Freewill And Omniscient Essay

The idea of freewill and the existence of an omniscient being poses and interesting philosophical question; Can humans have free will, and co-exist with all-knowing deity, or does this create an apparent conflict? I am going to cover what the definition of these terms (freewill and omniscience) are for our discussion, bring up a few points about an apparent conflict between omniscience and freewill, and provide a conclusion as to whether or not this conflict is a strong defeater for these two ideas co-existing. During this conversation I will sometimes refer to an omniscient being as God. This is meant just as a place holder and is not intended to focus on one specific belief or ideology. The first thing we must address Is the concept …show more content…
One of the conflicts is the idea that you cannot have freewill if God knows everything there is to know. Specifically, he would know the decision you are going make before make them. This would be a conflict because if you were to make a decision that God didn’t know you were going to make; it would undermine omniscience. On the opposite side, if God knows every decision you are going to make, then you could not make any other decision; thus undermining freewill. These two ideas seemingly cannot co-exist. Let’s break this concept down even more. Referring back to the definition of freewill we find “Free will is the ability that you have to make a change to your future, no matter how small or big, you control your own actions and destiny.” I want to focus on one part specifically: you have the ability to change your future. This is an important part of freewill because it really explains what freewill means. Every decision you make is one that changes your path in life, and it is one that YOU make. This doesn’t mean that you have to know what is going to happen because of the decision that you make, we don’t have omniscience. It does however mean you can change what happens next because of your decision. Let work this with an example; You wake up in the morning and are faced with a decision that will have a different impact on your day (future) depending on what you choose. As you walk into your kitchen you decide to drink a glass of coffee instead of a glass of water. Drinking the coffee has given you more energy and as a result you have finish your work earlier than normal. If you had drunk the water you would not have had the same energy level and would most likely not have finished the same amount of work effectively changing your future. This was a decision point in your life that seems to demonstrate freewill. Now let’s