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Old 11-04-2005, 05:37 PM
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Default Re: Restating the Paradox

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Restating the Paradox

How can that creation possibly have free will if God knows exactly what it will do, and chose to create that specific being over an infinite number of other possible beings he could create? By choosing to create that being, he also chose it's fate, therefore it does not have free will.

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The reasoning goes wrong here. What god does is create a being that will freely choose to do x. What god knows is that the being will freely choose to do x. The illusion of incompatibility comes in thinking that because god knows that the being will choose to do x, then the being *must* do x, but again, divine foreknowledge and free will are not incompatible.

All that is required for the being to have free will is for the being to have freely chosen to do x. This does mean that it must have been possible for the being to have chosen to do y instead, but that is not incompatible with god knowing that the being will choose to do x. Of course god cannot be wrong, and that is where the illusion of incompatibility comes in--since god cannot be wrong, how can it be possible for the being to choose y instead? But remember, what god knows is not that the being will do x because there is no other possibility, but that the being will choose to do x even though it was possible for the being to do y.

btw, it's "omniscient."
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