Free Will and God's omnipotencies are mutually exclusive.
For people who believe in God's existence, one uncomfortable truth may be too difficult to accept: Either God can't foresee the future, or they do not have free will.
Abrahamic religions, as well as others, tend to declare God's simultaneous omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence to be a certain fact. However, they also assert they can make free will choices, for which they will ultimately be judged. It is, of course, ridiculous to imagine someone being a "sinner" and being judged if they could never make a voluntary free will choice.
Something has to give.
What likely gives is God's omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence. God is not all-knowing, including the future; God is not all-powerful enough to make square circles, and God cannot be in more than one place at once. In other words, God cannot violate the classical laws of logic, nor can he violate the privacy of people's minds, or obtain foreknowledge of their future choices.
Below is a simple, logically sound argument proving why God cannot have perfect foreknowledge (omniscience) in tandem with people's ability to choose from all the available options (free will).
Premise 1: If God is all-knowing, then God has foreknowledge of all events, including human actions.
Premise 2: If God is all-powerful, then God's predictions or declarations are infallible and must occur as stated.
Premise 3: For an individual to have free will, they must have the genuine ability to choose among multiple alternatives.
Premise 4: If God's foreknowledge is infallible and encompasses all future actions, then it is impossible for any event to occur differently from how God knows it will occur.
Premise 5: If it is impossible for any event to occur differently from how God knows it will occur, then individuals do not have the genuine ability to choose among multiple alternatives.
Conclusion: If God is all-knowing and all-powerful, individuals cannot have free will because their actions are predetermined by God's infallible foreknowledge.
Written by George Tchetvertakov
