geebob

schu, my following reply to wyz answers your omniscience question.


I believe you took the opposite of what I meant to convey. but I wouldn't blame you. I sometimes write things confusingly. let me just give you two pictures of two different worlds. In one, God's creatures are such that they are created with a tendency to love him BUT they don't have to. They freely give him his love. This is the picture I am presenting. it is not necessary for them to love him. The necessity of the love does not arise from within God. Influence to that end does, but not a necessitating guarantee.

In the other world, God creates creatures who have no choice but to love him. The necessity for this love arises from within God. This love is less genuine and less real than the love in the first picture.

Now perhaps you grasped that, and your asking, why is love in the first picture more genuine and filled with more potential than the second. I'd say I don't know that there is much of an explanation for this that I can give. Jame_L asked what reason there was for free will. I've given one that seems right and intuitive. But one can't always give reasons for their reasons.

I almost dare say that this is properly basic. Perhaps you've read fiction that shows that robots cannot give a deeply satisfying relationship. Wish I could think of an example but I am confident that this example can be found in some of the fiction and filmography apart from religious thinking. Wish I could think of a better example than this, the genie in aladdin couldn't grant wishes to make people fall in love. perhaps because such a love was metaphysically (or more strongly, logically) impossible.

love from us that is not necessitaded by God is the opposite of coerced.

If God is omnipotent, He can do anything that is logically possible. If he can do anything that is logically possible, He must either in fact be doing everything that is logically possible (a logical impossibility) or he must have multiple logical possibilities open to him at any time.

God did not have to create us. His creation of us as objects of his love was a free act and it was a choice to love us. After humanity rebelled, His decision to redeem us was free. He did not have to do so.

If you insist that the definition of All-loving must exclude the latter continuation of God's choice, I'd just have to deny that the ALL-Loving aspect of him is a philosophical absolute that cancells out all choice and justice in God.

Is not creativity valuable? If not, why are we bothering with art classes in public schools, or universities for that matter. Why do we sing. why do we care whether caveman draw on walls. And how can we do science without creativity. free will is important to creativity and creativity is of no little value but is fact one of the crowning glories of humanity. If anything about us is divine, certainly creativity is. And I know your criticism doesn't quite go there, but I feel you may have missed my point.

To sum up that arguement, creativity is good, free will is necessary to creativity, thus free will is good.

Is God non-corporeal? if he isn't, he is at least partially. Arguably The ancient Jews did not know a God who was not incarnate. But that's all I'll say about that.

to your question though, We aren't clones of God. We are made in his likeness and image. So why should we resemble him in every way? Also, corporeality seams less important to personhood than free will.

an atheist is asking me why concious thought is good? ON the side, I'm wondering if you are at least a humanist, and if not what have you left?

it is not speculation though. It is from an arguement from philosopher Peter Van Inwagen that I am not fully acquainted with. He speaks of the necessity of thinking in terms of possibilities. It is a basic feature of our thought processes that our minds can consider and wander an mull things over. How can our minds wander freely if we don't have freedom? and the possibilities we consider are either real or we have a radical skepticism of our very experience of our mind.

It is essential to the history of a person. And no I don't think it is essential to an all good environment. I'm sure you can have an environment with puppies and flowers and entities that never have to face the choices that we do, but you can't have an environment with people with the attributes that I've outlined with the four attributes I've cited, at least not to the same extent.

nothing more and nothing less than this. a person is free with regard to an action if it is truly possible for him to perform it and truly possible for him to refrain from performing it.

I'm skipping a few things because I suspect this might help to clear things up more than a perpetual point by point explanation.

that's the skeleton of it. one free choice really isn't going to cut it. But a period in your life must be filled with libertarian free choices. This involves concepts of maturity and hardening of the heart. The more mature you are, the more likely you are to perform in a certain way. The harder your heart is, the more likely you are to perform in a certain way. It is reasonable to expect that the hardeness or maturity of one's heart may progress to a level such that their actions are gauranteed under certain circumstances.

now hardening and maturing usually involve moral choices. that you are no longer libertarian free with respect to moral choices (though your self determining freedom is established with them) you certainly may be libertarian free towards amoral choices.

you can still make moral decisions in prison.

actually, traumatic events like that may shake you from the hardness of your heart and renew moments of libertarian freedom. provided jail time wasn't damaging but was sufficiently traumatic, the next time you consider robbing a bank, there may be a greater possibility that you won't do it because Jail sucked.

a hidden assumption in the notion that omniscience means knowledge of past present of future. That assumption is that the future is known as settled

the word does have a definition that is irrespective of interpretation. Know all that is true or factual.

certainty negates alternative possibilities. A possibility that has no chance of coming to pass is no possibility at all.

to be omniscient, you'd have to know every possibility. when I speak of uncertainty, I may be unclear about that but I'm explaining what I mean here for the future when I use it. you may not know what you'll have for dinner three days from now. So you know it as an uncertainty. But to be omniscient with that fact still as uncertain, must know exactly every single possible thing that could happen at dinner three days from now. It may be possible for you to eat your dinner in 38 bites, 30 bites or twenty? You can't even begin to fathom that question, but an omniscient God can. Will you have chinese, italian, mexican? nachos, enchiladas, tortia soup? will you drink pop, milk, water? an omniscient being knows all of these possibilities and many more that I won't waste our time bringing up. And as time progresses, the truth of what those possibilies will viable becomes narrower. you suffer indigestion, so now mexican is out of the question because you have some condition where it lasts awhile. all of the sudden, the lists of possibilities drops down to a few as the omniscient being realizes that one of your freinds decides to cater your dinner with some of his favorite recipes, and furthermore, he knows which of those entries you are guaranteed not to touch because you freind foolishly puts olives in the mix and you hate olives.

what is it that an omniscient being cannot know? what ever is not true. What ever is not a fact. If a certainty isn't true until a certain point in time when things develope so that the certainty can be foregone, an omniscient God cannot know it because it doesn't exist as a certainty. It is merely a truly viable possibility along with other possibilities.

can all of these statements be true?

1. It is certain you will pick A.

2. It is truly possible that you will pick A and it is truly possible that you will pick B.

3.It is certain you will pick B.

