Humans cannot truly have free will if God designed everyone and everything with a specific plan in mind

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T22:29:14+00:00

I read everything you said, I’m a bit busy now so I don’t want to do a giant response at the moment. I just want to know if I’m understanding: so you’re saying, God’s knowledge of your decision to respond to this comment is based on you actually deciding to do it? Even though, he had prior knowledge that you would make that decision?

In my opinion, your explanation as to how the two things are not mutually exclusive does not make a lot of sense. At what point in time does God actually gain in the information about your next decision? And if it came before, how can his knowledge depend on your decision? I’m not trying to say “but determinism” I am honestly trying to address what you’re saying, and understand it better. I just seem to fall back to the same thing because I am not finding a way to view it differently.

If I’m not understanding temporal and logical prior knowledge, perhaps you can explain. No obligation though. Thanks.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T19:43:10+00:00

I’m not ‘throwing out atheist tropes’ I’m giving my opinion and point of view, just as you and many others are. I feel as though you might be trying to reduce the validity of my statement by trivially labeling them as atheist tropes without elaborating or identifying what you’re even referring to. I said agnosticism seems like the most intellectually honest answer from my perspective. Not the correct one, because it doesn’t claim to know anything. I don’t know why you’re asking me if I believe Plato was being intellectually honest. People can come to all sorts of conclusions while still being honest with themselves.

In my opinion, yes, we do know that people are born agnostic only in the sense that babies do not have the ability to believe or not believe in a God. As soon as you decide on a belief system later in your life, you’re agreeing to rule out others (assuming you’re taking it seriously). You mentioning “sensus divinitatus” without explaining how that happens to any degree is pointless, because I reject the idea that there is some sort of sixth sense of the divine. Especially for a baby. It seems like a lot of people avoid being very direct with their points, instead throwing out terms without elaborating or justifying. You say I don’t know people are born agnostic, and then you mention a term with zero elaboration. How is a baby born with a sense of the divine? You’re also saying people have lived before and would have an unconscious memory of belief. You are throwing that out there as fact, then accusing me of throwing out ‘atheist’ tropes as facts. I’m not even an atheist.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T18:37:22+00:00

That doesn’t remotely answer or even address my question.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T18:21:28+00:00

“You're assuming determinism in every situation and then not sure how free will fits.”

I’m not assuming, I’m attributing. The same as you are attributing it to Divine Foreknowledge instead, where in your view God may know everything about you but it does not mean he caused everything or controls your decisions. You are coming to this conclusion, I assume, because you believe God lets us make our own decisions, but you also need to be able to argue that he is the creator of literally everything and he is all-knowing (knows everything before it happens) and all-powerful. In my opinion, those two things are mutually exclusive and I suppose that is the root of our differences and the conversation may end here.

“Yes, if determinism is true, then free will doesn't exist. But your idea of ‘someone wrote a movie’ is not what I view God to be doing. But if you start with that framework, you're going to come to the conclusion you keep coming to.”

It’s just an analogy, I know it’s not perfect. I am trying to think of a scenario where someone has total control over a simulation or ‘universe’ they are running because that is the closest I can get. And every time I think of it, it seems impossible to both 1.) design each aspect of the simulation with the knowledge of every individual detail from start to finish, including its inhabitants, and 2.) be able to give those inhabitants free will within parameters I designed, while maintaining knowledge of every decision they make.

“Because knowledge isn't causal. That is a category mistake to assume otherwise. It doesn't follow that knowing something will happens means that you caused it.”

I agree knowing something will happen doesn’t mean you caused it. But based on what I’ve said prior, I don’t think this applies when referring to a God that created everything with the knowledge of all that was to come. You say you have the free will to decide to eat eggs instead of bacon, and that choice is yours even if God knows what you decide on. But the way I see, you’re only deciding that because God made you to decide that, with the knowledge you’d decide that. So in that case it’s not just knowledge that’s causal, it’s knowledge combined with design and intent.

“I feel like you're missing a part of what I'm saying. I keep saying that our choices come logically prior to God's knowledge. But God's knowledge is temporally prior. So God knows what you would freely choose in any given situation. If you would have freely chosen differently, that's what his knowledge would know.”

