God's Omniscience and Human Agency - A Case for Both.

So often when people hear of God being all-knowing and all-powerful, they think "well, why did he let X happen?" Or they simply deny it, because in their minds, "nothing can be all-knowing." It just doesn't seem to make sense. Indeed, for the majority of people, God's will is not understood, and His true nature is thus lost.

While I do not claim to understand exactly what God is (as that would be creating God in my own image), I do have some possible explanations as to how He can be all-knowing, and yet allow us our free will and ability to affect our own destiny. Note that this is a thought discussion, not an official declaration by the Church, so any attempt to frame my words as such is illegitimate.

To begin, let us look at the very idea of an Omniscient God, and what that might mean for us. To be all-knowing includes past, present and future, no? If so, then most people paint the picture of a God who deals in Predestination - the idea that everything that happens is all part of some cosmic plan, and that any supposition that we have any choice in the matter is merely coincidental. In simpler terms, God planned out everything we would say or do, and thus we are just puppets on a stage for Him.

Church doctrine disagrees with this idea, and mere logic does as well. In terms of doctrine, we are all "Free to choose Liberty and Eternal Life ... or Captivity and Death." Also, we believe that God loves all of His children. If we are free to choose our ultimate destination by our actions today, then does not that imply that our decisions are our own? Else God has sentenced us to our eternal fate, and this Earthly life is effectively meaningless.

The Love of God is also broken by this false doctrine of Predestination. If all things were in God's hands, if He truly loved all of us, then He would want all of us to receive exaltation and eternal life. Thus he would have simply given them to us if it were possible, or if coming to Earth were necessary but choice were not, then He would arrange our lives perfectly to "cycle through" all His children in the most rapid manner, to exalt all of us with the least amount of pain possible. Or He would simply create us and destroy us in an instant, leaving no doubt of our innocence and Eternal inheritance. Now, as this is certainly not the case, and horrible tragedies are allowed to be committed, we can either assume that God is not a puppet-master, or else he does not perfectly love all of us, and we are mere tools to Him. We believe He loves all of us, so this eliminates the doctrine of Predestination.

Another possibility which would allow God to be Omniscient and still allows man his agency is the doctrine of Foreordination. Now, the lines of this doctrine cross and vary between people, but here is a possible explanation as to the desired meaning of Foreordination:

Foreordination means that God has placed specific people in specific places at specific times to do specific tasks. As He knows all things, He knows that these tasks will be accomplished by these people, and thus create a landscape wherein the agency of man is intact, yet His plan will always go forward. The questions that arise from this are first, whether those being "used" to forward His plan have any choice in the matter, and second if the rest of our choices really make any difference. This also asks whether God knows all about the actions of the rest of us, or if He even cares.

Now, it may just be my opinion, but I believe that God's Omniscience and man's agency are not mutually exclusive. Indeed, they cannot be, else the entire Plan of Salvation would be void. In some way, then, God knows all our actions and their results, yet we are still able to make choices which affect and change our destiny. How can this be? I am not entirely sure exactly how this works, but I have considered it many a time and have come up with some possible theories.

Primarily, this revolves around the idea that God perceives time in a different way than we do. Perhaps it is because He is Eternal but we are fallen and mortal, but He is able to see and understand the entire "timeline," as it were, at once. This is supported by Christ's Atonement, which although it occurred in "the Meridian of Time," (roughly 33 A.D. by our current reckoning), it manages to affect the lives of people both before and after its occurrence. How else could those who lived prior to the birth and death of Christ, if their records be true, have experienced such mighty changes of heart by belief on His name? Additionally, we have witnesses after Christ's death, even to the current day, of the saving grace of His Atonement. How would one life in the middle of the time stream be able to affect potentially every life, both before and after, if it were not something eternal? Another way of putting this is that God is a "Fixed Point." He is an anchor to which all things lead, and by which specific things must come to pass.

In viewing things this way, the only possible explanation I can offer which would be understandable to a mortal point of view is that God sees all possibilities of choices, knows all events, and thus can see the end result of every interaction we make, shaping it into His grand tapestry of events whilst we are free to make choices which truly affect our own lives and the lives of those around us. The end result of our own lives is thus under our control, but God ensures that elements key to His plan are always accounted for.

I do not personally believe in the theory that each choice we make creates an alternate universe of possibility, as this would split our very essence an uncountable number of times, and it would be effectively impossible to reunite all of ourselves with any coherency. That is all I will say on this subject.

I hope this discourse has enlightened some minds, and perhaps provided possible answers to the great questions of life. I hope that you do not merely take my word as truth, however: Go to God, who is the source of all truth, and ask Him for a personal witness and understanding of these things. It may not come all at once, or it may never fully be given you, but if you ask in faith with real intent, you will receive something of an answer. This I testify of, in Jesus' name. Amen.

This document is not claimed to be an official statement or doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It is merely the discussion points and personal beliefs of one of the Church's members, and should be taken as such.