Solved Theodicy?

[robvalue]

You think scientists don't predict the weather? You're saying they get it right all the time? Of course they attempt to predict it. That's the whole point of science. Totally accurate predictions (foreknowledge) would require total knowledge of reality. Even if your analogy holds, an analogy is not an argument. It's meant to demonstrate a point; a point you have not yet made. A better analogy would be that I have put a bunch of people in a room, knowing they are all going to starve to death no matter what they do. But I give them "free will" to try and get out, knowing they will fail, because it's inescapable. If I set events in motion, and I know what result will occur, and I allow that result to occur, I'm responsible. I don't know why you think God isn't responsible for his own plan. I guess it's because his plan is awful and involves giving AIDS to babies. On the one hand you say there's a reason this happens which we can't grasp, part of a great plan, but then you say he's not even responsible for it. Which is it?

I could leave the door open and say they are free to leave at any point. But then if they try to leave, I make them slip over or hit each other so that my prediction comes true. Which it must, because I know it.

So God knows what the final outcome of my actions will be, after taking into account whether he screws with me or not, or anyone else screws with me or not. Even if he knew that theoretically it would be something else but would be changed, he still knows the overall result. Beforehand. If he only knows afterwards, he knows nothing more than anyone else.

So I cannot end up doing anything except this result, in the end. Can I? If I can, then he doesn't know the end result. So basically, I'm free to try to alter this result, but I will fail. My life is still planned for me before I take my first breath. I cannot escape it. If I go axe murder a baby, it's not my fault because I couldn't have ever been able to do anything else no matter how hard I tried.

The only alternative here is that God chooses my action for me (by screwing with me) as I do it. Still not free will as I have no say in the matter. And God would still know the outcome, unless he didn't know what he was going to do. This is some serious mental gymnastics which still ends up making God look like an idiot playing with puppets, and he loses foreknowledge, unless he himself has no free will.

Does God know what he will do in advance? If no, he doesn't know everything. If yes, he has no free will.