Free will and Omniscience

[zacchaeus]

Since nothing I post is directly or indirectly addressed, please in form me on a small scale with one question; for I have many more. Lets start small and simple since the argument seems to keep circling and I'm afraid we are never going to draw a conclusion where we all agree on one accord. (side note: what about when two or more agreed, it is so, or shall I as is it so... and if so what if two agree one way and another two agree another way; who is right? No two truths can be the same can they?

Question: Is it the position here by the majority that if we have free will then God doesn't know everything?

[DannyM]

Is it the position here by the majority that if we have free will then God doesn't know everything?

Don't know about the majority here, but we certainly have a free will, and God certainly knows everything.

I think the more pertinent question is, can one use their free will to accept or reject God without God knowing one way or the other?

[August]

Since nothing I post is directly or indirectly addressed, please in form me on a small scale with one question; for I have many more. Lets start small and simple since the argument seems to keep circling and I'm afraid we are never going to draw a conclusion where we all agree on one accord. (side note: what about when two or more agreed, it is so, or shall I as is it so... and if so what if two agree one way and another two agree another way; who is right? No two truths can be the same can they?

Question: Is it the position here by the majority that if we have free will then God doesn't know everything?

What do you mean by free will?

[PaulSacramento]

Free will is having the will to exert your ability to choose from your available options.
Free will is, basically, freedom of choice and the freedom of our will to choose from those choices.

[August]

Free will is having the will to exert your ability to choose from your available options.
Free will is, basically, freedom of choice and the freedom of our will to choose from those choices.

Ok. Let's hear from a few others too.

[zacchaeus]

Lets remember 1 Corinthians 14:33

In terms of freewill I mean the ability to chose God or deny Him... (is it an absolute freewill or is it an influenced freewill?)

Dan, I think were back to the circling thing I mentioned because you basically just asked the same thing I've been asking. But you could easily answer your question with your statement by saying yes, God knows everything, including what we will choose; but that leads to a previous question of mine, just because God knows everything including what we will choose to do, does that mean those choices were predestined???

Also, if God knows everything why would He repent for ever even creating MAN in the first place, unless He didn't realize how bad we would really be? How can anyone like Moses change Gods mind if everything is predestined? Gen 6:1-13, Exodus 32:9-14

1 Peter 1:6-9, 3:20, 4:15-19
2 Peter 1:20-21, 3:9

Numbers 22:1-8, 23:18-21
2 Tim 2:13, 3:16

Romans 1:21-23
Psalms 15:3, 44:21, 139:1-8, 147:5,
1 John 3:20,
Acts 15:8
Isaiah 46:10
Philippians 2:13, 4:6
Matt 6:8

[PaulSacramento]

If a person keeps jaywalking against the light, are they predestined to get hit by a car? and when they are hit by one, did hey have free will in the matter?
Personally I think those passages about predestination and preordained have to do with certain individuals that God has chosen for special works and not so much that God has decidied before the universe ever came to be, who was to be saved and who is not to be saved.
If that be the case, what need to we have of Christ and his death and the gospel?

[RickD]

Free will is having the will to exert your ability to choose from your available options.
Free will is, basically, freedom of choice and the freedom of our will to choose from those choices.

I agree with this definition, but only if I add that in the case of salvation, Our free will isn't absolute. Somehow, God opens our eyes to the gospel, to be able to accept it. I don't know how God does that, but I don't believe we can come to God completely on our own. That's why I believe God's omniscience and our choice have to act together. Maybe "free will" isn't the proper term. Free will implies a choice without anything affecting that choice.

[zacchaeus]

So then God only predestine certain people in which case those particular people didn't have freewill??? I don't know about that one.

What purpose did Christ really serve on the cross then, are ability to choose Him... if we don't choose Him then it was pointless, yet if He didn't die on the cross in the first place then we wouldn't even be able to choose Him or not to begin with; yet again its His ability and power that allows us to be able to choose to begin with, right?