Each one contradicts the other. In no way can the second half of 2 be true if 1 is true. How is it possible that you will pick B when it is certain that you will pick A? That would require that A might not be choosen, and for that to be true, we can no longer call A a certainty? Certainties cannot possibly fail to come to pass. thus 1 and 2 cannot both be true.

But any one of these statements can be true. Just not more than one at a time. Even statement 2. If it's true, than an omnicsient God would know it.

God knows not only what is unwritten but also what is written. not only does he know what is written and what is unwritten, he also knows everything that could be written in the blanks. can any of us posess such vast knowledge?

why isn't it irrelevent? If there is a certainty for all of our actions, then it doesn't matter if God knows that certainty or not, you still are not free. (we weren't talking about omniscience yet)

lets look at it this way. If your freind schu knows that you will rob a bank tomarrow, are you free not to do so? (maybe you would be in the self determining sense, but for now we are just considering the libertarian sense). I don't see how you can avoid doing what schu knows what you will do. Well what is knowledge? The classical view, (which is what we are considering) is that knowledge is something that is a belief, it is true, and it is epistemically justified. now what does it matter wether schu has a justified belief in regards to your freedom of robbing the bank. I'd say it doesn't amount to a hill of beens. The only important thing is that it is true, and you cannot escape actions that you would truly do, otherwise it wouldn't be true that you will do them. to escape actions that you will truly do would negate the truth that you will do them.

No sweatie pie. I'm not luv luv, snuggle wuggums or whatever mushy thing you want to call me. the defenition of omnipotence as the ability to do nothing but what is logically possible is a common view amongst christians (though alot of the laity might not know about it).

because logic represents the limits of what can be real.

I don't see your point.

how does it remain unadressed? "What makes free will so important?"

1. for love sake,
2. because It's in the image of God (if there is a God then God is important)
3.because it makes creativity possible
4.it makes concious thought possible/better.

all of these are important. You may not like the answers (and I don't know why) but that doesn't mean I didn't address the question.

no, the limitations of omniscience, (which is truth) because someone asked the question, how can we be free if God knows the future.

because jamie brought up omnipotence againts one's answer having to do with free will:

Which, like most apologetics, denies an aspect of God to protect another one - here, omnipotence is sacrificed to maintain omnibenevolence. Why would an omnipotent God's love be hindered without free will? What would hinder him? Is God subject to rules?

because by refining the definition of free will, the problem Jaime brought up in his topic on lobotimized free will disappears. that was apart of the original question.

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: geebob ]

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: geebob ]

[ December 13, 2002: Message edited by: geebob ]</p>

Wyz_sub10

Okay, I understand what you are saying. But why would this matter to god? Does god *need* love, and if so, why? This is one thing, even during my big 'C' Christian years, that I never understood - what need or desire can an omnipotent being have? Is god lonely? Does he have self-esteem issues? Does he feel the need to belong? I know there are other reasons for love, but is all comes down to some type of need that seems, to me, inconsistent with god as a singular, eternal, supreme being.

That's fine. There may be a question to pursue in that regard, but it's perhaps more suited in the Philosophy forum.

I see the point, but I think it is only an issue if we assume god's needs for voluntary affection are the same as ours. I can tell you why (roughly) I would want my wife's love by choice and not by neurosurgery. But I'm not a solitary, omnipotent, eternal being.

I disagree with this. Maybe *love* is not what is necessitated, exactly, but acceptance of Jesus as the saviour, acknowledgement of his sacrifice, obedience to god, are. Failing this, we are damned eternal. That is coercion, in my book.

Consider this passage:
"You must never worship or bow down to them, for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God who will not share your affection with any other god! I do not leave unpunished the sins of those who hate me, but I punish the children for the sins of their parents to the third and fourth generations." Exodus 20:5

That is not demanding love?

I'm not sure I accept that he *must* do everything that is logically possible, but we may agree that there must exist possibilities, of course.

This does not address my question, however. I can understand *the fact* that god chose to make us in his image 'A' instead of in his image 'B'. But you argue that one of these choices was a better choice - making us "little creators" (instead of "little ethereal beings"). I am asking *why* 'A' and not 'B'? If you do not know, then that is not a problem, but then you cannot argue the necessity (or 'goodness') of making choice 'A'.

The creation may have been a choice, but as an omni benevolent being, loving us would not have been a choice, but a requirement.

Still, it harkens back to the sticky problem of creation with the possibility of eternal torment. Where's the love in that? Given torment as a possibility, non-existence is better. (Did not Jesus say of Judas, "better that this man would have never been born...?")

It seems to me that humanity's failure was a result of god's failure. I suppose he didn't have to redeem us, but then what would have been the point of his two-person love experiment? He couldn't even make a two-person society without sin, yet instead of starting over from scratch, he keeps the same two flawed people, does not remove their flaws, and grows a massive society from it. This makes little sense given god's rationale, as you provide.

I don't insist that. I will insist, however, that the presence of failure falls upon god. Why put the tree in this perfect world? Why put the smooth-talking snake in this perfect world? To tempt them? Why?? When things did not work out, why not start over? If he did, would that not indicate a failed attempt by god?

Ah! But therein lies the rub! *I* can provide answers to these questions, but they have nothing to do with a god, and certainly not the Christian god.

Creativity is valuable because *humans* value progression, development. We have evolved to a state of intelligence whereof we derive pleasure from the fruits of our progress. Our brains are wired to recognize and form patterns (hence music, arts, etc.).

(Godel, Escher, Bach, D. Hofstadter, Religion Explained, P. Boyer)

I am not arguing that the above are not important to us. I do not, however, see their relationship to god. Nor do I see the *necessity* in any of the above. Our appreciation for music is wonderful, but if we never had it, we wouldn't need it. My cat seems perfectly happy without being able to sing along to "The Tragically Hip."

Animals have a huge degree of free will, but relatively little (and in some cases, arguable no) degree of artistic or technical creativity. It is indeed a significant aspect of human achievement, but it is not necessary for free will (and we, like animals, could leave satisfying and pleasurable lives without it - but we have evolved to be smart and complex, so we value such things).

