I think that if God is omniscient, he has no free will. Do you agree?

Question

If he is omniscient he knows what he will choose to do at every point in the future. That means that he cannot choose to do something different. That means he has no free will.

If you say he doesn't know what he will choose, then he's not omniscient. If you say omniscience doesn't include knowing the future then you are changing the meaning of omniscience.

Christian93: Not the same. You THINK you might buy a car. You can change your mind. God KNOWS he will buy a car. God cannot change his mind.

askmrreligion: You still have not proven me wrong. My argument stands. God knows all actions he will take regardless of whether time has any meaning. He still can't change his mind.

Answer 1

Hi 6000,

Your thought makes sense if the definition were on of eternal perspective, but man's definition in order to have rational meaning must be limited to that which is understood of men. As such omniscient means having all knowledge with regard to our present existence. Within that limitation, yes God is omniscient.
Does that omniscience extend to the extent of all eternity, that would suggest that God's progression is finished, that there is no more he can do.

While I do not claim to understand all that awaits us in the eternities, it is my experience that as one gains knowledge, new possibilities present themselves for consideration. Is their an end of that natural law? If there is, has God reached that end? I don't know, I can not at this point even comprehend the possibility, but I do know enough not to place the limited framework of my understanding as a reference to that of God's ability.

Within our frame of reference, God is omniscient. Having said that, our frame of reference does not approximate that of God who understands and controls natural law as a tool. So does God have the ability to make a choice? My experience and progression suggest to me that choice is a part of natural process or law. As a truth it would be unchanging in the eternities so unless there is an end to progression I would maintain that choice is still a principal of use to God.

Answer 2

I can draw out a plan of my life, and say "in this year, I will buy a new house. In this year, I will have another baby, in this year.....I still have the free will to change it whenever I please, but if I believe it to be a perfect plan, I will stick with it.

Omniscient is all-knowing. If you know all, you know all--past, present, future.

God has made a perfect plan, He can change it, but He will not. It's perfect.

He promises that He is a never-changing God. He is true to His Word. That's why He never lets us down.

Answer 3

You are incorrect in your understanding of omniscience. It is the quality of having all knowledge (Isaiah 40:14).

God exists outside of temporal reality. For God there is no passage of time. He knows the infinite past and the future "in the now".

God is timeless, in that he sees the passage of temporal time as you or I see a range of mountains far in the distance. At this distance the range of mountains seems to be one continuous line seen all at once, yet as we get closer we see then mountains separated by miles and miles. God sees everything in the "eternal now". Hence, time does not "pass" for God.

Answer 4

Just because he already knows what he's going to choose, doesn't make it not a choice.
There's a good example in Genesis where Abraham talks to God about whether or not to destroy the cities Sodom and Gommorah.
Genesis 18:22 (it's kind of long, but interesting how Abraham tried to sway God)-"At this point the men turned from there and got on their way to Sod´om; but as for Jehovah(God), he was still standing before Abraham. 23 Then Abraham approached and began to say: “Will you really sweep away the righteous with the wicked? 24 Suppose there are fifty righteous men in the midst of the city. Will you, then, sweep them away and not pardon the place for the sake of the fifty righteous who are inside it? 25 It is unthinkable of you that you are acting in this manner to put to death the righteous man with the wicked one so that it has to occur with the righteous man as it does with the wicked! It is unthinkable of you. Is the Judge of all the earth not going to do what is right?” 26 Then Jehovah said: “If I shall find in Sod´om fifty righteous men in the midst of the city I will pardon the whole place on their account.” 27 But Abraham went on to answer and say: “Please, here I have taken upon myself to speak to God, whereas I am dust and ashes. 28 Suppose the fifty righteous should be lacking five. Will you for the five bring the whole city to ruin?” To this he said: “I shall not bring it to ruin if I find there forty-five."
Anyhow, Abraham get's God down to 10 righteous men. If there were 10 righteous men in the city, God wouldn't have destroyed it.

Answer 5

You are trying to put God in a box. God is infinite. You are finite, you can not understand Him! He is so much greater than you can comprehend! His ways are not our ways.
His will is perfect, His plan is perfect, it always will be! He knows what the past, present and future hold because He can see them all at once!

Answer 6

I think that God's free will should be less important to us than our own.

He knows every choice and every outcome of every possible choice. It's sort of like having a chess game...there are endless possibilities at the beginning, and every choice leads to a different outcome, which has several different choices, leading to different outcomes, and so on. God knows the outcome of all of it.

Free will is central to life itself. We need it, we need to defend it.

Answer 7

I see..You're trying to understand God.

Well, God's will lies in His determined future. If He has decided thus, that is His will.

Isn't that free in itself?

Answer 8

I agree. Right on!