Some thoughts for non-believers

[Kotaro]

Someone already responded to most arguments I was in, and I have not much to add.

However, on the subject of sex, to say "all animals have sex, it's okay to have as much sex as i want!" is terribly stupid. No, the Church and the bible do not stand opposed to sex - I was even at a Seminar awhile back to have sex, just at the right time - but in this day and age, the single mother and kids going into adoption rates are just ridiculous. The amount of people not owning up to their actions is pure idiocy. On top of that, sex used to be a bonding experience shared between two people, and only two people. Nowadays, if you get out of High School a virgin, you're an anomaly in the statistics.

I don't see why a lot of people challenge the Church about sex. They never state that sex itself is evil, but rather how people perceive (and commit) it these days is a body of evil in itself. I can't see anyone truly arguing that having sex with 30 different people by the time you're 20 and taking a truly intimate act, and doing it with everyone, is not a bad thing.

[joecoolfrog]

Nothing wrong with having sex as often as you like, with as many partners as you like, providing they are consenting and contraception/protection is taken into consideration.

[Neoteny]

Indeed, just because one person thinks sex should serve only intimate purposes does not mean that it should be that way for everyone. It's not a given that sex is sacred.

[daddy1gringo]

d1g

First of all, this problem I'm pointing out says nothing about god's goodness or omnipotence.

Calling it "polemic" is a bit mean, all I do is draw logical conclusions, namely that you get A and ~A at the same time. I have been thinking a little about your spreadsheet analogy, and have come to the conclusion that it really does nothing to explain how god's omniscience and our free will are compatible. Putting god outside our universe does nothing to mitigate the fact that an omniscient god knows how any given person will act at any given time.

Fair enough on the 2 first objections.

1. I worded that to include the other argument about the incompatibility of evil in the world with God being omniscient, omnipotent and good. My answer is essentially the same to that argument, but including it just clouds the issue. So let's just deal with the omniscience/free-will thing and leave out the other 2 adjectives.

2. "Polemic" I was just using as "of or concerning an argument" considering it less insulting than "rhetorical" with its double meaning. Sorry if you took it as "mean". Once again, re-write that as "rhetorical, or logical booby-trap", or "a catch-22".

Now to deal with the issue. The point is that the models or analogies show that it is conceivable that the 2 can co-exist. For example in my spreadsheet scenario, (Here's a link for those who aren't familiar. It's a ways down in my long first post, but I've edited in a subheading to make it easier to find. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=88944&p=2056708#p2056708 )

God knows what the end will be if you choose this, and knows what the end will be if you choose that. Thus He knows the end, but you still have the freedom to choose. He is free to leave things to be eternally affected by our choices, or to interfere, or have self-correcting formulae in some cells, to preserve outcomes that he doesn't want changed. (And even though he may preserve the outcome he wants in the big picture, you can "disobey" yourself out of a place in it.) So God's "knowing the end from the beginning" is not in any way inconsistent with our having free will.

Once again, this is just a model: an imperfect picture of something and not the thing itself. If this, using finite, 4 dimensional things comprehensible to human minds, shows it as conceivable, how much more is it possible for God, being transcendent as described. Your argument that the 2 things are logically incompatible is invalid.

[PLAYER57832]

Indeed, just because one person thinks sex should serve only intimate purposes does not mean that it should be that way for everyone. It's not a given that sex is sacred.

From the Christian perspective, what is said in the Bible matters.

From a wordly perspective, we would say you are cheating yourself. However, in the world, you are entitled to your own opinion and to act as you will as long as you don't harm anyone else. That last can get debateable (and nowadays many Christian young adults tak a more open stance than in years past), but the whole thing is a complex topic, not the subject of this thread and not something I particularly wish to discuss right now, here. You can act as you wish, but what Christianity says is something else.

[jesterhawk]

If god sees multiple possible futures god does not know which one will occur. He can see any number of hypothetical futures, but if god knows which one will occur you have no choice but must do what god knows you will do. It's determinism at its finest, nothing has to be forced, god doesn't have to exert any control, god doesn't have to preordain anything, merely his knowing what the future will be makes it so there is only one path to take.

Ok, so if I follow you correctly, because God has all knowledge AND he created us then he is responsible for our actions. Let us say that I believe this, then isn't the fact that God has allowed you down a path of not believing in him a blessing to you? Eternity aside for a moment, wouldn't that be a benevolent God and not a malevolent one?

