How Can We Have Free Will if God Knows the Future

When I was young, I used to pray for my future wife. I didn't know who she was, but I knew she was out there, and God knew who she was. God knew who I would choose anytime, and He knew who I was praying for, even when I didn't.

Praying for someone we have yet to meet may seem normal to some. But to others, it probably sounds rather strange. After all, my futurity married woman was a person I would choose , and I hadn't called her yet. Could God really know who she was? And if God knew who I would marry, was I actually complimentary to cull her myself?

And hither we come across a classic dilemma within the Christian faith. It's where human being's free volition intersects with God's omniscience (His infinite noesis). You may have heard of this dilemma before, as it'southward a common objection to Christianity. Spelled out, it looks something like this:

Christianity says that people have free will and God is omniscient. If God is all-seeing, so He already knows every activeness that I will ever cull. If He already knows this, so I am not free to choose something other than what He already knows I volition choose. Therefore, people cannot accept free volition while God is omniscient.

If you are like me, thinking almost this for too long will injure your encephalon. After all, the line of reasoning seems to be logical. Only it also contradicts ii essential claims of Christianity. If this dilemma proves that God is non omniscient or that people do not take costless will, it would profoundly damage, if not completely disprove, Christianity (and I wouldn't be a fan of that).

Simply I believe that this dilemma is non a contradiction at all. It's puzzling, mind-bending, and even intimidating, only it's not a contradiction. With a closer look at the argument, we'll find that the argument simply does not hold water. Earlier nosotros begin, let'due south parse the argument out into parts.

Premise ane:   God is Omniscient.
Premise 2:   People have free will.
Premise 3:   If God is all-knowing, and then He already knows every activeness that I will e'er choose.
Premise iv:    If God already knows this, then I am not free to cull something other than what He already knows I will choose.
Conclusion: Therefore, people cannot have free will while God is all knowing.

Nosotros tin accept premises 1 and two without concern. These are the claims of Christianity and the starting point for the argument. Right now we aren't concerned with justifying these claims. Let's move on.

Premise iii is actually a continuation of premise one. For God to exist omniscient means that He would know everything I did , everything I am doing , and everything I will practice . If God does not know whatsoever of those three things, and so He does non know all. And so God must know my time to come deportment with absolute certainty. Again, no problem here. Onward.

That leaves premise 4 (this is where the safe hits the road). If God knows what I will do in the time to come, then I will not be able to human activity differently, because God has already seen the choices I volition make. Put in other words: If I have a choice between A and B, and God knows that I volition choose B, then I can't choose A, correct? (Dramatic pause) Or can I?

At this signal, you might be thinking "What are y'all saying? If God knows yous volition choose B, then you tin't choose A. Yous don't have a choice!"

I wouldn't be so sure. To explain my reasoning, allow'due south look at a few types of knowledge.

By Cognition

You are driving home from piece of work, anxiously awaiting the start of the football. You pull into the driveway, plop on your sofa with a cold drinking glass of soda and a bag of chips. Turning on the TV, y'all find that the game simply ended. You missed it.

But y'all pull yourself out of your slump and (thanks to mod technology) find the game posted online. With a few quick clicks and the cursory advent of a loading bar, the game comes on and you are back in business organisation. Whether the game has ended or non, you lot still don't know the outcome. Yous sit and watch the game as if it were happening live.

And so the game ends, and the score is final. During the game, did the athletes have free volition? If you answer no, and so sports may well exist played past robots. Of course they had complimentary will! That's why sports are so unpredictable. Athletes brand their own choices freely.

Did the athletes have free will in the rerun that you watched, even though it was a rerun? After all, you were watching each choice afterwards information technology was made. The athletes' choices were finalized once they were fabricated (hence the video will exist the same every time you watch it), but the athletes still acted freely. Just because you watched it after does non change that.

"Now await a 2nd," you object. "I didn't know what would happen in the game. Anything could have happened for all I knew!"

Adept point. So let'southward alter the story up a bit.

After missing the game you find it posted on the cyberspace, and you begin watching, just the same as in the final scenario. And so the telephone rings and y'all answer the phone call.

"Dude! Did you see that? It was a full shutout! I can't believe the Jets crushed the Patriots! Oh, and the tertiary quarter! Who could have guessed the quarterback would have ran with the ball on the outset play! Yous would have…"

Y'all hang upward, crushed. Not simply did you lot miss the live game, your (former) friend ruined it for y'all. In your pit of cocky-pity, you resolve to watch the game anyhow. The quarterback ran with the brawl on the offset play of the third quarter, just as y'all knew he would. And the game concluded exactly every bit you knew it would: a total shutout.

