Christian God : Omniscient  vs. Giving the gift of Free Will?
460355
This juxtaposition points up the fundamental nonsense of the Christian God as invented by Christians.
293606
If God is all-knowing, then everything is exactly how he wants it to be. He then constructed everything to form a chain reaction of "freewill", the snowball effect of coincidences. He already knows the next time you will "sin" and that "sin" committed, was actually inspired by God to complete the bigger picture of creation.
451826
I asked a similar question a while back... specifically, how did Satan understand the difference between right and wrong if he never ate the fruit of knowledge?\n\nI think we are both in agreement that if there was a christian god... he definitely could not be considered benevolent.
923387
So you seem to be arguing for a purely deterministic illusion of free will?  Free will as an emergent property of  a net mass of neurons?  Is this an argument about "nature vs. nurture"? \n\nI'm not sure what your argument or question is, actually.  But I would say that your initial question is false, or at least unsupported. If you are saying that my illusion of free will is god's gift or something, then I disagree.\n\nAtheists generally tend to be more rational about most things.
205464
First thing you have to understand is that God has never interfered in our lives. He has came to a lot of us a gave us a task, but he has never interfered. \n\nMoses could have said no, to Gods request. Yes, it was only a request. God has given us all requests, but only a few of us have actually sat down and opened our hearts to listen to what he has to say.\n\nNow as to the answer to your question, it speaks of "free will" a few times in the Bible.\n\nGod gave us free will, so he can not interefere in our affairs. This doesn't mean that he can't give us advice or ask us to do something for him though.
1004033
Neither.\nThey make a choice, it's all about free will.\nPlain and simple.\n\n(Thanks for the comments... have a nice day!)
445345
God is also omnipotent, which means He knows all, so he could not do something that goes against his nature, or create something that is more powerful than Himself. He is Awesome!
36444
Good for you! I've often asked the question: How can we possibly understand even a tiny part of an omnipotent being? To think we can is presumption. I'm reminded of a quote from Inherit the Wind: God created Man in His image, and Man returned the favor. To think that any religion speaks for God (or all religions, for that matter) would cast God as a sociopath with the emotional maturity of an infant. We ascribe so much to God's will; everything from winning a Grammy to losing a child, to finding a parking place to destroying entire civilizations for being "primitive".\n\nIn my searching I found some New Age teachings which suggested that God contemplated Itself and, as a result, split into billions of tiny pieces, each piece endowed with the will and the ability to experience all that Life is. So in the sense that an omnipotent being would have no reason (in my tiny comprehension) to hate any part of itself, God therefore loves each and every one of us.\n\nThat's also the reason I don't believe there is a Hell. But that's another story. ;-)
842248
I've pointed this out as well....a choice of free-will has two equal options 'do that and be happy or do this and be happy', while a threat has one option, 'do it or suffer'\n\nPeople in here will try to word-play it with "you make the choice, not God' and other such parroted rehearsed babble, but it comes down to seeing it as it is.....a threat versus a choice
808206
A very astute observation.\n\nScripture assures as that God can know all things, but being all powerful certainly he has the ability to refrain from knowing certain things if he so chooses.\n\nThus, at Genesis 11:5-8 God is described as directing his attention earthward, surveying the situation at Babel, and, at that time, determining the action to be taken to break up the unrighteous project there. After wickedness developed at Sodom and Gomorrah, Jehovah advised Abraham of his decision to investigate (by means of his angels) to “see whether they act altogether according to the outcry over it that has come to me, and, if not, I can get to know it.” (Genesis 18:20-22; 19:1) God spoke of ‘becoming acquainted with Abraham,’ and after Abraham went to the point of attempting to sacrifice Isaac, Jehovah said, “For now I do know that you are God-fearing in that you have not withheld your son, your only one, from me.”—Genesis 18:19; 22:11, 12; compare Nehemiah 9:7, 8; Galatians 4:9.\n\nSelective foreknowledge means that God could choose not to foreknow indiscriminately all the future acts of his creatures. This would mean that, rather than all history from creation onward being a mere rerun of what had already been foreseen and foreordained, God could with all sincerity set before the first human pair the prospect of everlasting life in an earth free from wickedness. His instructions to his first human son and daughter to act as his perfect and sinless agents in filling the earth with their offspring and making it a paradise, as well as exercising control over the animal creation, could thus be expressed as the grant of a truly loving privilege and as his genuine desire toward them—not merely as the giving of a commission that, on their part, was foredoomed to failure. God’s arranging for a test by means of “the tree of the knowledge of good and bad” and his creation of “the tree of life” in the garden of Eden also would not be meaningless or cynical acts, made so by his foreknowing that the human pair would sin and never be able to eat of “the tree of life.”—Genesis 1:28; 2:7-9, 15-17; 3:22-24.
49282
The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil is Free Will, our ability to choose.  If God did not set that Tree in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve would not have free will but would merely be robots.  God's ultimate plan was to give his creation the ability to choose.  Just like a parent would tell their child to beware of something, God did the same for Adam and Eve. God told them to not eat of the Tree just like a parent will tell a child not to do certain things because the parent may know more.  It doesn't mean that the child is not able to do it.  He/she can but the consequences that follow are entirely that child's responsibility.  Unfortunately in the case of Adam and Eve, the consequences of their decision had cosmic-sized consequences.  But the important point is that God wants freely willing people to have a relationship with him.  It's always been a choice and it will always be one.  That's my understanding and hopefully that helps.
