oriecat

Magus55, I realize you have been very busy and responding to a lot, so I am sure you have missed a lot of posts and been unable to get back to many. I had a simple question in the When will I be judged? thread.

Did God create our souls?

Thank you.

Magus55

Sorry for not responding sooner.

Yes God creates the soul at the moment of conception.

Seraphim

Yes God creates the soul at the moment of conception.

My question : This is a Muslim's view ... are you a Muslim, Magus55?

oriecat

Thank you, Magus55.

Now in this post you state that "souls are eternal so they can't actually cease to exist", when explaining why the souls in hell are tormented forever, as they die without god, but can't fully die, since they are eternal. Correct? Hopefully I didn't misconstrue any of that.

To me, eternal means something always existed and always will. Like definitions 1 and 4 of eternal at www.m-w.com. I'm curious what eternal means to you.

But maybe that doesn't matter. I will work with the assumption for now, that to you eternal means lasting forever once actually created.

A couple questions -
1) If God can create the souls, why did he create them in such a way that he is now unable to uncreate them, instead of letting them die eternally away from his presence? Why did he create them so that they are eternal?
2) Knowing that many, if not most, of the souls he creates will end up dying eternally away from his presence, why does he continue to create them?

Magus55

1) Because in order for us to live for eternity in Heaven and the soul never age/die/wear out - God had to create them to be eternal.

2) He continually creates them because he gives everyone Free will - just because God knows ahead of time which you will choose, doesn't take away your ability to choose. Yes that sounds weird but its one of the hard qualities of God for us to comprehend, if not the hardest - omniscience doesn't register well for the human mind.
That question is also something we can't fully understand ( at least until Heaven when we can ask God and be able to understand it). Imagine a time line of existance.

( ---------------------------------------o------------------------- )
........Past...................................... ...Present.................Future

We are the circle, God is the parentheses. God can see all of existance, of every person who ever has, is, and ever will live at the same time. This is his ominiscience trait. Now while He can see the past, present, and future and know every choice that we did, are, and will make - it doesn't affect the choices made at the circle. This is why its so hard to comprehend - God knowing the outcome of everything before it has happened makes some believe we are predestined to choose or reject him. But we still have free will - our choices and his foreknowledge don't coincide - they are independant of each other.

Thats probably not the best explanation but its one of things we Christians take on faith, its just too mind boggling to comprehend. We can make our own choices for or against God and his knowing what we will choose has no affect on whether we can choose it or not.

Daggah

Gotta love faith. With faith, contradictory nonsensical ideas are merely incomprehensible, as opposed to just plain stupid.

oriecat

Magus55, you do seem to like going off on tangents that don't actually relate to the question at hand, don't you?

So correct me if I got something wrong here -

God continues to create new souls...
- despite the fact that he knows most of them will be in torment eternally away from his presence
- and he's ok with that, because he gives them free will

So you're saying it's not his fault that he creates souls that will suffer, even though when creating it, he knows it will suffer.

Imagine the smallest minutest minuscule millisecond before conception. The swimmer has just about pierced the egg, conception is imminent. God is on alert, since he's got a soul to create. In all his omniscience he knows this one isn't gonna work out and will end up tormented eternally away from his presence. *shrug* It's not his fault, because of that free will stuff. He creates it anyway, and another soul suffers eternally. This is ok with you? Would it not be better for him to see what will happen and then NOT create this poor tortured soul?

Is it better for a soul to exist in eternal torment or to never exist at all?

BadBadBad

Someone explain this passage from Romans to me. It says God creates souls like a potter creates a pot. God creates some pots to honor and show mercy, some to dishonor, "hardeneth," and show wrath. If I'm created like a pot by and omniscience and omnipotent god with my heart hardened against God, to be dishonored by God, and to suffer his wrath for eternity, where does Free Will come into this? Do I get the same shot at Free Will as those christian pots that are blessed by God at birth to have the eternal honor, compassion, mercy, and the eternal bliss of God in heaven?

9:11
(For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth)

9:12
It was said unto her, The elder shall serve the younger.

9:13
As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated.

9:14
What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid.

9:15
For he saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.

9:16
So then it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that sheweth mercy.

9:17
For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might shew my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth.

9:18
Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth.

9:19
Thou wilt say then unto me, Why doth he yet find fault? For who hath resisted his will?

9:20
Nay but, O man, who art thou that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, Why hast thou made me thus?

9:21
Hath not the potter power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honour, and another unto dishonour?

9:22
What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction:

Bree

So you believe in reincarnation???

thebeave

Sometimes, after a sperm has fertilized an egg, the fertilized egg will later split and become two separate eggs. This is where we get identical twins from (or triplets, quads, etc). So tell me, how does the soul play into this scenario? Does the soul split and replicate also? Or does God inject another soul into the cells at the moment of splitting off? Which twin retains the original soul, and which gets the new one? Does God decide that? Help us out here Magus55.