Although this isn’t a “WHY” question connected to LDS standards, it is an important one none-the-less and a common question youth ask, so we feel we should answer it. God does know everything, and sees the end from the beginning. However, just because he knows what will happen, doesn’t mean he caused it to happen. There is a big difference. A good analogy of this is a news weatherman. Just because most weatherman can tell us what the weather will be like tomorrow—rain or shine, usually down to the degree (well, as long as it isn’t the 7 day forecast J. But they usually are spot on for the next day), doesn’t mean that the weatherman caused the weather. Can he take credit that is was a nice sunny day? Did the weatherman make that happen? No, he simply looked at the tools at his disposal, and said, based on these factors, this is what will happen. But he didn’t make the weather.
Is he MAKING the weather?
A good example of this is the following: We are going to give you two choices of something to eat, and you have to eat one of them. We already know wheat you will choose, before you even are aware of what you are choosing. Here are your options:
a) A nice fresh orange (we’ll even slice it for you)
b) A moldy hamburger made of raw meat with a piece of hair in it from a worker named Helga.
Just because we knew you would pick the orange (if you didn’t, please get some professional help), doesn’t mean that we caused you to pick it. It was still your choice. You could have picked the moldy Helga burger if you wanted (and, to be honest, some people might pick it. The interesting thing is, that you probably know people who would pick the Helga Burger, just because they are that kind of a person to try to prove you wrong, and you would have known it anyway and guessed the Helga Combo!).
Remember, when the Lord said we are “free to choose” (2 Nephi 2:27), he meant it! His foreknowledge of events doesn’t take away our ability to choose how those events will unfold, any more than the weatherman chooses if it will be 72 degrees and cloudy.
