> A thought. What's to say free will isn't one of this "quantum mechanics" type things, where the result is random, but God knows what the result will be, *at the present time*, and that certain other physical interactions can influence that decision, and that He knows what influences are necessary to produce a certain randomness, but in the end, it's still random. Perhaps God did introduce a truly random...thing, in the form of free will. He can know, right now, what the result of that randomness will be given present conditions, which are also subject to that same randomness in changes. So up to the instance of the occurence of the "random" decision making that is free will, God can and does know its result...but that that result is subject to change until its actual occurence. God can know, right now, what a human's decision in regards to a choice will be, but because he created it as a random thing, it is subject to changing, due to other said random elements introduced to his universe (namely, the exercise of other beings' free wills). And because these wills are "random", they cannot be directly influenced by God.

You've lost me, TOM. Let me see if I can break down your hypothesis:

1. Decisions made by free agents (my weird term for creatures capable of making choices based on free will) are random.
2. God knows what the result of said decisions will be (okay, right here you're implying that god knows 1 because he has future knowledge, since the definition of random means that you can't know the result even with perfect knowledge of the state of the universe immediately prior to the random event).
3. God knows what factors can influence the decisions in 1. Hrm. This one is a bit confusing, but I'll assume that we're talking about probabilities here. The way quantum events are discussed, I believe, are in terms of probabilities. E.g. this photon has a 25% chance of moving this way, a 50% chance of moving this way and a 25% chance of moving this way. So, then, god knows how to alter the probability of decisions made by free agents.
4. God knows what influences are needed to bring about a certain randomness. I'm assuming this means something similar to god can use his power to bring about specific states in the universe that he desires, including random factors.
5. "So up to the instance of the occurence of the "random" decision making that is free will, God can and does know its result...but that that result is subject to change until its actual occurence." No clue on this one. Either god has perfect knowledge of the future or he doesn't.

5 is where you lose me. Can you elaborate?


> I don't know. All of that just ran off the top of my head, again. There's probably holes and misunderstandings all over the place. Do point them out. I'm finding this all very interesting to think about.

I, too, find it fascinating.

Stephen