This document examines whether human freedom and God's omniscience are compatible based on different theories of time. It defines key terms like omniscience, human freedom, and explores two theories of time: the B-Theory of time and the Growing Universe Theory of time. It concludes that human freedom and God's omniscience cannot coexist, as the B-Theory requires a determined future incompatible with freedom, while the Growing Universe Theory limits God's omniscience by not allowing knowledge of the future.

1. Human Freedom and God’s Omniscience Are
Incompatible with Each Another: An
Examination Utilizing Theories of Time
Paul Carrion

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Human freedom and God’s property of omniscience are incompatible with one another.
One can come to this conclusion while utilizing two different and incompatible theories of how
time operates in the world: B Theory of Time and the Growing Universe Theory of Time.
Philosophers with their examples, such as John Locke and his locked man in a room example of
apparent freedom vs actual freedom, shall serve to enrich the examination. The definitions of
omniscience and human freedom shall be defined, the properties of God shall be explained, the
theories of B Theory of Time and the Growing Universe Theory of Time shall be fleshed out,
and the question of whether human freedom is compatible with God’s omniscience shall be
settled with a definite “no”.
The question of whether human freedom is compatible with God’s omniscience is
important because belief in a perfect being with the properties of omnibenevolence, omniscience,
and omnipotence has been the bedrock of western civilization’s power of unification through a
common belief. The omniscience of God allows societies to claim that God sees everything and
therefore can hold humanity accountable for their actions. Human freedom is crucial to an innate
sense of a human property that crafts humans as being more than animals of passions and
impulse. The difficulty in reconciling the two have plagued various philosophers and theologians
throughout the ages. Human freedom means that people can be held morally responsible and
likewise be endowed with praise, punishment, or forgiveness based on their actions. God’s
omniscience is a property that western civilization has given to its image of a perfect being. The
tension is the following: how can humans be free to do anything if God knows what humans are
going to do anyway? I assert that they cannot, unless God does not have omniscience after all.
The God in question is the traditional God of western philosophy. This God has three
main properties: omnibenevolence, omnipotence, and omniscience. Omnibenevolence means all-

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good. Omnipotence means all powerful with logical constraints; for example, God cannot make a
square circle. Omniscience means all-knowing without regard to space or time. In other words,
God knows everything in the universe from the beginning to the end. The God in western
philosophy is traditionally regarded as the Christian notion of God, which involves the Holy
Trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit can be regarded as the attribute of
omnipresence, which means being everywhere at once. Since God is a perfect being, God cannot
change over time, because there is no more room for improvement. God cannot be anything less
than perfect.
Human freedom is the ability of a human to choose to do one thing and have the ability to
do otherwise. Take John Locke’s example of a man locked in a room with two of his friends and
who chooses to stay in the locked room with his friends. He does not know that the door to his
room is locked, and therefore he does not know that he cannot freely leave his room. By this
example, the man is not truly free to choose what to do, despite his apparent freedom in being
able to choose, because he could not leave the room if he desired to do so. His freedom is
infringed upon. (Rowe, 163-164) Therefore, human freedom in this argumentative essay means
the freedom to make a choice and have had been able to do otherwise. In this case, this means
that the man in the locked room ought to have been able to leave the room because the room
ought to have been unlocked because this would make the decision to stay in the room an actual
free choice.
The B Theory of Time regards the past, present, and future as all being real at once. This
means that the past, present, and future are all actual, with the future being unknowable to a
linearly-progressing temporal being because the future has not occurred for the temporal being in
question. (Garrett, 90-91) For example, as of November of 2015, John Doe is typing a

