If God knows everything there is no such thing as free will. Discuss

However, as humans we feel as though we are free, when I choose what to wear in the morning it is my decision, so it may be argued that just because God knows what I will decide it doesn’t mean that I was not free, maybe out definition of freedom needs addressing. Instead of defining it was ‘I could have done otherwise’ maybe we should say that we are free if we were not under any external constraint and were amongst the causes of our actions. This is known as soft determinism; in other words this is an attempt to combine the opposing theories of libertarianism (total freedom) and hard determinism (no freedom), this theory teaches that freedom to act is doing what we want to, without any external interference and completely voluntary but that our own values, desires and general psyche determine how we will act in certain situations. This argument leads on to the view that if a God set up the laws of nature then in ‘domino effect’ he has originally caused our later actions by setting the original ‘wheels in motion’

Or perhaps our definition of God’s omniscience is incorrect and the scope of the exactly ‘all knowing’ covers. It can be argued that God has knowledge of everything except the future. However, this creates further problems about God’s attributes. If he can’t know the future then his omnipotence is limited.

Some thinkers concede that free will is not possible. They argue that God is omniscience and free will is only apparent. These views fall in line with predestination (the belief that God chooses some to be saved)

One final solution to God’s omniscience overpowering our free will is the idea of timelessness. Richard Swinburne believes that God is everlasting and progresses through time. He defines omniscience in a similar way to omnipotence. Basically it is not to know everything, but knowledge of everything that is logically possible to know. Hod’s knowledge may include all future events that are predictable by physical laws but leaves aside free will choice. He also suggests that omniscience may even leave room for God’s free choices, for example responding to people’s prayers