Forgiven for what, eactly?

[qayak]

I've never met any christians that agree that not turning the other cheek is a sin, btw.

Turning the other cheek isn't even a christian thing. It was talked about long before christianity. It also appears in other species, especially our cousins, the great apes.

Like much of morality, it doesn't come from our culture, it appears to come from our genes.

 

[SnnTsd]

Turning the other cheek isn't even a christian thing. It was talked about long before christianity. It also appears in other species, especially our cousins, the great apes.

Like much of morality, it doesn't come from our culture, it appears to come from our genes.

That's my understanding as well. The bible is a book about human psychology, and that's what makes me read it.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Okay, AvalonXQ, you've said that God knowingly created free-will beings that he knew would sin. So your view is that God has perfect foreknowledge. I presume you also believe in the existence of Satan, who likewise made a free-will choice to rebel against God, one that God knew he would make, since Satan is his creation.

If we imagine the cosmic struggle between God and Satan that will culminate in a monumental last battle, then we could portray it as a chess match between God and Satan. However, it this match one contender (God) not only created the chessboard, its pieces and his opponent (Satan); but he as well knows, in advance, every move both he and his opponent will make and how the game will end, i.e. that he will win.

Agreed.

So what's the point? Why bother with a contest that, in effect, is a charade?

I don't know. There must be some value in the process other than simply the value of the outcome, but I don't know what that value is. It's tied into the reason that free will itself has value.
Again, I don't find a conflict between perfect foreknowledge and free will. I know that others disagree.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Well, the problem with that is that in order to create something without knowing what it will do, there would have to be something you don't know.

I'm not talking about creating something without knowing what it will do. I'm talking about creating something with the genuine choice as to what it will do. A being can have a genuine choice even if what is chosen is known.

 

[qayak]

A being can have a genuine choice even if what is chosen is known.

Ummmmm . . . no. If god knows I am going to McDonald's for lunch tomorrow how can I choose to change my mind and go to Tom's Diner?

 

[qayak]

I don't know. There must be some value in the process other than simply the value of the outcome, but I don't know what that value is. It's tied into the reason that free will itself has value.

Free will is required for punishment and that's what religions are all about. Gods punishing people for the choices they make. That explains disasters, illness and tragedy for the ignorant.

That's the value of free will to religion.

 

[H'ethetheth]

It's not immoral to make a being which can, of its own free will, make an immoral choice.

It is if you plan to submit that being to infinite torture for acting as you created it to act.

A being with free will, by definition does not act "as you created it to act". It acts as it chooses to act.
If you disagree with that, then you disagree that the being has free will.

So God creates man and says: "You can do anything you choose, but I'll torture you for eternity if you do the wrong things.

...Oh also, most of the wrong things are nearly impossible to avoid, and I've created you to find most of them pleasant, by the way.

Enjoy!"

 

[Myriad]

Ummmmm . . . no. If god knows I am going to McDonald's for lunch tomorrow how can I choose to change my mind and go to Tom's Diner?

As long as God isn't telling you what He knows, there's no contradiction. You might think you're going to McDonalds for lunch tomorrow, but God knows you're going to change your mind and go to Tom's Diner. (And you might change your mind again but... turtles all the way down.) We can only know what God knew you would do, when you do it.

The problem comes in when you consider what God did or didn't know about His own actions, prior to those actions. Especially the ones the Bible tells us He regretted or reconsidered later. The pop-Christian interpretation of these events follows the deeply flawed "God is only human" model, that God acts on impulse and emotion just like the loser in the bar saying "I know I'm going to regret drinking all these beers tomorrow but... bottoms up!" A more considered analysis might take into account the difference between implicit knowledge (the hypothetical ability to compute a result) and explicit knowledge (the result so computed). If the Law of Computational Irreducibility applies to God as it seems to apply to everything else, God's omniscience might be of a different nature than commonly imagined, and perfectly compatible with free will -- even with God's own free will.

Respectfully,
Myriad

 

[H'ethetheth]

I don't know. There must be some value in the process other than simply the value of the outcome, but I don't know what that value is. It's tied into the reason that free will itself has value.

Why, I think savvy christians have concluded long ago that this means that suffering must be a good thing, because apparently, God has set up the whole thing to reward people who abstain from their strongest drives.

Misery builds character, you see.

 

[dafydd]

So no answer about the Aberfan disaster Avalon? I'm not surprised,believers always dodge that question.

 

[tsig]

Free will is required for punishment and that's what religions are all about. Gods punishing people for the choices they make. That explains disasters, illness and tragedy for the ignorant.

That's the value of free will to religion.

Yep, it let's them have their all powerful, all loving and all knowing god and also have evil(it's all man's Eve's fault).

