I'll start with two assumptions that I think most Christians can agree with.
1. God is Omniscient.He is all knowing of all things through all time. He is able to see ever chain of cause and effect through to its end.
2. God created the universe. My point doesn't depend on the mechanism of creation simply that God initiated it.
If these two assumptions hold then prior to God creating the universe he was able to know what would happen if he were to create that universe. He has able to see every global event, and every personal event that would occur if he were to go through with creating that particular universe. He would also have been able to consider other universes that he could have created. Ones with different fundamental laws of physics, ones where DNA strands operate differently, ones where the nature of peoples hearts are different, even ones where everything is identical to the current universe except that instead of having coffee this morning you had tea. An omniscient and omnipotent God had all of these options before him and yet he chose to create the universe we live in. Seeing as how he knew exactly what would happen if he were to create the world, and he had other options for worlds he could create wouldn't that make life one big simulation.
Doesn't this break the idea of free will. I am familiar with and am comfortable with many of the explanations of how there can be free will with an omniscient God (ie. knowing that someone will do something doesn't take away their choice to do that thing). However none of these explanations (that I can find) address the issue that if you know what someone will do if you create them, and you could also create them differently knowing what they would do in that case as well, then how does this creation have any choice in what they do. They are just the result of you picking to create that particular instance.
I am really struggling to resolve this idea in my head, and have been praying that I will come to peace with it, but I just can't let go of it.
1. God is Omniscient.He is all knowing of all things through all time. He is able to see ever chain of cause and effect through to its end.
2. God created the universe. My point doesn't depend on the mechanism of creation simply that God initiated it.
If these two assumptions hold then prior to God creating the universe he was able to know what would happen if he were to create that universe. He has able to see every global event, and every personal event that would occur if he were to go through with creating that particular universe. He would also have been able to consider other universes that he could have created. Ones with different fundamental laws of physics, ones where DNA strands operate differently, ones where the nature of peoples hearts are different, even ones where everything is identical to the current universe except that instead of having coffee this morning you had tea. An omniscient and omnipotent God had all of these options before him and yet he chose to create the universe we live in. Seeing as how he knew exactly what would happen if he were to create the world, and he had other options for worlds he could create wouldn't that make life one big simulation.
Doesn't this break the idea of free will. I am familiar with and am comfortable with many of the explanations of how there can be free will with an omniscient God (ie. knowing that someone will do something doesn't take away their choice to do that thing). However none of these explanations (that I can find) address the issue that if you know what someone will do if you create them, and you could also create them differently knowing what they would do in that case as well, then how does this creation have any choice in what they do. They are just the result of you picking to create that particular instance.
I am really struggling to resolve this idea in my head, and have been praying that I will come to peace with it, but I just can't let go of it.
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