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Religious people say we have free will in that god has knowledge of whatever will happen but he doesn't make us do sin. I did an act of sin out of my own choice; god was just already aware of the choice I will make. I think that totally makes god not really omnipotent. Here's why. When I make the choice of committing a sin,I am creating my own will, I am creating something god didn't create. My act of sin was my own creation which was totally in my control, not in god's control. Then it follows that there exist atleast one thing in the universe which is not gods creation. If that is the case, god ceases to be the creator of everything. He ceases to be "the God".

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  • In multiple ways, there are detailed discussions in SEP, Foreknowledge and Free Will. But God is the Creator of everything, not a controller of everything, that he gives creatures partial control through free will is part of the official religious doctrines. That he can do that is part of his omnipotence, he'd cease to be God if he couldn't. Some theologians even call it "co-creation" by creatures, Plantinga for example. It is just not the narrower sense of "creation" that they use when calling God "the Creator of everything".
    – Conifold
    Commented May 6 at 22:41

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Yes and yes. The supposed compatibility of free will and an omniscient, omnipotent God really doesn't hold up to scrutiny at all. If God knows everything we will do before we do it, how can our choices be truly free? We're just following a script that God has foreordained, like puppets on strings. Where's the real free will in that?

But then if you say our choices can go against what God has foreseen, that means there are things outside of God's control and knowledge - which contradicts the whole idea of God being all-powerful and all-knowing in the first place.

It's a total paradox that religious thinkers tie themselves in knots trying to explain away. Either God controls everything, making us automatons without true free choice. Or we have free will, but then God is not actually the supreme being running the whole show. The apologetics about God's foreknowledge not determining our actions is just sophistry to avoid admitting the glaring contradiction.

And you're absolutely right, modern neuroscience only underscores how incoherent the notion of free will really is. Brain imaging shows our decisions being made before we're even consciously aware of choosing. There's no little homunculus in the brain exercising free will - it's biochemical dominoes falling based on prior causes. Between the theological paradoxes and the scientific evidence, it really does seem the conception of free will as commonly understood is indefensible. An illusion we cling to rather than grappling with the implications.

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  • Thank you. I was discussing the same issue with a religious apologist. My earlier argument was that if your god has already predestined everything then we have no free will and cannot be put to judgement. He said god already knows what I will do, but he doesn't make me do evil acts. So I told him if I decide to do evil acts and god has no control over my decision of performing those evil acts, then how does he continue to remain a god, since there is atleast one thing in the universe which is not created by him? He got angry.
    – Saqlain Syed
    Commented May 6 at 22:26

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