Wyz_sub10

Hey geebob, have you left us? Theitist seems gone too.

[ December 17, 2002: Message edited by: Wyz_sub10 ]</p>

winstonjen

It seems that sending 2 people (Adam and Eve) to Hell isn't enough for such a sadistic God.

geebob

hols your breath, I'm posting this and I'm not double checking it.


They may have been forgiven. The bible doesn’t discuss their eternal fate.


[quote]from wyz
Hey geebob, have you left us?[/quote]


I took a day’s break. These epistle length posts are time consuming. I also asked one of your questions to a group of Christians who’d have a good chance of knowing what I didn’t know off hand.



Seems reasonable but the notion that they were significantly more adept at making moral decisions than toddlers because God created them that way in a relationship with him where they understood obedience is perfectly rational as well. They lacked the knowledge of evil but they knew God’s command and merely assuming a psychology of a toddler because of a lack of knowledge of evil is still an assumption.



Why would that necessarily guarantee an outcome? In a deterministic world, such may be the case but in an undetermistic world where our deliberation involves libertarian free choices, assessing the least cost with the most benefit may merely designate the most likely choice that one will pick.

free will defences do successfully shift the blame for evils caused by individuals because the line of causation is interepted and ends not at God but with the individual who sinned. But that does not absolve God from creating free will if that is the only purpose that free will serves. I don’t believe that free will serves such an intention by God but rather the ones that I’ve outlined. God did not intend free will for making evil possible (possible, not certain). That was just a necessary consequence.

I’ve already explained that God meets his own need for love within a social Trinitarian context. God is wholly self sufficient, but he has an essence and part of that, or central to that is love which requires community. God has within himself a community where this love happens.

In creation though, God did not need us, but in creating us to be in an intimate relationship with us, he opened up a vulnerability to us, and he took great personal risk. Not one that would threaten his being, but one in which great grief would be a possibility for him.

When Christianity grew in influence in the Hellenistic world, the intellectuals and leaders sought to use the best thinking of the time to understand many of the concepts that came from judeo-christian thought. This was of significant benefit, but it’s reasonable to believe that some of the choices that they made in this project were wrong. These choices that I would take issue with are the ones that assign the following attributes to God: Immutability (God cannot change in any way shape or form), Specific Sovereignty (God has an exhaustive plan for every single detail in the universe and this plan was fully formed before the creation of the universe), Simplicity (God has no parts), Timelessness (God does not experience temporal sequence from before to now to after), Impassibility (God has no emotions, or at most, he is perpetually happy), and, as we have discussed, that God has Omniscience that involves Exhaustive Definite Foreknowledge (Henceforth EDF) (for every event that can happen in the future, there is only one certainty and no alternative possibilities that can happen).

This view, most notably immutability, timelessness, and impassability, is often at odds with many prima facia readings in scripture that portray God as a living dynamic interacting person who greives and rejoices and Who’s essence portrayed in the incarnate Jesus. They dismiss these as mere anthropomorphisms.

This is the view that has dominated Christian thought usually following either Augustine or Thomas Aquinas. There has always been Christian thinking though that has been contrary to this though usually in the form of some free will theism, although the various proponents of free will theism may still agree with a few of the attributes listed above (except for specific sovereignty of course).

That may be why what I’ve been saying is foreign to your ears, though there has always the alternative view I hold that is biblically consistent and has been promoted by some theologians and in the personal piety of those who worship the personal Jesus.

maybe if God was a human like you because those limits do apply to humans. I see no reason to hold that a personal God is at odds with omniscience, omnipotence. I believe that God has the ability to control everything in as much as he had the ability to create the universe in black and white. He just simply choose not to (of course the reasoning for the choice for creating men with free will is more important than the reasoning in creating a multichrome universe)

You’ve really picked my curiosity as to why evolution has imbued you with preferences towards what kind of God is worthy of worship. Freud provided an answer but interestingly, it would place the preference for a personal God in opposition with what you’ve suggested as the desire for there to be a God is tied with our emotional need from childhood for a father who is greater than us and takes care of us.

I myself believe that only persons are worthy of intense love and everything else is idolatry, and Christianity calls for us to love and Worship God with the most intensity.

There’s no reason to think that God can grow, but if the sum total of the truth to be had of the object to be known changes, then the knowledge of anyone who knows everything about it must also change.

again, humanity and personhood are not always synonyms. If anything, God is more of a person than we are. We are just the copies.

not much. When I read the statement to which this was a response, two things went through my mind. If you’re an atheist, you should know by experience that your devotion to God is not necessary, and I wondered if you know what necessitation means. It was an accident that both of these thoughts ended up in the same paragraph.

To necesstite is to make something necessary. Sufficient, causes/conditions make what they are suffiecent for necessary. They make that what they sufficient for the necessary cause/condition.

the necessity for love from us arises from within. But the love is placed there by God. Since we can reject it, God’s activity does not make it necessary.

I was listing a range of possibilities. There are those who hate God, who are largely indifferent towards him, and atheists, those who don’t believe in him. Your assumption is right.

If coercion negates free will, then the demand is not coercion as people choose to rebel.

As for the injustice of the demand, God created you for himself and sustains your existence and has done everything to make the way possible for you to mend the relationship with him. It is a reasonable demand.

As for the Israelites, God freed them from oppression and was going to lead them into a land where he would take care of them. It was a reasonable demand.

given the range of meaning that the term that “god” may hold, this is reasonable. Notably, the Hebrews at the time were not monotheists but monolatrists who believed that there were other gods but only one supreme one who deserved worship and devotion. Given the spiritual realities that God had spiritual enemies and that men did worship other entities that were called God’s, this did in a sufficient way represent the truth of the matter.

