God's foreknowledge: This life shows who we are

We teach our children to anticipate the results of their actions. I call this "practical prophecy." They can't know with certainty, but they should be able to anticipate that hitting baseballs in the front yard is likely to break a window.

This is the essence of accountability, isn't it? We can't hold children responsible for their choices until they understand cause-and-effect.

Our knowledge, however, is imperfect, to say the least. But Jesus said that God is perfect, and expects us to aim for that same goal. One meaning of "perfect" implies completeness; another suggests that there be no errors.

How perfect is the foreknowledge of God? This question is the source of great anxiety and many potential errors in our understanding of our Father.

When bad things happen, many people believe that it must be part of God's plan; he, knowing all things past, present and future, must have known this thing would happen.

Since he is all-powerful, and he did not prevent this great evil, it must have been his will that it happen.

And since he is good, what seems evil to us must be good on some level beyond our understanding.

This idea is in the English language in the old phrase "God willing" — whatever plans we make, they are contingent on the will of God.

Many believe that everything that happens is the will of God. Either he causes it, or he is content that it happen. If we only understood his purposes, we would understand that all things are good.

The problem comes with the idea that God knows everything and planned everything to the last detail. This idea crops up constantly in LDS folk doctrine — "I know God has a plan for me," we say. And this is true — but not necessarily in the way we might think.

I've heard some Mormons say that we were shown something like a movie of our entire lives before we came to this world, and we agreed to it.

Others don't go so far, but they believe that important events are part of God's individual plan for our lives; he sent these events or people into our lives.

Thus when God tells his prophets what will happen, it's either because the entire future is open to God's view, or because he causes everything and therefore he can safely predict what he is going to do.