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Originally Posted by kschmidt91  Hello I'm new here and hope this is in the right place.
I've been raised Catholic my entire life (which isn't saying much since I'm only 15), but I've been seriously questioning my religion as of late. In particular is free will.
I get that God has created us with the power of free will in every aspect of our life. But if he is omniscient as the church says then how is it possible that he isn't indirectly affecting our decision? God knows, truly knows (and as humans I don't personally believe we are capable of grasping what "knowing" truly is), what we are going to do before we know. So what if we want to do something else than what God already knows? We can't exactly do so can we because that would mean God isn't truly omniscient. So in giving humans the power of complete free will God has taken omniscince away from himself. Or we don't have free will to the degree we think we do. | Think of God as a filmmaker who is documenting the habits of an animal. This entity is an ethical filmmaker and he won't intervene in order to set up shots he would like. Now, lets attribute omnipotence to God (omniscience is part of the omnipotent definition anyhow) so that he can know exactly what the animal will do at anytime. Simply because he has the foreknowledge of the animals actions does not mean he controls the animals.
A thought to ponder is, does God have to omnipotent in order to be God? I don't think omnipotence is all necessary, God simply has to the most powerful thing in existence and if this assumption is true, then the paradoxes that come with omnipotence are irrelevant.
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And on we walked. Suddenly we heard a voice crying, "This is the sea. This is the deep sea. This is the vast and mighty sea." And when we reached the voice it was a man whose back was turned to the sea, and at his ear he held a shell, listening to its murmur.
And my soul said, "Let us pass on. He is the realist, who turns his back on the whole he cannot grasp, and busies himself with a fragment."
—Gibran Khalil Gibran, “The Greater Sea.” |