There is a question that some people raise when they consider God’s omniscience. The question is this: If God knows everything I am going to do, then am I really free to act independently? If God knows a thing is going to happen, He can’t be wrong about it. If He is wrong, then He is not omniscient, and not God. But if He isn’t wrong about it, then I could never do anything differently than what God already knows. But if I can’t do any differently, then am I really free? This is the question that is often thrown up either as an argument against God’s existence, or against man’s freedom. Let’s consider this question: Does God’s foreknowledge preclude man’s free will?

The Bible clearly teaches man has free will. Many scriptures could be adduced which demonstrate that man has the freedom to either obey or disregard God’s will. For instance, Joshua charged the children of Israel, “Choose you this day whom ye will serve” (Josh. 24:15). Jesus said, “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:15-16). Upon hearing Jesus’ teaching, “the Pharisees and lawyers rejected the counsel of God against themselves, being not baptized of him” (Luke 7:30). On and on the list could go. Each example shows that the scriptures teach that man has a real choice of various and sundry options.

As we have already discussed previously, the Bible also clearly teaches that God’s knowledge is infinite (Psalm 147:5). God knows the secrets of men and the thoughts of their hearts (Psalms 44:21; 94:11). The thrust of Psalms 139 is that there is nothing that God does not know. Job finally was made to understand that no thought can be withheld from God (Job 42:2). There is no searching of God’s understanding (Is. 40:28). God knows what things we have need of even before we ask (Matt. 6:8). He searches all hearts and understands all imaginations of the thoughts (I Chron. 28:9). The Lord asks, “Can any hide himself that I cannot see?” (Jer. 23:24). He knows all of His works from the beginning of the world (Acts 15:18). And God even declares “the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure” (Isa. 46:10).

The thrust of the Bible teaching regarding God’s knowledge is that there is not one thing that is unknown to God. All things are open and naked before the eyes of Him with whom we have to do (Heb. 4:13).

“It is true that the Scripture makes use of anthropomorphic forms of expression as regards the way in which God obtains knowledge (Genesis 3:8), and sometimes even represents Him as if He did not know certain things (Genesis 11:5; Genesis 18:21); nevertheless the constant representation of the Scripture is that God knows everything. This perfect knowledge of God, moreover, is not merely a knowledge which is practically unlimited for all religious purposes, but is omniscience in the strictest sense of the term” (ISBE).

Now, those who hold that there is a conflict between God’s omniscience and human free will often argue in the following fashion. The following quote is from a discussion I had been in years ago:

“If God knows that when I leave the house for Wednesday evening Bible study, that at exactly 5:58 PM CDT (running late, as usual!), at the intersection of NW 42nd and MacArthur, a car will run the red light, strike our car as I turn onto MacArthur, and I will be killed, then it will occur. I have no choice in the matter. No matter what I do, it will happen. It may appear that I chose, but that event is determined to occur regardless of what I decide. I will only choose the courses of action that will allow that event to happen. It doesn’t matter that I never drive to church through that intersection, or that I usually go an hour later, or that I actually decided to get around on time for a change. My freedom is dissolved into God’s foreknowledge. Human freedom is only the illusion of freedom.”

Please notice these statements: “I have no choice in the matter. No matter what I do, it will happen…that event is determined to occur regardless of what I decide…It doesn’t matter that I never drive to church through that intersection, or that I usually go an hour later, or that I actually decided to get around on time for a change. My freedom is dissolved into God’s foreknowledge.”

The problem with such a position is that it assumes that which it is trying to prove–namely, that if God foreknows a thing, then there is no free will. This can be seen when one understands that the event happens not “no matter what I do,” but precisely because it is what I decided to do! In other words, it happens not because God foreknows it, but God foreknows it because it is what happened. In the sense that man cannot do two different things at the same time in the same way, man has to choose one course of action. He is free to choose out of the many, if not infinite, number of possibilities, but he can only choose one. When his choice is made, God knows that choice. In the sense that man can not do more than one thing, and God knows what that thing is we have chosen freely to do, then man must do that which he has chosen.

When the man above says he couldn’t have left thirty minutes later, he is correct if by that he means, when he left at time t, he could not also have left at time t1. But if he means that he had no other options, or that he could not have exercised any other option, he is mistaken. If the man had chosen to leave at time t1 or time t2, t3, etc., then that is what God would have known. God’s knowledge of the event is posteriori, but not with respect to point of time. God is outside of time and sees all that happens even more clearly than we see the present or the past.

It begs the question to say that event “x” will happen “no matter we do” because the question is does God’s foreknowledge negate my free will (“what I do”). It begs the questions to say, as in the above quote, “I will only choose the courses of action that will allow that event to happen.” Rather, that event will happen, because he has chosen those courses of action. It begs the question to say that God knows something even though I have never acted in such a way, because you must have acted in that way for God to know it. As we discussed in our last post, it is not a limitation of God’s knowledge to say that He does not know things that are not so. What happens as a result of my actions are the result of my own free will choices. God knows about it precisely because it is what I choose to do.

Perhaps an easy way to understand this is to think of our knowledge of the past. I know what I did yesterday. I know I preached two sermons and taught a Bible class. Does my knowledge of these facts mean I was not free in my actions? Of course not. I know now what I freely chose to do then. My knowledge does not remove my free will. In the same way, God sees all time, past present and future, not only in my life, but in all lives and all things everywhere in the same way I see and know the past. The choices are free, but God knows my choices and yours.

In addition to the point just made, those who argue that when God knows something is going to happen it removes man’s ability to freely choose, have another problem. These same people do not deny that God knows an act when it happens. As seen above, the Bible clearly teaches this about God’s knowledge if it teaches anything at all. But this means that, since when God knows man’s actions man ceases to be free, then when the act is being done, man no longer has free will. This means that man is only free as long as he doesn’t do anything! Pshaw! This is absurd.

So, no, God’s foreknowledge of my actions, does not preclude my human, free will, which He gave me in the first place.

Eric L. Padgett