The Paradox of Free Will September 25, 2023
Posted by Dr. Robert Owens in Uncategorized.trackback
How can we possibly believe in free will since Christians believe in His Omniscience God knows everything we’ll do in advance, and we also believe He has a plan for our lives before we’re born? So where is the free will?
God has perfect foreknowledge. This means He knows the end from the beginning and thus He knows what everyone will do in the future and what any individual will do in any given situation. God has a complete plan for everyone’s life. He knew how He wanted the universe to end before He created it and so He had a plan for every action needed to reach that end before the foundation of the world.
If God wants a particular thing to happen, He knows who will choose to do it, when they will choose to do it, and under what circumstances they will choose to do it. However, just because God already knows what choices we will make this in no way removes our free will.
You see God is outside our space time continuum. He is ever always in the now of eternity. He not only knows the end He is also already there. However, in this bubble, we call reality we are the ones making the choices.
One example might be to think about our own foreknowledge of History. We know how World War One ended. If we could go back in time to July of 1914 the fact that we already know how the War will end would not force anyone to do anything. Our knowing that the assassination of the heir to the throne of Austria would knock over the first domino ending only with the Treaty of Versailles wouldn’t stop Gavrilo Princip from shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
God created us with free choice. That’s why He told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the trees in the center of the garden. He told them not to do it, but He wouldn’t have said “Don’t do it,” if they couldn’t do it if they chose to. Free choice means not only that we can choose to ignore God’s commands it also means we can freely choose to confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God has raised Him from the dead and so be saved.
It all hinges on free choice. God is looking for children who choose to love and follow Him, not robots who have no choice.
God’s knowing what we will freely choose doesn’t mean that we are in any way forced to make that choice. You can choose to believe this or not.
This is an excerpt from the book Love by Dr. Robert Owens. This and all his books are available in paperback or kindle at Amazon.
Dr. Robert Owens Chronicles the History of the Future 
This is a very timely and spot on analogy of mankind today and yesterday… He created us with everything we would ever need or want, and the ability to choose what we wanted. We thought, even then, we new better than God did, and with a little deceitful push from a fallen angel, we chose the wrong way, fast forward 2000 years, we are still making the wrong decisions based on feelings, incomplete information and misdirection because we still believe we can do it better than Him who sees what is best for us and tries to give us every opportunity to follow Him. We will answer for all of those indiscretions someday, is Jesus going to be our advocate, or will we hear, depart from me, I never knew you… what a horrible thoughy!
What an insightful comment. May the Lord continue to bless you as you continue to serve Him.