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Question for Christians - #3

Patrick

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If I understand Christian doctrine correctly, God endows man with free will, and then holds him accountable for his choices. But if God is All-Powerful, surely He is able to foresee the choices everyone will make. If He's able to do that, then He knows every choice that each individual will make when he is created. That being the case, how can He hold everyone accountable with rewards and punishments, when there was no doubt about the outcome from the beginning? Or do you want to claim that God is NOT All-Knowing? Then does that mean that He is imperfect?
 
Let's play God's advocate here.

Maybe God can know everything, every action and every choice if He wants to, but He chooses not to look into that, letting us have our lives without He interfering.
 
Maybe God can know everything, every action and every choice if He wants to, but He chooses not to look into that, letting us have our lives without He interfering.

Surely He's seen the negative consequences of that by now, surely He realizes the need to interfere?
 
Patrick said:
Surely He's seen the negative consequences of that by now, surely He realizes the need to interfere?
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To interfere would involve affecting free will.
 
To interfere would involve affecting free will.

Yeah, so what? Clearly by Christian stndards of morality, free will is a failed experiment.
 
Patrick said:
Yeah, so what? Clearly by Christian stndards of morality, free will is a failed experiment.
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Not really. Since you can only be good if you can chose to be evil.
 
Since you can only be good if you can chose to be evil.

But God could have created a world where people only were good, lacking the ability to chose evil. Why allow free will, if it leads to evil? That it WAS allowed contradicts the notion that God is All-Good.
 
Patrick said:

But God could have created a world where people only were good, lacking the ability to chose evil. Why allow free will, if it leads to evil? That it WAS allowed contradicts the notion that God is All-Good.
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Denying free will is good? Once again you are assuming that gods actions are within your abaility to reason.
 
Denying free will is good? Once again you are assuming that gods actions are within your abaility to reason.

Your argument:

All the evil and self-contradiction I see is just because I don't get it. If I were All-Powerful and All-Knowing too, I'd be able to see that evil is good, illogic is logic, and undoubtedly that sh_t is ice cream.
 
Patrick said:


All the evil and self-contradiction I see is just because I don't get it. If I were All-Powerful and All-Knowing too, I'd be able to see that evil is good, illogic is logic, and undoubtedly that sh_t is ice cream.
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And of course you can't prove this wrong. In many ways this is the ultimate god of the gaps.
 
Denying free will is good? Once again you are assuming that gods actions are within your abaility to reason.
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I've always been troubled by the Free Will defense of evil. The reason it bothers me is that there are plenty of constraints on my will at the moment simply by virtue of being the kind of creature that I am. I can't fly around the room, for example,or lick my own elbow, or (more to the point), I can't take pleasure in my own pain or that of another (barring distinctive circumstances). So, clearly, if there is a God that created me he already imposed a whole set of restrictions upon my free will as it is (and there's an interesting argument that I won't go into to the effect that without those restrictions I wouldn't be able to have free will at all) simply by making me the sort of thing that I am.

Now, given that, why is he so finicky about adding further restrictions - such as making human beings two shades more empathic, or making us just a little less liable to a destructive us/them tribalism?
 
Patrick said:
Surely He's seen the negative consequences of that by now, surely He realizes the need to interfere?
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Another problem is that God decides where in the world souls will be distributed. Since the environment one grows up in practically determines what beliefs people will end up having, God is the one deciding which beliefs people will end up having, and therefore he has already decided which ones will go to Hell and Heaven.

The three omnis are certainly big problems for christianity.

...and don't call me Shirley. :p
 
Eleatic Stranger said:
I've always been troubled by the Free Will defense of evil. The reason it bothers me is that there are plenty of constraints on my will at the moment simply by virtue of being the kind of creature that I am. I can't fly around the room, for example,or lick my own elbow, or (more to the point), I can't take pleasure in my own pain or that of another (barring distinctive circumstances). So, clearly, if there is a God that created me he already imposed a whole set of restrictions upon my free will as it is (and there's an interesting argument that I won't go into to the effect that without those restrictions I wouldn't be able to have free will at all) simply by making me the sort of thing that I am.

