If God is omnisciencent and omnipotent then how can you have free will?

Question

It says in the bible that God knows and see all, he is all powerful and all knowing. It also says that God gave you free will, the ability to make your own decisions. Well, how can you make your own choice if he already knows the choices you are going to make? He knew before Hitler or Bin Laden was born the horrible crimes and deaths they would cause. They couldn't choose anything else, he already knew the choice that was made before they even made it. So christians, explain that one.

Answer 1

You can't, and this is a concept Christians don't seem to ever understand. However, it's irrelevant because free will doesn't exist anyway.

If God knows you will eat pizza tonight, you have no option but to eat pizza. You cannot change your mind. You are locked in. Since God created you knowing this, it was predetermined that you would eat pizza tonight even before you were born. The question is, can you freely choose not to eat pizza? If you can, then God is not omniscient. If you can't, then you have no free will. Which will it be, Christians?

Answer 2

hmmm this question seems to tie into one asked earlier, about Jesus and God being one and the same. Then, by logic, if god is everything, we are all God.

So, one could argue, and I am winging it here, that if we are god, and god has free will, then we all have free will right? (hey that's good! I'll have to keep it.)

But for me this question goes into the realm of metaphysics because we are talking about dimensions. Maybe even up to the 6th dimension.

"In geometry, we learn that a point has no dimension, but a line is one-dimensional, it has length. A plane is two dimensional—length and breadth as, for example, a triangle or circle. A solid is three-dimensional—length, breadth, and height, as for example, a tetrahedron or a sphere. It is often said that time is the fourth dimension and, while this seems true, we can no longer use a static geometric image to represent it. Take a three-dimensional object and move it, and you have an image of the fourth dimension.

In modern physics and science in general, the first three dimensions are the same as those described everywhere. But then things get a little confused. The fourth dimension, which is time, is sometimes described as space-time, which is actually the fifth dimension—as Ouspensky points out, the fact that space-time is curved requires another dimension. ...

The sixth dimension, all possibilities, is essentially the "multiuniverse" or "many worlds" interpretation of modern physics."

After I started to answer you question I did a search and found this. I had previously read Ouspensky .... and found some of these observations intriguing ... and it described what I was trying to say .... it is much longer though

green terra

Answer 3

So...like don't U have a Harder Question??? What has Gods' Being All Powerful & All Knowing got to do with Ur "Free Will"??? He didn't make Us "Robots/Puppets" for a Reason!!! Why don't U Study the "Angelic Conflict" & Learn Ur & Our "Part" in it??? God does know Both the "Choices" we have & what we Will Choose, but He doesn't Stop U does He, being "All Powerful"??? Hey, Satan Rules this World since Adam Sinned & gave up his "Rulership" given to him by God!!! Satan as I understand it is getting Real Tired of Not getting "Credit" for what he has done, with everybody "Blaming God" for the "Evil" in the World!!! So like go hit the Books Then come back here when U have Learned why Ur even here & tell Us how it now "Fits Together" for U, K??? John

Answer 4

When you look at the pearly gate you see a sign
WHO SO EVER WILL
If you choose to enter that gate--you will see the other side of that sign--THE ELECT
Because God knows that has no variance to your selection you still have an opportunity to deny God if you choose. He still knows. Because God knows that makes him God--because you don't know you still have free will. Check out philosophy of Religion. If God does not know then he's not God. Again, our knowledge and Gods knowledge is different otherwise we would be robots. You do have a choice.

Answer 5

I am not christian, but hear me out. If God were to exist and also be omnipotent and omniscient, that would suggest to me that it resides on a higher plane of existence. Just because God is capable of perceiving all of our plane of existence at once, does not make our choices any less of our own free will. To our perception, everything happens in a linear fashion, but to its perception it is all happening at the same time. Cause and effect still exist, they just seem to resolve themselves instantly to the perception of this being in the higher dimension.

Also, just because said being is omnipotent does not give that being reason to interfere with the lives of beings from the lower dimension. I mean, it's kinda like, you have the ability to shoot a gun, but that doesn't mean that you even own one. Just because this being is capable of doing anything doesn't provoke it to do anything at all.

One possibility anyway.....

Answer 6

Does He make the choices for you?
Does God tell you what to wear each morning?
Does God tell anyone to break His laws?
God may have already known the choice, but if God did not allow free will, then these people would have chosen a different path.

Better to ask yourself another question:
WHY does God allow people to break His laws? You couldn't do that if you had no free will.

Answer 7

You can't. If human beings have "free will," then there evidently must be certain aspects of the universe of which God is ignorant and over which He has no control. So your choice is between an omnipotent and omniscient God presiding over puppets, or a limited God presiding over delinquents.

The only reason "Christians" stress the idea that human beings have free will is to take the heat off of God for the fact of "evil" in the universe. They'd rather think of themselves as guilty sinners who have offended God than pawns He manipulates at His will. They'd rather feel that they are responsible for their own suffering than accept that suffering is simply a part of human existence over which they ultimately have no control.

Answer 8

Because Yahweh wanted you to see what you would do when faced with the truth. He already knows whats in your heart, but you don't for the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked who can know it?

When all is reveled and mankind sees that they truly didn't believe, then humbly will they enter into His Kingdom but not in the choice offices that his children that obey the every word or Law that came from the mouth of Yahweh.

There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham, Issac, Yaaqob and the remnant which is the last days House of Yahweh sitting down for the Lamb's marriage supper and you yourselves cast out for he that will not work shall not eat.

Answer 9

I applaud you....

If God knows every decision before we make it, that means that every decision we make MUST go the way God foresees it....otherwise God would be mistaken. and (as we're always being told) God doesn't make mistakes. If all our decisions are pre-ordained even before we are born, how can they be OUR decisions? Or, indeed, decisions at all?

If we have true free will, our decisions cannot be foreseen; which means God is not omniscient.
If God is omniscient, free will is an illusion.

Answer 10

Indeed; if knowledge of the future is possible, destiny exists, thereby undoing the concept of free will.

However, even from a non-Christian perspective, free will is illusory. We are a product of preceding causes such that everything we do is the only thing we could possibly do. Given all the data - genetics and environment - for an individual, we could determine what would happen, but this is impossible; therefore, we simply label our ignorance as "free will."