| How can we have free will if God is omniscient? If God knows what is going to happen to us, then it is unchangeable, so we do not have free will, right? |
| I believe that we have the free will to make our own decisions, and that
God already knows what those decisions will be. God is a timeless being,
not having a past, present, and future the way we do. He can see our future
the same way that we can see our past. For example, suppose that yesterday
you ate a hamburger for lunch. Using your free will, you chose to eat that
as opposed to, say, a cheeseburger. However, you cannot now change the fact
that you ate that hamburger. Time will complete all of our choices. And God
exists in the future, looking back at all the choices we have yet to make.
To draw a Biblical comparison, a lot of non-believers say that since God
knew Adam would eat of the forbidden fruit, that Adam had no choice but to
eat it. I say that Adam could have chosen to reject the fruit, in which case
God would have known in advance that Adam would reject it.
Note: I received an E-mail from a non-Christian in response to this page. Too see the E-mail and my response go to Letters:Free Will |