Predetermination and Free Will

[Alabama Larry]

He knows every hair on your head. If you (anyone) thinks you can fully understand God your creator, then you need to sit in a closet and think about what you are trying to do, you can't. Thats why he is "I am".

[The Professor]

Professor, I posted my questions about Judas just to try to start a conversation. I know Judas, as do all men, have free will.

God created us, man, in his own image. He put Adam and Eve in a perfect place free from problems. Adam and Eve chose sin, eating the fruit. God's intention was for them to avoid it, but the temptation was too strong.

 

Now here is the part where most people have the biggest problem. God doesn't rate sin. One sin is the same as another to Him. Our minds can't help but seeing an adulteress in a different way than we see a murderer. But to God it is all just eating a piece of fruit. Sin is the willful transgression of the will of God.

 

God wants you to choose to obey Him, and following His commandments. God new each of us before we were created. He knew me, He Knew you and He knew Hitler and Judas. If God had stopped Judas from turning over Jesus, there would have been no resurection. I don't know what the plan was to allow Hitler to continue, but I do know God has a plan, and somehow this fit into it. And that plan is perfect.

 

As far as God being all merciful. I am glad He in fact is. I believe I am the chief of sinners. My sins, although not horrific to the world, fall way short of God's will. But because He is merciful, I have recieved grace through Jesus Christ.

 

Forgive me for being so long winded. It is Sunday morning and I want to be in church, but I am stuck at work. I have been reading the bible all morning. This post is as much intended to help me as it is anyone else.

God Bless

 

But didn't God know in advance what their choice would be? I suppose it could still be considered Free Will, but God knew what their Free Will decision would be before they ever made it? So wasn't He 'in the know' before they ever made their Free Will decision? That is the part that confuses me.

[Uncle Jed]

I'm not going to pretend to know what God knew and when He new it. I know this may sound like a cop out to the question, but this is whre the faith part comes into play. I know God is in control and I trust Him.

 

My belief is that God loves all his creations. He wants us to do the right things. I can't believe God created anyone, Judas, Hitler..., with the intention for them to go to hell. That is why I believe God gives us free will. Why he allows temptation, I don't know.

[The Professor]

I'm not going to pretend to know what God knew and when He new it. I know this may sound like a cop out to the question, but this is whre the faith part comes into play. I know God is in control and I trust Him.

 

My belief is that God loves all his creations. He wants us to do the right things. I can't believe God created anyone, Judas, Hitler..., with the intention for them to go to hell. That is why I believe God gives us free will. Why he allows temptation, I don't know.

I agree with you, faith and trust are important. Thanks for your answers:thumb:.

This has been a subject that has been on my mind since my college days.

[The Red Rambler]

That is why I believe God gives us free will. Why he allows temptation, I don't know.

 

Because if he didn't allow us the choice to follow him or not there would be no need for faith and if there is no need for faith that pretty much makes us autonomous robots and not unique creations.

 

I found this on a web site once:

 

Since God is omniscient, God has foreknowledge, meaning he knows what everyone will do in the future and what any individual would do in any given situation. This foreknowledge enables God to have a plan for everyone's life. For instance, if God wants a particular action to occur, he knows who would choose to do that action, and under what circumstances they would choose it; thus he is able to plan for it to happen. However, God's knowing what choices we will make is simply knowledge - it doesn't remove our free will, for we are still the ones making the choices.

 

This may be more understandable if we consider that we have a type of foreknowledge from our knowledge of history. For example, we know that the Americans won the Revolutionary War. If we went back in time before the Revolutionary War took place, our knowing the outcome wouldn't force anyone to do anything. Our knowing the Boston Tea Party would take place wouldn't mean that the colonists would be forced to throw the tea overboard, it would only mean that we'd know what the colonists would choose to do. It's the same with God: his knowing what we'll freely choose to do doesn't mean we're forced to make that choice.

 

In the end there is only one choice that truly matters- eternity with God or eternity apart from God. That is a choice that is up to us to make. God promises in Jeremiah 29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." So God encourages us to choose the path he has laid for us.

 

God knows what will happen to you if you live with him or live without him. If you imagine traveling the country without a map and no road signs it would be daunting and hard to get from say New York to Los Angeles. However God can see the road and the destination on each path you choose. He leaves it up to you to decide if you want to pick up the Atlas or his GPS and see the map that shows you the way to get where you want to go. What God does is place the road signs along the highway to try to steer us in the right direction. If we decide to ignore them then the wages of sin is death. Or you winding up in Death Valley instead of L.A using our map metaphor.

 

Finally I want to point that God is you know...God! He exists outside of our frame of understanding. We are all finite physicals beings and God is infinite! I know often times we want to find the reason and answer for everything, but the fact is we were not designed to understand God, we were designed to serve God. If we could completely and wholly understand God, once again there would be no need for faith. God desires for each of us to be ourselves, to be the unique creations he desgined us to be, and for each of us to have a deep and intimate realtionship with Him.

[HHSballer19]

Oh boy. This is a very difficult subject. There are parts to these discussions that can lead to the conclusion that God is frozen in time, which makes a lot of contradictions.

 

My current conclusion is that there is another dimension to understanding God that humans just aren't capable of and current philosophy just doesn't cut it right now. Even though it is a lot of fun to ponder and debate about it.

[Bronco99]

But didn't God know in advance what their choice would be? I suppose it could still be considered Free Will, but God knew what their Free Will decision would be before they ever made it? So wasn't He 'in the know' before they ever made their Free Will decision? That is the part that confuses me.

 

This is the way I see it and I hope it helps because I use to be very confused about this topic (now I am just confused). God knows all of our possible choices and he even knows what choice we will make and the outcome of those choices. However, God doesn't make us choose the choices we make, so therefore we have free will. Knowing everything that happens and causing or making everything happen is two totally different things.