If all-knowing God knew I would use my free will to reject him, why did all-knowing God create me?

Question

If he didn't know I would do this, he's not very all knowing or all powerful.

Answer 1

Yes he did give us all free will, but he also has a plan for you. God knew from the time you was conceived what you would do. You are loved by him no matter what you think.  

Answer 2

It's a real puzzler, if all the bible verses in this area are to be considered true and valid*.

Many of the Christians replying here seem unaware of the verses which go against free-will, and against the idea that God loves everyone.

If the Christians were picked "before the foundation of the world", so were the non-Christians.  And not on the basis of actions:

"Jacob I loved but Esau I hated" applied in the womb, before either got to do anything, expounds the preacher formerly known as Saul.

And Jacob was the fraudulent trickster.

But since God can do what he likes, he'll save who he wishes, and not save who he wishes.  Paul, in Romans 9 again.

Not a trace of free-will there.

*which offers one potential solution.

Answer 3

all-knowing god must either be a total r****d or a twisted, sadistic b*****d.

Answer 4

I don't believe that God knows everything that man will do. In fact, I am not certain that he knows for sure anything that man will do...although I think he is smart enough to be able to tell by our actions what the liklihood of one thing or another might be. I do believe though that God has HIS plan for us and this world. It is just up to us whether or not we choose to complete his plan for us, or go our own way. What he does with and to the world itself eventually is not going to change either way. He offers. It is up to us to accept.

Answer 5

God foreknows and predetermines everything including the illusion of freewill in those stubborn to God's way of ultimate success. God makes all creatures to become sinful and then be converted back to obey Him...

Answer 6

I know you will probably reject this thought as rubbish...but here goes...if only for a second you can imagine the love of God....and just for one second or ten ponder on how he made YOU!  How he loved your smile, your twinkling eyes, your voice and laughter....how he purposely formed your shape and gave you that wonderful sense of humor and wit...it's simple!  He wanted You!  :)

With all your flaws and all!  :)  Just my thoughts:)

Answer 7

Take judgment and dogma out of the equation then God either created you, or you exist in him, but we're moral because it's logical.

If you have good energy perpetuating you towards good things then you will have a good future, on earth and in the next form. If you have bad energy, it will end up in bad places--until the cycle starts all over again.

Answer 8

You ain't dead yet. You might change your mind, unless you get on your high horse and out of sinful pride refuse to do so. That might happen, but it's not His fault. You're the one who used your gift of free will to dump Him.

Answer 9

God isn't all-knowing.  He knows a lot, don't get me wrong.  But this idea of an all-knowing God seems a little ridiculous to me, ridiculous even for religion.

He made you with the idea of how you were going to act, but he doesn't know for a fact what you're going to do.

Answer 10

And here I was thinking that are parents made us!

I was reading a history book recently about what happened to any one who dared question "God" in the middle ages and later.

  Wouldn't they be rolling over in their graves if they ever saw the stuff that gets asked or replied to on R & S!

The worst they can do to us now a days  is delete a question,  get a VN or suspension.  

If one believes in a Judeo-Christian god, then they are accountable to their deity.  As an atheist Jeff - you do not believe in a God, therefore the obvious response would be so what?  

Sorry, if this went on a bit...

Answer 11

skip over the parst you are not old enough to cope with and keep reading, Might  i suggest that you pary for the wisdom to understand while you continue your reading, once having read thebilbe three time go out an buy to different versions and that with page i and with them both on your lap read from one and compare what is also written in the other one at the same time.

Their are more than 358 versions of the old and new testiments in print, I'd think that is an example of free will not  just one tiny verse taken out context.  besides you miss the point all the wisdom passed down throught the bible is simmultanious and that simple means you have not lived long enough  for the far reachings of the wisdom to make itself aparent.

Excuse me I really don't want to waste time with my spell checker today.

Oyeathereisnospace!

Answer 12

You know...God gave you a choice he made you to show you that HE LOVES YOU and even if you dont he will show you more and when something bad happens out of no reason you are gonna blame him when it was all your own choice...so if i would be you i would take in consideration to at least thank him for giving you a life and everythng you have even the smallest things such as your ears cause some ppl cant hear.......

Answer 13

You are being used for the sake of the elect.  I'd say he was very knowing being able to predict the future, and he owes you a big thanks for proving him correct.  

Answer 14

free will means that you have the choice, if God never let u pick the path of good or evil - then where's the free will?

He wants you to recognise his favours and submit to Him willingly, and He will give you more good - in this life and the next.

And (remember) when your Lord proclaimed: "If you give thanks (by accepting Faith and worshipping none but Allâh), I will give you more (of My Blessings), but if you are thankless (i.e. disbelievers), verily! My Punishment is indeed severe." [Quran 14:7]

Answer 15

God is indeed all-knowing.

But the rest of the creation (angels, humans) is not. It is for them that this experiment with sin (rebellion against God) has been allowed. They need to know the result of rebelling against God. And by the look of it, it does not appear that people get it as yet.