(Yeah, knowledge is a bitch like that.)

Cute LOL!

God's perfect omniscience means choices are an illusion and there is only one possible future. Free will means there are real choices we can make and as a result the future is uncertain. It's impossible to have both because their logical extensions are each other's opposites.

I understand what you are saying, I just don't agree with it. For the simple reason that God knowing all and able to see our choices is not the opposite of freedom of free will. The opposite of Freedom is slavery/bondage. God's simple knowing of the future does not constitute slavery and bondage unless God himself was orchestrating the event to cause you to be in slavery. And the truth is that it is the other way around. God does attempt to persuade you to take the right and free path for your life. He is not a tyrant but a liberator. In fact that Bible explicitly states that whom God sets free is free indeed (John 8:36).

Love in Christ,
JH

[mpjh]

However, in the world, you are entitled to your own opinion and to act as you will as long as you don't harm anyone else.

Does this mean that "collateral" damage is not allowed to a christian?

[Gregrios]

However, in the world, you are entitled to your own opinion and to act as you will as long as you don't harm anyone else.

Does this mean that "collateral" damage is not allowed to a christian?

As far as I know, we Christians don't have any movie restrictions.

[jonesthecurl]

Ok, so if I follow you correctly, because God has all knowledge AND he created us then he is responsible for our actions. Let us say that I believe this, then isn't the fact that God has allowed you down a path of not believing in him a blessing to you? Eternity aside for a moment, wouldn't that be a benevolent God and not a malevolent one?





Love in Christ,
JH

Um, no, because he would have predetermined MeDeFe's opinion, not "allowed" it. Then condemned him to Hell for it.

[Burrito]

If god sees multiple possible futures god does not know which one will occur. He can see any number of hypothetical futures, but if god knows which one will occur you have no choice but must do what god knows you will do. It's determinism at its finest, nothing has to be forced, god doesn't have to exert any control, god doesn't have to preordain anything, merely his knowing what the future will be makes it so there is only one path to take.

Ok, so if I follow you correctly, because God has all knowledge AND he created us then he is responsible for our actions. Let us say that I believe this, then isn't the fact that God has allowed you down a path of not believing in him a blessing to you? Eternity aside for a moment, wouldn't that be a benevolent God and not a malevolent one?

(Yeah, knowledge is a bitch like that.)

Cute LOL!

God's perfect omniscience means choices are an illusion and there is only one possible future. Free will means there are real choices we can make and as a result the future is uncertain. It's impossible to have both because their logical extensions are each other's opposites.

I understand what you are saying, I just don't agree with it. For the simple reason that God knowing all and able to see our choices is not the opposite of freedom of free will. The opposite of Freedom is slavery/bondage. God's simple knowing of the future does not constitute slavery and bondage unless God himself was orchestrating the event to cause you to be in slavery. And the truth is that it is the other way around. God does attempt to persuade you to take the right and free path for your life. He is not a tyrant but a liberator. In fact that Bible explicitly states that whom God sets free is free indeed (John 8:36).

Love in Christ,
JH

If God knows our future, then that means that since you think that he created everything, he designed a system in which everything that we do is predetermined, so if our future can be known, free will is merely an illusion. The fact that our future can be known means that there is nothing we can do that can change what will happen.

He sure as hell does try to persuade people to believe in him, essentially saying that you are royally screwed if you don't. You know, all that eternity in hell and perpetual torture and such.....

[mpjh]

However, in the world, you are entitled to your own opinion and to act as you will as long as you don't harm anyone else.

Does this mean that "collateral" damage is not allowed to a christian?

As far as I know, we Christians don't have any movie restrictions.

I guess that is why so many christians join the army, it is just a movie to you.

[MeDeFe]

If god sees multiple possible futures god does not know which one will occur. He can see any number of hypothetical futures, but if god knows which one will occur you have no choice but must do what god knows you will do. It's determinism at its finest, nothing has to be forced, god doesn't have to exert any control, god doesn't have to preordain anything, merely his knowing what the future will be makes it so there is only one path to take.

Ok, so if I follow you correctly, because God has all knowledge AND he created us then he is responsible for our actions. Let us say that I believe this, then isn't the fact that God has allowed you down a path of not believing in him a blessing to you? Eternity aside for a moment, wouldn't that be a benevolent God and not a malevolent one?