This begs the question - you *begin with the notion* that a creator exists, and therefore, our creativity *must* be a reflection of the creator.

You may as well argue that the creator has 10 fingers and 10 toes, and therefore, our digits are a reflection of him.

It doesn't work because you begin by assuming the answer to your question - "is there a creator?" ---&gt; "yes, because we can create".

My summation:

- creativity can produce good, it can produce bad
- creativity is not a necessary component of free will
- free will and pleasure both exist among animals with little or no technological or artistic creativity
- creativity need not be explained through divinity, but can be explained through brain development

Therefore, creativity is, in itself, irrelevant to the connection between god and free will.

Besides, your argument fails in its conclusion:

- saving a choking man is a good thing
- a man must be choking in order to save him
- therefore, a man choking is a good thing

It doesn't much matter. For the sake of the example, any non-human attribute will do.

That is my point, though - *why* choose image quality 'A' over image quality 'B'. This repeats my previous statement - if you have no reason, then that is fine. But then you cannot say 'A' is a better choice than 'B'.

Why does it seem less important to the priesthood? Again, it's circular reasoning - we have free will, therefore it *must* be more important. I can think of a million reasons why being non-corporeal might be a damned good deal.

Why does me being an atheist have anything to do with my valuation of consciousness? It seems that you may be making the same error as another poster who argued that, if god did not grant Adam and Eve free will, we would complain.

Who would complain? The invisible third party?? If we knew god was going to *take away* conscious thought, we might protest. But if we *never had it* to begin with, how could we argue whether is was good or bad?

Besides, I'm only arguing for a *degree* of conscious though (as you stated), not thinking entirely.

This argument begs the questions as well - why do our minds need to wander freely? Isn't the whole point here free will? It's like saying "why do we go to the beach?" and replying that we could not sit in the sand by the ocean if we didn't go to the beach. It really answers a question that was never asked.

This gets off track a bit because I am not arguing that we should stop thinking. Free will could be limited in action instead of thinking, or free will could be limited by degrees of thinking. We needn't stop thinking altogether to have the degree of free will altered.

I'm not sure I really understand why it is essential to the history of a person, but your second point is at the heart of the issue.

If free will is not essential to an all-good environment, than is it not essential for us to be in an all-good environment. So why free will and not just the all-good environment, created by an all-powerful and supposedly all-loving god?

Perhaps not, but....so?

But geebob, these are all assumptions on your part. Why not one free choice? How many - 5, 769, 11,234,908? When does the amount of choices become 'enough' in setting yourself up for eternity? What if the *only choice* I ever made was to accept Jesus, would that *one choice* not be enough for heaven?

Again, these are assumptions - once one is hardened and mature they are not confined to *remain* in line with their beliefs. A lifelong racist can change her views on race. Many of the things you *may* be referring too (i.e. propensity for violence) probably have much more to do with chemistry than choices made during one's life.

This seems to support my argument. Where is the long-term effect of libertarian decision-making? Can you still make such decisions in heaven? If so, then you are not confined by you "free will" history.

This is circular - "omniscience means knowledge of past present of future. That assumption is that the future is known..."

Yes, if one is omniscient. There is no assumption of future knowledge if you are not omniscient.

Not "all that is true of factual". Simply "all"

Consider this - I say "pink monkeys fly". An omniscient being would not have to know that pink monkeys fly (because they do not). He/she would simply have to know that I *said that*.

Yup.

So can I. My meal will take between 0 and an infinite amount of bites. How much more does god know? If he knows it to be 25-33, than I could take 34...just because. If I *can't* or *won't* take 34, then where is my free will?

Are you suggesting that I am so baffled by dinner choices that I won't know? I know I won't have broccoli for dinner tomorrow.

What would be the use of this knowledge? And to what extent does his knowledge differ? He knows all choices but not outcomes?

Ah! But if he didn't know beforehand that my friend would do this, it means my friend knew first.

If so, my friend possessed knowledge that god did not have.

Therefore, even by your definition, god cannot be omniscient.

Agreed.

Yes, but knowing the choice of having 'A' or 'B' isn't really knowing anything of consequence. That, I suppose, is a different topic.

But let me ask you this - does god know when I am going to die?

This gets us into chaos theory, to a degree. If god knows everything to the smallest detail, then he knows things that we think are just "guesses" (like when and where a tornado will form tomorrow).

Consider this - a brick slides slowly down a rooftop. Now *I* think the brick will continue to slide, or it may stop sliding. It is a guess.

God knows the weight of the brick, the level of friction, the momemtum, the slope, etc. He has *all* the information to *know* the future - whether the brick falls or not.

It seems to me that all god really cannot know are probabilities and measurements confined to quantum mechanics and human decisions of free will.

That brings up two questions:

1) who defined the laws and limits of quantum mechanics?

2) does god know me better or worse than my wife?

It is relevant in so far as the importance of free will raises the question of god's knowledge. But I will leave the response to him. I will agree that if god knows all, are choices are set.

Yes but if I didn't have free will and was robbing a bank, that action would have to derive from god (because I cannot avoid it, as you say).

The importance of free will, as the OP asks, can be demonstrated here - with free will, schu could stop me or I could change my mind.

But the heart of the question is that an all-good god would not design a willess world this way. Quite the opposite - my 'written page' would have me not robbing a bank. (By the way, no one's implying schu is omniscient - I maight still rob the bank anyway, but schu could still try to intervene...unless his lack of free will was to not do so).

LOL!

luv luv is another theist poster to these forums, and the above (including ignorance of the laity) is exactly something he would say.

I thought god defined the limits of what can be real, and that our logic was use to understand those limits?

Saying that god decided 'x' because god is sovereign to do so does not address the question of *why* god decided 'x'.

You have not shown that free will is necessary for love. You have argue that it is necessary for a "richer" love, but there is no mention of why this is important. Animals don't have a higher love. So?

Circular - god's image includes free will because we have free will, and are in his image. It still does not address why he should give us this particular characteristic of his, considering it may lead us to hell.

Not necessarily. I can dream creatively without making choices involving free will.

