QUESTION: “Does God have the power of foreknowledge, and if so, to what extent does He use this power?”

ANSWER: “God has certainly foreknowledge but not to the extent where the free will of the individual is concerned — because He gave free will. If He knew beforehand what you may decide tomorrow, there would be no free will. Complete foreknowledge and free will of the individual cancel each other out. Certainly, God has foreknowledge to a very great degree, knowing His creation, His laws, their workings, the infinite possibilities of the free decisions of His children, and also knowing better than anyone the character and personality of all His children. His infinite wisdom coupled with all this knowledge enable Him to foresee to quite an extent and thus make His plans. Even a created being, even a human being, knowing someone else very well can assume, according to the given circumstances and his characteristics, he may act in a certain way in a certain situation. But it cannot be foretold with accuracy. God knows certainly that all His creatures must come back to Him at one time because of the perfection of His laws, but He does not know whether a person may, for instance, change his attitude today or tomorrow. By the same token, as I have explained in this lecture, God could not have known with absolute certainty whether some of His children would misuse the power He has given them or how many would do so. The possibility was there, yes, but He did not know with certainty that this abuse would occur. God will use His knowledge and power only insofar as it does not break His own laws. This is very important to realize, and it is understood by too few human beings. Often man says, ‘Why does not God do such and such? All this misery would not be necessary,’ and so on. Then God would go against His own laws, and since his laws are perfection, that would not be a perfect action. Whether or not a blind human being can comprehend that God’s ways are the best does not matter. At some time, this blindness will disappear, and then the recognition will come that God and His laws are perfect and one’s own perfection can only be reached by going through the self-inflicted misery. Is that clear?” (PL #20)