My appeal was to your personal experience of human nature and not to your interpretation of that experience. In explaining my system, of course I presume the truth of my system.

it’s not irrelevent when the choice to create objects of love is the same choice to love him. Now that we’re here, of course he should remain consistent with that love, though I believe that his love was still free in that he could’ve choosen not to redeem us, since love is a two way street. But if he choose to do that, it should’ve been with the first humans because the alternative may have been reprobation and reprobation is an evil action that a righteous God cannot commit. (reprobation is the guarantee of damnation before birth or when we can make a significant free choice worthy of damnation).

amongst the orthodox in the US, specifically evangelical, this may be the case, but I hear that nihialationism (not sure if that’s what it’s called or how it’s spelled) I common amongst Christians outside the US, even orthodox ones.

the source cannot be traced back to God because the necessity for it begins with us.

Matthew 25:41 "Then He will also say to those on His left, 'Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels

not in Christianity. The question of the topic asks about an issue regarding a problem within Christianity.

they give evidence if not proof.

God did not create all in that sense.

Possibility for failure does not mean that the design was flawed. You can still crash a Porsche.

A love for God is all that some of these people have. Also, ever heard of starving artists? Poverty does not negate the richness of creativity. Keep in mind though that it should be no surprise that poverty takes away from some of the fullness of life that God intends for us. All human suffering is an affront to God.

Well even if God used evolution to create humans, that doesn’t mean that love is merely a product of evolution that has little to do with God. Even if you insist that it does mean that, again, I am explaining the coherence of my system.

then he wouldn’t be taking his initial decision seriously in choosing to make man free with the consequences that would entail. And his relationship with the first humans would not have the authenticity that free will makes possible.

self determining freedom means the buck stops with the free person because that is where the necessity for it arises. It truly could’ve happened a different way because they were truly free thus truly responsible.

as we are created in the image of the creator, we have power to originate.

it’s an inference. Also, I meant to add to that that I suspect that the tree may have had other purposes as well. Perhaps God would have let men eat from it for some reason at a proper time, but at the time that the first humans did so, it was rebellion.

the snake was the devil.

can’t help you much there. I’m not a jack of all trades. Satan is depicted as the chief enemy of God and this was the initial assault on creation.

we read about the rebellion of angels.


You say you argued no such thing as what I objected to in the first quote. So just what is the relevance of your above quotes?

I agree that “creativity is not a necessary product of free will - it does not have to exist…”

I agree that “It is indeed a significant aspect of human achievement, but it is not necessary for free will”

Again, my argument is that free will is necessary for creativity, not the other way around.

that first part is all I need. Music is wonderful, and creatures capable of creating music are wonderful. It isn’t necessariy good, because you can make bad music but it is intrinsically good when it is good, and there is not way to prove that anything is intrinsically good.

if free will makes a good thing possible then it is good for that reason.

I don’t see how it can be any other way.

What are you saying this too? That last part of my quote?

If free will is necessary for creativity to exist and you want creativity to exist then you need free will. It’s an essential ingredient. But just one essential ingredient does not a make a full recipe. That doesn’t mean the ingredient wasn’t necessary. That doesn’t mean you can reverse the relationship such that creativity is necessary for free will and that has nothing to do with the validity of the argument I’m making.

I have actually made 2 different appeals to the importance of creativity both of which I have a validity. One is the intrinsic value of creativity and I expect that even you, an atheist can experience that value. The other is that it is part of the image of God and going on something that I’ve already said about free will being part of the image of God, making it good in the sense that it is an aspect of a wholly and most good entity. With this, you don’t have to agree because the appeal is not to something that you may believe via experience or reason but to the coherence of a Christian system of beliefs.

no, the question Jamie asked was “why is free will important to God.” He doesn’t have to believe in God to ask this question and he doesn’t have to believe in God to get a consistent answer from Christians who do believe in God. The question is about a system of beliefs and that question is not why we believe God exists. The question is why we think our God whom we have beliefs about in regards to attributes and motives would value free will.

not in the slightest, and one of my reasons is explicitly dependently upon an attribute of God, namely his free will.

coherence is circular.

can’t do that either if we can’t presume his existence to begin with.

many Christians are wrong about many things. I don’t need to see a crumbled version of the Tajma (sp?) Hall. I don’t have to see a mutilated human corpse to see that the human body is beautiful.

ethical value is not the only way to value things.

the positives and negatives are only significant when they become actualities.

note that I said that it may produce fruit, not that it always does. Thus it is an epistemically worth while approach.

As for the appendix, my pop’s a doctor and will tell you that recent studies show that the appendix plays a role in the immune system, specifically in the lymphatic system. I have also heard that it jumpstarts the immune system in the fetal stages.

are they less valueable themselves? No. Do they have less of a richness in their lives? Are they missing out? Yes.

I don’t see how this is compelling. I wouldn’t miss conciousness if I was a rock, but I don’t know why that matters. I’m conscious now and I like it that way. I sense an intrinsic worth in it. I don’t see how the possibility of not experiencing this intrinsic worth and at the same time not knowing what I missed takes away from what I know as I am.

I don’t see how you can reduce the question. It doesn’t beg the question because it the evidence of the worth is not it’s very presence but the experience of its worth. I experience the worth of conciousness. I just don’t see how you can reduce that to "if we didn't have free will we wouldn't have free will." Experience is something and it is in fact a major source of epistemic justification.

There is no other way for God to make humans with the same ability that free will affords if they don’t have free will. That is a logically necessary statement.

