(A) If an all-knowing God exists, then He knows precisely what THE future is. (He knows I'm going to cough in ten seconds.)

(B) If God knows what the future is, then that future WILL occur, unless God is mistaken. (I will cough in ten seconds.)

(C) Because God cannot be mistaken, there is NO possibility that any other future, other than one future which God knows, will happen. (There's NO possibility I won't cough in ten seconds.)

(D) THEREFORE, if God exists, there is only one future, which is the future that he knows. (I will cough in ten seconds.)

I completely agree.

I would add, if it is true that the omniscient, omnipotent God "has a plan," then we have no choice but to follow that plan, and therefore everything we do is what he wants done.

Indeed, a king will reign righteously (or because of righteousness with great and lasting effect), and rulers will rule justly. Each will be like a shelter from the wind, a refuge from the rain, like streams of water in a dry land and the shade of a massive rock in an arid land.

Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those will listen (or the ears of those will listen that have not been stopped up). The reckless mind (or the man who despises discipline) will gain knowledge, and the stammering tongue will speak clearly and fluently. A fool will no longer be called a noble, nor a scoundrel said to be important.

For a fool speaks foolishness and his mind plots iniquity. He lives in a godless way and speaks falsely about the LORD. He leaves the hungry empty and deprives the thirsty of drink. The scoundrel's weapons (or the scoundrel's disposition) are destructive; he hatches plots to destroy (or exploit) the needy with lies, and by charging (or by attempting to balance all accounts reckoning payment due through unbalanced scales and falsified measures) the poor during a judgment.

But a noble person plans for noble things to happen: he stands up for noble causes (or he stands for the less fortunate servants with appeals to his sovereign king for relief for the needy).

The Prophet ISAIAH
The Book of Isaiah 32 :1-8

The God Who Knows All Things

And in this, you know more than many.

Just the term "free will" gets mentioned and I immediately think how I enjoy the Arminian vs. Calvinist discussions.

I think we have "free will", but we don't understand the limits that has. We are much less dimensional than God, so we struggle with it when the concept comes up; because God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent...but we are creatures designed to worship out of will. Still, these do not contradict one another, in my opinion.

I've had some great conversations with Reformed friends, and I think most would be surprised how close they are, but simply a matter of angle.

My $0.02. To God be the glory.

Deu. 30:19 I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: therefore choose life, that both thou and thy seed may live:
Deu. 30:20 That thou mayest love the LORD thy God, and that thou mayest obey his voice, and that thou mayest cleave unto him: for he is thy life, and the length of thy days: that thou mayest dwell in the land which the LORD sware unto thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give them.

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If at any time I declare concerning a nation or a kingdom, that I will
pluck up and break down and destroy it, and if that nation, concerning
which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will repent of the evil that
I intended to do to it. And if at any time I declare concerning a
nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, and if it does evil
in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will repent of the good
which I had intended to do to it. (Jer 18:7-10)

In part. He predestined our actions in knowingly creating each of us with attributes which cause us to make the choices we make.

"Free will" is an illusion. If we were truly free to choose what we want, we'd be able to opt for courses of action that would thwart God's plan for us. Such an ability by mere mortals is contradictory to the idea of an omniscient, omnipotent deity.

So, God admits to doing evil. Are there any good guys in the universe, or is it all varying degrees of bad guys?

God cannot do evil.

That was taken out of context Stanc. You know God will purge evil and that is the reference.
 

He clearly says he would do evil. Why would you dispute his word?

Isn't that a Calvinistic approach?

Even the angels were created with the freedom to chose the will of God or not to.

GOD is not going to MAKE us chose Him.

There would have been no need for the Jesus to teach the parable of the prodigal  son, or the parable of the unforgiving servant. These are all about what we do with free will.

In fact you would do away with a good portion of the Teaching of Christ. All He did was try to teach us how to manage the gift of free will.



Even CHRIST had a  moment in the Garden of Gethsemane  where He could have chosen in His humanity to pass on being crucified.

He chose to do the will of God and OPENLY said it.


 

He clearly will purge evil. I am not disputing His holy word.



 

A king's heart is a water channel
in the LORD's hand; He directs it
wherever He chooses.

Proverbs 21: 1
The LORD Directs

Is "the evil that I intended to do" not his holy word?

What evil would that be.
Is this a hypothetical?

