For those of you who have missed the previous post, here is where we are. Our reality has not yet been created. God exist by Himself and nothing else exist except Him. God is love (1 John 4:16). God says, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (John 15:13). Since God does not change and cannot lie then from all eternity past God's intention was to fulfill the ultimate expression of love as defined by Himself. All these thoughts are expanded on in previous post.

In the last post we established that God would not and will not force anyone to do His will and/or respond to Him which led to the fact that God would have to allow anything and anyone He created to have freedom to choose. Choose what? Well, "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends", choose to be God's friends. Just who are God's friends? God says, "You are My friends if you do whatever I command you" (John 15:14). What does God command? LOVE! Love Him. Love each other. Love everyone!

Now I need to move on to another point and then we will wrap this post up all nice and neat. Did you know that God knows all the what if's in life? What do I mean? Let's look at some verses.
"Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the powerful acts which were done in you had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes!" (Matthew 11:21).
What does that say? If something happened. Then what? Then things would have been different.
"And you, Capernaum, who are exalted to the heaven, shall be brought down to hell. For if the mighty works which have been done in you had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day" (Matthew 11:23).
If what? If something had been done, then what? Then things would have been different.

Why do I believe these verses show that God knows what would have happened if things were different? It has everything to do with God not being confined by time. Every thought process God could possibly have will become instant and perfect when placed in eternity. God knows every action and reaction. God knows how each and everything affects each and every other thing. God knows this because He has already saw all possible combinations and sequences of actions and subsequent reactions. I believe God really did know exactly what would happen if things were different in the above verses. I believe God really meant that Tyre and Sidon would have repented and Sodom would have remained. I also know exactly what could be deduced from this. Why did God allow the worst to happen if He knew the best? We are now back to freewill.

In the last post I took some liberty with 1 Corinthians 13. Since God defines love by who He is it seems clear to me that God has our best interest in mind. "Jehovah is good to all; and His tender mercies are over all His works" (Psalm 145:9). God is love and He created everything including you and I out of that love. God says, "I know the purposes which I am purposing for you, says Jehovah; purposes of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope" (Jeremiah 29:11). God knows what's best for us. It's up to us to choose to step into that plan.

So how does God allow us to decide? How does He give us freewill when everything was and is created according to His perfect plan from start to finish? Once again, it has everything to do with God not being in sequential time.

In the game of chess the chess master attempts to think of every move his opponent could possibly make and then think of every counter move he can make. A master can think several moves in advance and develop a strategy that will move him towards the goal of putting his opponents king in checkmate, but, even the chess master can only react to what his opponent does. If the opponent moves in a way unexpected then the chess master must start the entire process over of thinking through all moves and the resulting moves.

God would not be fun to play chess with. Unlike the chess master, God would know every move we could make. Every move we will make. Every move we thought about making. Unlike the chess master God created the game, the rules, the pieces, YOU, the mind you use to play against Him, EVERYTHING! God would have saw the entire game and ever possible out come of the game before the game, you, or anything was created to play it.

Our reality is like that. Since God is not confined by time and does not experience time in a sequential order all of the thought process would be less than nothing when placed in the eternal past God had to plan in before creating anything. Don't get me wrong here. I don't believe God spent zillions of years thinking and rethinking the creation He was about to make. Thinking and rethinking each move of the creation. If He did though it would still have been nothing since the thought process would have a beginning and an end. Anything with a beginning an end is nothing in eternity.

The point I want to make out of all this is God looked into the future of the creation He was about to make and based His creation upon our decisions. God, who is love and wants to be loved, maximizes His creative effort to influence people to decide to be His friends. God stacks all of creation up in a way that points to loving Him but all of creation was built based upon decisions God already saw us make. This is why God says, "all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). God's purpose was for His creation to love Him and for those who love Him to help others see just how much God love's them. Does this remove freewill? Absolutely not! Just because God saw the decisions we make before we make them does not mean that we did not make those decisions fully on our own using our own ability to make decisions. God shaped creation around decisions He allowed all of creation to make freely.

Out of perfect love and perfect knowledge with a perfect plan God spoke. "And I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, and the living creatures and the elders. And the number of them was myriads and myriads, and thousands of thousands, saying with a great voice, Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing" (Revelations 5:11).