Answer 16

Your free will is to make a decision to accept or reject Him. What decision you make today may not be the one you make tomorrow or at some other point in the future. Of course, He knows that too.

But for today, you need to decide on which side you are on.

Answer 17

I don't know.  Do you hate your life?  Are you dying?

I have to add (I was running out the door earlier) that I do believe God did create everyone, knowing who would and wouldn't reject Him.  I happen to agree with you, that if He didn't, He couldn't be all knowing.  Plus, He says in the Bible that He knew (something about before the foundations of the world).

I do think He keeps this knowledge from Himself, and I do think He loves everyone.  Even you.

Answer 18

I think we experience what we do, to learn in this life. Why would God do something, I won't presume to answer for Him. I don't think it is because He rejects people or wants to fuel h**l. (I don't believe in a fiery h**l). I do believe we will need all that we learn in this life to be productive in the next. I don't think Heaven is just sitting on a cloud strumming a harp.

Answer 19

From what I can tell, Jeff, free will is about how we choose to live our lives.  Using the choices you make (i.e. rejecting or finding fault with God) says a lot more about you than it says about whether or not a Supreme Being exists.

Answer 20

To understand this, you will need to understand the likeness of God, what is in a man's and woman's soul. I could explain it to you, but you are a believer in macroevolution. Also, having dealings with you in the past, you are utterly illogical. So I won't waste any more of my time.

Answer 21

Love, kindness, hope, joy--all of these qualities are robotic and false if the free will is left out. If God made someone love Him, I doubt that it would be real and true love. However, choice is a powerful thing. If one chooses to love God, how great that love will be!

He created you, because He loves you and wants you to experience this world. I know we focus on the evils of this world, but my belief is that if we are too concerned about the evil, we can never be the joy needed to cure those evils.

I hope this helped. If it didn't, well, that's ok. Have a good day! :)

Answer 22

Well Jeff, we can NOT know what YOUR whole life will hold for you.

I can tell you that God does NOT make mistakes.... HE made YOU, so YOU must be okay.    

We are all provided with people in our lives  that can either help us OR hurt us .  God uses each of us in HIS timing to provide these services TO each other.

Which will you choose to be in your life?  

God asks His children to except Him and to be GOOD people to each other.  

Most Christians I know, do NOT intentionally go around making others miserable... in fact the closer we walk with God, the more hideous hurting others becomes to us.  

      

Answer 23

Jeff, Jeff, Jeff.  You know what I'm going to say, but I say it anyway.  (I should be saying "Jon, Jon, Jon.")

The future the way you're talking about it doesn't exist except in Isaac Asimov fiction.

God IS omniscient.  But since the future doesn't exist, it isn't knowable.  How can God know something that isn't real?

God didn't know you'd use your free will to reject him.  That was your decision.  He might've predicted it, after you experienced certain things in your life, but the decision to reject or accept was yours entirely.

My usually analogy:  God doesn't know what shirt I will wear tomorrow *because it hasn't happened yet.*  God will know as soon as I do:  when I stick my hand into my dark closet at 5am and grab the first thing I touch.

God is all knowing and also all powerful. It doesn't make sense to say that because God doesn't know about something that doesn't exist, He isn't omniscient.

Answer 24

Sadism.

Answer 25

My theory is that if the Abrahamic God exists, he probably created us and our freewill in order to sit back and relax with a bag of Cheetos, while watching the hilarity ensue.

We're like God's version of a Cheech & Chong movie.

God's not here... man.  

Answer 26

Because he loves you and he knows you have the potential to love him back or reject him he is all knowing and all loving.

Answer 27

Maybe the parts in the bible about free will were mistranslated. Or maybe it's some kind of parable! Those seem to be common excuses for the fallibility of the divine scriptures.

Answer 28

God provided free will to men so that they could make free choices to either Love God or Reject God.  Of course, God hopes that we will choose to know and love God.  If we were not given free will to chose our life's course then men could reasonably assert that we are being held captive against our will.  Further, in that hypothetical construct religion would be no more than a form of "Stockholm Syndrome" because our religion would be a means to ascribe virtue to one who holds us captive against our will.  Therefore our religious practice would be a coping mechanism to deal with our lack of control over our destiny.  God creates us in his image and hopes we will love him without coercion.  Since our spiritual path is the practice of love and virtue we in our lives manifest those gifts freely given to us by God including love, mercy compassion, gratitude and service to others.  In this manner we act as God would act to all other men.

Answer 29

Your dad was Zeus?

Really.

(I suppose I really should include something about "there's no such thing as free will")

Answer 30

Has to be one of these if he's omniscient (which you stipulated):

1) evil

2) not able to do otherwise

3) evil and not able to do otherwise

4) non-existent

Answer: 4

Answer 31

That's a good question, but look at it this way:

If God only created people who He knew would accept Him, wouldn't we all get a little suspicious about whether we really have free will or not?

And think of the overall plan; perhaps it is disgust at your non-belief that will draw others to believe in Him and accept Him. If you weren't around, they might not come to that point of saying, "All right, that's it, I'm choosing God."