I don’t see why this is true. I don’t see why that the possibility that something could be better necessarily indicates a presence of evil.

yes.

people grow, they develop.

they lived a tragic life. They have value but they did not live as fully as the human potential that was intended for them.

you asked for a specific number of choices. I’m saying that there are no doubt variables involved.

I believe babies and the perpetually comatose have a disadvantage. They aren’t damed and I suspect that there souls will develop in heaven, but I doubt that they would have the rewards that can only come from having moral libertarian free will. Certainly they may have libertarian free will on other accounts.

I didn’t say quantity and not quality. But quantity is still important. You’d complain if you paid for a gourmet steak and got one fantastically prepared that was only half an ounce.

scripture records that that we are rewarded differently in heaven. Eternal bliss is for all, but Jesus still spoke of the least and the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Martyrs are said to receive a crown for example.

you know as well as I do that habits form and can break. It reasonable to believe either that if a habit can strength, it’s reasonable to think that the streght of it can override any possibility for choosing otherwise. I’m not interested in trying to prove that this does happen, but it is reasonable.

no case would contradict my theory because no one can say for sure how mature or hardened one’s heart is. Only God can know that. We can make reasonable guesses as to who’s reached this point. If I could put my money on anyone, it might be on someone like Richard Wurmbrand who endured torcher for Christ’s sake for about a decade under the communists. I don’t know about the other side of the spectrum. Jesus said that God will not forgive anyone who blasphemes the spirit (believed to be an absolute defiance of the Spirit when it moves in your heart) and that may be because they are incapable of repetence.

I see. There is an important difference though in that going to jail is at odds with the choices you made. You didn’t want to go to jail. That is a punishment for your choice. The choices you made for going to heaven are not at odds with the loss of libertarian freedom with regard to the choices in heaven.

a sum total of truth is a perfectly coherent concept. To know that is all that is necessary for an omniscient being.

why is a lack of knowledge of things for which there is no truth a lack of knowledge? A lack of nothing is nothing.

I could’ve sworn you said something like “suppose God knows I’ll take 0-33 bites and I take 34”.

once it is determined, God will know it as determined. Things can become determined before they happen. If it isn’t determined, he can know every possible way that it can become determined. A God who knows that knows far more than a God who only knows certainties.

if there are multiple possibilities for many of your decisions, then there is no certainty to be known until you determine which one of those possibilities it is that you will choose. Otherwise, the other possibilities are real. I believe that multiple possibilities can be real and thus they represent the truth of the matter, thus they are can be objects of knowledge of an omniscient being. God knows your future decisions inas much as they are determined by your free will or your nature. With self determining freedom, I’ve opened up the possibility for knowledge of some future free decisions, but some must be determined in time.

of course it puts limits on your creativity. Your ability to create at any one time isn’t infinite. But it’s not limited because God knows it is limited. It’s limited because it is in fact limited and as that is the fact of the matter, an omniscient God would know that.

If your friend didn’t know before he determined it and if it wasn’t determined, then then new determination is certaintly a change in information which would result in a change in God’s knowledge as all information is his to know. I’m having trouble seeing your point.

It was a decision. Once it’s made, God knows it. He can’t know what’s not true until it becomes true. As soon as your friend knows what he will choose, then God will know it. They know it at the same time. God doesn’t know before as there are other possibilities floating around that might be choosen. Once they are eliminated, God knows it.

I would say that there is in a real sense no future. I’m a presentist. How else could I hold that facts are tensed and that the future is open. The future exists in the form of the possibilities that remain in the present and the certainties that have become settled and are soon to be actualized.

I don’t see any inconsistency. In the example, God knows what the two true options are, the ones that have a chance at becoming the future reality. C is not one of them and God knows that because there is within your heart enough information to rule it out. There may be no such information with regards to A or B because both represent an unresolved potential that exists in the reality of your heart. If we were to clone the universe at the point were you are deliberating over whether you should pick A or B, in one universe you might end up picking A and in the other you’d select B because the choice just wasn’t determined at the moment when the universe was cloned.

your choices are limited and those are the only two possibilities available to you. And not just any of God’s plans can be thwarted.

because he is interacting with creatures who change their minds and he responds to us.

He understands it. There are just aspects of which he knows in terms of multiple possibilies and not certainties.

yes, when the choice is a libertarian one and not merely a self determined one that is based upon libertarian choices in the past.

I don’t know. This is not a part that I am concerned with. Lets say, if it can be done at all, God can do it.

I disagree. I have been working with two simple definitions of freedom here. Libertarian free will merely defines freedom as the ability to choose something or refrain from choosing that thing. By this definition, a chance of 10 percent versus 90 percent still qualifies as libertarian free. The odds are irrelevent, but I’d say they do have to be significant odds. If you had a choice of A or –A and the chance that you’d choose –A was %.000000002, I would not say that this was a significantly libertarian free choice.

maybe in higher order logics. But if the simple logic that says that a circle that is in no way shape or form a circle is a meaningless description can be challenged, then there is no such thing as objectivity and all diaglogue such as this one we are having becomes pointless.

Something that is an intrinsic good may also provide an instrumental service, but that service is not the intrinsic good itself. Something that is good in and of itself is it’s own reason for it’s goodness. You can’t go beyond that reason, or if you can, it isn’t necessary to proving it’s goodness. It’s properly basic, like the fact that you realize when you have a tooth ache, “my tooth is hurting.” There may be a reason for why your tooth is hurting, but whether there is or isn’t, the fact remains that your tooth is hurting and no amount of argumentation can reasonably challenge that.

agreement would be nice, but what I perceive as properly basic does not become any much less so than when someone else doesn’t also see it.

