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[Procrastinator]

If God knows everything that has/is/will happen, why put us through life to see if we are worthy of Heaven? When he would know if we are worthy? And why would he make the people who are bound for hell?

[jimwalton]

God's omniscience doesn't mean that we are robots without choice. His knowledge doesn't imply causality. Because I know you love chocolate and will pick the chocolate dessert over the apple crisp doesn't mean I made you do it. I just may know you so well that I know what you will choose. There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that our lives are predetermined and that we are not free agents.

Secondly, we are free agents, and the choices we get to make regarding spiritual truths are real choices. God does not force anyone towards heaven or hell. Those choices are ours alone to make.

Jeremiah 18.1-12 is instructive in this way, even pertaining to prophecies, let alone issues like salvation. Our freedom and free will are so vibrant that despite the Lord's purposes, God adjusts his plan and actions based on our responses.

Thirdly, no one is worthy of heaven. That isn't the point of life—to prove ourselves worthy of heaven. The Bible is quite clear that none of us fits that category (Rom. 3). But what's true is that God reveals himself to each one of us through various means, and we have a legitimate choice whether to give our lives to him or keep our lives for ourselves.

Why would he make people who are bound for hell? 2 Peter 3.9 says that God doesn't want anyone to go to hell, and Mt. 25.41 says that hell was never prepared for people to be in it—that was not the intent. God is always pulling all people towards himself (Mt. 11.28; Isa. 55.1-3). God didn't make anyone bound for hell. There is always a legitimate choice people are invited and encouraged to make to come to God.

So here's the true scenario: God loves you (Jn. 3.16), knows that you can't save yourself (since no one is worthy), and so has made every provision for your rescue, offering it as a free gift to all comers. We must repudiate what separates us from God (repent of our sins), and turn to him in love (very different from "religion". It's much like a marriage ceremony, where you forsake all others to commit yourself in love to the one who loves you.) But since love must always be chosen and never forced, he informs and invites all people to come to him for rescue (salvation). The choice is each individual's, and always ours. No worthiness is involved, but only choice and love. All sincere comers will be accepted. All who refuse and choose to have nothing to do with God will endure the consequences of that decision: life without God, and eternity without God, if they get all the way to the end of life spurning his every invitation. They weren't created bound for hell, and Jer. 18.1-12 lets us know that they always have a legitimate choice to do as they wish with their lives. God will adjust according to their free-will choices. The path to hell is never a certainty unless the person in question makes it such.

[Biggles]

There's a difference between knowing I don't agree with you and being responsible for everything in my life that makes me not agree with you. I agree that without free will there is no love, ,mercy etc. And yet in a world with an omniscient creator there is no free will. That's one more knock against the validity of the bible. Though there are many other much bigger knocks against it.

[jimwalton]

> There's a difference between knowing I don't agree with you and being responsible for everything in my life that makes me not agree with you.

You're making an illogical jump. What makes you assume that God's knowledge "makes" you do anything? There's no basis on which to claim that our knowledge is passive but God's is deterministic. Knowledge is passive, not causal. For knowledge to influence another or an event, or to effect change in any sense, it must be applied by some power or causal phenomenon. Knowledge itself is impotent; power is where knowledge becomes causal. You have no logical (or theological) grounds to claim that God's knowledge is responsible for everything in your life, or that it makes you do anything. You are make an assumptive leap that God's knowledge is somehow substantially different than ours, not just qualitatively and quantitatively different, but you have no basis, either logical or theological, to make such a claim. The force that you are claiming makes you do things is not knowledge; that's not possible, and if it is, then I need to see your work. Where's the logical progression proves your assertion?

Let's push your thoughts all the way to the edges and see if it holds. Suppose I know, as I said, that you'll be a little peeved by my response, and that you disagree with me. OK, that doesn't take a rocket scientist. You and I disagree. But let's suppose I'm twice as smart as I am in real life (wouldn't that be nice). How does that affect you? It doesn't. Suppose I'm ten times as smart. How does that affect you? It doesn't. Suppose I'm omniscient. How that affect you? It still doesn't. There is no causality in knowledge.

[Biggles]

That's great but the christian theology isn't just that god knows. It's that god is part of every single decision. Everything that happens is part of his plan. This whole denial of god's power over this world is a recent phenomena in response to the paradox that it creates over free will. Your post only makes sense in such a case.

[jimwalton]

That's where you're incorrect. Christian theology does *not* claim that God is part of every single decision. I'll ask you for evidence from the Bible that that is a tenet of Christian theology.