If you are asking if it is evil for you not to believe in the God of the Bible, the Bible says yes that it is.
Did God predestine you not to believe for one reason or another even though you may believe latter, or then again not at all for the rest of your physical life?
What is the Biblical evidence then?

Before the Passover festival, Jesus knew that the hour had come to depart from this world to the Father. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end (or to the end = completely and always). Now, by the time of the supper, the Devil had already put it into the heart (or inner man) of Judas, Simon Iscariot's son, to betray Him.

Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into His hands, and that He had come from God, and that He was going back to God. So, He got up from supper, laid aside his robe, took a towel, and tied it around Himself. Next, He poured water into a basin and began to wash His disciple's feet, and to dry them with the towel tied around Him.

He came to Simon Peter, who asked Him, "Lord, are You going to wash my feet?"
Jesus answered him, "What I'm doing you do not understand now, but afterwards you will know."
"You will never wash my feet------ever!" Peter said.
Jesus replied, "If I don't wash you, you will have no part of Me."

The Gospel of Saint John the One who Jesus Loved
John 13: 1-8
Jesus Washes His Disciples Feet: The Father Gives Authority Over All To Jesus Christ the Son of God

For by grace you are saved through faith (or saved by faith and not by any other method unto Jesus Christ), and this is not from yourselves; it is God's gift-----not from works, so that no man can boast. For we are His creation-----created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time so that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2: 8-10

In Jeremiah 18:8 and 18:11, God says he is planning to do evil.

Angelfire claims that God cannot do evil, which is clearly contradicted by God's own words and actions.

If God predestined me to not believe he exists, then by not believing, I would be doing his will.

If I'm doing God's will, how can I be doing evil, unless God is himself evil?

SAE,

Forgive me. I have had a migraine the last two days, so I hope this is going to come across in the gentle manner I feel it.

Let's get to what you really want to discuss. It is less about predestination vs free will and more about Once Saved etc. It begs the question for me? Why bother and ... a step further... there is no HOPE for my son.  SAE... the thought of this puts me into instant tears and destroys my heart beyond words. I cannot believe that God who created my son would doom him.   Does God know our path?  YES indeed He does and by the Grace through the Life Death and Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus is Son we have the means of salvation. But God created us to be able to chose or not to chose that.



God has never said to anyone: Does this cloth smell like chloroform?  Forced LOVE  which has the bindings, no.. the  CHAINS and SHACKLES, of predestination eliminates the need to repent. Why should we even bother to worship or seek or pray or repent ... as we have been asked all through out the bible... at least 75 times directly... It becomes a dip in the water and your are good to go. God baptism in the blood is GRACE what we do with that afterwards counts too.

Do you think someone who is baptized and then goes out and commits adultery, or robbery, or rape, or murder will not be held accountable for that?



Would you TRUST someone you FORCED to love you? That isn't love that is slavery.
I can only imagine a brokenhearted and weeping Christ when he see how many turn from His love and from the suffering of Crucifixion which He "willingly" took for us.  He never leaves your side or your presence but you can and we do,all the time, chose our will over God's.



"Because you have so little faith. I tell
you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say
to this mountain, ‘move from here to there’ and it will move; Nothing
will be impossible for you” (Matthew 17:14-20). Next, in Luke 17:6,
Jesus tells His disciples: "If you have faith as small as a mustard
seed, you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the
sea,’ and it will obey you.”
And Stanc... You can chose and do chose not to believe. I don't know your life so I don't have an opinion nor can I judge you.

What is it you really need from us. What are you looking for from  a believer? For me... I can give you all that I have!  Now.. lemme tell you... Praying for the beloved child of God: Mr. STANC, has a special ring to it every morning and every night. I think it puts a smile on the face of God. I smile because I know there a man who seeks some sort of validation behind the name. I hope you find what you really are seeking.





As for evil Stanc.... I sadly know a person who is PURE evil. Someone so vile that he rejected his baptism in every way to support his psychopathic narcissistic life style and he brags about it. That is  the blackest darkest person I have ever met.

There is a true difference between people who do stupid stuff and someone whose first name should have been satan. But you know what... he too is a child of God. It is a struggle for me but I pray for him as well. I can't imagine living in such darkness.

