Does God's foreknowledge take away from free will?

by Christ Alone 317 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  EntirelyPossible

  God knew that Adam and Eve would fall, so He did what anyone being with foreknowledge would do WITHOU effecting free will:

  Is there any chance God could have been wrong about that? I am asking, if he had foreseen it or guessed it or whatever, was there any possibility he could have been wrong?

  So we do have forknowledge AND free will and there is no conflict.

  So you have actually defined what kind of foreknowledge you mean. We don't know any of that yet.

  We have divine foreknowledge - God knowing that they would break the rule.

  Did he know, before he created them, that this would happen? Was it a guess, a reasoned position or actual seeing of an unalterable set in stone future?

  Seems like a very logical and simple conclusion to me. If a health professional gives you a program to follow and tells you all the ill effects if you refuse to follow the program , has he taken away your free will ?

  Of course not. It's also not the same thing as God knowing the future, so it's not applicable as an analogy.
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  PSacramento

  Yes I get that. The reason I no longer get into hypothetical debates is that I do not believe there is an answer to most questions. We can only speculate from our limited human standpoint. We are like ants trying to understand or comprehend an invisible elephant.

  Wise words my friend, wise words.

  I think that discussion is healty and helpful as long as know one epects concrete answers to an absract problem.
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  PSacramento

  Is there any chance God could have been wrong about that? I am asking, if he had foreseen it or guessed it or whatever, was there any possibility he could have been wrong?

  If God had NOT foreseen Adam choosing any different, then yes He could have been wrong, but since God foresaw all of adma's choices ( there were only two -eat or not) then either choice would have been forseen.

  So you have actually defined what kind of foreknowledge you mean. We don't know any of that yet.

  Did he know, before he created them, that this would happen? Was it a guess, a reasoned position or actual seeing of an unalterable set in stone future?

  Some argue that yes, before God created them, He knew they would sin.

  I disagree with that view because that would go against God's character as it is revealed in Christ.
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  caliber

  If I am an ant I think it wise to give do respect to elephants...

  there is a much bigger world , way beyond mine...

  I ponder this scripture ....

  For who has known the mind of the Lord? or who has been his counselor? Ro 11: 34

  due reverance & respect

  Would I try and match wits with a world class chess champion ?

  
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  EntirelyPossible

  If God had NOT foreseen Adam choosing any different, then yes He could have been wrong, but since God foresaw all of adma's choices ( there were only two -eat or not) then either choice would have been forseen.

  So does God only see all the possible outcomes of choices or what is actually going to happen?

  I disagree with that view because that would go against God's character as it is revealed in Christ.

  So God doesn't know the future? It's very confusing. He doesn't, but he doesn, but he can choose not to, but he wouldn't do that, but he doesn't always know the future, he may or may not be omniscient.....

  I know you said not to expect concrete answers to abstract problems, but you give out information about God in concrete form and then, when trying to get into the details, say not to expect concrete. It makes it seems like a lot of this is just made up as people go along...
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  frankiespeakin

  If God knows the future because he is in the past, present, future, and beyound, but chooses not to be conscious of what he knows, this would be a deliberate not knowing, denial, or a repressed knowledge of things. If a god were to follow this type of mentally induced blindness, in effect retarding himself, and living in a delusion created by repression and thus be an imitation of the ostrich sticking his head in the sand fable. Either way it show up the illogicalness of a god who knows the future, but doesn't want to know it, and so represses it from consciousness for what ever humanly concieved purpose can we can imagine.
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  PSacramento

  So does God only see all the possible outcomes of choices or what is actually going to happen?

  IMO, God sees all possible outcomes. SInce there aren't really that many options to each choice AND God knows our nature so well, it is in practical terms, known what we will decide.

  So God doesn't know the future? It's very confusing. He doesn't, but he doesn, but he can choose not to, but he wouldn't do that, but he doesn't always know the future, he may or may not be omniscient.....

  That is why there are so many views on omniscience and how to relate it in human terms.

  I know you said not to expect concrete answers to abstract problems, but you give out information about God in concrete form and then, when trying to get into the details, say not to expect concrete. It makes it seems like a lot of this is just made up as people go along...

  I don't think made up, but certianly theorized and hypothesized, yes.

  I openly admit that I do NOT know How God's omniscience works and NO ONE can say they do.

  If we play a game and I deduce the outcome 100 times correctly and do so by taking into account all possible outcomes and all I know about your nature and we play again and I deduce the other 100 times correctly, then, in practical terms, I know ALL there is too know in regards to this game we and I are playing.

  Can it be viewed as an "educated guess"? Sure but that doesn't change that I got every right every time we play because I KNEW everything about what was going on. In practical terms of course.
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  EntirelyPossible

  SInce there aren't really that many options to each choice AND God knows our nature so well, it is in practical terms, known what we will decide.

  Ah, so God is guessing. He doesn't have actualy foreknowledge.

  Got it, He isn't really God then. He's just a good guess. If he is guessing there is some percent chance he will be wrong sometime. God is fallible.
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  EntirelyPossible

  So.... we're agreed? God is fallible and therefore doesn't meet the burden of the title God?
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  tec

  Funny :)

  Who decides what is the burden of the title God? And how would one other THAN God decide such a thing?

  (you already know my answer as to this topic, even if you do not agree with me, so I don't really have any more to state on that)

  Peace,

  tammy