To Be or Not To Be?

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

Genesis 3 outlines the tale of Original Sin : the disobedience of Adam and Eve as they succumb to the temptations of the anthropomorphic serpent : the devil himself. As a punishment for their transgression, Adam and Eve are exiled from Eden and their lineage is forever cursed. By punishing both Adam and Eve, God makes it clear that each had a choice in whether to eat the forbidden fruit. They both make the wrong choice.

Or did they?

In fact, was there even a choice at all?

Today I challenge arguably the most fundamental component of the Christian God : his omniscience. If God is truly omniscient, (he knows everything that is and will be), surely he would have known that Adam and Eve would come to betray him. Indeed he would have known this long before their metaphysical creation. In other words, God knew all along that Eve would never do anything but disobey him. This begs the question: did Eve actively choose to sin or was it always her fate?

The paradox of free will, also known as theological fatalism, posits that omniscience and free will are mutually exclusive. Moses Maimondies the 12th century Jewish philosopher explains this paradox thus: “man is compelled to act as God knew beforehand he would act, otherwise God’s knowledge would be imperfect.…” In other words , if God knows timelessly that a person will perform such and such an action, If God knows all the choices every person will go on to make, if God knows their ultimate destiny in heaven or hell, then it is impossible for that person not to perform the actions already set out for them. Surely this undermines the very concept of free - will which is clearly defined as the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate.

Let’s consider this idea in relation to Eve taking the fruit. The most common counter argument to the paradox of free will is that God is simply a passive witness. In short, Eve exercised her free - will to make her choice in that moment, and what God foresaw was her choice. Eve was equally capable of making either choice and God just happened to know which one she ultimately chose. Eve could eat the fruit, or indeed she could not, and God does not influence this decision. However, this argument fails to account for Schrodinger’s uncertainty principle. Many are familiar with the physicists’ famous feline who is either alive or dead. We can’t know for certain unless we open the box, but by observing the cat, we make its circumstances reality. An omniscient god acts in the very same way, by observing the future, he locks said future into place. His knowledge subsequently forces actions to take place. This is the very idea of ‘predestination’ which in Christian theology, is the doctrine which states that all events have been willed by God and eventually reference the individual fate of every soul.

So what are the modern applications to this infamous paradox? Well that’s a question. As more and more people discover the implausibility of free will and God coexisting they begin to ask the questions : Why pray, if my future has already been decided for me? If everything we do is already predestined, then what is the point of making choices or doing anything? How can I deserve punishment in hell if my future is already determined for me? Now, I for one would think this could be shaking the very foundations of the idea of God.

So can free will coexist with The omniscient God? A prerequisite of free will is unpredictability to whatever degree. The fact that God’s omniscience indicates that his knowledge simply must be perfect, every action is entirely predictable. So however you are all born into this world, no matter which background, which gender or which creed, the premise of omniscience tells us that your future has already been determined, and it is either heaven or hell that awaits.