Trailblazer
Veteran Member
You said that God does not know the future because that would preclude human free will. If God does not know the future that would mean God is not omniscient.Sorry, that is just not correct. God does not know all things future. If he did, we could have no free will, and the universe we live in would not make sense.
If what I do is because God has foreordained it, then there can be no judgment of it since it is by the will of God.
I believe God is omniscient but that in no way precludes human free will. Let me explain how this is possible.
Actually, the word foreordain is misleading because it makes it sound as if God is making the decision or determination.Predestined more accurately reflects what is going on. Predestined means that something is destined to happen because it is written on the Tablet of Fate.God KNOWS it will happen, but knowing something will happen is not what causes it to happen:
Question.—If God has knowledge of an action which will be performed by someone, and it has been written on the Tablet of Fate, is it possible to resist it?
Answer.—The foreknowledge of a thing is not the cause of its realization; for the essential knowledge of God surrounds, in the same way, the realities of things, before as well as after their existence, and it does not become the cause of their existence. It is a perfection of God.......
Therefore, the knowledge of God in the realm of contingency does not produce the forms of the things. On the contrary, it is purified from the past, present and future. It is identical with the reality of the things; it is not the cause of their occurrence........
The mathematicians by astronomical calculations know that at a certain time an eclipse of the moon or the sun will occur. Surely this discovery does not cause the eclipse to take place. This is, of course, only an analogy and not an exact image. Some Answered Questions, pp. 138-139
God knows what humans will do before during and after they do it, but God does not cause them to do anything.What causes it to happen is a human free will choice which is a choice God KNOWS we will make. That choice becomes an action that God KNEW about ahead of time.
God’s knowledge of what will happen in the future does not CAUSE it to happen, not any more than the astronomer’s knowledge of an eclipse causes the eclipse to happen.
Time as we know it only exists in the material realm of existence where it can be measured by the sun. God has knowledge of the physical realm, our past, present and future, since God is omniscient, although that kind of time does not exist in the spiritual realm where God exists.
Whatever we cause to happen by the free will choices we make is fated or predestined to happen but God knows that it will be changed before during and after it is changed, because God is omniscient.
“Know thou, O fruit of My Tree, that the decrees of the Sovereign Ordainer, as related to fate and predestination, are of two kinds. Both are to be obeyed and accepted. The one is irrevocable, the other is, as termed by men, impending. To the former all must unreservedly submit, inasmuch as it is fixed and settled. God, however, is able to alter or repeal it. As the harm that must result from such a change will be greater than if the decree had remained unaltered, all, therefore, should willingly acquiesce in what God hath willed and confidently abide by the same.
The decree that is impending, however, is such that prayer and entreaty can succeed in averting it.” Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 133
So what that means is that as our lives continue to unfold, anything that is written on the Tablet of Fate can change according to our free will actions. God knows what will be changed and written on that Tablet of Fate, because God is omniscient.
Impending fates change all the time, according to our prayers and entreaties. God knows ahead of time what we will do and what will be changed because God is omniscient. God is omnipotent, so God could even allow an irrevocable fate to be changed, but He doesn’t for the reason stated above.