Wyz_sub10

That's super.

But to address the point - does a person who has never heard the gospel, and has never had the opportunity to hear the gospel, have a chance to enter heaven under any circumstances?

If you are saying that no one who has not heard "god's word" can enter heaven, then your comments are irrelevent to this statement.

The "gospel", itself, does not provide salvation. If so, we are all saved if the gospel exists. It's the reponse to hearing the supposed word of god that matters.

Therefore, "what they did with them" is entirely relevant to how they are judged.

The quotes are interesting, but what does this actually say? You are using this to defend against the idea that one is actually in more jeopardy if given the *chance* to reject the gospel.

I don't see how the above relates to this premise. Again, a man is born, lives, and dies on a deserted island, with no contact with the outside world.

What happens to him when he dies?

hinduwoman

Ome muslim argued that Christ's saying that "there are many mansions in my father's heaven" means that non-christians will be saved. She was of course referring to muslims, but it is an interesting point.
Any comments?

Philosoft

I'll tell you, arguments from scripture are wasted breath. It should come as no surprise that I regard, "You should believe implausible state-of-affairs A because the Bible says so" only fractionally greater than, "You should have blind faith in A."

So I've been told. Does God regard all failures equally, even my honest attempt to seek the truth?

Actually, the state of the universe (in a general sense) at Planck time and after is not in much dispute. I often find it remarkable that non-Cosmologists are able to dismiss the work of professionals with little more than a hand-wave, thereby implicating the entirety of cosmology as delusion or conspiracy. But this is neither the time nor place for pure science; we need to agree to disagree for the moment.

God, being God, could arrange it so that every person accepted creation as proof of his existence. This statement presents no logical contradiction, thus it is do-able by an omnipotent being.

Hypothetically, how am I responsible for the development of a decision making process that is largely influenced by events beyond my control?

I certainly don't remember making the decision to become a skeptic.

Heh. Speaking of courtrooms and plausible deniability...

What is this decision-making mechanism that is separate from my life's influences? How does it work?

Except when he's not.

Wrong or right, "society" applies a vastly different standard of responsiblity to serial killers than does psychology.

Obviously, I don't. In any case, this is a statement of conceit. It is meaningless without an objective standard, and there are 4 billion non-Christians who will testify that, whatever standard you do have, it is certainly not objective.

My choices and actions are ultimately of no consequence. God gets what he wants most, by definition.

I'll only be aware of what God makes me aware. It's obviously important to God that I suffer his absence, otherwise I wouldn't.

Don't let the Southern Baptists hear you say that.

Well, he's not very good at making me aware of such offers.

In other words, there are no honest atheists?

I neither said nor implied this, and you are surely aware of that, having read my post.

Okay, I can play this game too. You have sufficient fear of death to ignore the dearth of evidence for God's existence. How's that? Does it apply to you? No? Gosh, how is that possible?

I have never before seen "persistently investigate" as a euphemism for "accept on faith."

You don't suppose they were on to something, do you?
Yeah, I gave up thinking with my heart a long time ago.

Just_An_Atheist

"The above is logical but the seemingly incongruent presupposition (to which I obejcted) it is based upon must be addressed before I could agree to it all. On an aside, are you suggesting that there should be more believers? "

Then you must reject compatibalism, because everything I said was consistent with the compatibalist interpretation. You must have a different conception of free will in mind here.



"Isn't that a paraphrase of what I wrote? Creating robots, regardless of said robots final destination, negates free-will. I think we are agreed on this. "

Yes, but how divine foreknowledge can be reconciled with free will is exactly what is at issue. Earlier, I mentioned that you might be able to reconcile free will with divine foreknowledge by an appeal to compatibalism, but it doesn't seem to be a live option for theists.


