If the Christian God is omniscient, then do we really have free will? Whatever we choose in the future is supposedly known by God already.
who cares, we will never really know if all our actions are pre-ordained or not.... why philosophize on pure speculation.
I would say there is no free will, since everything is already "laid" out for you and your following a set path but I personally dont believe in that, nor fate nor destiny
well god has given us free will and is in control of us its complacated even i dont understand eg he gives us the free will to choice to follow him or go to hell
To answer your question: Yes, there is still free-will even with a omniscient God. You may ask how so? Omniscience has nothing to do with free will. If one is to know all things, as long as one does not "force the hand" of another. Free-will still exist. For example, if you knew all of the outcomes of all of the choices/decisions that your friend may/will make; even before he/she makes it. Does he/she still have the free-will to make it? Of course, as long as you do not tamper and alter with the choice he/she makes, the aspect of his/her free-will to make the choices and decisions in his/her life still exist. An obvious choice is the choice for salvation. Like k100 has stated. There is a choice for believing in God or not. It may not be an evenly balanced choice; however nevertheless it is still a choice. If God were to "force our hands" and make everyone believe in Him. The aspect of "free-will" disappears and we do not have the choice to believe in Him or not. Now, this choice of salvation is not appealing to some individuals; since it seems to be "unfair" and "not in their preference". However, that does not undermine that this choice is still a choice. And it is given to us to choose. So if we are to choose not to believe in God and the gift of salvation. Then the burden will be on us and only on us alone. This analogy probably has been given before; however it is fitting to some extent. You are in a boat fishing. You tilt your head up and look into the distance to see a person drowning in the water a few meters ahead. You rush to his/her aid and throw your fishing line to him/her. With all of the struggling and movement the fishing line was not able to aid the drowning individual. So with all of your courage, you jump into the water and with one hand on the boat and another reaching for the drowning person. You scream, "Grab onto my hand!!" Then to your disbelief, the water-suffocating person screams back, "Give me some other options to chose from!!" Now, realistically this probably will not happen. And without considering the outliers of this and that. Most people will grab onto anything in desperation when throw into such a situation. My question here is: Did a choice exist here? True, it was not a balance choice. It was either to grab onto your hand and live or don't grab onto your hand and drown. However, there was still a choice present and it needed to be made. Is salvation as direr as drowning? That is up for you to decide.
If God is omniscient, then he supposedly knows the choices that we will make. I think everyone agrees on that point. So God knows what we will choose even before we decide to choose. Then what choices do we really have other than the one God predetermined? It may appear that we can freely choose, but we are actually just following what God has determined for us. Here's 1 example. An evil dude gives you a bag and tells you that there are 2 coins inside. He tells you that one is white and one is black. If you can pick the white coin, then your life will be spared. If you pick the black one, then you will die. Now suppose that both coins in the bag are actually black, therefore, the evil dude is lying to you. It may appear that you have a fair and clear choice, but the truth is that your life is already determined to be dead since you will pick the black coin no matter what.
I don't think you got 無得頂's point of view. What you are saying is God knows all the outcomes of all of the choices/decisions we made. But the point is God knows the POSSIBILITIES of the choices we can make, whereas if He is omniscient, He would have known THE choice we are gonna pick. Understood? Meaning to say that if God is indeed omniscient, He would have known we are going to pick salvation OR not. It's not whether He knows we are EITHER going to pick salvation OR not. Knowing the POSSIBLE outcomes don't mean you are omniscient. If that is the case, everyone can be omniscient. The teacher in school for example, giving out an exam question with two options. So he knows it's either A or B you are gonna pick. Is THAT omniscient? Lol.
