One criticism of such a view might be that it might mean that all the events of time must necessarily be fixed and thus we don’t have free will. Since if God’s nature does not change such that his nature requires that all his relationships to all events to not change then those events never had the possibility to be different in the first place. And it also brings into question whether God himself has free will. How would you answer this challenge?
God’s eternal experience outside of time is still predicated on our decisions within time. If I chose to eat pie for breakfast tomorrow, God will, for all of eternity, experience me eating pie tomorrow morning. That is what He would have “always” experienced. If, on the other hand, I chose to eat cereal tomorrow morning, then He would have “always” experienced me eating cereal.
The problem is that, in trying to describe these things, we apply temporal language to an experience that is without time. The language doesn’t fit, it doesn’t mesh with the reality. Unfortunately, due to the fact that we exist within time, it’s the only way our minds can comprehend and order things.
This inability is why I put “always” in quotations before. In reality, the concept behind the world “always” doesn’t apply to God, because it describes a time-based reality. I could also say that God has experienced whichever choice I make eternally, but again, our minds are not capable of comprehending the reality implied by the word. We cannot conceive of eternal existence. So, for most people, when they hear eternal their mind interprets it as “for all time,” or, “since the beginning of God’s existence.” This isn’t anyone fault, it’s just that we can’t understand it any other way. In reality, God did not have a “beginning,” and His experience of “eternity” is something we just cannot conceive of.
This does not, however, imply that we are not in control of our actions. As I said before, God’s timelessness allows Him to experience all of what we perceive as the “past, present, and future,” simultaneously. From our perspective, this means that He has “always known” what we were going to do; but this characterization is again lacking because it assigns a temporal dimension to the knowledge. ("Always, and “known” both indicating what we would consider ‘the past’.) From God’s perspective, His knowledge of what our “future” choices will be is based on His direct observation of our decisions. God knows what I will eat for breakfast tomorrow because to Him, I am currently eating it. This does not remove my ability to make a decision, as whatever decision I make dictates what God experiences.
People who argue that God’s knowledge implies a lack of free will are simply failing to account for the timelessness of God’s existence, and the nature of what true Omnipotence means. This isn’t necessarily their fault. These are very complex, heavy subjects that are completely foreign to our entire experience of existence. They are so foreign to us that there is not word in any of the languages on our planet that can do the difference justice. The best we can do is try to explain it to them, and hope that the seeds are planted which will eventually blossom into understanding.
This may be a mystery that we can not expect to understand with our limitations.
Unfortunately, this is true. I certainly hope to be able to experience it one day though.
