Vic2Ree:
You cause what God knows based on your choices, because God can’t know what you do unless you do it. You aren’t restricted by what God knows, God’s knowledge is restricted by what you do. It is logically fallacious to say God knowing something negates the possibility of choice, this commits the modal logic fallacy. He only knows the things you do because you do them, and him knowing does not negate choice. This isn’t some apologetics hand-waving to justify beliefs, this is proven logic by unbiased sources.

XxSabrinaxX:

It is the combination of omniscience and omnipotence that contradicts free will.

God's omnipotence means that he had the power to design the world such that every human would make any particular set of decisions every step of the way. By designing the world the way he did, and having the foreknowledge of every single one of the trillions of trillions of decisions that would be made based on each detail of design, god necessarily determined (and effectively decreed) every single one of those decisions that every human would make. The only way he could not have is if he temporarily restricted his own omnipotence and/or omniscience at the point of creation. There seems to be no credible theist who has provided evidence that god turned down either of those characteristics.

Vic2Ree:

The contents of God's knowledge are a result of being outside of time, it is not an inherent characteristic.

To word my thesis differently: God can only know the logically possible, but that set of knowledge can expand depending on what does or does not exist. Beings with free will existing expand what God can know. God could know everything in a non-existing universe, but only if none of its inhabitants had free will.

I’m arguing that God does not know the details of things like the following:

1. What the life of an aborted baby would have been like

2. What my life would have been like if I had not gone to college

3. Which uncreated humans would have gone to Heaven or Hell (this includes rejecting the idea that God could have only created the humans that would have chosen him, and not created the ones who wouldn’t)

God has many characteristics, some of which are love, morality, and logic. Independent of everything else, God is loving, moral, and logical. We don’t have to exist for these things to be attributed to God, they are simply a part of him.
But if free will does exist, the contents of God’s knowledge do not fit the definition of “characteristic” I laid out above. In order for God to know something, the conditions for it being possible to know must exist. God only has his current knowledge as a result of being outside of time (of an existing universe).

Assuming we have free will, a being with free will is (at least partially) responsible for the outcome of a choice. If said being does not exist to “play their part” in deciding an outcome, the outcome cannot be known for certain. It would not be logically possible to know an outcome that cannot be known.
I think that definition dictates my point already, but we can still use another example to explain it:

Let’s say any outcome C is the result of 3 factors: G, which is genetics, E, which are events an individual experiences, and F, the free will an individual has (G + E + F = C). If we say that God can know C even if the individual does not exist (therefore F not existing either), this means free will is negligible and is indistinguishable with free will not existing. G + E + F = C = G + E means F is zero. God can know all possible combinations of G and E, but if F does not exist, C cannot be known.

The only verse that seems to relate to this stance is Psalm 147:5, which states God’s knowledge is “infinite.” Other verses translate it as “no limit” or “beyond measure.” However, this verse is part of a poem and I think could be taken as a hyperbole. Similarly, a few verses later in Psalm 147:13, has God literally strengthened bars, or is this a metaphor for protection? In my opinion, this verse doesn’t seem to pose a problem to my argument any more than it would for the argument that God can’t know the logically impossible.

I don’t really think this stance is an issue for God’s immense knowledge in most cases. He still knows everything that happens in our universe and knows our hearts. It simply means he can’t know which people will choose or reject them unless they actually exist to do so. It does not change the fact that he knows our future, since he is still outside of time. The contents of God's knowledge are not an inherent characteristic of God.

I honestly believe that God does not know, prior to creation, every decision that will be made in a universe with a given set of parameters.

To the best of my understanding, this incorporates free will, omniscience, and omnipotence without a contradiction in logic or from scripture. Though I'm definitely open to criticism.

XxSabrinaxX:

That means he was not 100% omniscient at the time of creation, although he may be now.

Vic2Ree:

I don't think so. Assuming we are following the traditional definition that God can't know the logically impossible (ex. what a 5-sided triangle looks like), omniscience is knowing all knowable propositions (rough definition I hope we can work with).

