Freewill!

[SalvationIsNow]

I am not sure if this goes here, but I did want a catholic response.

I am new to christianity especially catholisism (was confimed in Dec last year). I love the church, it has done good things for me emotionally and spiritually.

I am confused on several things...the first of course being freewill:

If God is all knowing....how can we have freewill? If he already knows from the beggining who was going to hell, how can we be saved, and if we do change our hearts to him, doesnt that make him not all knowing?

This is a very serious question, it was posed to me by a friend a while ago, and now it has been soinning around and around in my mind....I need a little explanation to this, if any one can help me out, I would be very grateful.

Thank you and God Bless.

[Filia Mariae]

Hi Salvation and welcome to OBOB. You'll probably get more answers if you post this in the main part of OBOB. :)

[BillH]

This is a little tricky for me as well. I think the best way to explain is to think of God as existing outside of time. He created time, so He's not bound by it. Thus, it's not really even proper to speak of God seeing the future or the past, because for Him, there is no future or no past.

So... that being said, He knows what will happen to each of us. He could choose to intervene and put us on a different track, but He would rather we follow Him willingly, and thus allows us to make mistakes.

Think of it this way -- you see someone driving towards a cliff. You know that, in a couple moments, he will fly off the cliff, but you can't get a message to him. Hence, you KNOW his fate. Does this make you responsible? Have you caused him to drive off the cliff? No. Foreknowledge can still exist with free will.

Hope that this helps!

(Like Filia Mariae said... you're best off posting questions like this in the main OBOB forum. :) )

[SalvationIsNow]

Perhaps I am being a silly NOOBLET but whats an OBOB?

[BillH]

Perhaps I am being a silly NOOBLET but whats an OBOB?

^_^

Oops, sorry! OBOB is "One Bread, One Body" -- the name of the Catholic forum on Christian Forums. :)

[revolutiongames2004]

ok ok i have put lots a thought into this. god doesnt pressure you into anything. but he knows what you are going to do. hes cool like that. the answer may also lie in the physics of time. but lets not go ther because im not sure of its authentisity. plus it deals with complex physics and nobody would understand.

[holysee]

If you watch a football game and record it at the same time then you can watch the recording again later.

Watching the recording you already know whats going to happen next and who's going to win but all the players playing the game are unaffected by your knowledge and retain freewill because they have already done what you are watching them do. Since God is equally present at all moments of time simultaneously the fact that he already knows the result of each game doesnt affect the choices made by each player.

In other words he knows what you are going to decide to do but you still have to make the decision yourself.

[alkan]

It's a bit presumptuous to say that

"God is equally present at all moments of time simultaneously"

I think that's a statement which needs some quantifying!

[alkan]

The supposed fact that God made us in his own image and likeness suggests that he does not have a single fixed state in time.

I woul suggest for God, time exists only as a tool to allow us to develop. Time for God is what it is for us.

But I woldn't say God knows before we do something, what we will do. That suggests an idea that we are destined to do one thing or another.

[Iluminatius]

Hi, guys! :wave:

I think that God's ultimate knowledge about our fate does not contradict with our free will. That's because knowledge is theoretical, while determination of our will is a practical thing. No theoretical factor could by itself affect reality, so, unless God uses his knowledge in his practical decisions, his knowledge of our future does not influence this fate.

[Ravenonthecross]

just so we know God's present everywhere, like it seems simultaneously from our and history's point of view, but because he's outside of time, he's deity is unbound by such linear, or limited concepts of reality.

[Iluminatius]

just so we know God's present everywhere, like it seems simultaneously from our and history's point of view, but because he's outside of time, he's deity is unbound by such linear, or limited concepts of reality.

I wonder. Is it really so that God is out of time? I think it is not, because we can analyse time anywhere, where at least two events occur, so that we can judge the time between them. Thus, time is always present when we analyze any kind of change in reality. That's why God could only be "outside" time if He was unchangeable and would not interfere in our reality. As Christians we believe that he has interfered as Jesus Christ, and so we cannot say that he is out of time.

