free will?

Question

if god knows ahead of time what we will do (he has to exist outside of time if he created time...therefore he already knows if out great great great great great grandchildren are going to be good people or not) do we really have free will.

god knows how i die...and when...and where. do i really have free will if god knows exactly how everything goes?

if we have no free will, as i contend....you have to kind of feel sorry for evil tyrants...what choice did they have?

Answer 1

For god to know the future, the events MUST happend as he sees them.

Therefore everyevent is GUARANTEED to happen.

Therefore there is NO ROOM for change.

Therefore we are DESTINED to act in every way he sees and can not act in a way other than what will happen.


If a future already exists, we do not have free will.

Answer 2

The two issues are completely independent of each other.

Having knowledge of an event (since God is outside of our concept of "time") does NOT mean that He is influencing your decisions. Your free will still exists and you are still making your own decisions.

In order to show that we have "no free will" as you contend, then tell me how knowing what you will do removes it.

For example, assume that I know that you will always stop at a red light. You have free will. You CAN run the red light if you so choose. However, you choose to obey the traffic laws and comply with red lights. It was YOUR free will to comply. If I'm sitting in the car behind you and tell someone "he's going to stop for that red light", does this mean that *I* have control over YOUR decision to stop or run? Nope. Clearly it does NOT.

In many, many, many, many cases, the observer does NOT influence the observation. If it was the case, then science would not exist as we know it.

Answer 3

Um ok than you have to wonder who or what created god and does he have free will?

and then who created the creator of god and does it or they have free will?

I believe we do have free will of a sort we do chose our actions
like getting a glass of milk or kill someone.

but we can't chose to be here we just are or chose are parents or are children or there children or how there going to turn out but we can chose to be good or evil you could chose to go and kill your neighbors dog but you can't chose if you will be caught or if by some chance the dog may live

but on a deeper level lets say you make a computer circuit board with a the details from a plan on how its to work for its life you know what its going to do but in a way it has a free will of it's own it may breakdown or from outside influence may change it's use so or any number of possibilitys witch you can not foresee right

so i believe it's the same with us we have a set line but can by
some interference may alter our path there for creating a new one of our choice.

Answer 4

Let me illustrate. Imagine a helicopter in the sky is keeping an eye on traffic. The pilot sees a car entering a one lane tunnel. On the other side of the tunnel, the pilot sees a huge truck that just entered the tunnel as well. The pilot knows that both drivers are going to crash, but that does not take away the free will of the drivers. The drivers still had a choice, to enter the tunnel or not. God knows the future of our lives, but that does not take away our ability to choose. In fact, God often gives us signs if we go down the wrong path, trying to warn us of the coming danger. He knows the end result of the path, but we still have a choice whether we listen or ignore Him.

Answer 5

God created everybody equal. at least in the eyes of god. God also gives us the free will to believe or not to believe in him. in fact, this becomes the basic human rights of every individual and we must uphold it at all cost.
of course god knows everything....as mentioned somewhere in the bible., ".. Ive known you even before you were formed in the womb..." He knows what will become of us, you may say its fated.. yes fated. But god is not going to be happy , he is very sad!! God still respect our free will right from the day He created us.

say for example, Hitler, the greatest evil of the last century. Hitler had a choice either to be good or bad. we all have a choice to choose. (of cos some religious fanatics of certain faith do not agree to this, in some countries). so, its just too bad that hitler chose the evil route. how can we feel sorry for him?? he chose his own destiny.

we all have a free choice to make. that s why Jesus and all the other prophets came in the first place trying to bring the ppl back to the rirght way, its just too bad that the majority of ppl refused to follow. that s why there are so much evil in todays world.

so we must protect this free will, a god given gift to the human race, but we must choose wisely which way to go.

"I forgive you, go and sin no more" Jesus told the prostitute.

Answer 6

No, you don't have to feel anything at all if you go the predeterminism route. It's the ultimate cop out.

Things are as they are and couldn't be any other way or they wouldn't be anything.

Oh, and since God has been brought into this equation... would God require free will to be God? I don't see a single reason why God would need free will.

Answer 7

Romans 9:17, God showed that He has the power OVER
the clay, even when that clay is the mightiest man on the planet at the time. Jonah learned about "free will".

Look at Peter's free will: Peter swore, though all leave you, I will never leave you. Oooops, Peter just contradicted Jesus, so as punishment, he was caused to deny the Lord 3 times.
Peter also said, I will lay down my life for thy sake; Ooooops,
Jesus laid down his life for Peter, not the other way around.

Peter was very sincere in his statements, and this is a man
who walked with Jesus, saw him perform miracles, yet, his
"free will" was lacking. Where does that leave ours?

Did Judas have free will? How about those who killed Jesus? See, we aren't the only one's who suffer this evil
world, Jesus suffered it, but without sin.

You blame God, but God is your only hope. He works and
He allows, and He is the only good. Yes, God has allowed
the evil, but we fell to it. Through His life,death, and ressurection, our fall has been cleaned up.

Answer 8

I've seen this kind of question many times and it baffles me as to why it is asked. What does foreknowledge have to do with interfering with free will? If I knew the future does that mean I control the future? Why?

Or consider this - what if God told you what would happen in the future. Then you would know that future. So if you knew the future does that mean you control it? Why would it?

I just don't understand what problem some people have with foreknowledge.

Answer 9

Depends on your stature on religion and your ideals on god. Sure, if you believe he'll know when and where, then for you there is not really the "free will" idea. However, if you believe you live life according to your own will, and things happen just by coincidence by no greater power controlling it, then you live freely and by your own will. But for most, god isn't the one controlling your life but observing it and I suppose helps out once in a while. (its hard for me to grasp a higher power is out there being atheist n all)

Answer 10

no. free will is one of many contradictive paradoxes in religion. another is that nothing could ever happen on earth to change some people's beliefs. if that is so, then what meaning can that belief hold.
i'll give an example.
i say that a mermaid lives under a nearby bridge. that is meaningful because if someone looked under the bridge and didnt find anything i would accept i was wrong.....god is real and loves us, isnt meaningful because nothing could prove it right or wrong.