Besides, creativity is not a necessity in itself. It is not required for survival or pleasure or pain. Also, free will does not *mandate* creativity.

Only if you assume conscious thought must involve choice. It could be directed by god, transparently, every step of the way.

I would argue that choice is preferrable for me. But had I no choice from the beginning, I would not find this objectionable (nor would anyone else, wihtout a frame of reference).

A subjective assessment on your part.

I do not think your answers speak to an objective importance of free will. But I did not mean to imply that you purposely avoided the question.

geebob

Why would it matter to you to have children or to take a wife or to have freinds? relationships make life worth living and are an end in themselves.

Why would it matter to you, a person. God is a person like you. That is a major claim of theism (though lost on a good deal though not all of the tradition in theism).

yes, that's just the nature of persons. But he does not need us. He is a triune community where love has eternally existed. But why did he make us? he didn't have to, but he did so for pleasure. God is a person and person's don't have to do everything out of necessity.

aren't you an atheist? you must understand what necessity means.

If A then B
A
therefore B.

A is the sufficient cause of B, B is the necessary cause of A (the necessary cause and a necessitating cause are not the same thing). Now A necessitates B. B can happen without A but A cannot happen without B. Now showing you modus ponens is merely for the purpose of describing necessitation or sufficiency, which are synonyms. I don't want you to get confused and think this describes our relationship with God, I’m just showing what necessitation means.

Our love for God is not necessary. God does not guarantee our love. Thus that necessity must arise from within us.

obviously since you are an atheist and since some men even hate God and some are indifferent to him, in as far as Christianity describes our situation, our love is not necessitated.

read on, the israelites rebell.

it certainly is every bit as reasonable though as certainly as a wife's jealousy for her husband is. If you baulk at this jealousy, you stand against human nature itself.

I see. I don't think God had to give us free will (with regard to creating us in his image). But just because one does something that he doesn't have to do doesn't mean that he didn't have reasons. But why free will and not incorporeality? I would have to say that I don't know why he didn't make us uncorporeal, not that we can even know what that entails. a lack of a body doesn't tell us much.

I'd just have to say that it was the artists choice. He was making a self portrait and certain attributes made it in and certain ones didn't. (again this is apart from the other reasons I've laid out).

I combined the choice of creating a being whose purpose was to love Him with the choice to love him. God did not have to love us because he did not have to create us. If he choose not to love us, he would not have created us.

Is torment eternal? I don't know that for sure. There are biblical arguements to the extent that the damned will be destroyed. I don't believe this and I think the biblical evidence is best interpreted the more traditional way, but I could be wrong on that. the descriptions of eternal torment could be metaphorical or hyperbole. I did a study on the phrase "without end" and it doesn't necessarily mean forever. In the bible huge quantities of grain, or soldiers or what have you are described as "without end." Could the descriptions of an eternal hell actually be comparable to these? maybe.

But that aside, God did not create hell for us. He created it for rebellious angels. Hell was not in the original plan. All of creation was created for him. Rebellion was an aberation that was never meant to be.

consider furthermore this. If God made us for him, it may be that agony is the only type of existence that is possible without him. As Paul said to heathen Gentiles to whom he preached,

Yet he has not left himself without testimony: He has shown kindness by giving you rain from heaven and crops in their seasons; he provides you with plenty of food and fills your hearts with joy.

But part of the implication that we are free beings establishes that the failure did not arise from within Him. He did not necessitate it because the way he created creation, it should have continued on the right path. The aspect of free will is what made for the possibility of the rejection of him, but I believe that the four reasons that I have outlined outweigh the risks and made it worthwhile.

who wants to argue with mercy? As one descended from the original rebels, I am glad that he choose to work it out.

as for the notion that he couldn't make a society without sin, he did in fact do that. That society just didn't remain that way.

traditionally the rational that christians believe God had for placing the tree their was to make free will possible.

I don't believe he put the serpent there. Lucifer had free will as did we. He too was given the responsibility of freedom.

sounds good to me. Why can't God value those things as well in his creation. I doubt that you can reduce the value of creativity to this, but arguably it contributes to it's importance.

that's all that is necessary for my arguement. It is wonderful. It is a reason for freedom. God didn't have to create creative beings, but creativity is good thus it is a worthy reason to do so.

and my arguement wasn't that free will makes creativity necessary but creativity makes free will necessary.

I don't know if you'd go here either but I'll mention this just in case. It is part of the formula. Free will in and of itself does not gaurantee creativity will exist.

not at all. I'm not making an arguement for the existence of God, just for the goodness of creativity. Calling it divine was a way to show that it was good. Of course it's also to show how creativity is a part of the image of God, which in a theistic world view is good in and of itself.

I don't intend to prove God's existence here, but of course in defending God's use of free will in creation I'm going to presume God's existence.

none of that was relevent to what I was suggesting. I say free will is necessary for creativity and that is not something you touched. You argued against a reversal of that, creativity is necessary for free will, but I have no interest in such a statement as I don't believe it.

a man choking is in and of itself a bad thing with no redeeming qualities. Free will is amoral in that no evil necessarily comes from it.

But it makes good things possible as well as bad things. Possibilities though are not realities.

there is nothing wrong with starting out this way as long as it leads to something substantive. the substance I've offered are the four reasons I've given. Certainly biologists can look at an organ in an animal they don't know the use of and conclude, "well, it's got one so it probably has a use." and after research, that may bear some fruit. the bottom line is does it bear fruit and the answer is it can. It doesn't always, but it can.

mosts atheists are humanists and most humanists would understand the value of consciousness. Einstein said that one of the most wonderous things in the universe was that entities within it could comprehend it (very rough paraphrase).

[qoute]It seems that you may be making the same error as another poster who argued that, if god did not grant Adam and Eve free will, we would complain[/quote]

I agree that that is silly but I don't see the parrallel.