If your will did not create them though, you are not the author in the same way as you would be if your will did have.

Creative dreams may have one type of value, but often the intentional act of creation isn’t there and I wouldn’t always claim full creative merit for some of these dreams.

God for one. If you’re looking for an appeal for an atheist as I’ve said, I don’t think that because we could lack the ability to judge it otherwise makes our judgements as we are now worthless.

well, God would have a much less ingenious creation and of course the problem of evil would have full force.

a baby is a human. It’s an undeveloped human. He has worth but part of that worth is in the potential of who he’ll become. And if He doesn’t have that potential, it is tragic and his worth that it possesses informs that tragedie.

I don’t buy evolution, but theologians who do say that the first hominids with soul’s also had free will.

sometimes it is malleable. But I consider subjectivity in terms of where the information comes from. I feel a certain way about something and that is not necessarily malleable. As I consider this subjective in terms of the source, the notion that it cannot be applied beyond the self is not necessary to the concept.

that is the risk.

in any conversation, the terms upon which one will accept one of the views put forth is always relevant.

both are relevant. I have concerned myself with the consistency of Christianity in terms of these questions and why some of the reasoning may appeal to evan an atheist.

Butters

No. This is an assumption,

There is no basis for this assumption in the story. A moral decision CANNOT be made without the knowledge of good and evil. in fact this is the definition of a moral choice. A toddler does not know why it should obey its parents. A&E did not know why they should obey God, or what the consiquences would be if they didn't. Therefore they could not make a "freewill" choice, anymore than a toddler could.

They knew Gods command just as the toddler did, and they could not understand the consequences or why it was wrong to disobey, because they lacked the knowledge of good and evil.
But of course you are ignoreing the rest of the problem. God made Adam and Eve, and he made the serpent. He knew EXACTLY what they would do. He knew how their brains worked down to the last detail, it would be impossible for God not to know what would happen. this is even disregarding omniscience, and sheer knowledge of the future, he only had to know how his own creations worked to figure it out. I mean, you could have shown this scenario to any human mother, and she would have told him "Hey God, you know, if you leave this people in front of this tree, with the serpent right there, they're propably going to eat the fruit, they don't know any better."

Stephen T-B

That was a magnus opus, Geebob, and will no doubt trigger responding posts which won’t run out until the Tribulation.
Your courtesy is appreciated, from where I sit.
I’d like, if I may? – to drag you back to your remarks about free will. You wrote: “assessing the least cost with the most benefit may merely designate the most likely choice that one will pick.”
If it isn’t the “most likely choice” then it’ll have to be the least likely one (given a two-way choice ), and I doubt if anyone has deliberately chosen a course of action which delivers the minimum benefit at the heaviest cost.
This might happen if the costs and benefits were so evenly matched that the person settled the matter by tossing a coin. That act, however, will have been necessitated by the state of affairs within the coin-tosser’s head (tossing a coin being preferred to not-tossing a coin).
After the coin was tossed, the subsequent action will have been a random one: is it the case, then, that only when we act randomly can it be said that we are exercising our free will?
And how many people toss a coin when it comes to deciding whether or not to believe in the gods?
I suppose you have your reasons for believing, but I’d like to ask this: could you, by sheer will power, decide not to believe?

geebob

yep. a reasonable one.

then I will say that they did know what evil was. every thing they knew was good and they knew of one command they were not to violate as doing so was disobedience. They cognitively knew what disobedience was and that they shouldn't do it but they did not personally know this evil.

you see, the knowledge that they had that I believe they had is is the classical view of knowledge. That is that it is justified, it is true , and it is believed.

But the hebrew conception of knowledge is often quite different. It is an issue of intimate and personal knowing. For evidence of this, keep reading the Genesis story. You'll eventually hit a passage that says something like "Adam knew eve and she begat a son."

Ah but I'm not. a large portion of the 40 plus pages of exchanges between me and wyz has been devoted to precisely this issue.

God did not know exactly what they would do, because the exact truth was not a settled and foregone conclusion about what they would do but rather a range of possibilities of what they could do.

only in a deterministic world. If the world was truly indeterministic and one of the indeterministic features of the world was what the humans could choose, then knowledge of their brains down to every last detail would not yeild any such fact of the matter.

well, assuming your analogy does represent a parrallel, I recall an episode of oprah where eq (intellegence measured by emotional quotient) was discussed. They tested the part of eq having to do with delayed gratification on little children. The researchers left the little children in a room with a video camera and a marshmellow and told them not to eat it. Some of the children actually held up and they were deemed to have a higher eq.

britinusa

Free will is the ability to choose good or evil, right? God, who is supposed to be perfect, created imperfect beings. It would be like me deliberately and knowingly downloading a virus onto my hard drive, and getting angry when it inevitably crashed!
That isn't free will. Many xians tell us we are all born with sin. We have these urges to do bad things. Where do these urges come from? Given a choice (free will) I'm sure each one of us would rather be born without a built-in inclination to sin.

Jamie_L

geebob:

I would be interested in hearing your response to this question:

Why did A&E choose to disobey God?

Maybe you answered that already in one of your posts, and if you did, I apologize. I've been skimming them because I don't have time to read all the way through.

Jamie

geebob

the reason is stated here. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.

She had reason to eat from the tree, even though some of the reasoning involved a half truth. But she also had reason not to. She knew God’s decree and she could have told herself to wait and ask God about this new information from the serpent.

Moral free will is the ability to do so. The definition that many free will theists hold to is libertarian free will. That is simply this, a person is free with regard to a choice if he truly may choose that choice or refrain from doing so.

