Welcome to Defenders, the teaching class of Dr. William Lane Craig.

Today, the Doctrine of God, Part 15.

For more information and resources from Dr. Craig, go to reasonable faith.org.

We've been talking about divine omniscience, God's being all-knowing,

and in the last class, we raised a problem that is occasioned by God's

knowledge of the future. If God forenows everything that happens, including our choices,

then are we really free to do otherwise than as God foreknows we shall do?

In other words, does God's foreknowledge imply a kind of theological fatalism about the future

that everything that happens happens necessarily?

And I argue that that conclusion does not follow, so long as we keep clear the distinction

between the chronological priority of God's knowledge to the event foreknown, but the logical

or explanatory priority of the event foreknown to God's knowledge.

God's knowledge does not determine the event.

If we usually language of determine, we would say that the event determines what God foreknowes.

So when Judas' betrayal was predicted by Jesus, Judas had the

ability not to betray Jesus. He did not have to do it. But if he had chosen not to betray Jesus,

then God would have foreknown that instead and Jesus would not have predicted

it. So we have the ability to do other than as God forenows that we shall do, but if we were to

do other than as he forenows that we shall do, then he would have foreknown something else instead.

And so long as we keep that distinction between chronological and logical priority clear,

I think we can see that God's foreknowing the future doesn't in any way threaten human freedom.

Now we ended the last class in the midst of a discussion of this.

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