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Is Foreknowledge Predestination?

S M Chen
5 min readFeb 15, 2021

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“Only the wise know just where predestination ends and free will begins.”

  • Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952), Indian monk

From the loins of the patriarch Abraham sprang the 3 great monotheistic religions: Christianity, Islam and Judaism.

Adherents of those religions believe in a 3-O deity — omnipotent (all-powerful), omnibenevolent (morally perfect), omniscient (all-knowing). Which is what He claims to be in the respective sacred texts: the Bible, the Quran, and the Tanakh.

We humans, limited in our understanding, cannot wrap our heads around the concept of Someone always being there.

For us virtually everything has a beginning and an end. Books, music, movies. Life itself, as we know it.

On the other hand, if we could fully comprehend the concept of God, maybe we wouldn’t need Him.

The issue of foreknowledge is also sticky. If He can see the end from the beginning, which He claims to be able to do, is not our ultimate destiny pre-ordained?

Humans have wrestled with this potential conundrum.

It is the conclusion of some that, despite divine foreknowledge (or potential foreknowledge), humans do have free will. Consequently, they make decisions, and those decisions have consequences.

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