If perfection means without flaw, then his creatures were perfect. The possibility for evil was only that, a possibility, until they actually disobeyed God. Then the flaw became real. God did not create them with a flaw. The flaw came from the creatures themselves.

We are not merely individuals. Western thought is highly individualistic. The corporate concept of sin makes little sense in a system that emphasizes the individual heavily over the corporate body. Our propensity to sin is with us inas much as we are descended from the original rebels and are fed this sin by our corporate body.

I don’t know if I would agree with that for sure. It is more complex of weighing cost, and benefit. There is no doubt desire to consider. For example, a drunk who’s family and job are falling apart may assess that refusing the next drink will have minimal cost and maximum benefit. But he really wants that next drink. That desire may reasonably over power this fella. But is there still a chance that he could choose to refuse? It may be a small one, but it would still be real. So this would be an instance where the minimum benefit and maximum cost indeed is the least powerful motivation and least likely to have an effect.

the choice to toss the coin would be the free choice which the person made. The outcome of the toss was random.

The choice to toss the coin was an arbitrary choice. I have a preference in terminology here. I don’t call choices by humans random because random implies that an arrational unconscious process was behind the outcome. A choice that was made for little or no reason is not random but arbitrary. Now choices that we make for reasons may be undetermined, but although random and indeterminate may be used synonomousely, but random really doesn’t fit for the reason I’ve described.

not where I am at in my life. I can disobey God and ignore him, but I doubt I can stop believing in him any time soon. Perhaps if I perpetually disobeyed him without remorse or repentance or if I experienced a traumatic event that challenged my faith, it would be possible for me to quit believing in God.

Wyz_sub10

Glad you're back. I agree that the lengths of our exchanges are a little too long to be sustainable. I haven't read your reply, but what I will do is respond to all questions, but only those points which are most significant to the heart of the discussion.

Feel free to let me know if I've failed to address anything of interest to you.

There is a discussion I started at "General Religious" re: the question of compatibility between god's demand for obedience and free will. To summarize, if god setup the arrangement with an inherent temptation (one without explanation), then god could not have been surprised by the outcome. If I leave a toddler in a room with dangers, and the only safeguards in place is my rule that says don't touch these dangers, I cannot defer responsibility when the toddlers does just that.

As for your second point, god does not avoid absolution just because free will serves other purposes than to indulge in temptations. For a wedding gift, we received a set of 5-star Heinckle kitchen knives. They are fantastic - razoz sharp, sturdy. Their purpose is clearly stated on the packaging - they are chef knives for culinary purposes.

But if my niece comes over and I've left one on the sofa, am I not to blame if she cuts herself? That was not the knife's only purpose (in fact, it was not its purpose at all), but it still has that ability to damage, and as such I need to exercise a high degree of caution, which may include explaining to me niece why playing with the knife is unacceptable.

This is a very confusing position. My original point was that I could not accept god, as defined in Christianity, as being a "person just like me." Your response here seems to suggest that god is whole, within himself, but still requires something from without. This seems like a contradiction. Perhaps I misunderstand you.

Human emotions are clearly understood. God's emotions, however, would require considerable explanation. I have no further comments than those I have previously stated - assigning human attributes to god speaks more of humans than god. If god is subject to emotion then he is quite fallible.

So far so good. I'll agree that the above represents a common (if not exhaustive) characterization of god.

Well, I'll agree there is much at odds. Unfortunately, these "odds" exist within the scriptures themselves, irrespective of the Hellenistic portrayal you define. God of the OT is much more akin to the "human" god than god of the NT. God of the NT is much closer to the Hellenistic portrayal. The NT portrayal only reverts to a "human view" through the acceptance of Jesus *as god*. This, too, contradicts much of the NT, where Jesus speaks to god, requests things of god, etc. So first and foremost, I would argue that this inconsistency comes primarily from the scriptures themselves.

Secondly, if you disregard the Hellenistic view and accept the "human character" view, you have much to reconcile in terms of the Trinity, prophecies, perfection, etc.

You seem to be saying that god can be characterized as human to explain fallibility and characterized as divine to explain the validity of worship.

The problem I see is that human limits are not arbitrary and are not all necessarily imposed by our biology. God, if I understand you correctly, is basically "super-human". On one level, this works - god is a human, but not subjected to human limits. Certainly this position would be difficult to disprove.

However (you knew there'd be a 'however'), you bring up a host of new issues. Our biology is good enough to do the job, but is very deeply flawed. This is because it is a product of processes that have a large degree of randomness and because some things are not flawed enough to be weeded-out once they are there.

Why would god have such a biology? How did it develop? If he created it himself, the design is pretty bad. If it arose as it did with us, then you are back to limitations and external influences (which you seek to dispense with).

I'm not sure I made that connection, exactly. Let me separate the two for clarity:

On worthiness: The implications of worship in the Christian sense are huge with regards to life choices. Worshiping anyone or anything requires that you relinquish quite a bit. So if I’m am being coerced or having demands placed on me to worship, I should feel that the recipient is worthy *or* that I really have no logical alternative.

For a being to be worthy of worship, IMHO, he would have to possess goodness, knowledge and power unparalleled on earth. You feel that he does, so this is fine. But the more “human” god becomes, the further he is from totality in goodness, knowledge and power, and the less worth he is for worship.

On evolutionary influence: There are a number of good books on the subject of the connection between brain wiring and belief. ‘Evolution’, in itself, is not responsible for anything. It is a term that describes a process. It does not drive a process. There is a book I have recommended before called “Religion Explained.” It is respectful to beliefs, but focuses on the physiology that helps govern beliefs.

