Yesterday I was searching through the email section looking for some of Ray's responses to the issue of free will and I came across what I felt was an extraordinary answer. Here is Ray's response with some underlining to add emphasis on what stood out to me.
Dear ________:
If God knows that I MUST make a certain choice ten years from now, then it is foolish to suggest that my choice is, nonetheless, FREE to not be made. You can suggest all kinds of silly unscriptural things like "God lives in the past, present, future," and therefor can see things before they happen. Listen.....are you LISTENING? If a choice is truly FREE, that it is free to be this way or that way, and there is nothing that will cause or effect it to be this way or that way except this spooky phantom thing called "free" will, then the choice CANNOT BE KNOWN BEFORE IT IS MADE. End of argument.You may have to meditate on that one for a few seconds (or years), but it is true--a choice that is not in some way CAUSED TO HAPPEN, cannot be known BEFORE it happens, or it simply is not free.
God be with you,
Ray
For the last several months I have been meeting with a friend for a midweek lunch to discuss some of the new things I am learning out of the scriptures... a few months ago the conversation drifted to man's "free will" vs. God's soveriegnty... now it seems that this is the main topic of all of our conversations. It never seems to matter how much scripture we look through, He just can't bring himself to consider that his fate after this life is not his own decision.
I realize totally that their is nothing I can say to him to change his mind... It will happen in God's timing, but Ray's response helped me to logically think through this issue.
If God, in His omnipetence, knows without a doubt what you or I will do tomorrow... when tomorrow comes do we truly have a choice in the matter? No! It's already been decided.... the more and more I meditate on this subject the more and more I become thankful that I do not have a free will, I fear if it were left up to me... I truly would be unredeemable. Praise God for His grace in helping us to learn righteousness... in His time!
God's Peace.
Josh