If Krishna knows the future how do we have free will?

Anwser Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
If Krishna knows the future, then how do we really have free will? There are two different points over here.
That when you talk about God’s omnipotence, He knows everything. He knows future. Now, what does it mean when He says He knows future? It is not that when He knows future, it is that the future is completely preordained and He knows it.
The point is, when He says He knows the future, it means that He knows that choices have consequences. And He knows which choices have which consequence. And then, the whole point of life is to make wise choices and to get good consequences.
If you see the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna speaks the Gita. At the end of the Gita, He tells Arjuna, now do as you will. Do as you will.
So, why does He say this? If Arjuna were like a puppet, if he had no free will, then Krishna has no need to go into the whole labour of speaking the Bhagavad Gita. So, Baldev Vidyabhusan is a prominent Acharya in our tradition and he says that if we were simply puppets who had no free will, then all of scripture would become useless. Because scripture tells us, do this, don’t do this.
Scripture has sections which tell us. But if already it determined what I am going to do and I have no free will about it, then scripture itself becomes pointless. And scripture is not pointless.
It is a purposeful. God has given scripture and He has given scripture to guide us. So, the idea that we don’t have free will is not sustainable just by the presence of scripture.
Now, on the other hand, scripture also says that God is omniscient. So, in general, before I answer this question, I will tell a principle that whenever there are two statements that seem contradictory, there is a form of reasoning that is used for reconciliation that is called as Arthapatti in Sanskrit. Arthapatti means postulation.
Say, if there are two statements. Say, we have a boy, some Sanjay. Sanjay is fast.
Is Sanjay here? Okay, there is somebody else. We have Devadatta. Now, Devadatta here? Okay.
So, Devadatta fasts throughout the day. That’s one postulate, one statement. Devadatta’s weight is increasing.
A second postulation. Now, if I see that Devadatta is fasting throughout the day, but his weight is also increasing. These two don’t seem to make sense.
Then we need a third postulation which will reconcile it. What is that postulation? Devadatta eats secretly at night. So, this is called… So, if I know that two statements are true and I know that the two statements cannot be true.
Somebody is fasting, their weight can’t increase. That means something else is going on which I am not aware of. So, same way, if on one side, scripture tells us we have free will.
On the second side, scripture tells us that God is omniscient. God knows the future. So, then we have to understand that the knowledge of the future is not a knowledge of… It’s not a knowledge of a controller knowing the control.
Because those who are known, they are free. So, that means when we say Krishna knows the future, it means that he knows the connection of the choices and the consequences. And he leaves it to us to make the choices.
And he gives us the free will to choose. And he gives us the intelligence, the guidance by which we will choose wisely. But if he already knows what we are going to choose, why is he… No, he doesn’t know.
He doesn’t know. He is giving us free will. Free will means it is not determined.
Okay, let me put it this way. If you want to argue that God knows the future, then there is a saying to a said that God’s knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past. What do you mean by that? God’s knowledge of the future is like our knowledge of the past.
Our knowledge of the past is knowledge without intervention, knowledge without control. For example, I know today morning I wanted to wake up at 4 o’clock, but I woke up at 4.30. I can’t change it now. That’s how it is.
It’s knowledge without intervention. It’s knowledge without control. So when you talk about Krishna’s knowledge about the future, it is knowledge without intervention.
He has given us free will. And he knows which free will which will lead to what consequence. But he doesn’t control our free will.
So there is knowledge. At the same time, there is no control.