As a quick for instance – some cultures believe in trees that can hear everything you say. But that same culture does not believe in trees that hear everything you say, then forget it immediately. What makes one belief more accepted? Or consider this – some people believe ghosts are ethereal – they can walk through walls, they have no substance. Yet, many of those same people assume that ghosts can speak, hear, think, remember. Why? This makes no logical sense, but to some part of the brain, it does. The author begins this analysis with a discussion of templates that our brains use.

There is much more to explain, but I just wanted to give a sample of this line of thinking. Evolution is not about worthiness, per se – that’s a different matter. Rather, evolution is connected to how the brain works and processes information.

This is logical, but is a tad circular – if you believe as you say, then god *has* to be a person. You are envisioning god as he *needs* to be in order to make sense to you. This is not necessarily an object view of god, but a subject one that you find palatable.

This brings us back to omniscience, which we can leave aside as we have agreed that we differ on the definition.

I address this above, but to add – it creates a slippery slope for defining god. You still need to assign him some physical characteristics, especially since you say that god is changing and subject to time. The questions In asked still need to be addressed even if he is not human *like us*.

I understand that devotion is not absolutely necessary (yes, I can see how being an atheist would apply to that knowledge). I would add, though, that devotion is necessary to reap the rewards supposedly available.

I do know what necessitation means.

God plans the seed, we grow the fruit, close enough? Yes, we can reject to love god, and in that way I agree that free will makes that love more meaningful because we have choice. But this situation isn’t without problems. If I believe in the scriptures than I am faced with a choice – worship me or die. That makes the choice much less “free”. If I do not believe, then I cannot love, regardless of my intentions, because I do not believe. Yet, I will suffer for this inability to believe. Perhaps I respond by “willing” a degree of belief in order to avoid an unpleasant fate. Either way, growing the fruit seems to be an expectation with stern consequences. It may not be an absolute necessity due to god’s activity, but god’s activity makes it the only viable option.

I don’t understand what you mean here. Coercion does not necessarily negate free will, but it does undermine it, and certainly reduces its value. If you have the choice between 12 flavours of ice cream and I tell you to choose vanilla or I’ll set your house on fire, your freedom to choose because a little meaningless. You *can* still choose, but it’s a ‘gift’ with a proviso of such severity that you would be foolish to exercise it.

I am confused as to what you think god’s role and purpose are. This description makes god sound controlling, although elsewhere you emphasize the individual level of control. But a more important question supersedes my thoughts here – why does one have to mend one’s relationship with god?

Fair enough.

But given god’s apparent need for love, it makes no sense that he would not redeem us. If he created us to love us, and then did not do what was necessary to facilitate this, then the whole experiment would have be futile. (As stated earlier, I still do not accept the need for redemption. It makes no sense under the concept of a ‘personal god’ or through the understanding that we are all individuals of free will).

This is a false dichotomy – either reprobate or redeem at a later date. Why was either one necessary? Could god have not simply forgave Adam and Eve? Why was a blood sacrifice necessary for redemption? Isn’t it superfluous to send someone just to be killed? These questions are worthy of their own threads, so I am not suggesting an in-depth look at these. Rather, I am simply noting that I do not think god was limited to the choices you offer. He could have done a number of things.

If you state something was “never meant to be”, then you imply that something arose without intent. The mistake *may* be ours, but it still arose without god’s intent. Yes, you can argue that the mistake with ours, but it does not address the responsibility as discussed at the beginning. Further, if I lay out a plan to get to work, and that plan does not succeed through no fault of my own, it is still my plan that failed (because I had no adequate contingency). This is *especially* critical to your definition of god. If he knows of all possibilities, as you describe, he should have had plans for all contingencies.

Fair enough.

The problem here is that, even in Christianity, it is possible things without god are better. It is true that according to Christian beliefs this is not possible, but those beliefs, as with the Hellenistic beliefs you cited earlier, can be held up to scrutiny against the scripture and analyzed for validity. (also a topic for a separate thread, but the logic applied to god as immutable can be applied to god as the unique source of joy).

I do not agree. I think they provide evidence that god gives joy – nothing more. I do not think they provide evidence that *nothing* else does.
True, but the Porsche and driver are distinct entities. Man and his actions are not. In your example, the Porsche is being designed correctly, but man is faulty. In the topic at hand, man is being designed *and* is the faulty product, as well.

