luvluv

a) If you believe you can demonstrate an explicit contradiction between the existence of evil and the existence of God please do so. (You will be the first.)

b) But if those spiritual states are freely chosen by us God is not responsible for them. As you yourself admit, knowing that you will make certain choices is not the same as making them for you.

Wiploc

My "theory" is that god's foreknowledge is supposed to be a miracle. If it took another miracle for god to have the foreknowledge and still leave us free will, an omnipotent god could do that too.

crc

quark

hi I'm new here and I'm still trying to learn english so please ignore my grammatical mistakes...
I agree with krazytamak so it doesn't seem possible to me that 'fate' exists. I've been thinkin about this for a while and I couldn't get the answers of these question in my mind. Hopefully you'll tell your opinion.

- If 'fate' exists, God knows everything, and knows what will be. Why did God create us then? Why not putting us into 'hell' or 'paradise' ? (I don't know what they are really, it doesn't seem logical to me too)
-If we have some kind of free will, then God doesn't know everything we do before we completely do them. So God is not omnipotent?

And this look like a game that happens between 'evil' and God. Some people does things which are forbidden by 'Holy Books', and they say 'Evil faked me' (sorry if I've used a wrong word) I hate this situation.
I don't know if I can explain but it seems that everything we are doing is 'our product'...

malpensante

hi, krazytamak.

i recently read in a book by clifford pickover, called "the paradox of god and the science of omniscience" (omniscience means all knowing), that this problem (of simultaneous omniscience and freewill) is resolved if we take a worldview which is already being taken by some phycisists.

according to these, the universe we see is not the only one that exists. in a unique universe, god cannot change his mind on tuesday if he knew on monday what he was going to do. but in a "parallel universes" worldview, he can.

parallel universes mean that everything that can possibly happen does happen in some universe(s), therefore god knows since the beginning of time what his many presences in the many universes will choose. in other words, by not having to choose between, say, punishing a sinner or not, but instead by choosing both (each choice in a different parallel universes), he need only know what the whole multiverse (the set of all parallel universes) looks like, to be omniscient while having free will.

Philosoft

This might not apply to you specifically, but I think it's germane to the topic. It seems this makes something of a mockery of Christian doctrine - that the singular beings we are and the linear choices we make are part of a divine plan. Presumably, an all-SOA multiverse would guarantee every free-willed being has one pathway of maximal goodness that obtains. If multiple universes allow all states-of-affairs to obtain, which pathway is the one we are judged on?

excreationist

malpensante:
If there are an infinite (or near-infinite) number of parallel universes then I guess there would be an infinite number of New Earths/Heavens/Hells too... (for the dead to go) Or there could be one New Earth/Heaven/Hell and an infinite number of people that go to those places... and there would be a near infinite number of versions like you - that would have alternate lives, and also some people who had the same parents as you, but their DNA is slightly different, but basically the same... should all the people who are approximately the same (where is the line?) be merged into one person, then judged? Then an evil version of you might go to heaven because most versions of you were good...
Also, it would be random as far as which version of yourself you were (e.g. an evil one, etc) so are you really responsible for your eternal destiny?

carbonite

A consistently omitted issue in these discussions is creation. If the creator of all existence is/was omniscient, free will, no matter how (reasonably) it's defined, cannot exist. There is simply no way around this.

luvluv wrote:
"If you believe you can demonstrate an explicit contradiction between the existence of evil and the existence of God please do so."

The existence of a(n) malevolent/impotent god could easily explain the existence of "evil". Are you refering to a god that is either/or?

Darth Dane

Possible solution:

I believe in God.
I don't believe in Time.
God is all-knowing



DD - Timeless Spliff

Philosoft

Solution to what? Certainly not my confusion.

Darth Dane

If I don't believe in Time. Then there is no future and no past, only now.
God is easily all-knowing in this situation wouldn't you say?
If God in my belief is above time, then time is an illusion to God.
God will only see now.
Either way, if I don't believe in time but God, who are anyone to say that Time exists?


Better?




DD - A Better Spliff