I just don't get how we can have free will in a universe where God already knows what will happen because that means it was always going to happen. [Spirituality & Religion]

Your eyes saw me before I was put together. And all the days of my life were written in Your book before any of them came to be.

Psalms 139:16

If everything i'll ever do is written down before i'm even born, then how do i actually have free will rather than just the illusions that i am acting under free will along a path set before me?

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Pseudonym · 26-30, M

I'd argue that a sufficiently complex universe, even if evolving through 'predetermined' states, is indistinguishable from a universe who's future states are not predetermined, assuming the future states are incalculable from within the closed system. In other words, it doesn't really matter.

Pikachu

@Pseudonym

Well i'd agree that you probably can't tell the difference and to many non-believers i can agree that it wouldn't make a difference.
But in the context of Christianity, free will is necessary because otherwise god is just a sadistic tyrant punishing creatures who never had any option to act other than they have.

Pseudonym · 26-30, M

@Pikachu In the context of Christianity, logic isn't required.