[Ravenonthecross]

I wonder. Is it really so that God is out of time? I think it is not, because we can analyse time anywhere, where at least two events occur, so that we can judge the time between them. Thus, time is always present when we analyze any kind of change in reality. That's why God could only be "outside" time if He was unchangeable and would not interfere in our reality. As Christians we believe that he has interfered as Jesus Christ, and so we cannot say that he is out of time.
i never said, tthat he didn't interfere as Jesus, i'm however trying to correct what seemed to me to be someone trying to limit the scope of an allpowerful, omniscent, omnipotent, good God, whose so great, that such human perceptions of time, or reality cannot full comprehend nor understand all that God is. When one denies the full scope of God, he's denying God himself, and one must come to realize this. i maybe overdoing it a bit, but hey, he's my God, and i'd defend him before all others, as i know he'd rep and defend my soul before his Heavenly Father. The Lord God bless you!

[Iluminatius]

i never said, tthat he didn't interfere as Jesus, i'm however trying to correct what seemed to me to be someone trying to limit the scope of an allpowerful, omniscent, omnipotent, good God, whose so great, that such human perceptions of time, or reality cannot full comprehend nor understand all that God is. When one denies the full scope of God, he's denying God himself, and one must come to realize this. i maybe overdoing it a bit, but hey, he's my God, and i'd defend him before all others, as i know he'd rep and defend my soul before his Heavenly Father. The Lord God bless you!

Surely, we cannot fully comprehend all that God is, but I believe that what is special in Christianity is that, unlike in other religions where God is undescribable, God became a human and became to some extent understandable for us. That, of course, does not mean that we can utterly discover what He is, but only that he is part of our reality and our time, the fundamental part. :)

[Counter-Reformer]

A Good book I would reccomend is William Leigh's Book, "the Only Wise God", the book itself uses the Molinist POV.

[plmarquette]

There are a couple of schools of thought on this ...
1. Moravianism speaks of " destiny , election , predestination " , citing scriptures like Ephesians 1.5,11 that we have been predestinated ... all part of God's plan ... like "fate"

2. Armenianism ... where God wants a desired end , and we can accept / reject choices on the journey . When we make a wrong choice , he steers us back to the right path by situations , circumstances , angels , conviction of the Holy Spirit to his path / plan (Genesis 50.20, Romans 8.28)

the devil messes with our minds ... in which we have 3 voices : God , satan , and our will ... we have to listen to what is being requested (1John 4.1) ; and look at the consequences ( Philippians 4.8) of our actions to know which voice is which , then follow the right one [ I am their shepherd , another they will not follow ]

[YouRaiseMeUp]

There was an episode of Futurama where Bender met god and this was a little conversation that they had:

Bender: So you know what I'm going to do before I do it?
God: Yes
Bender: What if I do something else?
God: Then I don't know that

LoL I dunno that's what I always think about when I think about God and free will.

I honestly believe that God GAVE you choices before you were born and you made them up in heaven, and then when you come here you have no recolection of that and so it seems like you get to make a choice but you've really already decided with God what's going to happen, if that makes any sense.

[Brother Simon]

I always assumed omnipresent included time, since, through physics we can understand time as having positions just like locations on a map. Much like walking down a street.. changing your position (where you are present), we also move through time in likewise manner, changing our position (when you are present).

In physics there are 4 pieces of information (based on four dimensions) needed for telling someone where you are. Where in the X, where in the Y, where in the Z, and where in time. Omnipresent, I would assume, includes all four boundaries.

With love,
Simon

[lost_and_found]

I am not sure if this goes here, but I did want a catholic response.

I am new to christianity especially catholisism (was confimed in Dec last year). I love the church, it has done good things for me emotionally and spiritually.

I am confused on several things...the first of course being freewill:

If God is all knowing....how can we have freewill? If he already knows from the beggining who was going to hell, how can we be saved, and if we do change our hearts to him, doesnt that make him not all knowing?

This is a very serious question, it was posed to me by a friend a while ago, and now it has been soinning around and around in my mind....I need a little explanation to this, if any one can help me out, I would be very grateful.

Thank you and God Bless.
God exists outside of the human perception of what time is. He does not rely on it as we do. He knows the past, present and future because to Him, it is all one big occurrence. He knows us perfectly and knows what we will choose, but He nevertheless still allows us to go ahead and make those decisions for ourselves. A priest once told me "He sees the trainwreck coming". His promise to us was free will, so allowing us to make our own mistakes and choices fufills that promise.

[Foundthelight]

I wonder. Is it really so that God is out of time? I think it is not, because we can analyse time anywhere, where at least two events occur, so that we can judge the time between them. Thus, time is always present when we analyze any kind of change in reality.

Time is relative! Depending on what speed you are moving at time changes. This has been exprimentally verified and is thus proven.

Too often we look at our linear concept of time and assume that everything works at that same time. It does not.