The way Arnold sees it is exactly how I also see it.

I also see it as "won't" rather than "can't" for the very reason that God sees what he "won't" do, not what he "can't" do.

I also agree. God knows the future like a rerun. Such foreknowledge or hindsight does not rob us of our ability or freedom to choose. God knows in advance what we will or will not do. He is God; He knows the end from the beginning. He inhabits eternity.

Can we do something that God sees won't happen? Logically we can't, correct? (because if we did, then something which God saw would happen wouldn't, which is impossible). So saying that we cannot do something which God see won't happen is logically correct. Changing the word "can't" to "won't" doesn't change the veracity of the assertion. If the assertion is false, please produce a counter example.

This sounds like determinism. If you have time, please take a look at the following: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/will.ii.v.html

The link to the book is the following (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/will.toc.html). I took you to a specific spot which deals with the question at hand, since the book is quite long. Anyway, the link I gave above discusses a definition of free will, which is the deterministic one.

I can ask the question this way. Which of the following do you see as defining free will?

a.One is free to do what one pleases.
b.One can do either of more than one mutually exclusive events.

Your statement (quoted above), is sounding like a. to me. If that is the case, then you are correct that there isn't a logical problem. The logical problem comes up if one holds to b. as the definition of free will.

Daryl, if you're reading this, I'd be curious as to your answer to this question as well (i.e., which defines free will, a or b)?

It's not God's knowledge, whatever you wish to call it ("hindsight" is a really weird choice of words for describing a knowledge of the future) which robs us of our ability to do something which He has seen will happen (or happened, I guess, to be consistent with "hindsight"), but our inability to affect the future (or past, if you prefer).

It's not that God *knows* what we will do which causes the problem (take God's foreknowledge of out the picture, and the problem identically remains), but the fact that there is only one possible future which can happen.

I've explained this many, many times to you MM, and have never gotten any indication that you have understood what I'm saying.

But I can. With true free will, a man can do what he would never in a thousand years want to do. As an example, with a very small exception, no people would ever want to jump neck deep into human excrement. Yet we know that in desperate circumstances, people have done exactly that. It was never their will to go swimming in the poop, but they did anyhow.

This is exactly what I was referring to in the Jonathan Edwards link. I should have made this more clear.

This is precisely the point that is in question. Can one only do that which one wills to do? Determinists (or, more accurately, those who believe in compatibilistic free will) say, "yes." Libertarians say, "no."

My answer is "a.One is free to do what one pleases."

God's foreknowledge doesn't affect this answer whatsoever.

That's true, Daryl, but choice a) is not what SDA's have traditionally believed ( that would be choice b) ).

The first quote above addresses the point that Arminian free will is libertarian (or incompatibilistic). Free will is defined as being able to do either of more than one mutually exclusive events.

The second quote addresses that the SDA tradition is Arminian (not Calvinistic). Calvinistic ideas have come into the church in about the last 60 years or so.