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philosophy of religion argumentative essay about how human freedom is incompatible with an
omniscient God. In September 2015, which is the past for the present November 2015 John Doe,
John Doe was composing a report analyzing arguments in philosophy of religion utilizing formal
logic. This September 2015 John Doe and his actions are just as real as the November 2015 John
Doe and his actions. The December 2015 John Doe, which is the future John Doe for the frame
of reference of September 2015 and November 2015 John Doe, is doing whatever December
2015 John Doe is doing. The December 2015 John Doe’s actions and decisions, as well as his
timeline, is just as real as November 2015 and September 2015 John Does’ actions and timelines.
The B Theory of Time, as shown with the examples of the various John Does in time, is a
deterministic type of time, because the past, present, and future are all occurring at once and are
all equally real as one another.
In the B Theory of Time, God’s omniscience is possible because the past, present, and
future are all equally real. If God is eternal within time in a B Theory of Time universe, then God
exists in the past, present, and future all at once. Humans are linear creatures and are only able to
live through the present moment while retaining knowledge about the past. Their future, as
known to them, has not been realized yet through their passing through time, and therefore is not
actualized for them, despite their future being very real. A God who exists within the B Theory
of Time universe exists throughout time, and therefore can have perfect knowledge of
everything. With past, present and future all being equally real, everything in the universe
throughout space and time being known as a fact for God, and with God’s perfect omniscience,
there is no room for human freedom within B Theory of Time and a God’s eternal omniscience
to coexist.

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Even without God’s omniscience, human freedom would be impossible with the B
Theory of Time because the past, present, and future are all equally real. The past, present, and
future are all matters of fact. The past and present may be knowable and perceivable to human
beings, but the future has already occurred. This means that the future has been determined like a
very long narrative in a book or a movie. One may be on chapter three of a fifty chapter long
book, but chapters four through fifty still exist and cannot be changed. If the parable is extended
to God, then God would be like a reader who has developed a special fondness for the story and
thus becomes omniscient with his knowledge of that story, which is the universe. This does not
assign causality with God for simply knowing something, for the something would occur
regardless of God’s knowing it. If God is the reader, then God would be placed outside of time.
However, this does not give an account for God’s omnipotence or omnibenevolence.
Furthermore, this account of God existing outside of the universe would bear no relevance to the
B Theory of Time Universe in question, which negates the Holy Spirit of the Holy Trinity of
Christian doctrine. If God exists outside of time in this universe, then God is merely a spectator.
Christian doctrine would not accept this version of God.
The Growing Universe Theory of Time asserts that the past and present are real, but the
future does not exist. (Garrett, 96) This universe would allow human freedom since no being
would possibly be able to have knowledge of the future. Knowledge of the future would entail
determination, which would negate human freedom. Since there is no future to have knowledge
of, there exists human freedom. If God exists in the Growing Universe Theory of Time, then
God would only be omniscient of the present and of the past, but not of the future. This would
not necessarily take away his perfect omniscience since the future would not be a thing to know,
but it would redefine what it means to be omniscient. It would place a limitation on God’s

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knowledge of the Growing Universe Theory of Time’s universe. To place a limitation on God
would be to take away an aspect of God’s status of being a perfect being. If God’s knowledge of
the universe grows, then God is changing through acquiring the knowledge, and thus cannot is
not eternally perfect.
Grant the Growing Universe Theory of the Universe. If God does not have omniscience,
then there are things that are unknowable. The things that are unknowable are things that are not
real. The things that are knowable are real. The past and present is real. The future is not real.
The past and present are knowable. The future is not knowable. The future is not real. The past
and present are knowable because they are real. That which is knowable is determined. The past
and present are determined. The future is not knowable because it is not real. The future is not
determined. If the future is not determined, then humans have freedom. If the future is not
determined, then God is not omniscient.
Grant the B Theory of Time. If God does have omniscience, then God knows everything.
If God knows everything, then anything is knowable. If anything is knowable, then the future is
knowable. If the future is knowable, then the future is real. If the future is real, then the future is
determined. If the future is determined, then humans have no freedom. If the future is real, then
the Growing Universe Theory of Time is not true. If the future is real, then the B Theory of Time
is true. If the B Theory of Time is true, then God has omniscience. If the B Theory of Time is
true, then everything is determined. If everything is determined, then humans have no freedom.
The conclusion one must derive from the above two arguments is the following: Either
the universe is the B Theory of Time universe where the past, present, and future are real,
knowable, and therefore determined, which allows God to have omniscience, or the universe is
the Growing Universe Theory of Time where the past and present are real and knowable, but the

