The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Free will

Where is the scriptural evidence for the idea that the future existed somehow apart from God's decree & that God merely observed this future to determine whom He would predestine?


Plantinga uses "possible worlds" primarily in his reformulation of the ontological argument for the existence of God, from what I recall. But he does use "possible worlds" somewhat in formulating his "free will defense" against the problem of evil. The purpose of his defense is to show that it is logically possible for an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God to create a world in which there is moral evil. Plantinga says that a world with free creatures is better than a world with no free creatures. God can possibly create a world with free creatures, but He cannot determine that they always do what is right, or else they are not significantly free & are therefore not capable of moral good. In order for there to be moral good, there must also exist the possibility of moral evil. God could possibly have desired to create a world with moral goodness, but in order to do so He would logically have to create that world with the possibility of moral evil. Thus the only way in which God could have created a world without moral evil would be if He created a world without moral good. His concern is not with Calvinism per se, but his defense is not really Calvinistic.