It doesn't beg the question. It is subjective. I like having a mind that can wander and ponder and that gives rise to a whole host of intellectual abilities. If you don't like that as well, I don't think I could explain it. But to me it is very powerful.

many values reduce to unexplainable preferrences.

for example, pleasure is good in and of itself. That you could come up with some survival reasons for pleasure (eating a candybar gives us sugar which supplies energy) doesn't take away from the good that is within itself.

but can you think the way that humans do without free will? that is my point.

all-good doesn't mean that something couldn't be better.

a world with free creatures could be a good world, but it couldn't be a world with creatures who love, create, think, and resemble God (keep in mind, this question presumes his existence) to the same degree that a world with creatures with free will could.

no, it is a description of the way people are. If you want to know who someone is, your going to buy a biography, right? what is a biography? It's a history, that tells you who someone is and what there significance is.

we are individuals. who knows how many variables there are to take into account.

lets say this. The more choices, quality choices you make in obedience to God, the better heaven will be, the more you will be at home in heaven. If you accept Jesus on your death bed, you've missed out on a life of growth to be had for him. perhaps the loss of the libertarian aspect of free will for you would be a little bit more of a lobotomy than for someone who was for instance a christian in communist china where they gave up their lives for christ.

I believe that there is such a point where one is set for the rest of there lives this side of death. I don't know that everyone would reach it. Heaven would be better.

The life long racist who changes his ways may have been hardened, but not to a permenant degree.

I didn’t think that you meant this jail example as an analogy for heaven. Are you sure you did?

I don’t see how it is. But I don’t think you understood what I wrote. Let me rephrase it. Omniscience simply means to know everything. The hidden assumption is that the truth of the matter about everything is frozen and settled and unchangeable.

God knows everything, but is everything there is to know an unchangeable set of facts, or can new facts be created as reality changes? I’d say if it isn’t real, it can’t be an object of knowledge. Thus if some some certainties do not exist, they cannot be known as certainties.

fine with me. But there is a fact of the matter about everything that exists.

that’s contradictory. Knowledge isn’t knowledge unless it’s true.

I am suggesting that you may have a vague idea of some the possibilities that lie in your future, but God knows precisely every possibility that exists in your future as well as every certainty.

nope, at most your friend and God knew it at the same time. God has exhaustive definite present knowledge. But the future is filled with multiple possibilities.

sure it’s of consequence. You may have have a choice of A B or C but God knowing your heart may know that once you no matter how much you consider C, you won’t pick it, thus only A or B are the real options.

I don’t know. A psalm says that all our days are numbered. But I don’t believe that this is an absolute. God told Hezekiah that he would die very soon and Hezekiah wept and prayed that God would change his mind on this. God gave him 15 more years. God may have planed the day or your death but God’s plans can be thwarted (because some of his plans require our obedience) or God may change his mind and he does that for those who love him or for those who were in a relationship with him but rebelled from him.

not in an indeterministic world. Or only in as much as chaos is deterministic (I’ve heard that there are some fractals that are representative of indeterminism, but that may not be indeterminism as I would define it.

If there are some quantum magnifiers involved and quantum mechanics are truly indeterministic, then God cannot know what will happen apart from his devine intervention. Otherwise, the most he can know about that brick are the probabilities of what it might do, and that is far from insignificant knowledge.

If the motion of that brick is purely deterministic, an omniscient God will know every swivel, every pause, every moment of acceleration and deceleration that the brick will go through and so on.

I don’t quite follow you. My respense to this whole statement as I understand it would be yes and no.

God can know probabilities because probabilities can describe indeterministic events.

[/quote]

God of course. If he set them up as truly indeterministic, then all the facts to be known about these laws would include both certainties and uncertainties.

better. Your wife may think that tomorrow for breakfast, you may have eggs or oatmeal but not both, and it will be very close to the truth, close enough that we could say that she knows you pretty well. But God may know that there’s a %38.585 chance that you will have eggs and a %58.77 chance that you will have oatmeal and a 2 % percent chance that you will have something else and a %.003 chance that you will have both because God knows you exhaustively and he knows everything about you there is to know. (I know these don't add up to 100, I'm too lazy to work that out

you see the only difference that it makes is that it indicates that there is a fact of the matter as to what you choose, but regardless of God’s knowledge, there is either a fact of the matter about the certaintity of your future choices or there isn’t. The existence or non existence of that fact of the matter is where the road meets the rubber. The issue of God’s knowledge is one step removed from that. It has implications for the meat and potatoes of the issue but it is not itself the meat and potatoes.

logic does describe those limits, but I’m of the opinion that anything beyond those limits is nonsense. Could God have created a world in which there were circles that were in no way shape or form or in any way you describe them to be circles? The question is meaningless because it goes out of the bounds of what can be real. I think that it is self evident why the question is meaningless. I don’t see any reason why we can’t view omnipotence as perfectly coherent and rational concept but insisting that it means the ability to do something beyond the limits of reality is trying to win a debate through definition.

I’m not sure what the relevance of the point is.

that is all that I intended to do.

I figure it’d be self evident to a person. The better the love the better. Love makes life worth living and it’s loss is often a most grievous tragedy. If you don’t see this, there is not much that I personally can do to demonstrate it further.

one of the many advantages we have over animals.
as I said, apart from the other reasons that contribute to this one, It is the artists choice. God is not a machine that everything he does is necessitated.
without self determinism, it isn’t truly creative, but just copying.

That it is not a necessity in itself does not mean that it is not intrinsically good. As a matter of fact, necessity may be at odds with something that is good in and of its self.
then our existence would be less genuine.
What do you mean you had none from the beginning? As a baby? I don’t know if that’s true or not but though existence as a baby may be a good thing, it is part of a process of development that is essential to being human, and part of that process takes us through an important stage of making choices.
some. But I find that sometimes reasononing involving a subjective element can be more powerful than reasoning devoid of it. As long as it is coherent, I see no assault on rationality with regards to that.

Of course without it being purely objective, not everything is laid out on the table for all to see with ease, and my hope is that the subjective would be intersubjective, and if I could not get show the truth of it to you directly, perhaps I can poke around at the edges of it and you might discover it yourself. So dialogue is still of much worth.

And if it’s not within you, then it is up to the spirit of God to give it to you, and I have fulfilled my responsibility as best as I could.

Wyz_sub10

God's need are human needs? What kind of unique, omnipotent being needs children or a wife?

God doesn't live a "life" that needs to be defined by human values - he does not grow old or learn or self-actualize. He needs none of the things you mention.

