Season: 10 Episode: 150
Listen to episode 146 in Spanish:
Summary:
If God is all knowing do we really have free will? A few week’s ago, I responded to a claim from a woman who said you cannot have an all knowing, all loving God, and Hell. So many people agreed with her and said if God is all knowing then we cannot have free will and make our own decisions. Like always, I take this debate back to the Bible where I break down the doctrine of free will, Hell, and the reason this woman might be justified in her claim IF and only IF God creates some for Heaven and some for Hell. But does He do that? We’ll revisit her reel where she makes this claim and talk about all of this and more in today’s episode.
Recommended Resources:
Cross Examined Article: Is Teaching Your Kids About God Child Abuse?
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Welcome back to the Her Faith Inspires podcast where we take cultural issues and tackle them with biblical truth. Today we’re talking about free will. I posted a reel about this in response to a woman who said you cannot have an all knowing, all loving God and hell. I’ll share that reel soon and my reaction in just a second. Before we talk about that, I want to remind you that the 25 day Advent study is available in the online store. I LOVE it! It’s the Immanuel, God with us study and it’s split into three sections:
The anticipation of Immanuel, God with us.
The declaration of Immanuel, God with.
And the exception of Immanuel, God with us.
It’s pretty, it’s festive, and it helps us focus on Christ this season. I created this with Christ in mind because Christmas is about Him. Go to shandafulbriight.com/shop to purchase and you can even get a downloadable study if you wish to do that instead.
Ok. Let me play you this woman’s claim and then my reaction to it and then we’ll talk about some concerning issues that came up in the comment section on IG.
**Reel**
- Does an all knowing God negate your free will?
- Why did God give humans free will?
- Rebuttals to the reel about free will and and all knowing God.
Does an all knowing God negate your free will?
Let’s first say you can ask a question incorrectly if you don’t understand what you’re asking. For example, this woman asked a question about God being all knowing and then saying you can’t have Hell and an all knowing God because she doesn’t understand why God made Hell. In order to understand why God made Hell and the purpose He created it for, it will help to understand His character and nature.
If God is not all knowing He has a lack and therefore isn’t God. John 3:16 says, “For God SO loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that Whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
The key words here are SO – he so loved. He loved very much.
He gave – out of His love He freely gave His son to be sacrificed on the cross so that we might be saved.
Whosever – meaning anyone. Everyone that believes in Him will not perish (or go to Hell).
Genesis 3 tells us that Adam and Eve sinned. So you have to ask: if God is not all knowing then He did not know that we would disobey Him and he would have to send His son to redeem us. That means His plan failed – if He is not all knowing. Was Jesus plan A or plan B? Because if God is not all knowing, Jesus is plan B. And if God is all knowing, Jesus is plan A but not everyone will choose Christ. Some will reject Him and now we have to ask – why Hell? Why did God create Hell? Was it created for those who rejected Him?
Here’s some good news – Jesus tells us.
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” (Matt 25:46)
The eternal fire (Hell) was not created for humans. Christ is plan A. There’s only one plan. Now, does that mean God does not know that the person He creates is going to reject Him and end up in Hell for eternity? God knows. But does that make God unjust? Does that mean God is forcing that person to go to Hell? Does that mean that person was created for Hell? No. And that’s what I want to argue for today.
God is all knowing (omniscient). He is all powerful (omnipotent). And He is ever present (omnipresent). He is outside of time, meaning He is eternal. Because He is outside of time, He sees the beginning from the end. But here’s the beauty in it – God still extends to you His plan A – Jesus Christ, knowing you will reject Him. Jesus said He came to His own but His own did not receive Him.
He’s talking about the Jews.
And we know Jesus knew He was going to be crucified because OT prophecy tells us where He would be born, when He would be born, how He would be born (virgiin birth), how He would be rejected and die on a cross (Read Isaiah 53). God’s foreknowledge did not keep Him from coming and suffering and taking up His cross. In fact, Jesus said no one takes His life, He freely lays it down, showing that He too has free will. None of this was a surprise.
This whole, “God is unjust because He makes people for Hell and it’s not their fault. God should not have created them because He’s the evil one” is the same excuse that Adam gave God when he was hiding behind a bush. Adam said, “The woman you gave to be with me face me the fruit and I ate.” Meanwhile, the Bible tells us Eve was deceived. Adam was not. He knew full well what he was doing when he picked the fruit from the tree.
And this is why theology matters.
This is why it’s important to understand the character and nature of God. He is loving. He is so loving that He let’s you choose to follow Him or to reject Him. And we know that God would have followed through with plan A even if only one person out of all of the people He created throughout the ages accepted Him. Just like Jesus left the 99 to go and find the one, God would have sent His only son if only one person in the entire existence of the world accepted Him because that is how loving He is.