In the first example, yous would accept seen the game end the aforementioned way as it did in this example. Only this time, you knew what would happen (at least the terminal score and a QB sneak). Could the outcome take been unlike this fourth dimension? Of course non. The aforementioned choices were fabricated, and the outcome was the aforementioned, regardless of how much you knew. Your knowledge of the outcome had zip to do with the choices the players made during the game.

Let's sum up what we know nigh past knowledge, and how it relates to free volition: Knowledge of by decision does not take away the freedom of the decision. Put simply, if I know that you chose B yesterday, you still chose B freely. My knowledge of your choice didn't limit your freedom.

"Okay, okay, I run across your point. But you watched the game later it had ended. It is different if you would accept known the results before the game. God knows everything before it happens, recall?"

Future Knowledge

It'south now fourth dimension for an obvious question: If I know that yesterday you chose B, is it because y'all chose information technology? Or did you choose B considering I know that you chose B ? (I warned you it would be obvious).

"Duhh! You know that I chose B because I chose B . Any more questions, Dr. Obvious?"

Sounds good to me. Any knowledge of by choices that we have, we know considering they were already called.

But would this hold true for future events? What if God knows 1 of your decisions in the future? Let'due south utilise our A-B scenario again. If God knows you lot will cull B tomorrow, will you choose B because He knows you will? Or will He know information technology because yous will choose it ?

If you notice, this is the same obvious question we asked to a higher place, but set up in the future. Is the answer and then obvious now? No uncertainty, the rules become a little weird when we talk about the time to come. But I believe that the same is truthful of this question every bit in the previous: God knows what you will do simply because you will practise it .

"Alright, that sounds poetic and all, only that doesn't make a lick of sense. How tin God know something that hasn't happened yet? It's impossible!"

In human terms, y'all are right. Humans can't know future events because they oasis't happened withal. But we need to look at one more attribute of God. Namely, He is the Creator.

God created everything. He created affair, energy, space, and time. And equally the creator of all, He is not jump past creation as we are. For example, God can run into all of infinite at once (I might give myself an aneurysm if I even tried). This means that He is also not bound by time. Rather, He is outside of time. He can wait at all of time and space at once. Everything is eternally present to Him, no matter when it happened.

This may sound difficult to imagine at showtime, only I believe that we can relate, in our own homo fashion. Imagine that you are standing in the centre of a corn field that is covered in crop circles. Y'all look effectually and see corn stalk all around, some standing, some knocked over. But you tin can't actually see any patterns. Now hop on a helicopter and wing ane hundred feet above the fields. You would be able to run across the patterns in the fields clearly from up there.

God sees all because He is not limited by space or time at all! He can see every inch of our globe with clarity. He can run into the big picture (like the blueprint in the crop circles), or the infinitesimal details of smaller things. No moment is ever lost to God considering He is non limited past time every bit we are. He can see every moment of our lives at all times, even before we live them.

At present allow's go back to our question: If God knew y'all will cull B tomorrow, volition you choose B because He knows you lot will? Or does He know it because you volition cull it ?

Merely like we know past choices because they already happened , God knows our futurity choices because they will happen . God sees your futurity decisions because He can come across all of time at one time. He is outside of fourth dimension looking in. You will cull B tomorrow, and God knows that today. Nosotros are non forced to deed every bit God knows we volition. Rather, nosotros make each decision freely every bit they come to u.s., and God knows exactly what we will decide each time, considering He stands in eternity watching.

Final Thoughts

Allow'south take a look at our original dilemma: "If I have a choice betwixt A and B, and God infallibly knows that I will cull B, so I will have to choose B because God already knows that I will choose it." Even afterward all of this word, the dilemma is nonetheless an intriguing one. I believe that is because it causes us to think almost time and eternity in a way that we are non used to. It is like a fish trying to imagine living outside of h2o.

Simply at that place is no contradiction here. Knowledge of a past choice does not take away the freedom with which it was made. And similarly, God's knowledge of a future choices does non remove man'due south freedom to choose. To God, all things, past, present, and future, are forever present to Him. He knows what we will cull because He has already seen u.s. make the choice. Man is free, and God knows all.

So when I look at my beautiful wife at present, I can know that God knew who I would marry, and that I was praying for her all forth.

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Source: https://onthisrockapologetics.com/2017/02/27/omniscience-and-free-will/

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