Now, given that, why is he so finicky about adding further restrictions - such as making human beings two shades more empathic, or making us just a little less liable to a destructive us/them tribalism?
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Well said, Eleatic Stranger! And, isn't this the major problem with religious concepts of "free will"? That some sort of 'absolute' free will is available to us? Because, as you so eloquently point out, there is no such thing at all. The best application is that we have free will in our decisions and corresponding actions (to some degree), but only up to the point where biology, genetics, laws of physics, and all of the baggage of 'environment' (customs, traditions, education, experience, etc.) lose some control.

Absolute free will does not and can not possibly exist in this universe. And the supposed free will that we seem to enjoy is very limited indeed. So, if the attribute of (extremely limiting) free will introduces great evils, what does that say about 'absolute' or higher-order free will? Is it possible that Satan (the Devil, whomever) is just a natural product of more free will imparted to supposedly higher beings? Enough hyperbole. :)

Robert
 
Patrick said:
If I understand Christian doctrine correctly, God endows man with free will, and then holds him accountable for his choices. But if God is All-Powerful, surely He is able to foresee the choices everyone will make. If He's able to do that, then He knows every choice that each individual will make when he is created. That being the case, how can He hold everyone accountable with rewards and punishments, when there was no doubt about the outcome from the beginning? Or do you want to claim that God is NOT All-Knowing? Then does that mean that He is imperfect?
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Im going to add from question 2 a bit because it ties in with free will, why God allows evil, Holocaust.

You are correct when you say God endows man with free will and holds him accountable for choices. The same way a parent holds the child accountable for choices. Also the way life in general holds one accountable. For example if you eat too much you get a stomach ache or gain weight. Touch something hot, get burned. Cheat on a spouse possibly loose them.

So where would you have God draw the line? If He was to control all aspects of ones life and you would never do anything wrong perhaps you are like a potted plant that sits there and does nothing. Which is not what God intended.

Now, these are all personal to one. What about evil like the holocaust. God did stop it. He stopped it through good people realising that we were made in the image of God and not the image of a master race invented by Hitler and stopped him.

When people ask why isnt God swooping down from the sky and stopping whatever, God's answer is I am doing something I put you there to do it.

What does society think of someone who couch pototos around and does not work and lives off the good hearts of everyone else. We look down on them. We dont let each other away with it.
 
The sort of dichotomy exhibited in the "free will" scenario has brethren of farther reaching consequences.
For instance Is God capable of evil? Christians will deny this , but if God is an omniscient, Omnipotent entity how can that be so...carried farther It was he who "made" the morning star, Lucifer . If he knew all paths why didn't he see that coming prevent it? Was the reason because he needed a surrogate to balance His good with evil? Can he make a rock he cannot move? No? then clearly he is not omnipotent ( useless philosophical meanderings to be sure).
The defenders of the faith will say when every things putting along properly that God hath provided again! When evil prospers it's "God works in mysterious ways". Tell that to the mother of the 12 yr old girl who was abducted , raped and murdered, tell that to the people in south Sudan or the Holocaust survivors.

There IS free will because the universe is stochastic and out to eat you. So plan accordingly cuz there's no daddy who lives in the sky.


edit: OK now I have totally depressed myself sigh.
 
Re: Re: Re: Question for Christians - #3

SezMe said:
What does god intend? How do we (you) know?
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(A)
We were created to be the sons and daughers of God. Thats why preachers say the "family" of God. Also, to watch over and take care of one another and the earth.

(B)
"The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God; and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" (Romans 8:16-17).

"Thou madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the work of thy hands" (Hebrews2: 7).

"Let us make man in our own image according to our likeness. Let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over ALL the earth, and over everything that creeps or moves" (Genesis 1:26 ).
 
Thanks, Kitty. Your answers presume that the bible is the word of god or, in other words, that the people who wrote it were divinely inspired. Right? If so, does that mean we are to take ALL of it as the divinely inspired word of god? If so, that implies some pretty horrible consequences. If not, how do we differentiate between the divine and the mundane?
 
Eleatic Stranger said:
Ooh! I can answer this!

If God is omnipotent we can easily know what God intends, because it's what happens.

See how simple that was?
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Good point. I wonder if god ever winces at the daily torture that takes place here on terra firma.
 
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