God’s foreknowledge does not negate your free will. You can have an all knowing, all powerful God, and the existence of Hell because guess what? He didn’t create Hell so you’d go there. He sent Jesus to die for you so you wouldn’t have to.
Let’s talk about free will and how we know the Bible gave us all free will.
I’ve talked about this before but this is something all Christians must know. I’m not getting into the deep on the lake of fire, the second death, etc. You can study that more on your own or we can even do a deep dive on a podcast episode about it. The doctrine of Hell is something we have to understand as Christians because there are those who claim to be Christians that claim there is no Hell. These are JW’s, Mormons. And this is bad theology. Plain and simple.
I’ve said this before but Genesis is one of my favorite books and Genesis 1-3 tells us about the creation of man, the fall of man, and the redemption of man all right here in those three chapters. But we see free will right away in Genesis 2. You might like, yeah? Where is that? When God put Adam in the garden, He gave him a command. Let’s look at what God said.
Genesis 2:16 says, “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, ‘You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die'”
We see free will because God gave Adam a command, which means Adam had to choose to obey it or not.
Adam had access to all of the trees in the garden except for one. As soon as God put the tree in the garden and said don’t eat from it, Adam had to walk passed it every day and choose not to eat from it. So God is the one who risked everything here, not Adam.
When you have free will, you have a choice. When you have a choice, there’s a risk because it may or may not go the way you want it to. So by putting the tree in the garden, God risked his relationship with Adam. But that is what love does. Think about it. When you ask someone out for coffee, you give them a choice to say yes or no, but you’re the one risking the rejection. If a boy asks a girl out on a date, he’s putting himself out there and he’s risking rejection because it’s up to her to say yes or no.
Now, if God did not give Adam free will, the verse would read very different. It would say, “And the Lord God said the man, “Eat freely from any tree in the garden.” There is no need for a command because there’s no choice but one – eat from any tree. There’s no tree that’s off limits so there’s no need for obedience, which means there’s nothing to risk, which means there’s no love because Adam would be forced to stay in Eden.
When you think about it, God made it easy for Adam and Eve.
Out of all of the trees in the garden, there was only one they couldn’t eat from. That’s not exactly harsh. That’s not even difficult to obey. But it’s telling because free will is connected to choice, which is connected to risk of rejection, which is connected to a true relationship that is built on love. Without free will, there is no loving relationship. It’s dictatorship.
So I guess the next question would be why would God go forward with His plan to create humans if He knew a good number of them would reject Him? Jesus said it himself, wide is the gate that leads to destruction and narrow is the gate that leads to life. So we know that the narrow road is the road less traveled.
This question puts the blame on God rather than owning the decision you make.
And again, it shows we don’t really understand God’s character and nature if we ask why God created us if He knew we would go to Hell? If you’re asking that question, you’re alive and you can still choose Him. Why wouldn’t you consider His existence because if God exists and Hell is real (because the Bible speaks of it) then that means you can avoid it.
I don’t know of anyone who has a relationship with Christ who’s mad about their existence. It’s only those who don’t want God that are really upset at the idea of Hell and they’re mad that the Christian doctrine says that’s where all who reject Him will end up in eternity. Don’t get mad about it. Do something about it.
I asked a room full of high school students if they had the power to make anyone love them would they do it. All of them said no. I was surprised. But they want authentic relationships where people choose to be their friend or choose to marry them because they love them. We are image bearers. Don’t you think that desire might be innate because God created us in His image and that’s what He wants too?
Rebuttals About Free Will
Here are a couple of objections: “You response does nothing to answer her absolutely still valid question. It does not matter when or why hell was created. An all knowing God would still know if He was creating a person who was going to Hell, and He did it intentionally. Answer her actual question. Don’t deflect.
So the whole point that people are upset about is that God created people He knew would deny Him and for that reason it’s His fault they go to Hell and that means He’s not all loving.
Love without a choice is not love. God provided a way for you NOT to go to Hell. He still allows you to live, hear the truth, evaluate worldviews, and make that choice. And here’s the thing no one thinks about – God, knowing you would deny Him, STILL sent His son to die on the cross for your sins even though YOU rejected Him. That is the definition of love because it’s unconditional, meaning that even though you don’t want God, He still died for you.
Here’s another rebuttal: If God is all knowing there is no free will.
