horhang

I have been following the discussion of the poe of late and I always run into what I call the problem of heaven. I have spent about 20 minutes trying to put it into a discussion form to make it easy to follow. the questions are mine, the answers are traditional responses I have received in the few times I have engaged in the discussion with Christians I know. I know the arguement could be stronger and would welcome suggestions in bolstering it. But as I have managed to formulate it from my encounters here it is

Q: God is Omnipotent Omniscient and Omnibenevolent?
A: True

Q: God wants all to be saved?
A True

Q: God wants a moral universe where we have choices?
A: True

Q: God created Lucufer?
A: True

Q: God knew Lucifer would lead man to sin?
A: True

Q: God wants all to be saved?
A: True

Q: The wages of sin is death, by sin sufferring enterd the world?
A: True

Q: Heaven is a moral place?
A1: true
A2: false

If A1 then god could have skipped the whole earth phase and all the unsaved in hell bit
and simply created heaven populated by the saved

If A2 then what is the point of the moral universe if the ultimate goal is an unmoral
existence

I know there is a lot of work to be done filling in the blanks and would appreciate any help you can offer, but it seems to be, at least I think it is, a powerful counter to the free will defense to the POE.
any imput would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

Jobar

Hello horhang, and welcome to II. Let me number your questions, so as to make reference and discussion easier.


I note that some may disagree with your answer for #5, and I doubt any would agree with your A2 for #8; however, I think the PoE is far more acute with the existence of heaven figured in, just as you say.

Tercel

I see no problem...

How about going back one step:
"Q. Heaven is a place?"
I also object to question number "5".
But okay, lets go with A1.

Er... how?
You assume that God knows prior to a person's creation whether or not they will be saved: I deny this.
You also seem to be ignoring the question of "What makes heaven a moral place?". The answer in my opinion is that it contains moral people. But if God just created people in heaven they wouldn't necessarily decide to be moral.

xeren

Why do you deny this? In your view of God, does he not know the future?

Just curious, because many Christians posit that God is "outside" of time and that he exists at all points in time, from our view. What then is your belief?

-xeren

Paperstreet

Given an eternity to do anything, you will do at least 1 immoral act. Unless you are God, immorality comes with freewill. (sounds a lot like, given an eternity in the Garden of Eden, they would eventually do the one "bad" thing)

So Heaven HAS to be a place where free will is taken away, if no immoral things are done by immoral beings.

Sassenach

If god does not know if a person will be saved or not, that means he doesn't know everything. If he doesn't know everything, how can you be sure he knows anything? How can you be sure he knows "good" will triumph over "evil"?

fides

And I believe according to standard Catholic doctrine there is no free will in heaven, just the eternal vision of God.

And on the flip side, there is no free will in hell either, just the eternal absence of the vision of God.

Once you have died free will is gone.

Jobar

horhang:
If A1 then god could have skipped the whole earth phase and all the unsaved in hell bit and simply created heaven populated by the saved

Tercel:
Er... how?

Er... omnipotence? Or are you saying He could not do this?

Spenser

If heaven is filled with a bunch of God Fearing bible thumpers then it sounds like my own personal hell. Great, I'm screwed either way.

No free will in heaven? What, that sounds like hell too. Great!

Er, rather than repeat what every one else has said to further the redundancy, I'll quote my friend Corolla (another in the long line of the Toyota family). He said:

God by the Xian definition knows everything, this would have to include the future otherwise he would not be omnipotent. Impotent maybe, but not a know it all.

My friend Lexus on the other hand has a different opinion but much better handling. I just might go into that later. Great!

Sci_Fidelity

This doesn't relate to the problem of heaven directly, but to that of free will on earth.

Just playing devil's advocate for a moment, I think it is possible an omni-max god would not have to know the future. Being omnipotent, he could easily "block" knowledge of our future choices, enabling true free will, while still knowing the overall nature of future events, allowing prophesy. Does this make sense?

Or, given that we already know there are literaly hundreds of errors and contradictions in the bible, couldn't he just be misrepresented?