I had to re-read this statement twice.

First time I have ever heard this statement with regards to Christianity.

But let's say here and now, that if god is a person just like me, he is not omniscient, omnipotent, worthy of worship, or able to control everything. It renders most of this discussion meaningless.

Can god be killed? Can god make mistakes? Can god learn and grow?

So god needs love, but god does not need us?

God is not a person in any sense of the definition. This position is simply not sustainable under scrutiny. God may have human characteristics conveniently assigned to him at times, but what makes you think god is a person? Is he flesh and blood? What's his biology like?

What does being an atheist have to do with understanding necessity??

Is this simply an example? Because A being sufficient cause of B does not make B a cause of anything, certainly not A.

Come again? If A is a sufficient cause of B, it does not follow that A *necessitates* B.

Correct, if we are speaking of the premise "A necessitates B".

'Necessitate' simply means to make necessary.
A makes B necessary.

You're the one who said that our love for god was not necessary. I conceded this, in part, as I continued to explain what was necessary. I'm not sure of the intent of your example.

The necessity of our love has been commented on below, but it is interesting that you say our love arises from within, and not from god. I dare say at least a half-dozen theists on this board would disagree with you.

But if love can come from within, then why not goodness, charity, creativity, righteousness? God, therefore, is not necessary to imbue us with anything, is he?

I'll assume you are not implying that I am hateful or indifferent to god, because of course you would know that, as an atheist, I think god is fictitious and imaginary.

It is irrelevant what the Israelites do. God has still made the demand. If I rebel against god's demands, does that remedy the injustice of those demands?

Also, what about the mention of other gods? Is god acknowledging there are other gods?

I don't deny "human nature". I deny that god is human or should be governed by human nature.

Human nature is based on evolution. I doubt god, under your definition, was subjected to the evolutionary process.

Once you relinquish the divinity of god, there is little left to Christianity.

But that's the whole point of the OP - god's reasons.

I suppose that's true, but he *did* create us, so it's irrelevant what he would have done otherwise. Now that we're here, he has to love us, so his love means less than Jim or Sally's.

Possibly. But the idea of eternal damnation is still the one most propogated by major Christian denominations, so it is still an influence for Christians. If you throw this out, you'd still be in the minority among Christian thinkers.

"Never meant to be?" Then god made a mistake?

Where is hell described as being for rebellious angels and not for man?

Possible, again. But what substantiates this claim? It is possible that without god things are better.

As for Paul's words, they do not imply a joyless existence without god. I can fill a glass with water. That does not imply (as you descibed above with your A/B example) that it is necessary for *me* to do so or the glass can never be filled.

If god created all, then god created failure and sin, if only through the faulty mechanisms that allowed this.

Yes, for you. You are simply assuming that these reasons are equally worthwhile for god. You argue that this must be true, because that's the way it is in practice.

What does creativity and higher love mean to a solitary, impoverished man living in the slums of Calcutta, foraging through the filth in the streets for a morsal or food? Thank god he has that free will, though!

I cannot accept that an eternal omnipotent being requires love or the need to express himself. These are evolutionary products that god would not be subjected to.

Where was mercy in the days of Noah? Apparently god *did* decide to scrap almost all of it and begin from scratch. He could have spared a lot of horrible deaths but waving his hand and simply "fixing" Adam and Eve.

Where did the sin come from? Where did the snake come from? You cannot simply asbolve god of all responsibility. If all things come from him, then surely there is some obligation on his part for what follows.

What is the substantiation for this belief?

So the devil put the snake there? As above, what supports this statement? Lucifer is mentioned 1 on the OT, but not as the devil. Nowhere do we read about a war of angels of Lucifer as satan. This seems to be mythology that arose quite some time later.

God can value whatever he values. My point was that creativity is not a necessary product of free will - it does not have to exist. You speculate that it contributes to importance, but there is no reason to think that it, in itself, is of any importance.

I think this undermines your argument. Music is wonderful, but it is not necessarily good or bad. Rather, a product of our evolution allows our brain to interpret music in a way that makes it palatable and desirable. But it does not follow that just because the product (creativity) is 'good' that the source (free will) is 'good'.

Agreed. So why use creativity as a prop-up for free will?

That's the problem. Calling it divine to show it's good presupposes divinity, and also assumes a link between divinity and goodness. Similarly, I could argue fire is good because the All-Powerful Pink Dragon breaths fire. Would you accept such rationale?

Exactly. That's the problem. You have to demonstrate the worth of free will independently because you are trying to validate it independent of god. You can, of course, suppose there is a god, but you cannot use god to demonstrate free will is good. If you do, you have a circular argument - god is good, god created free will, therefore free will is good. You must instead show that free will is good, which will then allow us to reconcile it as a product of a good entity.

I argued no such thing.

From my previous post: "Animals have a huge degree of free will, but relatively little (and in some cases, arguable no) degree of artistic or technical creativity. It is indeed a significant aspect of human achievement, but it is not necessary for free will"

I don't see how you reason that I was argument the opposite of what I stated.

To begin with, many theists would say that a certain degree of malevolence is necessary for a comparable degree of benevolence. Would you disagree?

Also, aren't you arguing that free will is good, in part, because it is a source of creativity? Now you are saying that free will is not good or bad, but amoral. I realize that you have stated before that free will may give rise to problems but that the trade-offs are worth it.

But if so, then why look only at the positives of creativity and not the negatives? Because creativity has good aspects and bad aspects we can then reformulate your satatement to say that free will is amoral because creativity is amoral. Not a very persuasive argument.

True, except for the fact that in differentiating creativity from non-corporeal form you feel inclined to introduce the needs of the priesthood. This is not one of your four points. So what's the relevance? The relevance, if I may offer, is that the priesthood's arguments are the circular ones, perhaps.

Not true, We have many organs that are of no use to use whatsoever. Your appendix is of no use to you. There is a reason we have it, but it is that we once used it. There are many things in biological composition (which is the perfect comparison) that are useless to the organism. One of the principles of evolution is that structures to not form to address or problem or to serve a specific purpose. Usage is retrospective.

