Yes. How could he not? Thats why I always go back to God's prefect knowledge. Because it presents real problems for the Christian message. If God knew in advance that Adam and Eve would eat from the tree of knowledge, then why did he put it there? If he knows in advance what choices we will make in life, how can we be judged for making those choices?
God's perfect knowledge.
Do you know about God's middle knowledge?
Craig talks about it. Weird stuff. We get too caught up in trying to understand GOD.
That's like an ant trying to understand a HUMAN!!
God wanted to create a race of humans.
I'm told it's because He loves us and I tend to agree with this reason since He had no real NEED for us.
But God is slightly intelligent....isn't He?
Do you suppose He would have been happy with a race of humans that He would have liked to be able to freely love Him back? Maybe He didn't want to program the entire human scene, so He left a lot of decision making to us?
So, Adam and Eve were free to eat of the tree.
The tree held the knowledge of good and evil.
Did ADAM only want to know good?
Or did he also want to know evil?
God could have not put the tree there,
God could have made Adam choose to NOT eat,
God could have done this any way He wanted,,,
but He chose to let us make the decision as to whether or not we wanted to know evil,
Or only good.
Would man belong to God freely and lovingly
or would man end up a robot that followed God's instructions?
What would satisfy an intelligent being more??
And how are we judged for making any choice?
Because God gives to us the free choice to choose between Him and the enemy.
He clearly states that if you choose the enemy He will have nothing further to do with you because you decided to give your love to the enemy.
This is perfect justice.
The question I've been pondering recently is, does God have free will? If he has perfect knowledge of himself, past, present, and future, does he know what choices he will make in the future? If he does, how can he make different choices that he has not foreseen?
Good thinking!
Simple answer:
GOD HAS FREE WILL.
The REAL question is:
Can God negate/oppose His nature?
For instance,
Can God sin?
I believe most of it is Jewish mythology. Similar to Greek mythology.
Not mythology.
How about this:
The Hebrews, and those that came after them, had discovered this new God.
A monotheistic God that had great power.
God commanded many actions/incidents/rules, etc. in the OT.
Could it be that the Hebrews, and those that came after, began to attribute
everything that happened to God?
Truer words were never spoken.
We will never fully understand God but can only grasp what has been revealed to us,,,and I'd say the best revelation is Jesus.