Emre_1974tr
Graduate Poster
Marvelous, indeed. By their own free will, everyone perfectly receives what they are due.
Destiny and Free will
- Thread starter Emre_1974tr
- Start date
Marvelous, indeed. By their own free will, everyone perfectly receives what they are due.
jrhowell
Muse
Of course if true that means that god chooses to create those who will do evil, making god the true source of evil.
Constantly testing but never learning anything, what a waste of effort.
arthwollipot
Observer of Phenomena, Pronouns: he/him
Great! That means I don't have to take personal responsibility for anything! I can lie, cheat, steal and murder all I want because God has preordained everything.
And they say that we atheists are the ones without a moral compass.
But that's different from what you've said a moment ago.
Emre_1974tr
Graduate Poster
No, as I explained in detail and with evidence in the articles I shared the links to, our destiny was written based on the choices we made with our free will.
Never mind then. I was interested in how a believer might feel about a godly world without free will, not in a badly thought-out way to square free will with omniscience. That's not interesting at all.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
Holey Babble quotes are only relevant when the thread is about historical or hysterical writings or the people who wrote them. Otherwise, thanks for the comic relief. Then again, I guess you created the thread, so if you say that's what it's about, I guess I'll bow out and consider it a misunderstanding on my part. People who pretend ancient ramblings possess authority are a bit unsufferable to me. What makes you think some random ancient person knew more about God or gods than you do? You'd say they're insane if people were running around proclaiming such things now. So what changed that gave these ancients credibility that you'd give to no one in the present?
Also, Calvinism, much?
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Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
What gives god the right for punishing us for doing what he made us to do?
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
Gods get to do whatever they want. It's in the job description.
Manopolus
Metaphorical Anomaly
And one must not forget Plato's Euthyphro question when pondering such things. Is God righteous because He created the concept of righteousness, or is he following some higher code? If it's the first, then He could have just as easily made regular human sacrifice a pious act (ahem... Abraham/Isaac). If it's the second, then what use is he to morality, if it exists outside of him?
In this case, if God created destiny, then he is indeed at fault every freaking time I lose my keys, and also every time a child dies of leukemia. If He's just another result of destiny, then it's a rather pointless story, since there is no provable contact with Him occurring, and He has no impact whatsoever upon the course of events except as an actor with no free will.
Or, free will could exist. And gods could be nonsense. Either of those could be true independently of the other. Maybe both. Also, keep in mind that a God's or gods' existence is not dependent upon any holy person or book getting the story remotely right.
In this case, if God created destiny, then he is indeed at fault every freaking time I lose my keys, and also every time a child dies of leukemia. If He's just another result of destiny, then it's a rather pointless story, since there is no provable contact with Him occurring, and He has no impact whatsoever upon the course of events except as an actor with no free will.
Or, free will could exist. And gods could be nonsense. Either of those could be true independently of the other. Maybe both. Also, keep in mind that a God's or gods' existence is not dependent upon any holy person or book getting the story remotely right.
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Emre_1974tr
Graduate Poster
If you had read my writing, you would have seen that people do everything of their own free will and receive what they deserve. God has no intervention in free will; you are completely free.
Steve
Penultimate Amazing
I this supposed to contradict what I posted? Hint - it doesn't. (Or more correctly, wouldn't, if those human constructed gods actually existed.)
Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
So why listen to god, he is clearly powerless and unable to affect our choices.
Emre_1974tr
Graduate Poster
His inaction stems not from a lack of capacity, but from His own volition. For the very purpose of this worldly existence is to bring you face to face with your own self, thereby nullifying any right to protest in the afterlife. Thus, you come to understand in this realm precisely why you would be destined for hell
Gulliver Foyle
Philosopher
If god is all powerful everything we do is because of his will, because being able to go against his will necessarily limits his power to do stuff. And in terms of divine knowlege free will is as destructive if not more so, because free will is an absolute impediment to total knowledge as one can't know the future.
So again, why obey a god that you have admitted has no power over us?
Emre_1974tr
Graduate Poster
No, His will desires that we make and implement our decisions freely. And by virtue of His infinite power, we were created from nothing, meaning we are entirely separate from Him—both physically and in terms of our will. Otherwise, created beings would be a part of Him, an illusion; in other words, they would not exist.
The ability of God to create beings and wills external to Himself does not limit Him. On the contrary, it demonstrates that He possesses limitless power. If created beings and wills had to be a part of Him, it would mean that God cannot create from nothing, i.e., He is incapable of creation, which would indeed make Him limited. But God is limitless, and therefore He can create from nothing—both free will and beings.
So, you possess both free will and are physically separate from God. If it were not so, you would be a part of God, and shirk (associating partners with Him) would not be a sin. But the situation is the very opposite; in reality, all created beings are entirely separate from Him, and that is why associating partners with Him is the greatest sin.
Emre, this is my preferred definition of free will. As I've said before, it's not a very useful definition when it comes to deciding whether some specific being has free will or not, because it's impossible to create identical circumstances to test the proposition.
But it's a very useful definition when evaluating claims such as yours. Your claim is that even though I have free will, God knows and has always known what choices I would make. But that contradicts the definition of free will. It claims I could not have decided or acted differently than I did.
Okay, let's discuss this creation for a bit:
When God creates souls, is each soul the same or different?
1. If they are the same, when do souls diverge? Presumably when God puts them into whatever situation He has chosen for them, randomly or otherwise. But surely this is incompatible with free will? The souls are the same, thus they will always develop identically in identical circumstances. And God knows which circumstances will make a soul sin and which won't, so he is wholly responsible for that soul's conduct. And if they develop randomly, or random situations are chosen, then we are simply applying a moral value to randomness, which is also incompatible with a free will that has moral implications.
2. On the other hand, if they are different, then surely God is the one responsible for creating a soul that will sin? He could simply choose to not create that one, unless He's randomly plucking souls out of the ether to see how it goes, in which case such irresponsible behavior itself makes him responsible for whatever follows. But again, no free will, the soul's fate was decided when an irresponsible God decided to play dice.
Observant readers of this thread will find that this is just part of my no-free will argument adjusted for the divinely-inclined. Which can be fun at first, but eventually they always jumps up from their chair shouting "God made it so!"
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