 

[I Ratant]

So God creates man and says: "You can do anything you choose, but I'll torture you for eternity if you do the wrong things.

...Oh also, most of the wrong things are nearly impossible to avoid, and I've created you to find most of them pleasant, by the way.

Enjoy!"

.
And you have to guess which of my earthly outlets is me!

 

[AvalonXQ]

Ummmmm . . . no. If god knows I am going to McDonald's for lunch tomorrow how can I choose to change my mind and go to Tom's Diner?

How does God know what you will choose tomorrow, stop you from choosing it? What's the causal link between the two?
Don't confuse "I can't do X" with "I won't do X". The two are not the same.

 

[AvalonXQ]

So no answer about the Aberfan disaster Avalon?

I try not to make things too personal, but since you persist, I'll oblige.

 

[Aitch]

Again, I don't find a conflict between perfect foreknowledge and free will. I know that others disagree.

It's not just the foreknowledge, it's the combination of that and the omnipotence.

This god person chooses to create a person who will make the choice that he knows they will make.

He chooses to make people who will be condemned to hell.

Assuming, of course, that he/she/it is both omnipotent and omniscient.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Avalon,what did my six year old sister and her classmates do that was so bad that god decided to kill them on the 21st of October 1966 in the Aberfan disaster?

There is no reason to believe that their deaths were the consequence of anything bad that they did. The Bible does not teach that what befalls you in this world is the consequence for your own actions, or that earthly suffering is caused by sin. On the contrary, the Bible teaches very clearly that good and bad things come on the righteous and the unrighteous alike. The Bible's central narrative is about the unjust suffering of an innocent man.
I'm not sure where you got the idea that I believed in, or was explaining, some version of earthly "karma". The Bible doesn't support such a view, and neither do I.

 

[AvalonXQ]

It's not just the foreknowledge, it's the combination of that and the omnipotence.

This god person chooses to create a person who will make the choice that he knows they will make.

He chooses to make people who will be condemned to hell.

Assuming, of course, that he/she/it is both omnipotent and omniscient.

I agree.

 

[TimCallahan]

. . . I don't know. There must be some value in the process other than simply the value of the outcome, but I don't know what that value is. It's tied into the reason that free will itself has value.
Again, I don't find a conflict between perfect foreknowledge and free will. I know that others disagree.

Regrading the hilited area; You've got that right! I can find no compatibility whatsoever between God's foreknowledge and true free will. If it's already fated that one will choose x over y then we only have the illusion of free will.

Jut out of curiosity, have you ever considered a less than perfect God, one who would allow a creation to not be entirely under his control? I can tell you, as an artist (I have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the Chouinard Art School and had a career in the animation industry lasting over 20 years) that when you create something, it takes on a life of its own, and if you try to control it too tightly the effect is stultifying. Authors of fiction have experienced the same thing, characters they've created, often minor ones, who take over a good chunk of the plot and spin it around in ways the author hadn't foreseen. Again, if the author gives his or her (I suspect) unconscious its head, the novel lives. If he tries to suppress the unforeseen, the novel usually comes out stale.

You might feel that an imperfect God, or one who could and would voluntarily forego foreknowledge, would be unacceptable. However, since I can't manage to create so much as a lousy hydrogen atom, any God who, however imperfect, could create a universe would be worthy of my worship, assuming such a being actually existed.

 

[AvalonXQ]

Regrading the hilited area; You've got that right! I can find no compatibility whatsoever between God's foreknowledge and true free will. If it's already fated that one will choose x over y then we only have the illusion of free will.

I'm sorry, but what do you mean by "it's already fated"? I expect your use of that phrase is essentially begging the question.
Where is the conflict between foreknowledge and free will?

 

[TimCallahan]

I'm sorry, but what do you mean by "it's already fated"? I expect your use of that phrase is essentially begging the question.
Where is the conflict between foreknowledge and free will?

If God has foreknowledge of what choice we will make, then we are actually fated to make that choice. If we truly have some degree at least of free will, there are chances we might make another choice. If you were to say that God foreknows the odds, and that it's a 90% probability that we will choose x over y, then we would still have free will. There might also exist situations in which God foreknows that we have 50% probability of choosing x over y. However, if you argue that God has perfect foreknowledge (i.e. 100% probability) of every choice we will make before we make it, then we are effectively fated to make such a choice - fated, I might add to make such a choice since we are as God made us - again, with him in complete control.

So, the argument you seem to be making is that God specifically created some of us, knowing in advance that we would make self-damning choices. Thus, Paul's argument in Romans concerning vessels of wrath and vessels of grace - the latter specifically created beforehand for salvation, and the former specifically created beforehand for the express purpose of eternal damnation - would have to be literally and specifically true, despite the fact that it offends both logic and compassion - senses of which, Paul also argues, God specifically imbued us.