1094711
It's not the child's direct choice that people are talking about when they talk about free will.\n\nI believe that there was no suffering or death before sin entered the world.  Since the fall, evil has caused suffering, illness, and death.  It is a result of having free choice, but it's not driven by cause and effect in an individual sense.  \n\nIf there were no consequences of sin, we wouldn't leave it.  Would it be loving to leave us in sin?\n\nGod shows His love and mercy in wanting us to avoid sin - the root of suffering - and by drawing us to Himself.  There is comfort and rest with Him.  He suffers with us.  He has defeated death on our behalf.  \n\nHe is loving even in the face of sin, evil, and suffering.
840134
Yes I am what I am by predestination, But that did not take away my free will, God gave us all a free will, But since God Knows the beginnning to the end, & by his foreknowledge as to what decsions we will make, Then based upon him knowing all things, then God can predestinate anyone based upon his knowledge as to what path we will take.
1154500
This "free will" argument is a load of balls, really.If god lets us do what we want and make our own choices(free will) and we are all gods children, then surely he is guilty of parental neglect ! If you had kids and you let them go about doing whatever they wanted: killing, raping and destroying things, then social services would be round quick as a flash, youd be in jail and the little buggers would be in a care home!
392180
A combination of both.\n\n1. We are free to choose, at any given instance and depending on our degree of conscious awareness of our actions and overall motivations, any action possible.\n\n2. There are only a given number of possibilities. I am not able to pick up a cup - with my hand - that is 2000 miles away from me.  This is similar to the way that predestination works - God knows what I will do because he knows my heart, my potential, and my capabilities at any given instant.\n\n~ There is no discrepancy between the two if you realize that God operates outside our conventional viewpoint regarding time.  All things that have occured since the beginning of TIME until the end of TIME (the discussion of what this entails is quite complicated and another matter entirely) are within the scope of God's apprehension and understanding.
553912
I'll check out the book you mentioned in the other thread but sounds a little too fundie for me. And sorry that you didn't like all the "mights" in my previous answer :)\n\nMonotheistic God = all knowing + all powerful\nIn some monotheist traditions the one God is all knowing/all powerful but not all. So Monotheistic God = all knowning +all powerful isn't always true and would be the first "might" in your own logic chain, might be all powerful might not.\n\nall knowing = knowledge of what you will do\nThe very fact that your using the word "will" implies that this one God who might be all powerful/knowing exists inside time. Our own studies have shown that the farther you are from a center of gravity, like the earth for instance, the slower time passes relative to someone nearer the center. So would this monotheistic god know what we "will" do or merely what we did? That is the second "might" in your logic chain.\n\nknowing what you will do = 0 choices\nThat is one way of looking at it, IF god exists inside time and IF he is really all knowning which isn't a must outside of the Judeo-Christian tradition (and isn't true across all groups within the tradition). Another way of looking at it is that knowing what you will do equates to already knowing what you chose to do. \n\n0 choices = 0 power\nThe power to choose? I'm not even sure what you mean here, the truth of the statement would seem to hinge on your definition of "power". Since power is a relative term it might be true if alot of other mights are met earlier in the process your laying out.\n\nomniscience = impotence\nWhat? Omniscience = knowledge of all things, whether real or apparent knowledge. = absolute power, not impotence. Or do you mean we're impotent? Impotent being the lack of strength to do anything?\n\nAre you a programmer by chance?\nHave you ever thought about the universe being one big program that is being compiled? The code was entered and is now being put together into a set form that was determined by the code? It sounds like what your describing, in which case we are all part of the program. Which means we dont' really need free will, we're doing exactly what we were meant to do. The reason there is a stigma attached to that kind of philosophy is that it justifies horrendous acts which are anti-social. Hitler for instance was doing just what he was supposed to, and so were Churchill and Roosevelt when they put him down. \n\nThat was a fun one to work through, I hope you got a little out of my answer. I honestly tried to answer it as best I could in the time taken.\n\nTake it easy,\nArmus
8283
The debate is an age old one, commonly known as Calvinism (pre-destination) and Armenianism (free will).  Christian theologians such as John Calvin support the idea that man kind suffers from complete moral depravity (the inability to chose right over wrong).  Because of that, it is by God's grace alone that any person is saved, and there is nothing we can do to achieve salvation.  Therefore, because humans are unable to make any correct moral decisions on their own, those who are saved are saved only because they were predestined by God to be saved.\nOn the other hand, theologians such as John Wesley support the idea that humans indeed do have the ability to choose, and therefore have a moral responsibilty to act morally and conduct themselves with holiness in mind.  \nBoth concepts seem to have their strong and weak points.  Ultimately, this debate will probably not be resolved in this life.  I personally think that predestination and free will are not mutually exclusive, seeing as God's ways are greater than ours.  Hope that helps.