Well, that is a wonderful thing - for me here and now. I can value consciousness to myself because I have it. I also value my wife because I 'have' her. Does that mean someone without a wife has less value in their life?

The parrallel is that you ask me if I value something that, if I didn't have, I would be none the wiser. I can value something only if I can understand being without it. In this case, I cannot. I cannot be in a situation where I would "miss" consciousness because I would have no consciousness to consider my situation.

It begs the question because, in effect, the statement you were refering to is saying "if we didn't have free will we wouldn't have free will."

I agree. You are saying that allowing your mind to wander is like the candy bar - it "tastes" good. But some foods for survial taste bad. Both tastes can be traced back to the need for survival. Your good and bad "wanderings" cannot be traced back to a need for anything. That doesn't mean the goods provided by free will should be thrown away (I don't think anyone is saying that). Rather, that they are not reasons, in themselves, to allow free will.

Without *any* free will? Yes, we could be doing everything we are doing now and it could seem free, but was really guided by god - like a puppet on a string. You may say, yes, but who wants to be a puppet? Well, if I was never any the wiser and knew it would keep me from killing people and given eternal bliss, then sure, why not?

Besides, even if I concede that I can think of no way, does not mean that god couldn't (that is what we are trying to answer, after all). I think free will exists because it could be no other way for sentient beings. But "no other way" handcuffs god in a way that seems inconsistent with his power.

Yes it does. If it could be better, than a degree of "badness" exists. If that is the case, then it is not all-good.

Why not? I mean, this world would lack love (but also hate), creativity to good (and bad), thoughts of beauty (and wickedness). It seems to me that these things intoduce proporational degrees of bad and good. It makes it worse in the process of making it better.

You are attaching someone's persona (and their significance) to the choices they make. This might make a person more complex, but it is an assumption to say that a person must make a set amount of choices to be actualized. A person born in a coma and dying in a coma 5 years later made very, very few choices, but they are certainly a person with a history.

I'm not talking about variables. I'm talking about your rationale that choices are necessary to define one's life. If you feel this is true, then you must *at least* believe that one choice is necessary. This is what I am challenging.

So I guess babies and the comatose are SOL, huh? BTW, what reasoning leads to this? Why quantity and not quality?

How does any of this matter once I'm in heaven? What am I truly missing once I get to live in eternal bliss with god?

I'm reluctant to judge the choices of others, but as an atheist, I think it's foolish to give up your life for Jesus. I do not think it's foolish to give up your life for others, though.

I don't believe there is such a point, and I don't see the rationale for believing so.

This is the "no true Scotsman" argument - you could simply use this response for every single case that contradicts your theory of "point of no return."

You orginally stated that eternal fate is still free because you had libertarian freedom throughout your life to get you to where you are now. My point was that you have freedom, you lose it and go to jail, you cannot say you still have freedom because you *once* did. You countered by saying that you still have a degree of freedom. I replied that, if you are correct, then there is no "point of no return". Jail is not an analogy for heaven as much as an anology of our eternal fate.

I am saying that this is not a hidden assumption of the definition of omniscience. You sound like you are saying omniscience does not really exist. (Which, by the way, I agree with).

I agree with your last sentence, which is why I feel that god is not omniscient. You might say god knows an awful, awful lot, but he does not know everything.

You said god would know how many bites it took me to eat a meal. I said that I did too - 0 to infinity. There is no "knowledge" here - just an acknowledgement of the impossibility of knowing. What you seem to be saying is that, once it happens, god will have known it. So does he know the future or doesn't he? Retrospective omniscience sounds like the guy who always says, "I was going to say that" while watching Jeopardy.

Knowing every possibility would involve knowing all of my future decisions, but you said he couldn't have such knowledge. Instead, you may be saying that he knows of all the possibilities, regardless of my decisions. That is not knowledge of any significance. That is just "knowing" everything that comes to mind. As much as my mind could spit out becomes "knowledge".

Let me give you an example - My mind comes up with the idea that I will eat a piece of the moon tomorrow. Has god considered this? Maybe, but maybe he *knows* this is not a possibility. How? If he *knows* that, then he also knows that I won't come up with some fanatstic why to make this happen. Doesn't that put limits on my creativity? If only a *some* choices are possible, then are creativity isn't so "creative", but a set number of possible creatove outputs.

Cop out! If they knew at the same time, then he was not offering new information to god. If he did not offer new information then he was not the source, nor was there any changes in the breadth of knowledge god had.

If both are true, his decision was not really a decision and the future was known (...or there *is no* future, and god is always at the present).

This is inconsistent. Does god *know* or not? If yes, then we are back to square one. If no, then his intuition is irrelevant.

If god's plans can be thwarted then maybe I can circumvent heaven and hell altogether? Why would an omniscient being change his mind? Does he err?

Many things are deterministic at the level of minutia, but for the sake of discussion, as long as we both agree that god supposedly knows everything to this level.

At the quantum level, randomness exists, but at the "macro" level, predictions can be made with certainty. There is, as I once read, an extremly low probability that "your car will ooze through your garage and appear on the other side." But again, we can agree that you are saying god knows "macro" and not quantum.

I'm just trying to succintly capture your understanding of god's knowledge.

But the limits of quantum mechanics are that we cannot know, say, speed *and* location of an object. You are saying that god devised a system that he could not later understand - kind of a "doomsday" device?

This is an interesting view. God cannot know the future (nor can my wife), but god knows me well enough to come closer than my wife at guessing the future. Is this correct?

Okay...if I am free to choose my breakfast, how does god assign the odds better than my wife would? If he truly does not know the future - but does know all the possibilities - how does he weigh the possibilities? If I truly possess free will, then my deck is not "stacked" in any measurable way. This *could* be true if all outcomes were equal (that is to say, god knows of 156 possibilities and my wife knows only 72), and each had the same % of possible outcome. Having one be more likely indicates something about the slant of my future choice.

Well, I'm neither omnipotent nor omniscient, so I cannot answer that question with any certainty. But we do know that the bounds of what logic dictates as real or not is being challenged all the time. It may be possible, even if I cannot tell you how. The burden would be on me to prove this possibility if I was arguing for it.