Almost correct. Whether god created us or not is not important, my argument really only rests on the assumption that god knows how we will act in the future.
Even if god didn't create the world and us, even if he has no control, no possibility whatsoever of influencing what happens and what a person does, even if the only thing he has is knowledge, his knowing what the future will be means the future is already determined.

If you also suppose that he created us and that he has the power to change anything at will he becomes ultimately responsible, but that is a different discussion.

God's perfect omniscience means choices are an illusion and there is only one possible future. Free will means there are real choices we can make and as a result the future is uncertain. It's impossible to have both because their logical extensions are each other's opposites.

I understand what you are saying, I just don't agree with it. For the simple reason that God knowing all and able to see our choices is not the opposite of freedom of free will. The opposite of Freedom is slavery/bondage. God's simple knowing of the future does not constitute slavery and bondage unless God himself was orchestrating the event to cause you to be in slavery. And the truth is that it is the other way around. God does attempt to persuade you to take the right and free path for your life. He is not a tyrant but a liberator. In fact that Bible explicitly states that whom God sets free is free indeed (John 8:36).

Love in Christ,
JH

Ah, it looks like we are working under somewhat different definitions. Free will is not the same as freedom. Free will means that a person is able to make up their own mind, to decide on their own how they want to act. Strangely enough this does not necessitate that a person can act according to their own will, I would say that this is the freedom part. Of course, free will without freedom is more or less useless, but it is conceivable that a person decides how they want to act but is then made to act in a different way by an external force.

I'm going to head off on a tangent here, the following is not relevant to the discussion. I will go so far as to claim that even slavery might be impossible without free will. If a being can only act in accordance with what an external force allows but this being has no wishes of their own and lacks the capability to decide how to act, in fact, this being cannot have wishes, it is incapable of such a mental state, it is for practical purposes nonsensical to say that this being is enslaved. Slavery can only occur where a being with (as a minimum requirement) wishes and/or desires can make up their own mind about how to act, but is forced to act differently.

Regarding the rest of this part of your post I will just refer to what I said before. God does not have to make anything happen at all, his knowledge of the future is enough to make free will impossible.

[PLAYER57832]

However, in the world, you are entitled to your own opinion and to act as you will as long as you don't harm anyone else.

Does this mean that "collateral" damage is not allowed to a christian?

For a serious war answer, see St Augustine.
(not a complete answer, but gets in the neighborhood)

But I like Greg's answer better.

[daddy1gringo]

OK, MDF, I edited our previous posts in accordance with your objections.

@jesterhawk

If god knows everything that is going to unfold in someone's life, every choice a person is going to make, before it happens, this means that there is only one path a person can take. To the person it may seem like they are choosing to eat the donuts instead of the fruit, but god already knew they were going to go for the donuts. If they had eaten the fruit, god's knowledge would have been wrong (and therefor not knowledge) and god would be fallible.

You can't have both, it's logically impossible for god to be perfectly omniscient and for free will to exist.

MeDeFe, we have been over and over this. You insist that it is proof of the impossibility of the existence of a God who at the same time gives us free will, and is omniscient that you can't conceive of the coexistence based on our human minds and consciousness. God's mind is complex enough that he created all of ours, and he created things like the concepts of time and space, so he lives outside of them. Judging what is possible for God based on our 4-dimensional experience is like trying to referee a basketball game when you have no idea of the rules, or to judge a court case when you know neither the laws nor the evidence.

Various people have come up with their models to describe how these things work together using things with which we are familiar, like my "microsoft spreadsheet" analogy, but they are limited by having to be done in terms of things which are not God.

d1g
…all I do is draw logical conclusions, namely that you get A and ~A at the same time. I have been thinking a little about your spreadsheet analogy, and have come to the conclusion that it really does nothing to explain how god's omniscience and our free will are compatible. Putting god outside our universe does nothing to mitigate the fact that an omniscient god knows how any given person will act at any given time.

… in my spreadsheet scenario, (Here's a link for those who aren't familiar. It's a ways down in my long first post, but I've edited in a subheading, “Spreadsheet analogy” to make it easier to find. viewtopic.php?f=8&t=88944&p=2056708#p2056708 )

God knows what the end will be if you choose this, and knows what the end will be if you choose that. Thus He knows the end, but you still have the freedom to choose. He can leave things to be eternally affected by our choices, or to interfere, or have self-correcting formulae in some cells, to preserve outcomes that he doesn't want changed. (And even though he may preserve the outcome he wants in the big picture, you can "disobey" yourself out of a place in it.) So God's "knowing the end from the beginning" is not in any way inconsistent with our having free will.

