How to Rationalize a Totally Sovereign/Omniscient God and Human Free Will

Created an account just to post this idea that I believe the Spirit imparted onto me a few weeks ago. I was struggling with the idea of God being totally omniscient/knowing the future and also humans having free will/the ability to genuinely make choices at the same time. I believe that I’ve been given the insight to explain or at least have a better idea of the nature of time, God, and choices, inspired by God and science and I pray that this idea helps other people with their faith as it has helped me with mine.

First, some groundwork (there are more scriptures that relate but these were my highlights)

1. God must be sovereign- Daniel 4:35- All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, “What have You done?”

2. God is omniscient, exists outside of time, knows all counterfactuals- Isaiah 46:9-10-Remember the former things of old, For I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like Me, Declaring the end from the beginning, And from ancient times things that are not yet done, Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, And I will do all My pleasure’, Psalm 139:1-4- O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off. You comprehend my path and my lying down, And are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word on my tongue, But behold, O Lord, You know it altogether., 1 Samuel 23:6-24- Summary in brief, David asks God if the men of Keilah will deliver him to Saul, God says “They will deliver you,” meaning that, since God cannot lie, that must have been what was genuinely going to happen, David left Keilah before he was delivered to Saul so the result must have genuinely changed, David made a real choice to leave as, if he had not, he would have indeed been delivered. This also means that God knows all counterfactuals (everything that could potentially happen)

3. God cannot lie/sin/author sin- Hebrews 6:18- that by two immutable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation, who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us., James 1:13-Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone., 1 John 1:5- This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all.

4. Humans must have free will- John 3:16- For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life., Joshua 24:15-And if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”, Isaiah 1:19-20-If you are willing and obedient, You shall eat the good of the land; But if you refuse and rebel, You shall be devoured by the sword”; For the mouth of the Lord has spoken., Revelation 22:17-And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely., Genesis 2:16-17- And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”, The Parable of the Wedding Feast.

5. Set events/prophecies must occur- Psalm 22 describing details of Jesus’ crucifixion, the entire book of Revelation, Isaiah 7:14- Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. Micah 5:2- “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, Yet out of you shall come forth to Me The One to be Ruler in Israel, Whose goings forth are from of old, From everlasting.”

Now for the science bit, I will be referencing the Double Slit Experiment, and something called The Observer Effect. I recommend reading more about the experiment yourself since I cannot devote all of my post to explaining the ins and outs of it, but to summarize, imagine shooting photons or electrons at a wall with two slits in it, if nobody is watching/measuring the elementary particles in real time, they behave like a wave, making an interference pattern (hitting a bunch of different spots) on the wall behind the slit wall. This is called superposition, being in multiple possible states at once until observed, Conversely, if the elementary particles are measured while being fired at the slit wall, they instead behave as particles, only hitting two spots on the wall behind the slit wall, dropping the wave function they had while unobserved and taking up particle function while observed. Unobserved= photon travelling through both slits at once, observed= photon travelling through one slit, this is called the Observer Effect. (I am glossing over a lot of information but that is the essence of it)

The theory: I believe that time behaves similar to how elementary particles behave in the double slit experiment. I believe that the future exists, not as a set series of events that have been entirely laid out, but as a multitude of different paths that all ultimately lead to Revelation. I believe the future is in superposition until it is observed, all possible future timelines exist until we the humans observe/experience them. The past is already set, the present is happening as we speak, but the future is uncertain, it is not chiseled out in stone, but it is constantly being written as we experience it. We make choices, which open up a multitude of possible futures/choices and WE decide what choices we are going to make, which future path we are going to go down and EVERY single decision we make leads to more possibilities and more paths we could potentially go down. Once a choice is made by a human on what to do in a specific moment, every other possible future that had a different choice in that moment falls away, ceases to exist, wavefunction collapse. The magnitude of God is so massive that He sees every single possible future at the same time like a quantum computer. He is working and moving in every single possible future, leading them all to where He wants (as best as He can with humans battling Him every step). When you make a choice about what to eat for dinner, God sees every single possible choice you can make and exists simultaneously in every single choice’s timeline until you actually make a choice about what to eat and then countless more decisions follow that one every second of every day. God sees everything that could happen, would happen, and will happen. Every timeline exists until we actualize one of them. Additionally, if God exists in every possible timeline, He also exists in the one that will inevitably be chosen. My belief is that, while God knows every possible outcome, He limits his foreknowledge about which choice will be actualized by His humans and THAT is free will. In Luke 2:52, Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, meaning God can actually limit His own knowledge and foreknowledge! Could God create a stone so heavy even he couldn’t lift it? YES He can! And He has! God is omnipotent but He has natural limitations (cannot sin or lie) and can even limit Himself if He so chooses. God can see every single path for your life but it is up to you which path you want to go down. Before you are even formed in the womb, He sees that you could choose Heaven or choose Hell, it is your choice where to go. Not every single thing that ever happens is a part of God’s will, He does not desire sin, that is totally a human choice. Many people say “everything happens for a reason” but NO, sometimes the reason is HUMAN CHOICE not God predestining every single thing to every happen for all time. Some things must occur like Yeshua the Christ’s sacrifice on the cross as payment for the original sin (which was also a free human choice) and Revelation being the end, but we can make choices in between prophesied/foretold events. David was promised that one day he would be king but he had leeway in his choices leading up to it. Hezekiah was told he would die by Isaiah, but when Hezekiah prayed to God about it, God CHANGED HIS MIND and spared Hezekiah another 15 years!

There is much more I would like to say but in summary, your choices matter, whether you act or not matters, whether you pray or not matters, the decisions you make matter. When I realized this, my devotion became radical, my prayer became ceaseless, and my actions, constant. I pray the same effect happens to anyone else who has the ears to hear this message. Pray, fast, evangelize, act, I cannot stress how important your choices are. You always have a choice, make the right ones. For those who are struggling with questions like “How could God not be responsible for sending me to Hell if He knows all?” or “If everything that happens is a part of His plan, then why do anything?” I hope this message finds you well. For the ones who do not believe in God, that is your choice, but God still sees a future for you where you put your faith in Him and receive eternal life, I pray that is the path you choose to follow.

TLDR- The future is not entirely set, God knows every single possible future but it is your choice with path to take.