If God is omniscient than free will is an impossiblity, right?

Question

Just to let you know, I am an atheist. 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.

Not of this World: very compelling argument! did your attention span make it through the first paragraph?

Matthew: your argument is completely different because you are simply referring to a "schedule". You don't know for 100% sure yet until it happens, right?

Answer 1

I believe god knows everything HOWEVER he/she has a choice and I think god has chosen NOT to know what we are thinking. He/She knows out path options but we chose what we want wither It makes god happy or not. So I think god does know everything BUT chooses not to inter-fear with our thinking process.

Answer 2

"If that is the case, since god already knows everything that will happen, then everything is already decided."
The question with free will, however, is who it is decided by. If God simply knew what you would choose before you chose it, then you still chose it and there would still be free will.

"Now, during the course of your life, you arrive at that spatial and temporal coordinate where this choice exists."
And that is exactly what it is: choice.

"However, since god is 'omniscient', and god 'knows' that you will take path 'A', then path B IS NOT an option."
"B" is simply an option that God knew beforehand (from our perspective) that you would choose not to take.

Actually, free will is a bigger problem for atheists to explain than it is for Christians, since, if atheism is right, everything is merely an effect of material causes.

Answer 3

Time may only flow in a linear fashion from our perspective. Quantum physics has proposed extra dimensions that could be as real as our perspective of up-down, left-right, backwards-forwards and time, only without the visual perspectives to back them up. And in those higher dimensions(or perspectives), time doesn't necessarily flow from past into present, onto future, as we perceive it. In fact it's been suggested that on some level, from some perspective, everything in our Universe is happening all at once, without perception of the linear aspect of time at all. So theoretically, there is a place you can stand and watch the entire Universe happen all at once. If that is true, if God exists, and if he is omniscient, then it stands to reason that he will have a much wider perspective than us. In that case, perhaps we could have free will without effecting his omniscience. The future for us, may be the present for God. Which would mean we make the choices, but he knows what we will choose since he's experiencing it right now. It's a difficult idea to grasp. But if you insist on asking this question, it's the best way of reconciling the two belief systems that I know of currently. These are all just thoughts by the way, I'm Agnostic, so I'm free of belief in these matters. But one thing I have concluded is that if you're going to think about God in any real sense. You need to be willing to widen your own perspective. If God sees things the way you do, then why aren't you a God? :)

Answer 4

Wow you have some knowledge and spent some time on thinking this through and is great you are touching this important subject. Now free will is something everybody has which is to choose good or evil. God knows that we have options to go either way, and once in a while we may choose the wrong path. The amazing thing is God has a great deal of mercy, or if choosing to do wrong against him, he can forgive you for that choice.
Now going down the road of atheism, what hope is there in holding this belief? Are you going to be able to be more promiscuous with sex, steal more, kill more people because that's how your genes were made? In all these someone's life will be shorten because of these actions. Is this going to stand up in court, it is in my genes. I don't think so, it is because a person chose to do something wrong.
Life is short and if there is an eternity it is forever. It is a choosing in how you want to be when you come of free will. Yes, God knows which path you chose, but if you chose to be with him, it is just that much better for the both of you. Free will is God's way of showing us his love, to trust us to become like him in every part of our lives, like saints.

Answer 5

No, you are perfectly free to choose path B, and if you do choose path B, then that would have been what God had already seen. You make the choice, and just because God knows what choice you're going to make, doesn't mean that you don't have free will.

If you hand a kid a toy, you know already that they're going to take it. Does that mean that they don't have free will in that matter?

Answer 6

Omnipresence demonstrates that man cannot hide from God because God knows all things. He knows the number of hairs on each head, He knows the heart and thoughts of every man. Just because no man is around to see us do wrong doesn't mean nobody saw it happen - God did. The proverbial tree falling in the forest that doesn't make a sound because no man was there to see it or know about it falling at that time, God sees and knows. Our intentions in the things we do are known to God. We need to be sure that our attitudes are congruent with our actions because God knows when we are doing things for the wrong reasons or motives.

We still have free will, but God knows what we will decided to do. He WILL let us make that bad decision...

Answer 7

If I knew you well, that you hate the forest and I also know an area where you will have to make a choice when your road splits, and I also know that you will choose the path into the farmland in preference to the forest, am I forcing you to choose the path taking you to the farmland. Your choice is freely yours. My knowledge of your preferences has not had any effect at all on your choice. Why would my knowledge be considered interference in your free choice?

Why is my having knowledge of your inclinations dictate your free choice in any way? True I may know you will go left to the farm, but how is that my interference in your choice?

Foreknowledge is certainly not interference in free will at all. If a child loves the color red, and there are two balls one of which is red colored, I would know that the child would "freely" choose the red ball, regardless of my fore knowledge of his choice, due to my insights.

How does that contradict my knowledge vs your free will?

I am not clear about that.

Answer 8

God is sovereign. God is the first cause. Everything else is a secondary cause. God's predestination is secret. So choices are made here and now that have eternal consequences. Your choice today to reject the grace of God will result in your eternal separation from God on the Last Day.

Answer 9

Was there a show on TV about this or something? This is about the fourth time I've seen this question today.

This is what I believe:

Foreknowledge does not cancel out choice or freedom.

We have many many choices to make at any given moment. That means there are many many alternate futures depending on which choices we make. God sees ALL choices and ALL futures. We just have to pick one.

Answer 10

I appologize in advance that I didn't have time to read every word of the question, but I read most of it. I have to answer this in a hurry and leave. I know for a fact that at 12 midnight tonight my dormitory supervisor is going to declare "lights out". I didn't choose that, I don't control it, but I know it. Does that mean that the college didn't have free will when they decided that 12 midnight was going to be lights out? Of course it doesn't mean that! Just because God knows what you are going to choose doesn't mean that you aren't the one who chooses it. There are a lot of things that God doesn't like and that are against his will that we will decide. There are still other things that he does like that are according to his will that we will decide. He already knows what we are going to decide. This does not mean that we don't decide them, simply that he already knows what we are going to decide. He already knows what we will freely will with the free will we have. God bless