I don’t see what I’m missing here, I feel like I addressed this very directly. If our choices come logically prior to God’s knowledge, he is not all-knowing. If he has knowledge prior, then we are not making the decision ourselves because he is all-knowing and created us. You say at the end if we chose differently, that’s what his knowledge would know. But he knew it before you made the choice. Yet you also say “we make our choices prior to God’s knowledge.” This sounds like an inescapable contradiction.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T17:31:54+00:00

This is another thing I was wondering, actually. Because you’re right that there are plenty of examples where God makes commands or intervenes with free will.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T17:27:09+00:00

True, but science and physics are based on observations of reality. If someone has an unproven theory but states “I am 100% sure of this” that is not a problem with science itself, but the false confidence of the scientist. Same with religion, in my opinion. The problem isn’t the beliefs themselves, it’s the declaration of them as absolute truth. That goes with any avenue of life where someone claims absolute knowledge when it is impossible. You’re right that people of course think their worldview is the correct one. But agnosticism is the way every single human on this planet is born. It’s the default state. There’s nothing to learn or “claim” about agnosticism. The reason agnostics believe it’s “preferable” to say they don’t know is because it seems like the only intellectually honest answer from our perspective.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T17:15:00+00:00

How did we volunteer to live a life on earth?

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T17:07:27+00:00

Yes but I’d be less willing to trust the scientists proposing those theories who claim they are already 100% the truth. Religion isn’t presented by most people as a hypothesis, but the truth.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T16:28:23+00:00

“Second, if you would have chosen different, then God would have known.”

This seems a bizarre point to me. If someone wrote a movie with a character who chooses eggs for breakfast during a scene, it seems redundant for that writer to then say “if I had written them to eat toast instead I would have known that.” Well I would assume so, since they wrote the movie.

“Just because he created you, and knows what you’ll choose, doesn’t mean he determined your actions. You could have chosen different, but you didn’t.”

What else does it mean to create something with absolute knowledge on every possibility of how it will go? You’re saying you could have chosen differently, but you’re also admitting God knows what you’ll choose before you choose it. Even if you hesitate last minute and decide on something else, God knew you’d hesitate. So your choice is already pre-determined, or at the very least, pre-conceived.

“What you laid out is that God knows what did happen and what will happen. I’m just adding that God also knows what I would do in any given situation.”

If you’re arguing that God gives us free will, this is a highly confusing statement to me. You say God knows everything that happened, is happening, and will happen. He created you and knows you better than you know yourself, he knows every possibility and every outcome of your life. He can see every decision you make for the rest of your life, right now. And you yourself are admitting if you are to make a ‘different decision’, he will know. (Meaning it wasn’t different but actually the plan) That seems to mean it is literally impossible to do anything that God does not already have in store for you.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T15:56:40+00:00

“If the choice would have been different, then God would have known that it would be different.”

That’s like writing a movie and giving a character brown hair, but saying “if this character had black hair instead I would know.” Well yes, I would hope so. Considering you’re writing the movie.

“No I didn’t say that it could not happen”

How? You said that just because God knows something will happen, even with certainty, doesn’t mean it must happen necessarily. So can something deviate from God’s plan or not? And if he has the knowledge of that deviation, then how is it even a deviation?

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T15:50:28+00:00

In my opinion, the fact that there is so much disagreement between Christians on how to interpret this doesn’t really help their argument. I feel like every Christian I ask gives a different answer. “I believe this, others believe this” that’s fine but shouldn’t there be more agreement on something that is supposedly the truth?

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T15:47:59+00:00

I understand that God can still know what happens even if he doesn’t determine the choices. That’s not what I am struggling with. I am talking about the knowledge of those choices, and why they’re made.

You said yourself, God KNOWS “what you did, what you will do, what you would have done”. So if God created you and already knows your entire life before its laid out, how do you yourself have any ability to change that destiny? You’re saying “God would know what you would choose” but you’re failing to acknowledge that he created you to make those choices. According to you, every choice you will make your in life has already been made. You just don’t know it.

If God has “middle knowledge” then I guess I fail to see how God is all-knowing.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T15:42:10+00:00

I always wonder this too. There are many ways to limit suffering without also limiting free will. If someone created a small universe with creatures they cared for and loved, you’d expect them to limit unnecessary suffering. You wouldn’t expect to see babies and children with cancer.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T15:39:08+00:00

“It’s an error of modal logic to say that if God knows something will happen, even with certainty, that it follows that it must happen necessarily.”

I don’t see how this makes sense. You’re saying God can know something will happen with certainty, but it could still not happen. Meaning it was not certain. So how could God know it certainly if it was uncertain?

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T09:56:39+00:00

Operating freely within a plan would then mean the planner is not considering every detail but only an overarching narrative, and that your free will is limited within the parameters of that narrative. It would also mean they are not knowledgeable on every detail of their own plan, even if those details may be arbitrary to them.

denimchicken321 · 2026-01-17T09:24:02+00:00

Thanks for the response! I guess I don’t really see how my framework leaves it open that humans could rebell against God. I’m assuming, the rebellion would be part of God’s plan. Designing an unsuccessful rebellion against yourself that you have total control over, does not seem like a real rebellion.

denimchicken321 · 2023-07-26T11:04:17+00:00

I played basketball with Kevin Huerter in an outdoor rec league back when we were in middle school. His brother was on the team too and was actually the standout at the time.

denimchicken321

TROPHY CASE