Jamie_L

In this thread I asked the question: Can God create a person who is both morally pure and has free will?

Here, I'll ask a related but different question:

If God (assuming He exists) wants people to be morally good, why fool with Free Will at all?

If God created people who wanted to be morally pure, what would they, or the universe, be lacking that God wants.

Asked another way, if obedience is so important to God, why does he value the ability to be disobedient?

And, the corollary: If God values the ability to be disobedient, why does he so dislike disobedience itself?

It seems to me that, not only are Free Will arguements shaky in and of themselves, but they also make an unfounded assertion: that Free Will is valuable to God. Given the other properties, desires, and values that God is said to have, it seems to me that valuing Free Will is in conflict with other of those desires. For that reason, it seems that there is some burden of proof for the proponent of a Free Will arguement to show that God does indeed value Free Will. Yet, most of these arguements seem to take that for granted.

Jamie

Philosoft

I've made a similar argument before. It seems like God values a "system" whereby a certain amount of free will and obedience both exist, rather than either one alone. In that light, it certainly does not appear that God much cares about any individual, as long as his conditions for existence are met.

beth

Things are the way they are because the human life is a test or experiment of God's. He wants to see who will follow him blindly and who will learn to think and question him. Only those who allow themselves to be enslaved by god will be worthy enough to kiss his butt for all eternity.

spurly

What does God want? Both. He wants us, out of our free will, to choose to love him and show that love through obedience.

"If you love me you will keep my commandments" -- Jesus (John 15)

Kevin

Jamie_L

Which brings up the next question:

If God is omnipotent, why does he need to use a test to figure out who will kiss his but? Why not just make people who will kiss his but?

Jamie

Jamie_L

But why? Why is freely given obedience from beings he created in the first place so important? If, after the material world has come to its end, God is left only with those who freely chose obedience, why does he need to go through this song and dance of free will? Why not just start with all the people who will obey and love him?

Your quote from John 15, like so many other Biblical quotes reinforces the fact that God wants everyone to love and obey Him. But there isn't much support for the notion that he places high value on Free Will.

So why not just make people who will love and obey him? Because, in the end, that's all he'll be left with anyway.

Jamie

Philosoft

In other words, God doesn't really care what any particular individual does, as long as everything happens within the confines of the system. He's not going to be too upset that I don't happen to love him because, hey, it's the system and those kinds of things happen within the system. Gotta take the good with the bad, or something.

spurly

Without Free Will, love does not exist. Instead the creatures merely become machines programed to love and obey. God wanted a relationship - not a factory.

Kevin

Philosoft

What difference does it make to a "perfect" being, a being who does not lack for anything?

Spaz

God always seems like one of those crazy emo kids

I agree that since all that don't love will be sent to hell it's kinda pointless to have those that won't