BIBLE STUDY

Free Will and God's Foreknowledge

Also: does God know the future, predestination, omniscience, destiny, foreordination, does God know everything

Jehovah can foresee all things, and he governs how that ability is used. He filters the free choices of his creatures out of what he sees, so free will stays real. He foresees events on the timeline without predetermining who will carry them out, which is why prophecy is given in symbols.

The problem, plainly

Suppose God knew every choice Adam and Eve would make before he made them. Then their choice was seen and settled before it happened, the test was never a test, and all the wickedness in history existed first in the mind of God as foreknowledge and got set in motion the moment he said, "Let us make man." Most churches teach exactly that picture, and it leaves so many people unable to love the God they were handed.

Power God governs

God is omnipotent, but he doesn't pour out limitless power at every moment. He uses it as his purpose requires. His omniscience works the same way: he can foreknow whatever he chooses to see, and he governs that ability just as he governs his power. His purpose for creation included free will, and free will can't exist if the chooser's decision is already fixed in the mind of the Judge.

Outside the stream of time

(Ps 90:2) Even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God.

Time is a creation. Jehovah lives outside it and can look at any point on our timeline he chooses. The studies on this site call what he does with his creatures' choices a filter: he sees the events and filters out the free will that produces them. So prophecy comes in symbols. A seven-headed beast, an eighth king, two witnesses, a woman in the wilderness: each one is a real event with the people who will take part in it filtered out, so nobody is predestined to fill the role before they're born.

What God did foresee

He foresaw that real free will, given without artificial limits, would eventually be used to choose bad. Who would do it, and when, he didn't foresee. Like the builder who counts the cost before laying the foundation (Luke 14:28), he had the solution ready before he created anything: the Sacred Secret, with Christ and the chosen ones foreordained "before the founding of the world" (Ephesians 1:4) as a group patterned after the Son (Romans 8:29). The role was foreordained. The people who would fill it weren't.

Why it matters

That makes the test in Eden fair. God gave two choices, warned of the consequence, supplied everything needed to choose well, and stepped back. Hell can't have been prepared in advance, either. And Jehovah never had to change his plan, because it already covered the one thing he chose not to control. "To it there is nothing to add and from it there is nothing to subtract" (Ecclesiastes 3:14).

SCRIPTURES CITED

Genesis 2:16-17
“From every tree of the garden you may eat to satisfaction…”
Ecclesiastes 3:14
“To it there is nothing to add and from it there is nothing to subtract…”
Psalm 90:2
“Even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God…”
Isaiah 46:10
“the One telling from the beginning the finale…”
Luke 14:28
“does not first sit down and calculate the expense…”
Ephesians 1:4
“he chose us in union with him before the founding of the world…”
Romans 8:29
“those whom he gave his first recognition he also foreordained…”
Deuteronomy 30:19
“you must choose life…”