I've thought of a paradox concerning God’s omniscience/omnipotence that I have never run across before, although it’s hard for me to believe it has never occurred to anyone.  Maybe someone out there will be familiar with this line of argument and can help me make sense of it:

First I will presume that God is omniscient in the usually defined way, i.e. He knows all true propositions past, present and future.

Now, imagine that I am sitting in a restaurant and the waiter offers me a choice of coffee or tea.  At this point, God decides to reveal my future to me, and gives me a vision of His true knowledge of my future; in this vision, I choose coffee.  After this brief vision has ended I, being in a rather contrary mood, then proceed to choose tea.

Thus we have a paradox.  If God reveals His knowledge of my future choice to me, by my free will I can choose differently.  If I do choose differently, God’s knowledge is no longer true.  The only way, then, to assure God’s omniscience is to say that God cannot give me this knowledge of the future.  In other words, it seems to me there are three equally unpalatable choices:

(1) I do not really have free will; or

(2) God is not truly omniscient about my future in that He cannot be sure of how I will choose; or

(3) If I have free will and God is truly omniscient then He is not truly omnipotent, because He cannot make my future known to me without giving up His omniscience.

Between these three, I guess I would lean toward the third one being true and I would have to redefine what we normally think of as omnipotence.

Note that this is not just the "can-God-make-a-rock-so-heavy-He-can't-move-it" argument, in that there doesn't appear to be anything logically contradictory about God revealing knowledge of this sort.  In fact, come to think of it God does just such a thing in the gospel accounts, where Jesus tells Peter that Peter will deny him 3 times before the cock crows.  In this case, it appears that Peter didn't remember the prediction until after the cock crowed.  Is it possible that God could have implanted a temporary amnesia in Peter's mind to protect His omniscience?

I think you are misunderstanding the paradox.  Let me put it this way.  It is a fact that I will order either coffee or tea (assuming for the the sake of argument that nothing else happens, like I drop dead first or the restaurant catches fire and has to be evacuated, etc.).  If we assume that God is omniscient about all future events, in that he knows before I order (indeed, from all eternity) which I will freely choose, then it seems to me that my point number (3) must be true.  That is, the combination of divine omniscience and libertarian free will implies that God cannot completely divulge to me the future regarding my choice.  Perhaps it is incorrect to call this a paradox, since I don't think that the result is necessarily problematic.  But it does give some insight into the nature of divine omnipotence.  It's just not logically possible for God to reveal this aspect of the future to me while maintaining my free will.

Here's one for you....
God did not show you the entirety of your future, only the parts that he felt would be of sufficient value as to affect your life in a manner that would bring you closer in relationship with him.

Which would in fact be in line with his explcitly stated will-- in the bible. I.e., he desires that we trust him with our lives, and will provide to us exactly what we need, at the moment of that need, and nothing more/less for the purpose of drawing us closer to him.

It seems to me that your ideas lack the one imperative aspect-- the personality of God, as having the freedom to give, and retain what he wills to those to whom he wills, as he chooses. Completely separate from what you will, etc.....

All of this gives me the sense that we are lacking a grasp on God's personality, as a real being-- with feelings, choice, reasoning, logic, etc.....

The only things we can know of God are:
1- what he's revealed about himself to humanity-- through the bible.
2- what he reveals to us, as individuals, about himself-- following his revelation in the bible, for further clarification of the bible.
3- futures that he chooses to reveal that cannot be affected by our choices-- not because we choose to go left, when we THINK he said we'd be going right. In my experiences, I've found these to be the "dejavu" moments of my life.



While we can think we can know more, we'll always be limited by our capacity to perceive the reality in which we live.


By way of personal testimony, as a young follower of Jesus, I spent the first nine or so months of my christian experience walking around in a state of de ja vu, constantly. Then one day it just faded from my existence.
It wasn't until later on that I began realizing that I would dream an entire day's events, the night before, down to fairly great detail, and then have this constant sense of de ja vu throughout my days.
As I grew older, and started pondering these things, it dawned on me that God decided that I needed to know that he knew how each day of my life would play out before I did, and as such, decided to "reveal" it to me the night before. I.e., no event was too small, or insignificant to him, with regards to me. He knew me......

I think you're right, but this view requires that molinism be true, i.e. God must have middle knowledge of what my response would be if He made such a revelation.  Perhaps this could be considered a good argument for a molinst view.  Without such middle knowledge, God's omnipotence would be diminished.