That is right. God knows all of the outcomes from any to every choices and decisions we make. But how does He know the chosen outcome we make from the choices presented to us? He knows us. He knows our personality, our experiences, our decision making-skills, and our individuality. So, with full knowledge of us, He can understand and foresee the choices we make. God's nature of omnipresence. Now, this brings up the question: are the choices presented to us within God's control? Truthfully, I don't know the answer to that. I believe the world is automatic, in a sense, that when God created everything and He began their operation and then left it at that. And the worlds continues to operate without God being there to "hold its hand". So, in that sense, the choices that are presented to us are run by the process of our lifestyle. The way we chose/not chose to live reflects the choices we make in our lives. Therefore, if God knows already our outcomes to our decisions. It is simply b/c He knows us all too well. I was looking around and oddly enough -- there is an answer exactly to the question presented by 無得頂: http://www.carm.org/questions/free_will.htm
So you are a deist now? I thought a traditional Christian God should be watching over humans, protecting them, answering their prayers, and leading them the right way. Anyways, back to my free will question. It is definitely not odd that there are attempted answers to my question as it is quite popular. I will use the example of the bowl of dead mice and chocolate cake. Yes, it is safe for a parent to say that a kid will choose chocolate cake over dead mice. But there is a chance that an odd kid will choose the dead mice. In that case, the parent will be wrong. We can substitute the kid for humans and the parent for God. The only difference is that God cannot be wrong and a parent can. The main problem is that all our choices are predetermined already and God cannot be wrong. God made humans already knowing and controlling their actions and choices. We as humans believe that there are free choices to be made but they are actually already made for us. We just make the choices which God has made us to choose. God knows what we will choose between options because he can control what we choose. After all, He is the one who created us. The "free" choices is just a procedure to go through and we will ultimately choose what has been decided for us. It's true that we really made the "choice" but it is the choice which God has made us to choose. Free will should be the freedom to choose whatever choice we want, not forcing us to choose something, making us unable to choose the other choice, or 100% knowing beforehand what choice we will choose. If all our choices and actions are already known to God, then maybe we can all sit down and do nothing since whatever happens will happen. Nothing we can do can change what will occur anyways. But then again, Christians will say that God already knows that we will sit down and do nothing. So where is the free will if all our actions are already determined? Example: Person A writes a letter of the alphabet on a card and Person B has to guess the letter without looking at the card. Person B is omniscient. So just before Person A is about to start writing H on the card, Person B says H. Person A changes his mind and is about to write L on the card. Again, Person B says L even before the pen touches the card. Where is the free will? It may appear to Person A that he can choose which letter to write but Person B already knows what A will choose. B already has a mental list of the order of the letters which A will write in the future. I don't think there is free will at all in that case. Person A cannot choose otherwise since B already knows the other option which A will choose.
deist? No. To be a deist, I need to believe that God does not and chooses not to intervene with the world. I don't believe that at all. I believe that the world was set and push (not literally) into motion. And then it was left to that. But God has the power to stop it or change its course to His choosing. I would like to emphasize on the bold statement. If our choices are "predetermined" already, how is it still called choices? It would be God at work, making every and all choices for us; if our choices are already "predetermined". I think you are confused on the aspect of free choice with God. There is the existence of freedom of choice. The existence of "choices" is probably form from the environment and social lifestyle we placed into. This goes into the aspect of the world running without God holding its hand step by step. But when these choices (created by the already running world and environment) are presented into our lives; that is where God becomes even more significant. Since He is omniscient, omnipresence, and omnipotent. He is able to determine the outcomes for our decision and choices. And lead us into the right direction. True. That is what we have. We have the freedom to choose whatever we want. Knowing, of course, there are things that displeases God and is sinful in His and even our eyes. No one is forcing you to make the choices in your lives, at least God isn't. Take the example of the salvation. You live in America, Yes? Let's assume you do. You are not forced to believe in Jesus Christ and the gift of salvation. There is a choice there. Unbalance, I agree it is. However, nevertheless it is still a choice. And you have the free will and the knowledge of the outcome of both options. Great question. The underlying difficulty to understand the doctrine of predestination. If you are meant to be saved; soon or later, you are going to saved. It is only the method that may defer with time, not the outcome. However, predestination is only known to God. No Christian can predict if another non-Christian is going to be saved or not. So, to us, predestination has no bearing and is only significant to God. If you chose to believe in God; then you will be saved. If you do not; you are not saved. Are you absolutely sure that you will never be a Christian? B/c of that. There is always hope. Because we cannot see the outcome of our lives; there is always hope for the non-Christians to be saved one day. You give an example that very seldom happens. I assume, of course, you are paralleling the example with God and His creation. In my impression you are stating that God is "tricking" us to prove He is omniscient. I do not see why God would do that. The only case that I can associated with the example is the tale of Jonah. He ran from God and sail to another city. There was a choice to be made and Jonah chose not to follow God's command. That isn't acceptable. So God used His power to divert the journey and humble Jonah's heart in order to saved a city from destruction. If you placed into such a situation like the example you give, and you know fully well that it is God limiting your choices, fear not; the outcome will always be well. God isn't ill-natured. He does not sin and He is nothing like us, humans. Where we will trick one other for the pleasure or satisfaction of proving our "power" and "awesomeness". God would never do that. If He was to limit our choice, there is only a beneficial reason for it. And no harm can come from that. However, that is an outlier's case. For most ppl, you and I, God would not limit your choice.
