RE: The problem of free will
August 5, 2016 at 3:44 pm
(This post was last modified: August 5, 2016 at 3:45 pm by Neo-Scholastic.)
It must also be acknowledged that free will is a debate within Christianity - Calvinists being hard determinists, Arminianists having a kind of compatabalism, and most of the rest advocating for libertarian free will. I think the question really hinges on how someone believes time works: presentism or eternalism. I haven't made up my mind on that question, though I think eternalism is more theologically defensible.
In theological eternalism, everything (past, present, and future) is known by the Lord' completely in the now. That would mean that He doesn't know today what you will do tomorrow because He already knows it tomorrow. The flip side of that is that he doesn't know today what you did yesterday because he still knows that in the yesterday that is still present before Him. It seems to me that if that is the case then free will is not manifest through a temporal series of decisions, but rather by a single act of will someone that resonates across all time simultaneously.
In theological eternalism, everything (past, present, and future) is known by the Lord' completely in the now. That would mean that He doesn't know today what you will do tomorrow because He already knows it tomorrow. The flip side of that is that he doesn't know today what you did yesterday because he still knows that in the yesterday that is still present before Him. It seems to me that if that is the case then free will is not manifest through a temporal series of decisions, but rather by a single act of will someone that resonates across all time simultaneously.
