Logic Puzzles: The Evitable and Inevitable

There are at least two common philosophical arguments about the properties of God. This post is about the idea that as long as God possesses omniscience, we do not have free will. The idea is that one would feel they have no way to make real decisions if God can tell them what they are going to decide. This is currently my solution to the problem:

Knowledge of a person’s actions does not remove freedom, it removes surprise. If one knows why they will do something, there is no surprise regarding the outcome. People usually know why they make decisions, and God always knows how time will unfold, which naturally includes what choices we make. If our choices came with genuine surprise, we would be at the mercy of random chaos, and would thus not be free. Human behavior would forever be incomprehensible.

Free will is the ability to think and choose, not the ability to do the unexpected. Even if God told you what you would do next, you would not make that choice because God said you would do it. You would choose based on your own goals, desires, thoughts, perception, etc. In time-space, a person could not truly know if what God tells them of their future is really true, as it is not yet an experiential fact for them. So it cannot be the ultimate deciding factor for one’s actions, and hearing this future does not imply fate, as fate occurs no matter the desires of the person.

However, God’s knowledge of His own future can be called fate, as He exists at all points of eternity and has knowledge of such all at once. He exists in time and outside of it. If God were to intervene at different times in time-space, from His perspective, He would be manipulating the future and past in the same moment. From the point of infinity, God is doing everything at once. True fate is the future being experienced in the present, not the knowledge of the future being known in the present, but this definition is time-dependent. Fate can only exist for God, and that is only when dividing Deity into separate categories of experiential and absolute forms of existence. In this case, fate acts more like a fact of future action, which inevitably holds true when all action is accomplished at the same time.


(194.7) 16:8.7 The relative free will which characterizes the self-consciousness of human personality is involved in:

(194.8 ) 16:8.8 1. Moral decision, highest wisdom.
(194.9) 16:8.9 2. Spiritual choice, truth discernment.
(194.10) 16:8.10 3. Unselfish love, brotherhood service.
(194.11) 16:8.11 4. Purposeful co-operation, group loyalty.
(194.12) 16:8.12 5. Cosmic insight, the grasp of universe meanings.
(194.13) 16:8.13 6. Personality dedication, wholehearted devotion to doing the Father’s will.
(195.1) 16:8.14 7. Worship, the sincere pursuit of divine values and the wholehearted love of the divine Value-Giver.