Acording to Orthodox Christianity does God know the future?

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Accepted answer

Eastern Orthodox doctrine holds that "the knowledge of God is vision and immediate understanding of everything, both that which exists and that which is possible, the present, the past, and the future."1

This is consistent with Scripture:

Hebrews 4:13

Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.

Psalm 138:16 LXX

My being while it was still unformed Thine eyes did see

This understanding of God's omniscience relates to a certain extent to the Orthodox understanding of time, which generally holds that time as we understand it has no meaning for God. "Foreknowledge of the future is, strictly speaking, a spiritual vision, because for God the future is the present."2

A marginal note in John of Damascus' (676-749) Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith (I.XIII) relates God's foreknowledge of the future to the Divine attribute of uncircumscription:

That which is comprehended in place or time or apprehension is circumscribed: while that which is contained by none of these is uncircumscribed. Wherefore the Deity alone is uncircumscribed, being without beginning and without end, and containing all things, and in no wise apprehended3. For He alone is incomprehensible and unbounded, within no one’s knowledge and contemplated by Himself alone. But the angel is circumscribed alike in time (for His being had commencement) and in place (but mental space, as we said above) and in apprehension. For they know somehow the nature of each other and have their bounds perfectly defined by the Creator. Bodies in short are circumscribed both in beginning and end, and bodily place and apprehension.

Orthodox theologian Michael Pomazanski (1888-1988) points out that God's foreknowledge of the future in no way violates our free will. "Just as the freedom of our neighbor is not violated by the fact that we see what he does," he writes, "the foreknowledge of God does not violate the free will of creatures.4


1. M. Pomazanski, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology (3rd ed.), p.69
2. Ibid.
3. Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 44
4. Ibid.

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1 day is a thousand days in his sight and a thousand days = 1 day, this means time is irrelevant for God. God knows the future from the past and vice versa. The question you have is does Gods foreknowledge interfere with my free will and the answer is no and yes because think of it like a movie where you can fast forward or rewind anytime you like or better like those simulation games where you can fast forward or rewind the action and make different choices, I guess thats the best I can relate time for me when I think of it as relation to God, he can fast forward rewind and influence certain actions however that would seem rather irrational God is a perfect being so things like changing his mind or choices would be shocking because if you are perfect the first choice you would make would be the most optimal choice. So you ask why would God create such a world and the answer if free will but he already knows the choices I would make does that make him unjust no because YOU STILL HAVE FREE WILL and you still right NOW have the choice to do good so the answer to your question is gods knownledge is so perfect that he knows your nature and what you would choose.

The Great question is DOES GOD KNOW HIS future actions from eternity henceforth like does he know what he will do when he creates time since he knows all actions within time and that would present a paradox of such as why would God put the tree of knownledge in the garden of eden of couse he knew what adam and eve would do but the answer is God is soveriegn nothing escapes his intuition he KNOWETH, KNOWS AND KNEW all.

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