Once again, this is just a model: an imperfect picture of something and not the thing itself. If this, using finite, 4 dimensional things comprehensible to human minds, shows it as conceivable, how much more is it possible for God, being transcendent as described. Your argument that the 2 things are logically incompatible is invalid.

If you insist that every detail must be explained by something within that metaphor and your earthly experience, then you are committing a logical fallacy. You are saying "I will only consider believing in God if He is not really God: if he can be reduced to fit in my little nutshell."

A famous atheist, (I think it was either Bertrand Russell, G.B. Shaw, or Aldous Huxley, I'm pretty sure it was someone more recent than Voltaire and less so than Dawkins), was asked what he would do if after death he found he was wrong and had to stand before God. He answered something like that he would say, "I was honestly wrong." I can't answer for his heart, or for yours, but if part of your rationale is this logical booby-trap, you would not be able to say the same. Constructing your standards concerning something you don’t want to believe such that the only way you will believe it is true is if it is proven false is not honest. My point is not to try to threaten you with hell, but to warn you of something about which you are obviously more concerned: coming to an illogical conclusion.

Care to respond?

[MeDeFe]

God knowing what will happen if a person chooses option A and what will happen if the person chooses option B (or C, or D, or Z-243) is compatible with free will as long as god does not know which one the person will choose before the person chooses. But then you give up his perfect omniscience.

[Frigidus]

God knowing what will happen if a person chooses option A and what will happen if the person chooses option B (or C, or D, or Z-243) is compatible with free will as long as god does not know which one the person will choose before the person chooses. But then you give up his perfect omniscience.

This is true whether God is "inside" time or not.

[Juan_Bottom]

I've been missing out here for a while, but I come back and we are still at the same place. Good hanging in there though.

[mpjh]

[bigimg]http://www.arnongrunberg.com/litho_images/1908-1024x768.jpg[/bigimg]

[jesterhawk]

God knowing what will happen if a person chooses option A and what will happen if the person chooses option B (or C, or D, or Z-243) is compatible with free will as long as god does not know which one the person will choose before the person chooses. But then you give up his perfect omniscience.

Ok, lets say that I acquiesced to your supposition. Following that line of thought then, what would you have to say to the fact that God sees you as a Christian before you die? Does that mean that you would just accept that because in reality you have no free will?

[jonesthecurl]

No - I think that MDF's point is that, since he has free will, there cannot be an omnipotent and omniscient god. Unless the free will is an illusion and he is pre-programmed, in which case if he gets it wrong it's not his fault.

[Frigidus]

God knowing what will happen if a person chooses option A and what will happen if the person chooses option B (or C, or D, or Z-243) is compatible with free will as long as god does not know which one the person will choose before the person chooses. But then you give up his perfect omniscience.

Ok, lets say that I acquiesced to your supposition. Following that line of thought then, what would you have to say to the fact that God sees you as a Christian before you die? Does that mean that you would just accept that because in reality you have no free will?

If God believed I was a Christian there are two possibilities: One, God is wrong and therefore imperfect. Two, I am a Christian. It doesn't matter what I think, that just follows from the definitions of the Christian God.

And yes, Jones hit the eventual point that this argument about free will was aiming for. Whether free will exists doesn't particularly matter to Christianity...at least, until you start talking about damning or saving people for the actions they take/were forced to take.

[Snorri1234]

I gonna try shouting to the christian dude at the station when he screams: "LET GOD INTO YOUR HEART! FOLLOW CHRIST!" with "I really want to but I don't have free will!"

[haggispittjr]

this is stupid, i make my decisions and theres no predestined path anyones on. thats fairytale stuff,

[Juan_Bottom]

this is stupid, i make my decisions and theres no predestined path anyones on. thats fairytale stuff,

I think(?) that you're missing the point that we are making. That in order for a creator to have omniscience he/she would HAVE to know the future of the creation that he/she has made, and therefor there is no free will (which is the only reason I have ever heard as to why any God is powerless to reveal themselves, and why we can do whatever we want). But for the most part it's flying over everyone's heads. The Christians don't believe in destiny either.... except for the end of days I guess?
That is boiled down completely, CHRISTIANS IGNORE THIS POST.

[haggispittjr]

i get your point, i just think its rediculas.