"I'd agree except that allowing two methods, and two methods only, for describing the battle between causality and free-will is so obviously and foundationally flawed to the point that it is a self-evident mistake that needs no further prosecution from me. That is, I do not need to prove the issue transcends two methods, or add a third method, to say such creates a false dichotomy; it is a prima facie assertion. I'm not trying to opt-out on a technicality but I think the over-simplification of this issue is detrimental to our discussion if allowed to persist. "

Actually, it seems that the opposite is true. Everything in decision making process seems to refer to causation. For instance, if I move my finger, how could I move it except through causation? What third option could there even be? Even if it is the result of the "supernatural", the word "result" resembles' the word "generate", which implies causation.




"Yes, you can still be free even if your arm, surprisingly, shoots into the air. Folks w/ disabilities can demonstrate this well enough. As such, not all acts are reasonable or voluntary. "

That was the point, an uncaused event isn't free.


"it would mean that involuntary acts, like one's hands suddenly grabbing the sky, would be acausal. This does not hold. Even though I am unfamiliar with all the philosophical terminology, I do understand, conceptually, the difference between willful causation and physiological causation. The latter can easily cause the arm shooting into the air without need for the former."

Maybe, but you must present a case where a completely uncaused event is "free". I didn't say that everything is the result of a physical causes or it isn't, but that everything must be the result of a cause of some sort, or they're not.




"Being such that understanding or comprehension is difficult or impossible; incomprehensible"

"to which I would disagree with regards to a description of God's traditional qualities. Is it impossible to understand that God knows all things? Most children have no problem understanding this. But all of this aside, isn't whether God is/can be omni-max a debate for another day, another place? I thought we were discussing free-will in the context of God's allowance for evil to occur and/or for man's self-determination with regards to his final destination. If this is so, we have to allow for God's traditional attributes to be admissable, which are essential to my argument, for the sake of the free-will defense and our discussion as a whole. Denial to allow this is either unjustly antagonistic or an attempt to redirect to another, seperate issue. Neither of which do I think you intend given my belief that you are both good-natured and honest. So, which discussion is it that you want to have? "

When I say "to know their implications" it would pertain to the implications to how we can still be free, and for God to still have foreknowledge. If talk about how God "transcends time", then a good definition of what that means would be relevant to our present discussion.


"How does soft/weak determinism not apply to God's foreknowledge of our choices? Why must one retreat to extreme compatibilism? I didn't follow your reason as stated in the following clause: "

If God knows everything, then he can't be wrong by definition. All of our actions are unavoidable, which contradicts the incompatibalist definition, and any definition at all that makes a choice avoidable. That only leaves compatibilism.

Cross Examiner

Hello to Wyz_sub10 atop the CN Tower, watching the Blue Jays for free.

...some still grasp the important subtleties of an argument.

only that 12 of 12 presumably rational people considered the mountain of circumstantial evidence against OJ's innocence insufficient to return a guilty verdict, demonstrating just how inconsequential evidence can be to we, the amazingly rational animals that are well past deciding important matters with our "hearts".

Cross Examiner

I took a break from this site, thanks for waiting. It's late and I'll be shooting from the hip.

Can't reject compatibalism b/c I don't rightly know what it is--you're the philosopher of religion. I do have an image of free will in my mind. We can draw it out with Chinese water torture or...

Porque no? Um. God knows what you're going to do. You get to decide within the context of his sovereignty. So, you're on a liner en route from New York to Portsmouth, England. Your destination is known but what you do on the ship while in transit is your choice. Dunno, doesn't strike me as complicated.

Free will. You moved your finger because you willed it. Watch this: 123456789. See that? I willed to type 1-9 successively and I completed it. No irrestable natural causation. Free will. Intuitively. Where was this going again?

What uncaused event? No que bueno.

A completely uncaused event? Hm. I like your second sentence. I'll bravely agree that all events are caused. Take the Big Bang for example.

Particle physicists are deducing additional dimensions in addition to the three spatial and one temporal tangible dimensions, up to ten total I hear (notice the decimal harmony in the universe...hm...those metric-system-loving French are on to something!). Wait, what does that have to do with anything? Oh yeah. So, God exists in and beyond (transcends at will) all the dimensions, even the currently "invisible" ones. Or simply, the Universe is contained in God. If God is, then He certainly must be greater than the creation. We can work with that. FYI: its going to be very hot tomorrow. Wear sunscreen.

