Hello, Dr. Craig. My question is about the concept of divine foreknowledge and how that is applied to fulfillment of a prophecy.

For context, you may be aware that there is a clip of the chosen circulating social media

where Jesus appeals to Judas to make a choice over who has his heart.

Critics of the show are calling this unbiblical because Judas was foreordained to betray Jesus,

and thus any reference to the idea that Jesus ever would have Judas search himself and make a choice is unbiblical.

This brings me to my question,

what are the critics saying

when they claim that Judas was foreordained to betray Jesus?

Do they claim, as they seem to,

that Judas was destined to betray Jesus no matter what?

And that Judas was locked into fulfilling the prophecy of the

suffering servant from Isaiah 53 when God inspires prophets like Isaiah to prophecy are they

estating things that will come to pass by predicting the free will decisions of people like Judas Iscariot?

Or are they stating what God will bring to pass in his divine sovereignty over human affairs?

Charlie, United States.

Well, I haven't seen the particular episode of the chosen you're referring to, Charlie,

I can comment on the issue you're raising. The critics you mentioned seem to have fallen into the

fallacy of theological fatalism, which holds that divinely inspired prophecies of future events are incompatible

with those events being free and avoidable. They reason as follows. One, not possibly

Jesus prophesies Judas's betrayal and Judas does not betray Jesus.

Two, Jesus prophesies Judas's betrayal.

Three, therefore not possibly Judas does not betray Jesus.

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