That was the point of my argument, that the set of all possible knowable things (all logically possible things) expands once beings with free will exist. God knew all possible knowledge prior to creation, and was therefore 100% omniscient. After creation, the set of knowable things expanded, as did God's knowledge along with it, remaining 100%.

XxSabrinaxX:

I don't see how having foresight before creation makes it logically impossible for god to know how said creation would go. It sounds precisely like what omniscience and omnipotence would include. I mean, that's totally fine. His power and knowingness of the universe are still extremely impressive. It just seems intellectually dishonest when theists can't concede that it's logically impossible for god to be tri-omni and for us to have free will.

At the very least, theists could concede that god relinquished some of his power and/or knowingness in the act of giving us free will. That may be an incredibly wonderful and selfless act, but it means that god was less than 100% powerful and/or knowing, at least at the point of creation. I don't see why theists are so stubborn about that. Maybe they think that their whole system will crumble, but honestly it comes across to me as unreasonable.

TheArranger:
Just to clarify, I am not debating free will in general, as that is a completely different topic.

God's plan, put simply, is that we would be tested on Earth, and those of us who were good would go to heaven. I have always been told that this includes us having free will. However, God is said to be omnipotent. If God can see the future, than it is predetermined, and therefore, we can't have free will. If we don't have free will, God is knowingly sending people towards damnation, is he not?

In my opinion God's omnipotence contradicts the requirement for free will in God's plan.

MuttleyLaff:
Just because God is omniscient (i.e. knows everything, knows the end from the beginning, seen the future etcetera) doesnt mean God will deny your existence. You have the right to exist regardless of how you'll end up to become. Your nature, no matter how good or bad it is, is not barrier and is never used as an excuse for not letting you be created. You have as much right like evey other created thing to have similar or same opportunity to be a creation.

Humans as a creation, are born and begin life, initially without character, and if at all any, not very much of it then. So, freewill is what is required, in order to and/or in time, acquire, build character and stock up on it. We all, each one of us, the Ranchhoddas, budaatum, OtemAtum, LordReed, jesusjnr, Michellekabod1, luvmijeje, finalboss, TATIME, MuttleyLaff, JMAN05, HellVictorinho, HardMirror, Akin1212, XxSabrinaxX, vaxx, ihedinobi3, Dantedasz, Rebekkah etcetera have over our ongoing lifetime developed certain characteristics, habits, physical and non physical features, habits, idiosyncrasies, mannerisms, peculiarities etcetera. This is down to and as a result of freewill. Freewill is associated with choice. Ignorance is a choice and people sure do choose to be ignorant. We are free to choose or make choices but we are not free from the consequence of choice(s). You have freewill to stuff your cakehole with all manners of junk, get obese and suffer the consequence of coronary heart disease etcetera

Only one Person will still go ahead with His creations, knowing fully well that some out the creations are jerks, arseholes, bitches, badasses, turncoats, accusers, rebels etcetera. Do you know who and wy?. It is God and it is because He is the Omnipotent. He very much has everything under control. It is only a wimp, who doesnt have everything under control, doesnt know what to do, doesnt know how to handle the whole mess that's going to pan out in front of him, that will baulk at the prospect of continuing to go ahead having known ahead what he has already known about certain creations. That is omnipotence, that is power, that is powerful, that is extreme self-confidence and audacity, that means having chutzpah

XxSabrinaxX:
Here's the thing,
Free will is the ability to choose between a set of possible actions. If the only possible action is already known, there is no choice. No choice is what happens when you are falling, for example. You dont choose to keep falling, unless you have an option not to fall, which would be a parachute or superpower. If you dont have a choice about it, you are not choosing to fall. You simply will fall because that is the only possible option.

This problem is very easy to understand in basic steps:

* At any given moment in time (A), God knows everything, including what he will do in given moment of time (B).

* At time (B) God must do what he knew he would do in moment of time (A) because if he does not, then God´s knowledge of what he would do at moment (B) was false when he used his omniscience at moment (A) to predict his action.

* God can not possibly have a false knowledge of what he would do at moment (B) because it would mean he was wrong.

* God can not be wrong.

So we can conclude, that from any moment of time, even before the creation of the universe, God knew exactly what he would be doing at every point of time after that point.

