Luiseach

Okay...so God is, once again, implicated as the originator of the sins for which he makes his creatures (and his son) atone. Which brings this discussion back to my original query, the question which contained the claim that Predestination means that everything that happens, happens because God wants it to happen that way, and it couldn't have been different unless God decided it should be.

He has written the script, and we all have to play along; our morality, as his Predestined creatures, is not bound up in the idea of an unfettered free will, but rather of compromised will. Sure, we can choose to be moral or immoral, but God has poisoned the well in various ways; our natures are already corrupt, because he is punishing us all for a crime committed by two beings in the distant past, a crime that he knew would happen, and indeed he facilitated it; we are kept ignorant as to God's motives and plans; and finally, just to rub some salt in our wounds, God dangles the carrot of salvation, even though he has already separated the wheat from the chaff, choosing what he sees as the best of a bad lot, and many of us (despite good works and faith) are predestined to perdition anyway.

Christalmighty...and people actually believe this.


God, then, is the Author of our suffering...we suffer because he wants us to, because he's punishing a woman he created in such a way that she was meant to fall.

I don't see how folks who subscribe to this dotrine can reconcile God's omniscience and omnipotence with the idea of his omnibenevolence.

Wiploc

That's called the second order problem of evil. There's no way they can talk themselves around it. And it applies to all of Christianity, not just Calvinism.
crc

Luiseach

...and is it at this point that they would pull out the 'God moves in mysterious ways' card?

noli

Hmmm....That may not be orthodox within the context of whoever it is caliming to be orthodox, but Orthodoxy (as well as many other christian denominations) teaches that suffering is a natural and accidental result of the Fall.

Calvinistisc denominations which hold to a traducianist view of the soul and that the imputaion of Adam's sin as immediate, believe that each person is not only without volition to do good, but also each person bears full guilt for Adam's sin.

Between the above teaching and Limited Atonement, that Jesus died for only the Elect, I don't see how calvinists can escape the charge of worshipping a god who predestines some of his creation to heaven without choice and others to hell without hope.

Wiploc

At this point they two step, dancing back and forth between incompatible positions.

With first order theodicy, they conveniently forgot that god was supposed to be all-knowing. With second order theodicy, they remember that he is all-knowing, but they covertly redefine "omnipotent" to mean "less than omnipotent," and they undefine "good" entirely. There must be some sense in which god can be good, right? They are happy not to mean anything in particular by the word so as to be able to skip back and forth between meanings.

Four possible types of goodness that might be attributed to god:

1. Dental goodness.
As a dentist causes you pain in order to prevent a greater pain; similarly, god allows suffering in order to prevent greater suffering.

2. Might-makes-right goodness.
God is strong enough to enforce whatever definition of "good" he wants. You'd better agree or he'll hurt you bad.

3. Magical goodness.
If god can do anything, then he can make anything good --- and we humans don't have to be able to see anything good about it.
He can know the future but still have free will; he can be omnipotent but still be unable to defeat iron chariots; he can be perfectly just but still torment people with infinite hellfire; and he can make anything he wants good without having any justification at all. It's just a miracle.

4. Secret goodness.
They admit god looks bad on the evidence, but say that if we knew all the facts, like god does, then we would see that he is really good.


So if the Christian does the dental goodness move, and you point out that an omnipotent could prevent the greater pain without causing the lesser pain, they say god can make anything good he wants because he is the baddest guy on the block.

If you say might doesn't make right, and that if it did they should worship Bill Gates at least a little bit, they say god can magically make anything good.

If you say magical goodness has nothing to do with us, that something has to be actually good for humans in order for humans logically call it good, then they say god is secretly good.

If you point out that they are admitting that god seems bad on the evidence, and that logically we should then conclude that he is actually bad, then they say god only hurts us to prevent greater pain.

That's the goodness two-step. Even Baptists have to dance sometimes.

crc

Wiploc

If I believed in god, and wanted to believe he was good, this would be a really important point. But I still don't see how it could work out. After all, god is the one who designed nature so that sin would be heritable, right?


I can't see how any of us could have any guilt for Adam's sin. I can understand how we could be inferior, damaged goods, so that a nose-in-the-air god didn't want to share heaven with us. But that's different from being guilty. Suppose I'm of Germanic descent, that doesn't make me guilty of Hitler's offenses.


I agree.
crc

Luiseach

I like that: the 'two step,' very good.

Okay. Now I'm beginning to understand the slipperiness of Christian apologetics. This ambivalence in Christian Apologetics...it disturbs me. Why cling to an unviable position, even if it means a loss of coherence and consistency?

I've heard this one...the 'it's for your own good' argument...

Do some Christians actually use this argument to demonstrate God's goodness?

The 'Santa Claus' clause for God's goodness. :-D

Now this one sounds familiar...I've heard this from theists in my own circle of acquaintance IRL. I always think that arguments from this point reveal more than a little uneasiness about the evidence of evil in the world; it's as if there is a difficulty in reconciling an awareness of worldly nastiness with childhood ideas of a loving God. Double-think can result.

This is very clearly written and reasoned. Again, I sincerely thank you for taking the time to outline this stuff for me. It's very good of you to do so.

P.S. I really like the phrase the 'goodness two-step.'

noli

Originally posted by wiploc
If I believed in god, and wanted to believe he was good, this would be a really important point.

Lol.

But I still don't see how it could work out. After all, god is the one who designed nature so that sin would be heritable, right?

It wasn't meant to be an apologia, just a clarification that orthodox christian thought is more than calvinism. Of course if I had seen your last posting to L, than I wouldn't have bothered.

I can't see how any of us could have any guilt for Adam's sin. I can understand how we could be inferior, damaged goods, so that a nose-in-the-air god didn't want to share heaven with us. But that's different from being guilty. Suppose I'm of Germanic descent, that doesn't make me guilty of Hitler's offenses.

Agreed.

fundamental spawn

The explanation of choice, in the circles I used to run in, for the "Problem of Evil" is that the Fall was necessary so that man could know God in his fullness - not only as Creator but as Redeemer.

Thus, Satan in this scenario is a pawn, a concurrent event unwittingly being used to bring about The Plan.