Free will vs Omniscience

There are many things that some chapters of club christian believe which cannot be proven. Life happens like that. Books can tell us a lot, but nothing trumps experience. Once one has experienced certain truths, no book can deny this experience.Granted I often make many "salads." Any one of us can have an opinion or a belief, and thanks to Percy (and freedom of speech) we can present our ideas publically for critique and evaluation.I test many ideas and adapt some while rejecting others. What GOD knows is irrelevant to the lives which we live and the choices which we make. I believe that GOD chooses everybody, just as you do. I disagree with the idea that we are only expected to try and do our best. You minimize the idea of getting to know GOD....having decided that such an endeavor is impossible at best. I feel that I am beginning to know Him..though I have a long way to go in this relationship.Whether we humans truly have free will or not, we are responsible for what we will. (And what we do)By the way, you can't simply pick and choose which God you choose to worship. Ultimately, the Creator of all seen and unseen will have His way whether humans call Him evil or not. We should be unconcerned with what GOD knows and when GOD knows it.

So you think we are not expected to try and do our best? Again, that is simply not true Phat. You really need to stop misrepresenting what I have decided or know.What I have asked, not just once but repeatedly, is how do you determine what you have a relationship with really is God?So far there has been no explanation. But all of the evidence says that is exactly what people do, they worship the god they create and choose. That is why the God character in Genesis 1 is so different from the God character in Genesis 2&3. That is true of all despots. Is such a god worthy of respect much less worship? Should the fact that something can have its way be a criteria for love, respect or worship? But that happens to be the actual topic of this thread that had died long ago until someone resurrected it.

Yes, I agree that if God knew the outcome of the people during His creation of them... then there is no freewill for them.

Again, you're just not going back far enough.Chicken and egg.Yes, in my scenario God knows the outcome (2015) before I make the choice (2025).
But if I make the choice freely, and God didn't know what I would pick when He created me (beginning of the universe) then I still made the choice when God didn't know (beginning of the universe). I just didn't play it out until 2025. God simply looked ahead on the playing-it-out part.Of course, as I've already admitted, if God knew what I was going to choose before/during His creation of me (beginning of the universe) then you are right, and I agree... there is no freewill.But if He didn't know at my creation... then I'm right. There is freewill, and God can know outcomes before choices are made as long as He didn't know what those outcomes were when He created the choice-maker.

A better thread summary was never written Of course, if you enjoy pointless diversions... then this thread is a goldmine!

Utter nonsense.If god knew before you were created then that god would be evil and you would have no freewill.If god does not know before creating you but does know before you decide what to do then that god is not evil but you still have no freewill.It really is that simple.

This entire thread? Yes, of course it is. Who wants something like "facts" to get in their way? This isn't true. You're just not very good with relative time.From my perspective, yes, I made the choice in 2025, and God saw what I would do in 2015... therefore God knew what I would do before I made the choice.But, from God's perspective: I made the choice when I was created (creation of the universe). God didn't know what I would choose then.Therefore, from God's perspective, He didn't know what I would choose before the choice was made.
It's only from mine and yours limited perspective that God knows the outcome before the choice.However, since we're dealing with God... whether or not God has given us or removed our freewill... we need to look at God's perspective.Since God is the tipping point, and your criteria are fulfilled from His perspective... then freewill still exists.Even though from our (irrelevant) perspective... God knows the result before we make the choice.All you're doing is saying that from the bus-driver's perspective the seats are bolted to the floor - they are stationary. Therefore the bus never moves.
I'm sitting on the side of the road watching you go by at 60 mph and trying to explain to you that your individual, internal scenario is irrelevant when making a grand-scale claim.You just have to look at the big picture.

Apparently the first requirement is that I should ignore what it actually says.What's the second? Does that involve burning it?

Sorry but now you are just posting more nonsense even by any standards as well as continuing to misrepresent what I have said.I did not say or imply that the thread was nonsense, only that your posts have been utter nonsense as well as totally dishonest.It really is that simple.

First requirement is "Believe." That means you know it's God's word so it can't contradict itself and therefore what looks like a contradiction isn't but is something that has to be understood in context and reconciled.God does not change, He is the same yesterday today and forever, but IN RELATION TO HUMAN BEINGS He seems to change, such as changing His mind about punishing us if we repent of what He was going to punish us for and that sort of thing. Or by granting our prayers. That's the kind of thing that is put in our terms.He always knows everything, always has the same will to do whatever He is going to do, but from our perspective we can get Him to seem to change by our changes. It's the problem I brought up in my first post: God doesn't exist in time, but we do. There are no changes in eternity, only in time where we experience things. First requirement: when something looks like a contradiction you understand it as a situation where something is true in one sense or frame of reference but not true in the other. "Believe." Don't drag God down to the level of our limitations.The Bible says both. Both are true.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.Edited by Faith, : No reason given.

Personally I think that what annoys many people is the whole idea that they can never decide to do something apart from what God knows.Tough.

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First requirement is "Believe."

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Which you get by quote-mining the Bible. As we already know from previous discussions. Message 487

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That means you know it's God's word so it can't contradict itself and therefore what looks like a contradiction

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In other words exactly what I said. Your idols proclaim the Bible as the "Word of God" so that they can abuse it to put words in his mouth. And when they get their congregation used to covering up the disagreements through distortion and invention they legitimise abuse of the Bible.If you want to reduce God to a stupid sock-puppet, that's up to you. But you can hardly complain that people who take the idea of God seriously are "dragging God down"Edited by PaulK, : Added link to past discussion

So I should think that it's true, and then and only then should I find out what it says. And then whatever it says, I should go on thinking that it's true.Well by that procedure, you could believe any dumb crap no matter how counterfactual and self-contradictory. And indeed, it's a procedure that one would only want to apply if one wanted to have a good chance of believing something false. No-one sincerely wanting the truth would have anything to do with it.One question that occurs to me is how you picked the text to which to apply this strange method of non-critical analysis. Why the Bible and not Alice In Wonderland? It can't have been through reading it and becoming convinced that it was true, because apparently one has to be convinced of that before one reads it --- otherwise one ends up like me, thinking that it's a load of old cobblers. So, is it true or false to say that God changed his mind?Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

And those four words explain how the power holders in 'religious' organisations have manipulated and exploited the gullible for thousands of years.Halleluja!

No Phat, what REALLY annoys people is seemingly clever people assuming a God, assuming his powers, assuming free will then wondering why the resultant paradoxes can't be resolved.Give us a break.