Sounds like a pretty heady title, eh? The bark is bigger than the bite on this one. Through the past 15 years as a follower of Christ (or at least an attempted follower), one of the things I occassionally wrestle with is God's knowledge of everything that is going to happen to me, the decisions I will make, the actions I will take, etc, and how that seemingly conflicts with the idea that I have a free will to make those decisions or take those actions. I feel like this morning I had a choice to go to work and I could have made the choice to call into work sick, take a vacation day, or even quit altogether -- I feel like I do have that freedom of choice, yet it feels a bit like less of a choice when I think that God already knows what I'm going to choose... that I can't "surprise" God.
I had a great discussion with my wife as we went for a walk yesterday morning (4th of July) and I shared some of this struggle with her. In her wisdom, she saw that I am viewing God through the same lens of time that I view us humans; instead, she continued, that we need to view God as having already seen the end - that the infinite God who knows what all of eternity will look like also knows how we are going to live our life. She continued that simply because God knows the decisions we'll make does not have any impact on our free will in making those decisions - that God's knowledge and our free will are independent. As I thought about such wisdom coming from such beauty, I started wondering why I have struggled with this - I think part of it is that I think of a God that "walks with us through life" instead of the all-knowing God who has seen eternity. I feel like if God is walking with us then He is experiencing life as it unfolds, rather than knowing what is going to happen. Perhaps much of my personal background and faith experience is around things like, "He walks with me and He talks with me...". Although these are not necessarily incorrect, I grabbed hold of them as if God and I are experiencing life together; although He is with me (simply because he is ever-present), He is not experiencing my life as I experience, but instead already knows how I will experience it. Perhaps His presence with me simply gives me the ability to live the life He desires for me and the strength to make the decisions that He would have me make.
I think I need to spend some time examining this piece. I would love your comments and reactions. Hope you all enjoyed the 4th!
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3 comments:
Funny, my wife and I had a discussion yesterday morning and one of the topics we ended up dicussing was permissive will versus perfect will. It is hard to know that God, who has complete foreknowledge of what will happen for now until eternity allows things such awful things as child abuse. Is that a permissive will or a perfect will? At first I was thinking it was the permissive will, but after lengthy discussion and input from my bride, I came to the changed my conclusion. I think God who is all knowing and perfect can only have a perfect will. He allows things for a variety of reasons (teaching me, teaching someone else, etc.), but it is His perfect will. Certainly a topic you can debate on for a long time and there are many different perspectives that seem like they can be right. God please help us to understand you and increase our faith!
Thanks for the post; interesting that God would have the conversation stirring on the same day within both of our marriages.... and on "independence day" no less.
I've always believed in free will and also believe that God knows how it will all turn out. It seems odd to me that I've never thought of it as a conflict. Because we have free will, I don't think of God as "allowing the bad things to happen." I think they happen because we do have free will and we make bad choices. Just as we take great joy in the journey we take with our children; we also experience great sadness with them and for them at times. We are God's children; I imagine that he experiences much the same as he takes the journey with us--even though he does know how it turns out. We are all still searching, still learning.
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