This is especially problematic when you add in the fact that God is stated as also having always existed. This is to say, that there was no moment in which he did not exist, and no moment that he did not already have knowledge of every action he would take in the future.

There is no point in which he could possibly make a decision about what he would do, because there was no moment in which he did not already know. No ¨First moment¨ to think about a course of action before knowing what that course of action would be.

Why is this a problem? Because it implies that God is nothing more than a property of existence. No free will to speak of, just a powerful mechanic that drives the creation of the universe and all the things that happen in that universe, but can not choose to do anything else. Basically God would be a bit like Gravity. Massively influencial in how the universe works, but not considered a free agent. Gravity must pull things together, God must do the things he must do. There is no free will where there are no choices.

At this point you might thinking, well, just because he does know everything, doesnt mean he couldnt choose to do something else. But any step he takes to invalidate his knowledge of future events would end up proving that he was wrong. And an infallible God cant be wrong. He could not have false knowledge about what would happen, and that is what he would need to do in order to ¨change¨ his predetermined future. So where would free will fit in?
People tend to reach for multiple worlds as a possible solution. The general thinking is a bit like this:

In the beginning, God created an infinite number of universes, each with what you could call a definitive list of actions God takes in a specific chronological order. So God doesnt really have to choose anything, he has already chosen everything. All possible God actions at any point in time will happen.

But if infinite multiple universes exist with all possible actions taken, there isnt really ever a choice because God does in fact do all things. You have to select between a list of possible actions in order to choose. Doing everything at once is just a more complicated version of the original problem. Because if you know what every single possible action is and every single possible outcome would be, and then do all those possible things, you still know what those infinite possible things are, and they will all happen, and God never has any choice.

Or if you want to keep things linear, you could define omniscience as knowing all possible futures and then declare that God chooses between possible futures, so the logic would look like this:

* At point (A) God knows that at point (B) an infinite number of possible universes exist that contain all possible actions God could take.

* At point (B) God could choose which potential universe will come to exist, and which will not.

* Choosing which possible universe will manifest is a choice, therefore God has free will.

The problem with this solution is that it simply takes the problem back a step. Because God has to know ahead of time which possible universe he will manifest. He would simply know a bunch of useless bits of information. He would know what would happen if he did anything but the thing he would know he would actually do. This basically means that God knows what happens if he doesnt stick to his own mandated script, but the script would stay the same, and no free will would be added by the extra knowledge of universes that will never happen. Because God has to already know which possible universe will end up being the real universe.

But since God already knows which choice he will make, he is not really choosing anything. Because all actions are mandatory and can not be anything other than what he already Knows will happen.

MuttleyLaff:
XxSabrinaxX, with the greatest respect and I have skimmed through the above verbose, God fundamentally went ahead with His choice to be creative period. He knows the end from the beginning but still went ahead not minding the choices we make and about to later make. The choices we make and their consequences He knows He can handle them, He knows with them He still has everything under control. He knows what needs to be done and what will be done to clear up the mess that emanates.

It simply is like having an algorithm with conditional statements, funtions, arguments, routines, parameters etcetera. God allows the program to run, notwithstanding knowing about each and every choice. He isn't necessarily dictating the choices, He just responds to either the negative or positive choice made whichever is imputed by us.

XxSabrinaxX:
Let's try this again, and i'll make it more brief this time
This comes back to the problem of omniscience and free will: I believe that God does not exist. I did not choose to. If that prevents me from going to Heaven, it is God’s fault that I am damned and not my own. If God is omniscient and omnipotent, then I really don't have a 0p hi Fiona yeah yeah yeah yeah choice here because he knows exactly what i'm going to do, and exactly what will happen to me if I do so.

MuttleyLaff:
You are damned not because of God. You are damned because of your nature. You are damned because of the choice(s) you weren't coerced to do nor forced to carry out. You made each and every choice off your own accord and actually took advantage of exercising freewill. Your badness doesn't mean it could not be used for the betterment of someone or something else. Everything is under God's control and that is due to His Omnipotence.

MuttleyLaff:

I could go on but don't want to risk it turning into information overload.

XxSabrinaxX:
Didn't catch this statement lol. Do go on, I really want to hear what you have to say, unless you're just mouthing off.

