Elder Linder

Part 3 of “Divine Foreknowledge and Free Will: Understanding God’s Chess Game”

In our previous posts, we explored how God sees all possible choices (like chess openings) and works with our decisions (in life’s middle game). Today, we’ll examine how God ensures His ultimate victory while preserving our agency—the divine endgame.

Just as chess grandmasters can see an inevitable checkmate dozens of moves ahead while their opponents still have many possible moves, God can guarantee His ultimate purposes while preserving genuine human agency. The end is inevitable but not predetermined—a crucial distinction for understanding divine foreknowledge.

Consider the Lord’s declaration to Abraham: “I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee” (Abraham 2:8). This wasn’t about manipulating every move, but rather about ensuring victory regardless of which moves are made. Like a chess master who can achieve checkmate through multiple paths, God can accomplish His purposes through countless possible sequences of human choices.

The Book of Mormon provides a powerful example of this principle. When Nephi saw Jerusalem’s destruction in vision, he witnessed an inevitable outcome. Yet this foreknowledge didn’t negate the agency of Jerusalem’s inhabitants. They made their own choices, even though God knew those choices would ultimately lead to the prophesied result. As Nephi would later teach, “the Lord knoweth all things from the beginning; wherefore, he prepareth a way to accomplish all his works among the children of men” (1 Nephi 9:6).

This pattern of divine foreknowledge reveals something crucial about God’s nature: even with His perfect knowledge, He prepares rather than prescribes. If God simply controlled every outcome, no preparation would be necessary—He could simply force events to unfold as He wished. The fact that He “prepareth a way” suggests He works with our agency rather than overriding it, ensuring His purposes while respecting our freedom to choose.

Modern revelation adds another dimension to this understanding. In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord declares: “All victory and glory is brought to pass unto you through your diligence, faithfulness, and prayers of faith” (D&C 103:36). Like a chess game where victory requires both strategic brilliance and proper execution, God’s plan involves both His perfect strategy and our faithful participation.

President Russell M. Nelson taught: “The Lord has declared that despite today’s unprecedented challenges, those who build their foundations upon Jesus Christ, and have learned how to draw upon His power, need not succumb to the unique anxieties of this era.” This is because God’s victory is assured, even though our individual paths to participating in that victory may vary greatly.

I testify that God is the perfect strategist of eternity. His victory is assured not through coercion but through His infinite wisdom and preparation. Like a grandmaster who can achieve checkmate through multiple paths, He has prepared for every possible sequence of moves. This resolves the apparent conflict between divine foreknowledge and human agency – our choices are genuine, yet His purposes cannot be frustrated.

This understanding should fill us with both humility and hope. Humility, because we recognize that our choices have real consequences; hope, because we know that God can work with any move we make to help us participate in His victory. As we align our will with His, we become part of His winning strategy, participating in an victory that was secured before the game began.