Foreknowledge is no different than my time traveler from the future, right? He knows what I did on a particular day and time, travels back to some point in time before I do the act, and is just as knowledgeable about what I’m going to do as God would be. He KNOWS what I am going to do.
The point being - IF time is as we are using it here is already ‘done’ - if the future can be ‘seen’ - I don’t see how ‘free will’ is possible. But then again, ‘free will’ is imo a completely ambiguous concept.
The key statement in your post is “He knows what I did on a particular day and time.” Thus, he knows what you did because you did it. And your doing it then becomes, to the time traveler, foreknowledge.
Isn’t your doing it on a particular day and time an expression of free will?
You again appear to understand that it does not follow from declaring with omniscience that something "will" happen that it “must” happen. Forgive my obtuse repetition that this all sounds semantic to me. I don’t see why the two don’t overlap. If I was utterly confident that X will happen, then I’d feel ‘certainty’ that it will happen. In my outlook, that is what is bound to, or must, happen. What am Ii missing?
Yes it is. I’ve been in agreement with you all along, btw.
But you agree that is it weird to say, that I have done something in the future? That’s the concept which once accepted leads to many paradoxes.
I think the same is true about free will - either end of the spectrum, from complete determinism (predestination) to so-called ‘libertarian free will’ leads to paradox imo.
I didn’t invent verbs and tenses and moods and modals.I’m just going by what people who should know say. The word will unmodified is a contingency; the word must is a necessity. But as I said before, one can modify the word will to make it a necessity, such as in certainly will.
Yes, I agree. But that weirdness I would think occurs only to the time traveler. We mortals who live only within the flow of time forward are not faced with that dilemma.
Bob: You again appear to understand that it does not follow from declaring with omniscience that some thing "will" happen that it “must” happen. Forgive my obtuse repetition that this all sounds semantic to me. I don’t see why the two don’t overlap. If I was utterly confident that X will happen, then I’d feel ‘certainty’ that it will happen. In my outlook, that is what is bound to, or must, happen.
Lancia: “I’m just going by what people who should know say. The word will unmodified is a contingency.”
Thank you for your effort. This appears the nub of our impasse. Some authority has told you that a statement that something “will” happen means it remains contingent. I’m unfamiliar with this and doubt it makes sense to assume that Paidion and I know this definition that people know who “should know,” and thus are using it with this (professional insider?) conception in mind.
I don’t even see why such knowledge would be ‘contingent’ or able to be false at all. If God is omniscient and thus infallibly knows that X will happen, it can’t be false that it will happen. I don’t see what remaining contingency could change the certainty of X occurring. If it could, then God did not omnisciently know that X is going to occur.
On 2, of course my own whole argument was also disputing precisely Paidion’s concept.
On1 and views of God’s ‘freedom,’ as always, what’s pivotal is chosen definitions of “free.” Classically, God is not ‘free’ to violate his own righteous character. And many would define true freedom as ability to do what is right. In that sense, only God is consistently free.
Did some authority tell you about the meaning of every word in this sentence or did you learn it de novo?
All kidding aside, I think I already dealt with the big issues you raise in your post. I did so above in #189. Please check with that long post, and let me know if I need to deal further with these issues.
I think I picked up the meaning of most common words early on just by hearing how they were used, and never consulted any authority.
I doubt I ever even looked the word, will, up in the dictionary. Rather e.g. when Dad said, "I’ve decided, you will get your allowance on Saturdays, I picked up that that meant that I should expect it’s true that I will be getting my allowance on Saturdays (though of course he was neither omniscient nor infallible, and capable to proving false to this word)…
P.S. Good luck pursuing William Lane Craig as your authority, and yet finding support for a desired universalism.
I already own a Sherlock Hat, Randy - and a pipe to go with it. 
But I really need another bottle of Drambuie to see me through to the end of this.
Then you did consult and rely on authority. Your authority was the people you heard, which at that time, were those who knew more about particular words than you did.
Oh, I know better than to expect that from him, obviously. Who needs Craig when you’ve got Talbott for Universalism? But, amazingly, there’s a line in one of Craig’s debates in which he said he felt it possible that those in hell could leave at any time . . . but then he added that they decide never to do so!!! How would he know that?
Craig is quite good as an authority on some subjects, even if he is not on others.
I don’t really think much of WLC. I thought Bart destroyed him in the debate I watched again last night. I also thought Richard Carrier destroyed him, too.
The fact that two people can watch a debate and declare their side destroyed the other causes me to question my own perceptions and logic. Certainly, 10 years ago I would have watched the same debate (had it existed then) and would have had a far different conclusion. But, in all fairness to myself, I was sort of locked in a cage of fear. While I can’t say that applies to others, it seems likely to me that many may have been just like I was 10 years ago, unwilling to consciously ask questions outside of the designated safe area. I mean, many like me were constantly told to watch guard, not fall from grace, don’t become a reprobate God-hater… Just association with the concepts of those horrible agnostics and atheists is enough to defiles ones robes… Fear is, or rather was, a powerful motivator, whether I admitted it or not. I wonder who else was like me? If I go by testimony; many!
I’m watching again Mr. Data - of Star Trek, The Next Generation - playing Sherlock Holmes. It will help me, to follow this thread dialogue. 
Yes, I submitted a question-of-the-week to him once through his website, and he posted my question and his answer. Though he corrected a misstatement in my question, I thought he did not handle the meat of my question well, at all.
Right, my only point is that Paidion or I are using words according to how they’re ordinarily used.
So when you deny that validly saying “X will happen” would convey that we can surely expect
“X will happen,” for it actually means it may not happen, you are relying on an esoteric definition
of ‘will,’ perhaps by some philosophers, which we aren’t intending.
The big advantage of using the words and symbols of analytic philosophy is the precision. Our everday words work fine in everyday conversation - we use them in a known language-context and we all have the same referents.
But to be very clear - and as unambiguous as possible - precise language is invaluable. At least, so I’ve found. I try not to use it, but some problems just need it.
The cynic in me suggest that is precisely the reason he answered the question. He probably gets thousands of emails every day. I don’t suppose it would be too difficult to fish out ones that he feels he can knock down, whether it be via poor argument, typo, mistake, etc… That is the type of transparency that is lacking these days. I am very wary of someone who claims or has a persona of having it all figured out.
Well, there is a branch of philosophy called:
But we ALL must agree on word meanings, as this next video illustrates!
A contingent proposition (e.g., one with the word will in it) does not denote something that we can surely expect to happen. That is not what words like will do, especially when used in philosophical arguments, as is this one you are addressing.
Also, I am not relying upon an esoteric definition of the word will. It is standard in philosophy that an unmodified will makes a proposition contingent, and a contingent proposition is neither necessarily true nor necessarily false. That hardly provides a basis for a convincing argument to address the omniscience/free will issue.