Presumably, if God could see the end before it happens, he could see the end before he even started creating the universe. The question is, were all the horrors suffered througout the course of history somehow necessary to us.
"Certainly God COULD change reality, or take away suffering, or make life a patch of roses, making anything that causes discomfort simply not exist." - Andy
He doesn`t have to remove everything... but it might help if he removed some of the more atrocious acts in history. Hitler for example, did not have any free choice in being born (and neither do any of us). Thus, God created Hitler with full knowledge that he would go to hell, and all along Hitler having no choice in the matter of being born was sent to hell regardless.
God then, could`ve intervened in preventing the particular sperm from fertilizing the egg in Hitler`s mother`s womb to prevent the holocaust from ever happening. That wouldn`t have compromized anybody`s freewill. There are probably endless other examples with serial killers and such.
"Free will is the ability to make choices." Andy
Thank you for providing a concrete definition for free will. Unfortunately, a lot of people don`t agree with this, and define it as something intangible that is not only exclusively human, but also implies that humans are spontaneous first causes of all their actions.
By your definition, even animals have free will. Ex. A squirrel decides to eat a nut instead of a cow.
Thus, i agree that humans are able to make choices, so i agree with YOUR definition for free will. But as for the proposed former traditional definition, i deny that it exists.
"OK, so God can see what happens before it happens. Then it`s up to God to decide weither or not to warn us or control us in our decisions. Why then doesn`t he? Because he gave us choice at the very beginning of the soul. IF he interveined at every instance that we would make a grave error, then we would not truly be making our own choices." - Andy
To me warning and controlling are very separate things. Warning us of a possible disaster (Hey look, Hitler`s building forces and his plans for world domination are dangerously close to succeeding) in no way impairs our ability to make decisions. No, it would help us to make better decisions.
Are TRUE choices made only when we are oblivious to knowledge of the future? If a father gives his child advice on a given topic, does he impair their free will on the matter? |