No, not as long as you still can do something other than what you know beforehand. The reason for this difference is that your beforehand knowledge is not perfect as Gods is. You may for instance know beforehand that if the need ever arises, you would take a bullet to save your children. But when the day unfortunately arrived, you stumbled as you tried to throw yourself to shield the children and never ended up taking the bullet. You "knew", but it didnt go just that way.

Rosangela, the problem is not epistemological, but ontological. Knowledge does not affect free will in any way. The way things are in reality does.

Whether God, or anyone else, knows that there is only one thing you can do in the future does not in the least impact your free will. The fact that there is only one thing you can do does.

You may think and feel like there is more than one thing you can do, but this is just ignorance. In reality, there is only one thing you can do (which is what God has seen you will do; but, again, bear in mind the problem is not that God sees what you will do, but that it is seeable).

How did you come to the conclusion that there is only one thing that I can do? Wasn't it because God knows what I will do?


Seeable or knowable?

Well, suppose that my alarm clock will ring at 6 o'clock tomorrow morning, and that I know I will get up because I have to work. When I do get up at 6, did I have free will or not? Or suppose that I have to communicate my decision tomorrow if I will accept a new job or not. I've already decided to accept it, therefore I know my reply will be yes. When I do answer yes, did I have free will or not? I'm not speaking about my whole life, but just about a specific event.
In the example you gave, I threw myself. The fact that I stumbled has nothing to do with my decision. Free will has to do with the decision, not with the result.

Indirectly. The direct reason that you cannot do something different is because there is only one thing that can happen. Here's the logic:

A.If God knows something is certain to happen, then that thing is certain to happen.
B.If a thing is certain to happen, then you can't do something different than that which is certain to happen.

B. is why you can't do something different than what will happen, not A. A is just a way of getting to B. But it needn't be because God knows what you will do. If I could see the future, and see what you would do, then B would still be true, and the conclusion from B would follow as well. Or if nobody saw the future, B would still be true, and the conclusion from B would still follow, even if nobody knew about it.

Knowing that something is the way it is does not change the way the thing is. That God knows the future is a certain way is irrelevant. That the future is that way is the important thing.



Either. To see is to perceive is to know.

If the one thing that you will do is seeable, then it must be possible to see (or know) what that one thing you will do is. If it is possible to know what that one thing is, it must be the case that there is a one thing that you will do.

Free will has to do with the decision, correct. A future that is set has to do with results. You chose to throw yourself and you did, thats free will. The future contained that you would succeed, or not, and take the bullet, but you didn't, thats a future of posibilities. The future contained that you would succeed in taking the bullet and you did, thats a future set which must work out in one particular way rather than in any other way.

That you set your alarm clock at 6 am and promptly go up when it awakes you is a choise you do. Why is that? Because you could also chose to snooze or to turn the alarm clock off and stay at home all day. It is the options that make it into a choise. If you fell out of an airplane, continuing to fall down towards whatever land or water the plane was flying over is not a choise because there is nothing you can do to change the fact that you will continue to fall until you hit something solid. In a reality where the the future is all set, geting up when the alarm clock rings at 6 am is no different from continuing to fall once you jumped from the airplane. You could no less do anything else but get up just at that time than you could start to fall upwards or float freely in the air rather than continue downwards.

When you do answer yes, you do have a free will, because you have the option to drag your feet and fail to meet the deadline. You really wanted the job, but things just got so busy that you forgot to confirm your application and the job went to someone else who did not fail the deadline. In a future where every minute detail is allready known, if it is known that you will confirm your application on time, then you could not possibly fail to do it within deadline time.

I'm not understanding your point, or Thomas'. In the example I gave to Thomas, I know my answer will be Yes, therefore there is no way it can't be No, therefore the future is set. But I still have free will.

In your example the future is set because you have made up your mind about it. And if something happened to prevent you from getting your way, then something else would happen and not that which you had made up your mind about. A number of things could happen to keep you from having your will done, an example from the more unlikely part of the spectrum is a lightning striking you turning you into the human cucumber.

But if the future is set because it is the nature of the future to be set, then if a lightning struck you, it would trow you in the direction you have to go to accomplish that which the future contains for you, and you would land softly on a birdfeather pillow so you could easily get up going towards your goal again.

MM: I'm not so sure it is implied. Lucifer wrestled a long time with the new and strange thoughts and feelings that were tormenting him. If he was already thoroughly familiar with God's character, why did he struggle so hard and long to determine if such things were right and true?


TE: So He could see that it would be 100% certain that you, given this choice after the age of 5, would opt for strawberry.

MM: But this doesn't explain "how" God can know this an eternity before I am born, before there was a FMA. Also, the fact God knows it implies, using your logic, I do not have free will.

MM: Tom, you didn't address "why" God struggled. Why was it a struggle for God "whether to let guilty man perish, or to give His beloved Son to die for him"?