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future is not real and not knowable, allows humans to have freedom, and therefore God does not
have omniscience. It cannot be the case that humans have freedom and God has omniscience.
The conclusion is true regardless of whether God is a god within the universe and within
time eternally, or if God is a deistic god who created the universe and then leaves it alone. The
God throughout the universe exists since the beginning of time. The deistic God is eternal
outside of time and outside of the universe. The God outside of the universe is presumed to have
created the universe. If the universe that God created is the B Theory of Time universe, then the
deistic God has perfect knowledge of everything about the universe. If the universe that the
deistic God created is the Growing Universe Theory of Time, then the deistic God would have
perfect knowledge of everything that has occurred in the universe up to the present moment, but
does not extend to the universe’s future.
If the God within the universe created the universe to be B Theory of Time, then God is
omniscient of the past, present, and future, and is omnipotent throughout time. Since all of time
is set and all the actions are set with time, then everything is determined and there is no human
freedom. If the God within the universe created the universe to be the Growing Universe Theory
of Time, then God is omniscient of the past and the present, but not of the future. This allows for
human freedom, but at the expense of God’s omniscience and omnipresence into the future, since
the future does not exist.
An objection to the argument may be that the Growing Universe Theory which allows
humans to have freedom but limits God’s omniscience only limits God’s omniscience while the
universe is unfolding. Presuming that this universe has an end and God is outside of the universe,
the universe may have had human freedom while humans resided in it, but once the humans and
the universe was complete and therefore no more, one can have complete knowledge of the

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history of that universe. This would allow humans to maintain their freedom and allow God to
have eventual omniscience. However, this would still take away God’s omniscience. God, by
western tradition, always has been and always will be the same God from the beginning to the
end of the universe since God is eternal. So the time it takes for the Growing Universe to unfold
is the time in which God is different from the God with omniscience. By this interpretation, God
would eventually become a perfect being, granted his other properties, but that would also mean
that God was not always a perfect being. It is safe to say that the criteria for a perfect being
necessitates the perfect being always being perfect. Therefore, the Growing Universe Theory
with human freedom and God’s omniscience are still incompatible if one is to maintain the God
of western tradition.
Human freedom and God’s omniscience cannot coexist. The pragmatic application of this
conclusion is realizing that humans either have absolute freedom in determining the future, or
they are constrained by determinism. If human freedom is true, then it is a type of empowerment;
this means that humans are not dictated by the forces of the past and are not condemned by the
determination of the future. As Sartre once said, “Humanity is a freedom.” To presume that
determinism exists would be to operate in “bad faith” and would not allow humanity to claim
any moral responsibility for itself. However, this takes away one of God’s crucial properties: the
property of omniscience. If God does not have omniscience, then is God truly omnipotent,
omnibenevolent, or omnipresent? These questions must be addressed when rationally examining
God. These question will serve to strengthen one’s faith if God holds up to critical examination.
These questions will allow humanity to contemplate its role in the universe if it is ultimately
determined that God does not hold up in critical examination. The answer to omniscience is

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determined by whether the universe is a Growing Universe Theory of Time, or a B Theory of
Time universe.

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Bibliography:
1. Garrett, Brian. What Is This Thing Called Metaphysics? 2nd ed. New York:
Routledge, 2011. Chegg EReader. Chegg. Web. pp. 162-177. Nov. 2015.
2. Rowe, William L. Philosophy of Religion: An Introduction. 4th ed. Belmont: Thomas
Wadsworth, 2011. Chegg EReader. Cengage Learning. Web. pp. 90-100. 15 Nov.
2015.