What can I say. Seems we are all living in the Matrix, except in this version, there is no Morpheus with red and blue pills who could get us out into the real world. We live on in a world that only exists in our imagination, foolishly believing that we have such things as choise, and in the real world, we just do a bad rerun of universe history...

This is what I hear you guys tell me.

You've hit the nail on the head, Thomas. If things must happen in a certain way, then our so-called free will is just an illusion. We may think and feel as if we had the ability to do something that has not been foreseen, but we don't really.

Unconditional prophecy does not rob people of their ability and freedom to choose. Nor does it limit them to one choice. They are free to choose as they please. Just because God knows how they are going to choose does not mean they have no other choice.

They have a "choice" in the sense that they could want or desire to do something different, but they don't have the ability to actually do anything different than what God has prophesied or known.

Think about it. If a person actually did something different than what God knew or prophesied, then something God knew would happen wouldn't, which is impossible, right?

Mike

To use one of your illustrations, if what will happen during next week is recorded in the multimedia library of heaven today, then free choise is on the same level as round squares or God creating a rock that heavy that he cannot lift it.

The multi-media library of heaven idea is a good illustration of the paradox. If God can just play a film of something you or I will do at a given time, say noon tomorrow, how could we possibly do something different than what the film records? (assuming the film records the "actual" future, rather than a "possible" one).

If the future is comprised of "actual" events, then in reality there are no possible futures. There only misguided ideas of what the future might be (which we have), and the true ideas about what the future will be (which God has). If exactly what will happen can be determined, it's not possible for anything else to happen than that, hence there are no possibilities for the future, only certainties. In this case our perception of possibilities is founded on ignorance.

God's foreknowledge does not rob us of our ability or our freedom to choose. Foreknowledge does not mean we are incapable of choosing right or wrong. The best illustration is the "rerun" example. God knows the future choices of every created being. He also knows the outcome of every choice. He has known it from eternity past. Knowing what we will do, before we do it, does not mean we are robots or dogs incapable of doing anything else.

The Bible is full of examples of God describing what so and so will do before they do it, in some cases, even before they are born. Did they have any choice? Did such foreknowledge divest them of their ability to choose otherwise? Learning about it in advance motivated Cyrus to do precisely what God foretold. During the MOB crisis the entire world will do exactly what God foretold. Do any of them have a choice?

There is another factor to be considered here.

God knows the end from the beginning, therefore He knows exactly how any prophecy, conditional or unconditional, will come to pass.

We do NOT know the end from the beginning, therefore, we do NOT know what will happen to a conditional prophecy. We do, however, have a better idea of what will happen to a conditional prophecy.

Does freedom to choose imply the ability to do? If so, how can we do something which God has already seen we won't?

It's because God knows the choice we are going to choose to make.