If God doesn't know everything it be simple to argue and just says Hes not God... yet when we try to comprehend Him and His ability is confined and stricken to our limited humanitarian knowledge... and our knowledge isn't Gods knowledge, He isn't bound by the operations of the world so when we do this we confine Him and His ability and ultimately put Him in a box. Who are we to say what God can or can't do, know or not know, based on the fact we can't fathom or understand how based on the little knowledge He allows us to have.

At this moment and time I believe in a (delimited-predestination and a Sovereign influenced freewill)

[PaulSacramento]

I think that we always have a choice and that "free will" means "free to choose" rather than "free to exert our will on other or an event".
I think the "free" part is the issue, some thing that mean free of consequences but I think it means that we are free to choose for ourselves.
Outside of God taking control of us and making us his hand puppets, we are always free to choose.
Maybe we mean free choice as opposed to free will?
I think that even those predestined by God for special tasks are still free to reject God, I mean, We are created in Gods image and certainly Adam and Eve were predestined for something special and YET they still strayed.
Only a dictator God would impose HIS will over those He loves and NOT give them any choice in the matter.
If God is THAT way then why send Christ? why the gift of Grace? why are we saved by faith in Christ?

[DannyM]

In terms of freewill I mean the ability to chose God or deny Him... (is it an absolute freewill or is it an influenced freewill?)

Zac, I have given my own opinions on free will, in various posts on this thread, so won’t go through it again only to refer you back to those posts.

Dan, I think were back to the circling thing I mentioned because you basically just asked the same thing I've been asking. But you could easily answer your question with your statement by saying yes, God knows everything, including what we will choose; but that leads to a previous question of mine, just because God knows everything including what we will choose to do, does that mean those choices were predestined?

Zac, we are dead in sin. In order for us to believe we have to be moved, or quickened, by God. If we believe, it is because we have first been quickened. God is the instigator! God’s eternal choice, therefore, cannot depend on a foreseen faith, but must absolutely depend upon God’s eternal choice! You talk of an absolute free will, Zac, where your belief in God is uninfluenced and not predestined. Yet this flatly contradicts the Bible, for without God you could not come to faith at all.

John 6:44
No-one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day.

John 17:2
For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him.

Has God impeded your free will here, Zac?

Also, if God knows everything why would He repent for ever even creating MAN in the first place, unless He didn't realize how bad we would really be? How can anyone like Moses change Gods mind if everything is predestined?

Zac, can God do things which He did not know He was going to do?

[DannyM]

If a person keeps jaywalking against the light, are they predestined to get hit by a car? and when they are hit by one, did hey have free will in the matter?
Personally I think those passages about predestination and preordained have to do with certain individuals that God has chosen for special works and not so much that God has decidied before the universe ever came to be, who was to be saved and who is not to be saved.
If that be the case, what need to we have of Christ and his death and the gospel?

Paul, Christ Himself says that only the sheep are His. He prays not for the goats. I'd hate to have to be the one who stands before God and says, well, there was really no need for your Son's death and the good news, was there?

[RickD]

Danny, could you please define free will, in the context of this conversation? Like I said before, maybe "free will" isn't the proper term. But, for the sake of me trying to understand you, I need to know how you are defining that, and also how you define "predestination" as it applies here. I just see a whole lot of people saying different things, but I think most of the beliefs here aren't really as far apart as they seem.

[zacchaeus]

Dan said-"God’s eternal choice, therefore, cannot depend on a foreseen faith, but must absolutely depend upon God’s eternal choice!" for some reason I don't understand this and feel like I should????

I don't really recall me believing in an absolute free will uninfluenced, I asked about it, for I believe in a influenced free will absolutely.

This is a good question same one I have "Zac, can God do things which He did not know He was going to do?" as well as, can we hide from God where He wouldn't know where we are and like jump out and surprise Him; and how would we do that, pray to Him and tell Him where we were... LOL

I'm not sure you read my last post and or looked at all the scriptures. I believe in both... just I don't personally know my own self to what extent nor do I understand how or how any of it works.................!!!!!!!!!

[Proinsias]

I heard a recording of Alan Watts about ten years ago, a small part of that has always stayed with me. He was mulling over if God could create a surprise if God wanted a surprise. Humans would explain that to some degree I think.