I empathize with you. I cannot even imagine what it is like for a parent to have to go through such anguish. However, an omniscient, omnipotent God would be able to effortlessly cure your son, or even have prevented the illness in the first place, if he wished. Since God chose to do neither, I don't see how it can be viewed as anything other than God's will that your child have this fate.

I consider the "forced love" idea a red herring. God created us so that breathing, eating, and drinking are essential to our existence. Do you distrust him because he "forced" us to breathe, eat, and drink?

Uh huh. Did Jesus ever move a mountain to show that it can actually be done? Talk is cheap.

You are in error. I made no such choice.

Initially, I believed that God was real because my parents and other adults told me he was. Later on, after I started thinking for myself and came to the realization there was no proof that God was more than a fictional character in a poorly written book, I stopped believing God was real. In both instances, no choosing was done, no conscious decision was made to believe or not believe.

I think you did make a decision. A methodical one.

The anguish I feel for my son isn't that he isn't cured. Sometimes the answer from God is no.  The anguish comes from the lies and treatment he has received over his short life that has developed his thought processes to this point.



 

Why exactly do you continue to troll here? Do you think it is your duty to convert everyone to atheism? Most everyone here has tried to help you, one way or the other. I'm reminded of something my Mother used to say "You can't help someone who doesn't want help".

Personally, I think this religious section has been Stanc up enough!

It's true that I methodically analyzed the matter. But, you're wrong that I made a decision to stop believing in God's existence.

It was more as if I had been in darkness, accepting as truth that God was out there in the night, when suddenly a light was switched on, enabling me to see that nothing was actually there.

a. I'm not "trolling." I'm here because I enjoy discussing topics which I find interesting.
b. Unlike many (Most? All?) Christians, I have no desire to convert anyone to anything.

Ooooh. Very nice. Such a good Christian attitude...

 

I don't consider faith to be a burden, just illogical.

Heh, heh. Yes, considering the attitude and actions that the Bible attributes to the Christian deity, I do very much hope he is not real.

I think you'd do well to listen to this whole video as it's germane to the topic about God and the bible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htxOjJHB5-8

Much of the Bible is not literal and not written to be taken literal. There are many different literary forms at work - poetry, stories, accounts, etc. that are not written in a style that we moderns would recognize as either a documentary or as a stenographer just recording everything as it is. The letters that make up the Bible are written to help us go to heaven, not to explain how the heavens go or what God is or answer all mysteries since the answer to every speculation is besides the point to the goal of helping people obey God and love one another.

So first we must understand the author's intent before attempting to tease out every possible interpretation.

Secondly, as for essentially philosophical questions as to whether or not human beings have free will..... a simple phenomenological approach is actually the best approach. IF we didn't have free will, then of what purpose would our anger at others choices serve? If we're not free then neither are they and thus what is, is, and none of us can change course so why be upset if someone is at odds with us? it wouldn't make any sense at all. It would serve no evolutionary purpose to waste so much energy etc.

But we do spend a great deal of energy debating, or angry, or arguing or chiding or ridiculing people for all manner of choices they make....so either we really do believe in free will but don't recognize it....or we are genuine mysteries even unto ourselves and it's pointless to question about God!

Okay, done. I agree with his characterization of the Bible as a "library" that contains works of a variety of genre. Unfortunately, where that analogy falls down is that in a library, books are grouped into clearly labeled categories. In the Bible, there is no such classification of the different portions.

Sure. Some portions of the Bible are obviously not meant to be literal. Where the problem arises is that it is not always clear if the text is to be taken literally or not.

For example, Genesis is written as if it is a factual account. There is no indication that it is not intended to be taken literally, yet some people argue against a literal reading.

Uh huh. Aside from the matter of how do we determine the intent of a long dead author who did not enlighten us as to his intent, I have never cared for the idea of "interpreting" that which is clearly written. It seems like whenever somebody decides to "interpret" a text, they invariably give it a different (and self-serving) meaning than what would result from a straight reading.

a. You seem to be assuming that everything must have an evolutionary purpose. That may or may not be true.
b. Humans vary greatly in their capacity for rational thought and behavior. Where one might get terribly angry, another might not be the least bit upset.

It may be that you're right. However, I still think that "free will" is incompatible with creation by an omniscient being. IMO, for humans to have free will would require a Creator that is not all-knowing. (Which would also fit better with the tales of people being "tested" by God. An omniscient God would have no need to test his creations.)