I definitely don't buy this. Even if God knows a person's personality, experiences, decision making-skills and individuality, even if God knows the person inside and out, that doesn't mean that He can know EVERY SINGLE decision that the person may make. That person can suddenly make a totally UNPREDICTABLE decision one day out of the blue. Then, if God already predicted that, surely there cannot be omniscience and free-will presence in both. I will comment on this bold sentences in which you highlighted in that article. <_< "Furthermore, if God knows all things and knows what we are going to choose, then by definition, we are still making the choice; after all, the argument says that God knows what "we are going to choose." Interesting, it argues that, 'BY DEFINITION' we are still making the choice; right? Of course, we ARE still making the choice, but OUR point is, is there still FREE-WILL with whatever choices we make? LOL, I feel the above statement itself is ILLOGICAL, since it argues on the technicality of our argument. Let me highlight to you, our argument here is NOT whether 'we are going to choose', therefore, we are not arguing at all, that WE are the ones who choose. We are arguing that even though WE are making the choices and there appears to be free-will, if a God already can predict whatever that we choose each time without fail, there's no more free-will, because each and every of our actions are PREDETERMINED and foreseen by him. Then again, if you argue that God knows us so well that he can PREDICT the outcome of our each and every decision, even if a person out of the 6.6 billion population of humans on this Earth does NOT make the odd and rare decision(s), it is still highly unlikely that God can successfully predict everyone without fail, unless each and every action(s) are already manipulated by Him. And this also brings me to another point which I want to highlight. If God can so-called know each and every little action we do, are you saying that all the criminals on this Earth are born to be that way? So God knows that this person's character is evil, and it's in his nature to rape, kill, rob, kidnap, whatever? Then why are there still so many crimes in this world? Why is there so many wrongdoings, every single minute, every single second, someone is dead? If God knows everything, why wouldn't He LIMIT the choices that the person would make, just like what you said He did to Jonah's case??? Why does He allow all this montrosity to happen? For Him to know what is going to happen to each and everyone of us, for Him to know that an innocent is GOING to be killed or thousands of them to die in a disaster, why wouldn't God do something about it? And just sit and witness everything, waiting for someone to pray for Him? Does God say, "Let me relax a lil bit until someone prays for miracles, then I'll decide if I wanna help?"
God is not forcing us to choose something because He doesn't need to. He already knows the choices we will make in the future. Free will is lost when whatever thought or action that will takes place is known by God even before it actually takes place. Example: We want to eat an apple and God already knows it before the thought occurred. If we change our mind to eat grapes, God will know that we changed our mind even before we changed our mind. In a way, you can say that God is controlling us. Basically, all the events in life are already known by God. We just live our life as a procedure to complete the cycle from birth till death. The free will element is there to appear as if we have choices in life to make. We make the choices according to how it is known by God. The actual freedom and control that we think we have in our lives are lost.
There are many attempted explanations by Christians on your points. However, they all do not explain clearly about the contradiction that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent, yet evil exists.
We do have free will but ever since the fall of Adam our will, will also choose to go against God. It's God 's mercy that he came and draw us back. try reading books by John Calvin
I love these types of philosophical discussion. I did not read everything but look at this. From Christianities POV, when Jesus said, and then someone will betray, he knew that Judas was the one to betray. Does it not already indicate that what will happen will be decided?
aiya. i see blood everywhere.. anyways, my POV: basically (as in chess), chess pieces have certain moves they can make and places they can go. to be a good chess player, you should be able to chart ahead a few steps and kind of anticipate what the other person's going to do. God is able to anticipate every move we make. whether He really knows what we are going to choose or not, i do not know, to tell you the truth. all i know is that He can anticipate any move we make and so is omniscient. i think the omniscience of God should be focused more on the fact that He knows an individual's character and by knowing (so well) one's character, He can expect this particular choice to be taken.
What are the chances you can predict every single move of the chess player? Even in chess, there are a few POSSIBLE steps/moves predicted... Does that mean God predicts what we MIGHT or POSSIBLE to do, ie the choices? Then that's NOT knowing, it does not equal to knowledge. Omniscience is KNOWING every single step that the person is going to take. And that cannot exist if there is to be free will. I give you an example, I know you well... I know you love black and red. So I know at a special event, you are either going to wear black or red or a mix of both. Does that mean I am omniscient? Or merely that I just know the possibilities of what you are going to wear? If you say that , yes, I know (omniscient) beforehand, that you are going to wear black that night. Then you don't have free will to choose red or the mixed color (coz I "KNOW" you are going to wear black even BEFORE you make your decision) You should read before you attempt to comment. The question is discussing whether there can be BOTH free will and omniscience present... NOT whether the Christian God knows what is going to happen. <_<
Uggh sorry but it has everything to do with philosophy and reason. If God had known about the betrayal it speaks to the belief that pre-knowledge of what is going to happen does exist IN THAT CONTEXT !!! Now free will, if looked in the STRUCTURE and RULES, then you better believe in it. It is the same as, it is God's will. OBVIOUSLY if you do not believe in GOD in that extent, you will believe in yourself and free choice. With out the context of God, we definitely have free-will. It would not make sense to say you believe in God and then deductive think your way out that you have free-will of choice as well. i'm pretty much done on this one. examples given just won't make sense because they are specific examples that tell nothing as it came from your brain with a presupposition point. that' can't happen.
