It has been claimed that if God is omniscient – this means
that He has perfect foreknowledge – we cannot have freewill. Why not?
1.
If God has perfect foreknowledge, the future
must happen the way that God knew it would happen from even before He created
the world.
2.
Therefore, the only choice we will make is the
one that He foreknew that we would make.
3.
CONCLUSION: Since we will not act otherwise, we
lack freewill.
However, the conclusion doesn’t follow logically from
premise #1 and #2. Although, as a Christian, I accept premise #1 and #2, the second
part of the conclusion does not logically follow from them.
Although I WILL act
as God foreknows I will act, it doesn’t follow that I COULD NOT
act otherwise. I could have acted otherwise, but I simply chose not to!
Consequently, God is perfectly omniscient, and yet we still freely choose.
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