Duncan asked:

According to the Christian faith, God knows everything and we as humans have free-will. Now, more
than likely I have looked over a simple point and I am simply being stupid, but I can't understand how
God can know everything while we have free will!

If God knows all, he knows everything that has happened, everything that is happening and
everything that will happen, and if he knows everything that will happen our lives must be
preordained. If he only knows the possibilities that could happen to us in our lives, then he does not
know everything, as I as well as anyone know the possible outcomes of a football match for a team, it
can either draw, win or loose or the match could be abandoned etc. However, although I know these
possibilities this does not mean I know the outcome. I know I have asked this question in a very long
winded and unscientific way but I hope you get the gist. Please explain away my confusion away.

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How can I tell you more Duncan? You have found one of the apparent logical contradictions within
Christianity, and you seem to have thought it through very well. So, can I get rid of your confusion?

St Augustine's solution (in his City of God) is that God exists outside of time altogether, so questions
about the past, the future and what happens when are quite irrelevant. John Scotus Eriugena had a
more ingenious answer. He took the line that God does indeed know everything there is to know, but
that future events aren't an 'is'. Our future actions don't exist; they are not beings — not yet. On this
view, while omniscience is compatible with free will, omniscience does not entail foreknowledge of
future events. Yet another view is taken by Dr. Niclas Berggren (at
http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/Theodicy.htm)that, strictly interpreted, Christianity doesn't say that we
have free will at all. There are other attempts at solutions, and you'll find a good selection of them at
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06259a.htm.

But are these answers any good? Augustine is probably just playing with words, while Eriugena
seems to have invented a very much downgraded version of the word 'omniscience'. I'll leave you to
judge Dr Berggren and the rest for yourself.

The problem, to use your football analogy, is trying to play by Australian and Irish rules at the same
time. They are very different games. Christianity says "X", while logical reasoning says "not X". But
Christianity is not, and has never claimed to be, based on logical reasoning. Christianity is based on
faith. The problems of free-will, and natural evil, and a host of others happen when you try to judge
Christianity by other than its own methods. You will have to use your free-will to decide which set of
rules is the one to follow.

Glyn Hughes