God's Debris

God’s Free Will

“Does God have free will?” he asked.

“Obviously he does,” I said. It was the most confidence I had felt so far in this conversation. “I’ll admit there’s some ambiguity about whether human beings have free will, but God is omnipotent. Being omnipotent means you can do anything you want. If God didn’t have free will, he wouldn’t be very omnipotent.”

“Indeed. And being omnipotent, God must be able to peer into his own future, to view it in all its perfect detail.”

“Yeah, I know. You’re going to say that if he sees his own future, then his choices are predetermined. Or, if he can’t see the future, then he’s not omnipotent.”

“Omnipotence is trickier than it seems,” he said.