mattrose wrote:
It is not the case that God's foreknowledge necessarily causes one's actions. That's not the claim being made. It is, however, the case, that God's foreknowledge (perfect as it would theoretically be) eliminates the possibility that one will do otherwise. Libertarian Freedom becomes illusory.
.... But [in classical Arminianism] libertarian freedom is still destroyed because the agents are no longer free to do otherwise. They cannot veer from what God knows they will do.
It is as if God were directing a film. He allows the actors some freedom to perform their roles as they see fit. But God has voiced the final cut. The DVD has been burned. The actors were free during the filming, but their characters in the film are now set in stone. The best a classical arminian can do is claim they once, in some sense, had libertarian freedom. Now it only feels like they do.
None of that seems obviously true to me (except the first couple sentences, which I acknowledge). I still don't understand why God's foreknowledge of my free will choices makes my free will choices illusory. I see how I can only actually choose one thing (i.e., I can't go back in time and choose something else), but that doesn't negate my freedom of will, as far as I can tell.
Did God know at the time He chose to create humankind that I would type the number 79,309 just now? I can't say. If He didn't (but He knew I might), then it's because He chose not to know for some reason. If He did, then it means that He (or someone/something else) made me choose that number (in which case I didn't freely choose it), or He knew what I would freely choose to type it because He's far more intelligent and insightful that our brains can fathom and He had knowledge of how all conditions and factors would lead to this moment in time.
Si wrote:If God knowingly created the world this way, then how do you escape the notion, that from God's perspective, billions are predestined to hell? They may be acting freely, but God has known from before creation that they would be lost. Then, how do you remove that from God's will? It just seems like a form of Calvinism, albeit where God is somewhat more passive in his role. He got the whole ball of creation rolling, and he knew exactly how it would end up according to every single detail, and that was fine with him. In a scenario where God has either meticulous providence or meticulous foreknowledge, then the universe is exactly as God intended it to be.
If a Christian is to argue that God didn't intend for there to be sin, but that sin was the result of man's free choice of rebellion, then I don't understand how you defend placing responsibility on man if God indeed created the world knowing in every detail that man would rebel. If God has foreknowledge, either he willed it to happen, or else he was powerless to stop it, and you would then have to deny God's omnipotence. But if each individual human truly has choices, unbound by God's foreknowledge or will, then we alone are responsible.
It seems like He
could have allowed us to sin - knowing we would - with the knowledge that the benefits would outweigh the cost. He has determined that those who choose to submit to Him will live forever with Him (despite our lack of merit), and those who choose otherwise will be rightly and justly judged and destroyed (in "hell"). None of that changes, as far as I can tell, whether or not He always knew who all of those individuals would be. Regardless, He could just directly intervene in everyone's life (e.g., appear in physical form) if He chose to. For me, I just have to trust Him when I reach the edge of my understanding. Open theism is a valid position, imo, but it doesn't remove all of the "how come?"'s.