Omniscient God, or free will?

[mizpeh]

Originally Posted by pelathais

You and Jason both appear to have missed out on the part where God is morally responsible for His foreknowledge.

It's like a man who leaves a loaded gun on a table accessible to young children. Even frail human beings can have a bit of foreknowledge to see how events may unfold. Therefore, by law (in this state anyhow) the man is both civilly and criminally responsible for the outcome of events if any harm should befall. "He should have known..." the investigating officers will say and the judge will concur.

The same can be said of God (the reasoning goes). God, through His foreknowledge knows the outcome of every event - including those events with moral consequences. Therefore, by choosing to either intervene or not to do so, God will actually predestine individuals to either heaven or hell.

Free will is an illusion if there is truly a God (the reasoning goes). God's own foreknowledge of our actions and choices determines our fate. Either He intervenes and "unloads the gun" and we are saved, or He chooses not to do so and we suffer the harm.

Romans 8:28-30

It was because of his atheism that Jean Paul Sartre said, "We are doomed to be free," in response to this question. If there is no God, then there is no "intervention" and all of the "guns" go off.

I can't speak for Jason.

God's own foreknowledge of our actions and choices determines our fate.

Would you explain this a little more clearly, please? I would say God bases his choices upon his foreknowledge of our choices.

Have you heard of middle knowledge?

“Molinism teaches that God exercises His sovereignty primarily through His omniscience, and that He infallibly knows what free creatures would do in any given situation.” (pg 5) This allows for God to indeed be sovereign, but it also allows for man to be truly free in that his choices truly are his own, and count as something other than a necessary response to Divine stimuli. Because God knows all things He knows all possibilities as well as which possibilities are feasible. In other words, God not only knows what could happen, He knows what will happen in any given circumstance, and He chooses to create the world in which all circumstances and choices bring the most glory to His name. In the world that God chose He both knows all things and man is free to make his own choices. Thus God is sovereign and man is free.

http://pastoralmusings.com/2010/01/0...nist-approach/

I would add to " He chooses to create the world in which all circumstances and choices bring the most glory to His name" that not only does God create the world which brings the most glory to his name but also saves the most people possible.