I'm not. Rather, I am saying that if you want to define omnipotence as everything to this limit, because this limit is absolute, then the burden shifts to you.

Not at all. Not even close.

I think it's relevant because you are attributing the highest *possible* power to god. If we cannot agree as to what the highest *possible* power is, then it becomes a key issue. I may say that your god can logically exist, but may be superceded in power. If you deny that he can, then you have to be certain that your definition of the highest *possible* power is accurate.

You initially made an argument that sovereignty
was different than power - that god could chose 'A' over 'B' if it was in his power to do so. I responded that this is the crux of the OP. Saying that he could have chosen anything does not address why he did. But perhaps this line of discussion is of no further relevance.

Yes but you are mixing in a bunch of things here -
"love makes life worth living". So does pleasure. So does self-actualization. But life may be worth living because of the alternative - because of self-preservation.

But let's digress for a moment.

You ask - why do we have laws?
I respond - to maintain order.

This questioning *can* continue (why do we need order, etc.) but it need not if we agree on the impetus. That is to say, if we agree that we need order, then the question is adequately answered (we don't need to know why we need order to understand the role of laws).

But here the question is:
OP - why do we have free will?
You - to allow for a greater love.

This questioning *should* continue unless you can get agreement on the *need* for a greater love. We may want a greater love, we may benefit from a greater love, but it does not give a reason why free will is necessary.

"So", you may say, "it isn't *necessary*, but it is a good reason for free will." Perhaps. But then we return to a former point - if it allows higher love it may allow for deeper hatred. Is this truly a "better" situation? Haven't we just extended the boundaries on both ends?

But animals do just fine. Plus, there are no animal wars and, I would assume, few animal serial killers. This *might* be a benefit to having a "fuller" life , but not necessarily to having an organized society, or as an absolute benefit to our existence. (In any case, a "fuller life" is a relative and intangible quality).

Fine. Then if it is amoral, how can you be sure it's better to have it than not have it? I know you gave reasons, but each has a downside. You cannot say "it's good to have free will" and then say "free will is neither good nor bad". If it's neither good nor bad, then we could have it or not have it. We are no closer to answering the OP.

Is this a clinical definition of dreaming? My dreams, as I can usually recall them, introduce characters, involve places and objects I am unfamiliar with, feature creatures that do not really exist, take real issues and intertwine them with fiction. Is this not a creative process? Is a story not being created anew here?

I agree. That is why I am saying that creativity, as a reason for free will, is weak because one could possess free will without ever having deeper love, creativity, a comtemplative mind, etc.

To who, exactly? How would one ever measure this. Maybe our existence *is* less genuine than it could be. Maybe everything *is* being directed transparently by god, and you're none the wiser. You cannot qualify this argument.

First of all, a baby is human. Period. Nothing in our development is essential to being human. We are human from day one of our existence, regardless of what follows, regardless of the number of choices we make or are able to make.

Second, I was refering to the beginning of humanity. If god have never allowed choice in the beginning of humanity (or living creatures), humanity would not miss it unless they could reference it elsewhere.

A subject element is unavoidable in reasoning and it is welcome in persuation, of course. But one must recognize that subjectivity is inherently malleable and, as such, is not the best material when trying to provide evidence.

But if it is subjective, then it cannot be a truth applied beyond oneself. I can come to know what you see as truth, but it is not the way truth looks to me because we cannot agree on the evidence. Yet I could see truth provided by someone else if there was objective evidence that would satisfy the challenges.

Well, there is much within me, but whatever is not cannot be imbued by a non-existent entity. I say that not to be provocative, but to maintain my position.

There is something important that you must understand about this discussion - it is a discussion of free will as it relates to god, the consequences of free will, and Christian theology.

It is not a discussion on whether atheists believe that free will is good, creativity is welcomed, or love makes life better. I love music and art, I value my ability to choose, and I love my wife beyond belief. But if you are going to argue that there is a god that we should be thankful to, and this god has 'x' characteristics and has made 'y' decisions, then you should expect those things to come under challenge when there is no tangible evidence to support them.

I want to be clear that we are talking about the logistics of the Christian god granting free will, and not whether atheists value free will, love, etc.

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winstonjen

God values free will so that he can place the blame on us when he sends us to Hell.

Wyz_sub10

I think there is an element of the above argument that god uses free will to shift the blame for our ultimate fate.

"It wasn't my fault you burned your hand, little one. I simply left the stove on and a footstool nearby while you were left unattended."

Stephen T-B

Theist arguments about an omnipotent god being consistent with free will are convoluted to the point of being incomprehensible for one simple reason: there isn’t an omnipotent god, and free will is largely - if not totally - delusional.
Is it not the case that every decision we take, every occasion on which we “exercise our free will,” involves a process of determining the costs and benefits of a particular course of action followed by an evaluation of how those costs and benefits weigh up? And what we bring to this process in terms of who and what we are disposes us to make the choice we eventually make? Is it possible to act out of character, that’s what I want to know.

Jamie_L

Furthermore, if God does care about free will so much, why does he give us so little information to work with? You can't have an effective weighing of costs and benefits if you don't know all the costs and benefits.

Why isn't God sending angels down to give us the real scoop. Heck, why isn't God coming down to make sure my choices are made with eyes wide open? For someone who values my free choice so much, he doesn't seem all that concerned with making sure I have the info I need to exercise that free will.

Jamie

Butters

EXACTLY!
This is my problem with the garden of Eden story.
Adam and Eve did not know good from evil before they ate the apple. Since Christians like analogies, here is mine.

You take a toddler, put it in a room full of toys.
Sit it down in front of a shiny loaded pistol. Tell the child, "play with anything in here except this pistol, or you will die." The child WILL die (unless it misses, not an option for A&E).
Whose fault is it? The child knows it has been told not to play with it, but does not comprehend WHY not, or what those consiquences really mean.
Now if you put a disturbed teenager in the room with them, that you know is evil, what do you expect then? And if you are God and know the future, well, WTF?
Free will my ass.

Wyz_sub10

I started a new thread in "General Religios" dealing with the issue of free will and obedience.

I don't think it's attracted a nibble yet.