I don’t understand how people come to this conclusion. And there were a lot of them. They seem to have some sort of mental block, to be honest. How does God knowing all things interfere with what you do? He just knows you’re going to do it, that doesn’t mean He forces you to do it. I know my kids so well that I can pretty much tell you how one will react to a certain type of food, or song, or whatever – but does that mean I force their reaction because I know them well enough to know how they’d react? That’s silly and stupid to say that God knows all things so you don’t choose. No, what it is is a copout for your behavior so you don’t have to own it. Did God make you post these illegal comments on IG? I mean, where does His control over your life and decisions end?
Here’s a similar but somewhat different rebuttal: It’s not free will if it’s known in advance. We don’t have the free will to be born or not, so letting someone be born who is fated to reject Him isn’t free will because begin born knowing that is decided FOR us.
My comment was: Nope.
Foreknowledge does not interfere with our free will. If you know you’re going to wake up up at 8:00am tomorrow because you set your alarm does that mean you don’t have free will?
I’m not sure this is the best point, but I was trying to argue for the fact that just because you know something will happen does not mean you will it to happen.
Another person said: You have a weird definition of free will. If I can’t change the outcome, how is that free will?
The way these questions are formed are silly because it’s like people think an all knowing God controls you and that’s how He knows the outcome. But that’s not true. God knows the beginning from the end. God knows how we’ll die. Does that mean He kills us? No. It just means He sees how it will all play out. Why? Because He is all knowing. So, you can choose God. Your outcome does not have to be Hell? Are you breathing? Are you alive? Good. That means you’re not in Hell, so why, if you know that is where you’ll go if you reject God, why stay on that path when you can accept Christ and change it?
This isn’t hard. This is easy.
But part of the problem is that people don’t know God’s character and nature. If they did, this wouldn’t hurt their brains so much.
I thought this comment was insightful: “Foreknowledge isn’t causation. She has the same problem as Calvanists.”
I agree. If this woman heard a Calvinist talk about predestination and election, she probably thinks God is unfair because according to Calvansists God made some for Heaven and some for Hell.
I don’t agree with that doctrine and that’s because I don’t think it’s biblical.
And after I posted this reaction reel it hit me that she might have gotten this conclusion from calvanism. For those of you who don’t know, Calvanism is something that originated from John Calvin, a French Theologian who was instrumental in the protestant reformation. He lived from 1509-1564. Some Calvinists believe in the acronym TULIP, and the U in tulip stands for “Unconditional Election. Because man is dead in sin, he is unable to initiate a response to God; therefore, in eternity past God elected certain people to salvation. Election and predestination are unconditional; they are not based on man’s response (Romans 8:29-30;9:11; Ephesians 1:4-6, 11-12) because man is unable to respond, nor does he want to.”
I take issue with this as a Christian because it goes against God’s character and nature. You can’t say God loves unconditional when He made some for Heaven and some for Hell. John 3:16, “For God so love the world that He gave His only son” is not true because He only loved some – the ones He predestined for Heaven. Which is not just and we know that the Bible tells us God is a just judge. Just means fair and right.
See Psalm 7:11 and Acts 17:31.
Calvinists will say that Pharoah is an example of how God has made some vessels for dishonor. Romans 9:14-24
14 “What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15 For he says to Moses,
“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”[f]
16 It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. 17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”[g] 18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” 20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”[h] 21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
22 What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23 What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24 even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?”
Does this mean that God created Pharoah just so He could use Him as an object lesson for the world?
Did He created Esau, Jacob’s brother, just so He could hate him and send him too Hell? What this means is that God can use the stubborn and the obedient to fulfill His greater purpose. But it doesn’t mean that He creates some people for Heaven and some for Hell. If that’s the case, Jesus would not have said, “Come to me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.” Matt 11:28-30
Peter would not have said, “The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.” To say that God sends people to Hell because He wills it is no different than the unbeliever saying you don’t have free will because God is all knowing and still created you for Hell. Both are a misrepresentation of God’s mercy and grace and formed with the misunderstanding of God’s character and nature.
Conclusion:
My advice to anyone listening to this podcast, especially if you call yourself a Christian, is to read the Bible. You cannot come to a different conclusion than the one God has already come to in His word. We have to know God’s character and nature and we will only know it as we read the Bible.
I hope this episode helps understand free will and God’s omniscience better. The information about Calvanism is from GotQuestions.com so you can go to their site and find all of the resources I mentioned here. I did talk about this a few weeks ago on my YouTube Q and A video, so I’ll link that in the show notes as well. And I have some excited Christmas episodes coming up for you and some amazing guests to kick off 2025, even though we’re not there yet. I hope you guys stick around and if you have any questions you want me to tackle on the YT Q and A send them to me at hello@shandafulbriight.com. If you enjoy the podcast, please leave a 5 star rating and review and Lord willing, I’ll catch you on the next one.
e next one!
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