MuttleyLaff:
You are damned not because of God. You are damned because of your nature. You are damned because of the choice(s) you weren't coerced to do nor forced to carry out. You made each and every choice off your own accord and actually took advantage of exercising freewill. Your badness doesn't mean it could not be used for the betterment of someone or something else, so your creation apart from the fact it is a right, is allowed to happen. Everything is under God's control and that is due to His Omnipotence.

I could go on but don't want to risk it turning into information overload.

TheArranger:
Just to clarify, I am not debating free will in general, as that is a completely different topic.

God's plan, put simply, is that we would be tested on Earth, and those of us who were good would go to heaven. I have always been told that this includes us having free will. However, God is said to be omnipotent. If God can see the future, than it is predetermined, and therefore, we can't have free will. If we don't have free will, God is knowingly sending people towards damnation, is he not?

In my opinion God's omnipotence contradicts the requirement for free will in God's plan.

Cc. Ranchhoddas, budaatum, OtemAtum, LordReed, jesusjnr, Michellekabod1, luvmijeje, finalboss, TATIME, MuttleyLaff, JMAN05, HellVictorinho, HardMirror, Akin1212, XxSabrinaxX, vaxx, ihedinobi3, Dantedasz, Rebekkah

MuttleyLaff:
What Why don't you answer these:

MuttleyLaff:
1/ Did God influence you to come open this thread and be posting on it?

MuttleyLaff:
2/ Has God forced or coerced you to comment on this thread?

MuttleyLaff:
3/ Who is just mouthing off? Did God make you to start behaving or God prompted you to try dissing like a bitch?

MuttleyLaff:
God says I know the number of hairs on your head but you want to trivialise that huh? And where did you learn that people are going to suffer forever? You are familiar with "hell" but misunderstand what is going down there with it. You need to declutter as you type too much ending up obfuscating. Keep it short, simple and sweet

TheArranger:
This post is dumb, no offense @MuttleyLaff. If God is an omnipotent, omniscient being, then he's responsible for man's damnation because he knows the thoughts of man. If God was truly good and he didn't want Adam and Eve to eat from the tree of good and evil, he could have just cancelled the tree from existence. Why didn't he just do that?

MuttleyLaff:
It is because you are inadequate that is why you will do a dumb thing as baulk out of going ahead of creating Adam and Eve because of the premise they will eat of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.

If God really didn't want at all, Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He wouldn't have placed the Tree centrally in the garden and alongside another tree called the Tree of life.

Adam and Eve were not forced, influenced or coerced by God to go eat of the tree. Your true nature is not a barrier or an excuse to God, for preventing you from coming into existence.

I know if the shoe were in the other foot, you wouldn't have the self confidence of God, to follow on, inspite of what you know about the wickedness of human beings

MuttleyLaff:
It is because you are inadequate that is why you will do a dumb thing as baulk out of going ahead of creating Adam and Eve because of the premise they will eat of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil.

If God really didn't want at all, Adam and Eve eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, He wouldn't have placed the Tree centrally in the garden and alongside another tree called the Tree of life.

Adam and Eve were not forced, influenced or coerced by God to go eat of the tree. Your true nature is not a barrier or an excuse to God, for preventing you from coming into existence.

I know if the shoe were in the other foot, you wouldn't have the self confidence of God, to follow on, inspite of what you know about the wickedness of human beings

OpenYourEyes1:
“Look! The time is coming when the signs appear that I told you about in advance, and the city will appear, appearing as a bride, and the land that is now hidden will be openly displayed.
Everyone who is rescued from the evils foretold will see my wonders.
My Son the anointed one will be revealed along with those who are with him, and those who remain will rejoice for four hundred years." - 2Esdras 7:21—26

CAPSLOCKED:


THE MORE YOU THINK ABOUT IT THE LESS SENSE THE WHOLE GOD THING MAKES, WHICH IS WHY BELIEVERS JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE, AND NOT THINK.
SO JUST HAVE FAITH AND BELIEVE IF YOU WANT TO ENJOY ETERNITY WITH AN INVISIBLE MAN IN THE SKY.