A love for god, alone, will be insufficient for survival. But the challenge here goes to creativity, etc. contributing to the value of free will. They are valuable only when all other needs have been met.
No one is suggesting an impoverished (even destitute) person cannot be creative, just that this creativity is of lesser value to the degree that it is not necessarily a benefit in any way.
If god intends for us to have such a full life, then why are so many children leading short lives full of pain and suffering? If god can address this, he should, or it says something terrible about his nature. If god cannot address this, then his intentions are no more relevant than yours or mine. As for suffering, he sure creates/allows a lot of it. Surely not *all* human suffering is an affront to god. What about the plagues of Egypt?
But the challenge remains for you to validate love as a necessity or a product from god. You might not be able to prove it, but you must at least address the problem of love arising in a non-evolved, unique being. It seems that you are accepting that love is good, love comes from god, and then using that position to argue that god loves.
Instead, I would offer that love is indeed a great thing, but it has developed in us as an essential component in maintaining a society, bonding with each other, caring for our young, etc. Animals don’t need love to function. We do because it serves a purpose. It serves no purpose for god – so why the need?
Why assume this? Do years of death, the great flood, etc. convince you that he is taking his decision seriously? What’s more, why does god care who ‘takes him seriously.’ Who else is there but god to decide whether his actions are sincere or not? You would not have been there to judge. There is no reason to assume this as a motivation for god.
What does authenticity of a relationship have to do with free will? I do not see any connection here. God could have had *no* relationship with humans, and still have given them free will. He could lie or change his mind at random, and this would not affect free will. It might affect the decisions made by humans, but it would not change the presence of free will.
Addressed earlier.
That’s the problem, though. They did not know why, yet god knew it was in their nature to be tempted. Why put it there? Why not explain why not to eat from it? Yes, it’s god’s choice to not do so, but knowing his ‘children’, this was grossly irresponsible. Furthermore, it doesn’t address the connection with free will – instead it contradicts it. God grants free will, but insists that humans cannot exercise it in this case. This demand offers no reward, no insight. It is simply a demand to be obeyed. That’s a funny way to begin an experiment in free will.
The devil existing in a paradise and a world without sin seems contradictory to me.
Fair enough, but ‘satan’ is used to describe an opposition to god, not necessarily an entity. Lucifer was supposedly a reference to King Nebuchadnezzar, I believe. I’m quote prepared to admit I may be mistaken here, but the overreaching point is that the concept of Satan as the embodiment of evil is relatively recent. There are few connection made between the serpent, the curser or Job, the tempter of Jesus, as the same entity. Although, as I said, I’m willing to accept that I’m lacking adequate here and may be mistaken.
I’m not sure what you’re asking. You said that I argued creativity is necessary for free will. I did not. The quotes you cite indicate just that.
It seems we agree – creativity is not necessary for free will (although free will will inherently provide some degree of creativity, which is not something I had said before – I am saying it now).
[quote] that first part is all I need. Music is wonderful, and creatures capable of creating music are wonderful. It isn’t necessarily good, because you can make bad music but it is intrinsically good when it is good, and there is not way to prove that anything is intrinsically good. [/QUOTE
No, it is not sufficient to say this. As with before, knives can do ‘good’ things (help prepare food) and ‘bad’ things (hurt someone). Knives, and all items, in themselves, are neither good nor bad - only specific actions under specified circumstances.
Music is an item. It’s effects may be positive or negative. It’s applications may be beneficial or harmful. But music in itself is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. I freely admit that I find it a wonderful thing because I enjoy it. But I am really speaking of *certain* music, under *certain* circumstances for *certain* purposes.
If there is no way to prove anything is intrinsically (I will interpret this as universally or absolutely) good, then we’ve dispensed with your reasons for supporting free will.
If free will makes a bad thing possible then it is bad for that reason. But if the thing free will makes possible is neither good nor bad (as most things are), then free will is neither good nor bad for that reason. You are being selective.
Yes, I agree. For creativity to be present, you will need free will. But let’s apply this reasoning: I want creativity. If you give me free will, does that ensure I get it? We agree that it does not.
If “free will” was a product you were selling, you could say that you *need* this to get a, b and c. But it does not provide a, b, and c, and does not guarantee that you will be able to get a, b, or c. So what am I getting, exactly? That, IMO, is what you need to speak to if you want to sell the product. If you want to argue that free will is a good thing, then it needs to demonstrate some merit of its own, especially since the benefits you’ve given are not really benefits of free will, because they might never come about.
I am not saying creativity is necessary for free will. I can agree that free will is necessary for creativity.
“Sugar is a good thing. Why? Because it contributes to cakes. In fact, cakes could not exist without sugar (let’s assume). And because cakes are a good thing, so is sugar.”
This reasoning seems sound, but it’s not. Sugar being ‘good’ in this example is *conditional* to the ability to bake a cake. If you can’t bake a cake, cakes being good is of little relevance to the worth of sugar.
“Sugar is good because it can be ingested for nourishment. And because nourishment is good, so is sugar.”
This is a much more sound argument because they are no contingencies. No other ingredients are necessary. This produces the desired good without relying on anything else.
You need to show that free will provides goods not contingent on anything else. I am not denying the existence of these, but creativity is not one of them.
Yes, “even an atheist” can see the value in creativity. But I’ll hazard a guess that “even a theist” can see the dangers in creativity, too. My valuing something does not make it valuable. And something providing benefit does not eliminate its potential to do damage. You cannot simply accept one side of it and ignore the other.
For my part, I do not have to agree (and I don’t).
For your part, if you accept the “Christian system of beliefs” as rationale, then this entire discussion is meaningless. You may as well simply say “free will is good because god gave it to us,” and leave it at that. Once you try to rationalize this decision through support of it, you can no longer return to an irrational position. In other words, if you argue within Christianity, the question is simply answered. If you argue on the outside of Christianity, you cannot appeal to god’s divinity.
But he *does* require a characterization of god. If we could agree on the terms of that characterization, then that would be a start. If god were all-good then you could say “free is all-good because it comes from god, who is all-good.” But then you leave a door open to other questions – how do bad things come from something all-good?
