2007-11-01 12:14:38 · 22 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Free will is an illusion. Judas didn't have free will any more than anyone has free will.
I have to laugh at the person who says that Judas had a predisposition so God knew he would betray Jesus. Well, if he had a predisposition, that means he was destined to betray Jesus. He didn't choose his predisposition. People see a contradiction and so they back up one step, repeat the contradiction and say they've resolved the contradiction.
I like the person who says that a contradiction isn't a contradiction, it's just something he doesn't understand. For example, "It was a certainty that Judas was to betray Jesus, but he didn't have to," isn't a contradiction, it's just something we don't understand.
Ah, yes. The "corridor of time". Presumably this "corridor" is a rigid corridor, otherwise God wouldn't be able to make anything out in it.
2007-11-01 12:17:16 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 6⤋
Everyone, including Judas, has free will. God lives beyond time and has perfect knowledge, knowing everything that has or will happen. That God sent Jesus into the world to be a sacrifice for Sin and foreknew that Judas would identify or betray him is true and consistent with Judas' exercise of his free will.
For example, if you were to predict the score of a sporting event, or place $100.00 on a sidewalk and correctly predict that the next pedestrian would pick it up does not mean that the players did not make decisions for themselves during the game or that the pedestrian decided, without input from anyone else, to pick up the $100.00.
If you stood on top of a tall building and could see that two cars travelling at high speed, each unaware of the other, were going to collide, that would not absolve the drivers of responsibility or fault in connection with the ensuing accident.
2007-11-01 19:40:26 · answer #2 · answered by Wayne C 2 · 1⤊ 2⤋
If God is 'omniscient', then when God created the Universe God knew everything that would happen afterwards. If God wanted a different outcome with Judas or with anyone else, God would have created the universe differently.
"It was also freely Judas' choice to do so, he was not compelled but acted as a free agent."
WHAT!? How was he free, if God set up the universe so that Judas would do what he did? If the future is pre-determined, there is no freedom to change it. So yeah, it may have been Judas' choice, but it was the ONLY choice he could have made! Please define 'free-will'... because what I can gather from you, Judas was only "free" to do what he was predestined to do.
2007-11-01 19:19:41 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 2⤋
Yes. It was ordained before the creation of the world that Judas would betray Christ the Lord. It was also freely Judas' choice to do so, he was not compelled but acted as a free agent.
This has no contradiction because it exists in time and beyond time, just as God does. We cannot understand this because we are temporal finite sinful beings.
Just because i don't understand nuclear physics doesn't mean it can't be true.
Ath
2007-11-01 19:19:29 · answer #4 · answered by athanasius was right 5 · 3⤊ 2⤋
Yup, God, before the foundation of the world and before time was even created God forordained that Judas was gonna be used in the betrayal of Jesus Christ. God even uses evil to accomplish His purposes. Judas did have "free will" and chose to accept money from the Pharisees to find Jesus for them. And to say that Judas had complete "free will" apart from God would be the same as saying that their is "something" that exists outside of God's scope in the universe. But actually, nothing exists outside of his scope or control. Absolutely nothing! So Predestination or election and man's "free will" does co-exist even if we can't make sense of it. Take comfort that only God knows how both doctrines can work as being true.
2007-11-01 19:25:42 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 3⤋
Isaiah is right. God didn't make him do that, but knew that he would. Judas had his own free will.
Moe, are you a Christian, or are you trying to "prove Christianity wrong" by asking questions that you think there are no answers for? There are true explanations for everything in the Bible.
Sweet
2007-11-01 19:41:14 · answer #6 · answered by SweetWater 2 · 3⤊ 1⤋
He made the decision to betray Jesus, but because God, and therefore Jesus, is omnipotent, he already knew what Judas would choose. So, he had free will.
2007-11-01 19:21:12 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 3⤋
Both.
When I see a child chasing a ball into a busy street. I know what is gonna happen. Does that mean the child does not have free will in that situation? And yet I can predict it.
2007-11-01 19:38:04 · answer #8 · answered by Doma 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Jesus knowing what Judas would do and Jesus MAKING Judas do something are two entirely different things! Judas made that decision entirely by himself. Jeus simply knew that he would do it according to Old Testament prophecy.
2007-11-01 19:22:14 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 3⤋
And why did he have to betray Jesus? Supposedly the High Priests knew who he was, and the templ soldiers would have been able to recognize the guy who wrecked the temple...
Then there is the gospel of Judas which, I think, claims that Jesus asked him to betray him.
2007-11-01 19:20:32 · answer #10 · answered by Pirate AM™ 7 · 1⤊ 4⤋