. By free will one shapes one's own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

Answer 10

God knows all. He puts trials and adversity in our paths to test us so that we may choose the right. By choosing the right, we show obedience to Him by following His Commandments and growing closer to Him.

People, without realizing the TRUE circumstances behind why things happen (persay God is testing us), they blame suffering and all bad things on Him. "Why is God doing this to me?!," "why does God make bad things happen to good people?," "why does God never make anything bad happen to bad people?" These are commonly heard questions on behalf of those who truly don't understand the meaning behind why we experience things.

To even begin to understand, we must back track. The Lord has a plan for each and every single one of His children whether we may know it or not and no matter which religion or faith you belong to. But one must realize that it is not God who forces us or makes us choose His plan...WE do. We can either accept whatever knowledge WE DO have of God, His Only Begotten Son Jesus Christ, or any of their teachings or we can reject them. We DO have free will. The Lord WANTS us to succeed and WANTS us to choose the right. He is pleased when we do the things we SHOULD be doing like going to church, praying, being humble, offering charity to one another, offering tithes, keeping the law of chastity, and doing all of those other things that we've been taught to do.

Our Father In Heaven may be Almighty and All-Knowing, but He doesn't choose to want to know whether we're going to make a good decision or a bad decision. He just observes and keeps record of it in the books...if we choose the right, he remembers it and is so proud of us. He loves us SO much and is so happy when we are obedient...it shows how much we respect and love Him. It's the best thing we can do!

Just believing in God and Jesus is not good enough...some religions teach that faith alone will get you to Heaven but it's simply not true. We are also judged according to our works (and what we DIDN'T do during our mortal life). It's contradictory to say that having faith alone but not doing the works is okay. It's not. If you TRULY have faith, there's no reason why you wouldn't want to do the works. If the Apostles believed that Jesus was the Son Of God but they didn't want to do any missionary work with Him, wouldn't you think that Jesus would be disappointed?

"Sin" is KNOWINGLY choosing to do something that is against God's laws and accordances. While He blesses all of His children with the precious gift of free agency, or being able to make our own choices, he expects us to use that gift reverently. Instead, people don't. They choose to drink alcohol and ruin their health and be drunkards, plaster their skin with tattoos and defile the Holy Temple of our bodies that the Lord has given us as a gift, to engage in addicting substances and behavior like smoking cigarettes, doing drugs, and watching pornography, using the Lord's name in vain, mistreating others, engaging in premarital relations that cause horrible consequences such as abortions, STDs, and homosexuality.

These things are not good in the sight of God and He knows and remembers if we've engaged in those things unless we've truly repented. Otherwise, His children who do these things which may bring temporal happiness don't realize the guilt and unhappiness they are truly going to feel in the long run.

The Lord loves each and every single one of us, no matter our faults, and He's rooting for us. But in the same respect, He truly doesn't forgive unless we ourselves are truly sorry for what we've done and not do it again. Only then will you truly feel the blessings of what it's like when you're doing the right things and always remembering your Father In Heaven.