Eternal God - Temporal Humans

When I discuss the topic of free will, I typically have a pretty immediate and confident response of yes, we do have free will. When I discuss God, time and eternity it wasn't until recently that I saw the issue with God being all knowing and humans having free will. When this was first proposed to me I was of course, very confused. I knew both of these things to be true- that we have free will and that God is all knowing, but I was thrown for a loop as I tried to reconcile these two things. I tried to make sense of these two concepts and tried to figure out how these things that seem contradictory work together. As I delved into this topic for the first time I was initially overwhelmed. There was no simple explanation or easy understanding of this. However, it was a statement similar to this that helped me to understand:

"Yet how absurd it is that we should say that the result of temporal affairs is the cause of eternal foreknowledge" (pg. 63). Not that this explains how God transcends the past, present, and future or defines eternity but I love when philosophers, authors, or whoever in the midst of their attempts to understand God seem to get hit with the realization that God is so outside of our realm of understanding. That's when statements using the words absurd or ridiculous, etc. are used and that's when I tend to feel like the playing field become more level between these brilliant philosophers and myself. One of my favorite things about God is that regardless of ones level of education, critical thinking ability, or time spent trying to figure Him out we always come up short. I love getting into the discussions and thought processes of how God works and I think it's healthy, good, and beneficial to allow ourselves to dive into these matters but the part that always makes me laugh is what both the intro to philosophy student and the renowned philosophers have in common: at some point on the journey, they have to stop and realize it is simply beyond their reach. In that moment I think we are all in the same boat of confusion and awe of our God.

I commented on Brax's and Sierra's!