Whoah. Big jump. You have two doors. You can choose either. You choose the one on the left and pass through. The words above the door say: we've been expecting you. He knows what you'll choose before you choose it yet you still decide. A coworker got a preview of T3 and says it rocks. Arnie for Governor!

Can you send your number again? I've been meaning to call but done lost it.

-Josh

contracycle

You have two doors, and you ponder. I am god, playing the Sims. I fire up my little window that shows me all your internal processes. I see everything that goes in that little lump of jelly. I know which door you are going to choose.... and I put a lava-filled spike trap behind it. Cos I'm a bastard.

Even better, I WROTE the Sims. Not only can I see all the lights going on and off in the grey jelly, I also know hat they mean. Nay - I always knew what they were going to do. So I always knew that this little Sim was going to burn in my spikey lava trap.

The Sim followed its mechanical programming, which I created, and made the choice, which I mandated they would make, and met the fate which I had scripted for them when I made them. And now they are a crispy critter.

How then can the sim have free will? They clearly cannot - they are a toy, like a little plastic army man under a magnifying glass, tortured for the amusement of the torturer.

Cross Examiner

Happy Independence Day Contracycle! Oh wait, you're British? Don't mean to dredge up old, hard feelings mate

Your analogy is funny. I like funny things. Not enough funny things here, you're a credit to the atheist club.

The Sims cannot do more than they are programmed to do, ergo, they are not free. Human mind is capable of unbounded creativity, irrationality etc. Sims, no. What if, before the Sims entered the picture, you created the door that leads to utter isolation for some creatures that rejected you, hated you and wished you ill. Then you created your Sims, in your very image and allowed them to know both good and evil, and they chose evil. You warned them about the result of the evil, that they'd end up walking through our bad door, and told them they didn't have to if they'd trust you for another way, the door of forgiveness and grace, yet they still chose the bad door, of their own volition. Yes, you made them. No, you did not make them choose the bad door and even offered an oft-rejected remedy. What then? If a debtor cannot pay is his obligation null? Or should he seek the remedy he's been commanded to seek?
I like this part, except for the spikey lava trap. Is that supposed to be hell? Heaven=locus of God's goodness. Hell=absence of God's goodness. No red devils with pointy pitch-forks. Caricature only. If I know the Cubs will win (don't laugh) the Series in 03--it doesn't mean that each Cub player will not excercise free will at the plate or in the field. Each will excercise his natural will according to his nature as a baseball player. Swing at a high fastball? Take the low and away slider? Steal second? Throw to the plate or hit my cutoff man? etc. Substitute baseball for cricket to properly contextualize my example if need be. Point is God knows the Cubs will win. He doesn't make them win though, the Cubs and their opponents determine this.
I'll stop beating the free will horse and beat another horse instead. Are you evil or wrong for frying your sim?
Back to the first horse. I'll take the Westminster Confession, courtesy of your fine Island:
"'GOD hath endued the will of man with that natural liberty, that it is neither forced, nor by any absolute necessity of nature determined, to good or evil.' Neither by creation nor by subsequent acts of GOD are man's decisions made for him; he is free to choose for himself."
We have liberty, free will, within the bounds of our nature. Our nature, in and of itself, cannot choose God but God can and does change the nature of each that he draws and each that seeks him truly. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart (Jeremiah 29:13). If you seek with all your heart, God will reveal himself to you and draw you unto his grace. Man is both free and responsible for this much. Now you know, and in knowing, you have become responsible to seek wholeheartedly.

Philosoft

Explain this, please. Because what I read is, "God knows the Cubs will win, but they still have the option to not-win."

HRG

I know something when I have seen sufficient evidence for it. Your unsupported assertion doesn't come close.

Regards,
HRG.