NonHomogenized

Just one problem;
If god is omniscient, he knows everything about everyone. He knows every thought they have or have had, why they thought that, and so forth. With that knowledge, he would necessarily know *exactly* how they think, and, as such, would know what someone would do in any given situation.

Therefore, any 'testing' of people by god, or misjudgements he might make about people, or anything like that, would still be unexplained, since he would obviously have foreknowledge of how people would act. This also presents an argument against free will; he could shape any situation to make anyone react exactly the way he would want them to; therefore there isn't *really* free will.

The_Ist

I will get back to you guys when I can, but I'm pretty busy for the next few days (finals + travelling home).

rainbow walking

Hi The_1st
I think your analysis is right on the money but incomplete. For instance, with the proper perspective, the problems you listed can easily be resolved. If you look at humanity from a godlike beings perspective you might find yourself focusing more on historical man’s progress than individual men’s LFW. From this perspective you can see how both a Calvinistic and LFW can reside together within the same framework. If such a being existed and was preoccupied with historical man this would necessitate some intervention at crucial points in man’s history. At these points of intervention you’d find LFW being abrogated in favor of a Calvinistic trend for those individuals whom he chose to effect his intervention on behalf of historical man, while historical man’s LFW continued un-abated. I think this is covered somewhat under the concept of permissive will versus perfect will. Naturally those chosen to effectualize a particular intervention would view themselves as the “chosen” while the remainder of historical humanity felt no such compunction. From this perspective you can see how atheism would be a naturally recurring condition of historical man’s progress.