Memoirs of a Sceptic

Unless what we humans consider to be free will, is not free will, but only an
appearance of free will, then the concept of God being omniscient, omnipotent,
omnibenevolent and morally perfect cannot be entirely valid. Akinpelu Adewunmi
Free will, according to the Oxford English dictionary, is defined as the power
to make your own decisions without being controlled by God or fate. Being
Omnipotent is having total power, unlimited power and possessing the ability
to do anything. Also, being omnibenevolent is having unlimited or infinite
goodness, kindness and love. Omniscience, on the other hand, is the capacity to
know everything that there is to know.
According to the Christian faith, when God created humans, we were given
free will. This implies that the decisions we make, the path we choose to
follow, even the fact that you are choosing to read this at this time is entirely
based on your decision. In other words, the concepts of predestination and
fatalism are cruel jokes. All our actions or inactions and there outcomes are
based solely on our decisions.
Also, considering the omniscient attribute of God, it infers that God himself has
knowledge of everything; the past, the present and even the future. The
concept enables him to know every single possible outcome of every human
action or inaction. This brings us to the point I am trying to make.
The argument here is; the concepts of free will and an omniscient God are
highly contradictory. If God truly knows everything; the decisions we make
even before we make them, the outcome of those decisions and even whether
or not we are going to make a decision, then it is logical to say we humans do
not have free will. And the implication of that is; what we have is only an

appearance of free will. In other words, we only think we have free will,
when in the real sense of the word, we do not. But we all know that is not true;
free will has always been a defining attribute of humans. Humans have free
will. Without free will, the world would not be as it is today. There would not
be violence, immorality and evil. Adam, from the bible, would not even have
eaten the forbidden fruit in the first place, as a morally perfect God, who has
not given humans free will, would not just sit and watch all that happen. So, it
is generally agreed and admitted; human have free will.
That been agreed upon, the concept of an omniscient God has to be rendered
invalid. Free will given by an omniscient God is highly impossible. An
illustration on this argument should give more insight on the subject.
Consider yourself faced with the option of taking any of the three routes
available to you in reaching your destination. Now, going by the concept of
free will, any of the routes you choose to take is as a function and only as a
function of your free will. In other words, if you choose to take route A, it is
entirely your decision and it is subject to change even at the last minute. But
the concept of an omniscient God would make us believe that God already
knows which of the routes you will take, even before you make any decision
towards it. And if that is true, then it was never in your power to change that
decision even at the last minute. That would mean predestination is what is in
play, not free will. But as argued earlier, free will is what we humans have, not
predestination. According to this argument, if God already knows the future,
then humanity is destined to corroborate with his knowledge of the future and
not have true free will to deviate from it. Therefore, our free will contradicts
an omniscient God.
Another highly reasonable argument I have against the existence of an
omniscient God goes thus. According to the Hebrews account of the creation,

as recorded in the bible, you will agree with me, the world was never planned
this way. Humans were meant to be immortals, living and reaping the benefits
of Garden of Eden for eternity. Sin was never part of the plan, so also evil,
suffering, immorality and even death. Things went terribly wrong; events an
omniscient God did not foresee. A rebellion took place in heaven; involving
Satan and some other angels. This rebellion, making inference from what the
bible teaches, was the beginning of all evil in the world. An omniscient God
would have foreseen this rebellion, even right from the start of time. And
going by the omnipotent power attributed to him, stopping it would not have
been a problem.
A Christian once tried pointing this out to me; what if God had actually
foreseen all these things I have stated, but just chosen not to interfere? In other
words, what if it was all part of a huge plan, or probably he foresaw
everything and decided to just let things run their course? My reply was
simple; if all that was true, it will only disprove the concept of God being
omnibenevolent (all loving) and morally perfect. Moreover, the bible was clear
on that; it was never part of a huge plan. Things simply went out of hand.
An omnibenevolent and morally perfect God would not sit and watch evil take
over his world. In-depth disproving of these two attributes will be a topic for
another day. But to analyse it briefly, the attributes of Omni benevolence (all
loving) and moral perfection, would simply not allow him to send down evil
into the world he created. With his omnipotence, he could simply have
destroyed Satan and his followers, rather than ejecting them from heaven,
with no place for them to go, but earth.
In conclusion, and trying to summarise all I have said, an omniscient,
omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and morally perfect God is not in existence. But
do not get me wrong, I am not categorically saying a God does not exist, I am

an agnostic. All I am saying is; if at all a God exists, most of those attributes
humans have attributed to him, are highly overrated.

- Akinpelu A.
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