http://thelightheartedcalvinist.com/200 ... n-deyoung/
Here is a little excerpt.
I am trying to figure out why it seems to me that God CAN know what will happen, and that does NOT mean he has made that the only option.What About After-Knowledge?
You may object that foreknowledge of an event has no more influence on the necessity of that event than after-knowledge. If you can look into the future and see that I will choose waffles tomorrow, all you have done is seen the future. Your knowing the future, you may argue, has no bearing on my choice of Eggos tomorrow. It’s no different than after-knowledge you may say. If you read in my journal entry for today: “Yesterday, ate waffles for breakfast” you simply know that I had waffles yesterday. Thus, as the reasoning goes, just as your after-knowledge of my choice did not make my choice necessary, neither does your foreknowledge of my choice make it necessary.
To which I would respond, that this misses the point. You are quite right to argue that knowledge of an event does not make that event necessary. Knowing something ahead of or before its occurrence does not cause the necessity of the occurrence, but it does prove that it cannot be otherwise. If you have after-knowledge of my breakfast choice because you read my journal from today, you can have certain knowledge that I ate waffles. Your knowledge of this did not cause my choice, but your infallible certainty about the waffles proves that yesterday’s breakfast cannot be other than waffles. Any certain knowledge of a choice proves that the choice itself is fixed and cannot be otherwise.
It seems like Kevin is saying it is 'locked' because God knows it.
But if God is outside of time, though he acts within it also, why would his knowing imply that it could be no other way? of course it could be no other way after the fact, but before another will makes a choice, if God was not persuading him during that process, then why would God knowing what will happen determine the man's actions? I feel like Kevin is trying to stick the cart before the horse.
If I would watch a video of someone from yesterday, and I saw them choose a red pen instead of a blue one, I know that they will pick the red one, even if I could travel back in time and watch, but that does not mean I am what made it so. the man's choice was for the red pen. without me influencing him, no?
Isn't the second part of that short quote false? In the moment of someone's choosing, it CAN be otherwise. ~ "...does not cause the necessity of the occurrence" but "it does prove that it cannot be otherwise?" sounds necessairy to me....Knowing something ahead of or before its occurrence does not cause the necessity of the occurrence, but it does prove that it cannot be otherwise.