What I am saying is, you are right – under the Christian definition god exists, is divine, and is good. But if you try to link that to the role of free will in our lives (as a good thing) you cannot link it back to something that cannot be analyzed.
What I should say is, you can, but then the discussion of love and creativity is not necessary.
Your next few points are all about god’s existence. I think this comes up again later, so I will wait until then to make further comments related to this.
We agree on this, then.
Yes, but it does if you are also assigning the qualifier of ‘good’ to them. We may agree that one may value pornography. That says nothing to whether this is an argument in favour of pornography or against it. But once you say, “pornography is a good thing”, then we must consider ethics (although ‘ethics’ may not be the best term).
That’s not true. God, as you say, is away of all possibilities and therefore all possible actualities. If he can only be aware of what exists, then he is away of these possible actualities. Therefore, they do exist, even if they have not yet manifested.
I would be interested in that information, but I do not doubt the possibility in the slightest. Still, it does not change the point. Some species have eyes that are not used, we have wisdom teeth that currently straddle the line between ‘help’ and ‘hindrance’.
I didn’t assume you were implying that they were les valuable, but I cannot agree that they necessarily have less richness in their lives. Of course I feel that *I* would be missing out without my wife, but that is a personable judgement, and one made according to very specific circumstances (*my* particular wife in *our* particular situation).
Your question asked if humans can think they way they do without free will. I provided you with a way, and added that a being of extreme intelligence could possibly think of another way. There is nothing logically impossible about that. The way you phrase it in your response in not the way you phrased it originally.
Because you are assuming good and bad (I didn’t say “evil”) are different things. I could propose instead that good and bad could be two degree “regions” on a scale of ‘usefulness’ or ‘utility’ or ‘desirability’. If it is not plotted at the top of ‘desirability’ there must something ‘undesirable’ in it.
This is rather limiting, and it does not address considerations which say so much. Two people choose Europe over Africa as a vacation destination. One because they have never been to Europe, the other because they do not like blacks. Does this not revel more about the persona than choice? They could have chosen neither, but these aspects of their persona were still present.
1) They don’t have to, to be people; 2) they could do so without making all but the simplest of choices.
What was intended for them? I thought god didn’t know the future? God does, as you say, know all possibilities. If possibilities involve choice, then what possibilities did this person have? Sounds like they lived the life that was intended for them.
I agree they have some disadvantages. Development in heaven seems inconsistent with the concept of heaven. I’m not sure why their souls need development at all. But if they are automatically ineligible for certain rewards then doesn’t this hurt your argument that god could not endorse reprobation? I acknowledge this is different, but it’s still a “never had a chance” scenario, all the same.
Who’s paying what, exactly? God paid for us so we need to choose? How does the number of choices concern god? What did it “cost” god to give us the ability to choose?
If one has eternal bliss, I cannot imagine any other rewards being necessary. If I’m always happy, never sad, then I cannot be sad or sorry about anything, let alone over a different ‘level’ of reward. I cannot, for the life of me, understand the purpose or use of a crown. If it’s to show others you are a martyr, then this seems to indicate a pride that I didn’t think would exist in heaven.
All I am saying is that there is no “point of no return” that you seem to think exists. I’m not saying people’s judgements are faulty, but there convictions only override their choices in the sense that those choices do not seem appealing.
Exactly. So it is not valid as a theory because it can neither be tested nor refuted.
If you don’t know, I certainly don’t. As for Wurmbrand, I’m sure a number of things contributed to his refusal to compromise his commitment to Jesus, but I’m not sure they’re necessarily good things.
How so? Going to jail is not at odds with the choices made. People in jail understand why they’re there, and most knew it was a possible consequence of their actions. You are saying, if I’m not mistaken, than people choose and hope to avoid jail, while people choose in hopes of going to heaven. Substitute jail for hell and the analogy still has meaning. Also, you are assuming that one choosing to go to heaven is okay with relinquishing libertarian freedom. I don’t think this is necessarily true.
I do not argue whether the concept is coherent. I challenge your definition, especially with the inclusion of ‘truth’ as a qualifier.
Because, as stated, I do not accept your definition of truth. Didn’t the prophecies supposedly foretell of Jesus’s birth and crucifixion? How do you reconcile that with the limits of god’s knowledge, as you define it, and the role of free will in establishing the future?
I said both of the above. I’m telling you what I “know”, and I’m questioning how this differs from what god “knows”. If god knows 0-infinity, then there’s no divine knowledge there – it’s the only possibility. If he knows 28-33 (which are the numbers I used), then why can’t I spit it out at 27? If your answer is simply “I won’t”, then that says a curious thing indeed.
Sounds like you’re waving a bit between what is determined in “theory” and “practice”. You are suggesting god has an inside track that we do not have access to? If so, what is the determining cause of something that god knows?
God understands contingencies, but not necessarily contingencies based on contingencies? Okay.
I see what you are saying, but this reasoning creates a bit of a loop. “It is limited because it is in fact limited,” suggests that it is limited by something. But is this something that cannot be circumvented through any idea, decision or act? I could see it being limited by the logically impossible, but if it is not limited by the logically impossible, then it is possible and should have no “necessary” limits.
My point is that once my friend made a decision, he had knowledge that god did not. This just goes to the problem I have with your definition of omniscience. Learning everything is not the same as being all-knowing.
It is logically impossible for them to know it at the same time. If my friend makes the decision, he knows it before god does because he is the source of that decision.
But what limits C from becoming a choice? What information *could* rule this out as even a *possibility*.
What, besides logical impossibilities, limit my choices if I have free will and the future is unknown?
Why some times and not others? If he doesn’t change his mind, it is reasonable to assume that his way is better. If he does change his mind, what does that imply? He may respond to us, but it doesn’t address why he would change his mind. I could respond to your request for a cookie by saying ‘no’.
Let me rephrase – inherent to QM is the fact that both the speed and location or a particle cannot be known. The particle has a speed (truth) and has a location (truth) but these cannot both be known simultaneously. We must resort to probabilities because that is all we can observe. There is still an objective truth, however, that god must be able to know, but cannot.
Why? Are you saying it is not possible for me to provide my wife with the necessary info, or for her to get it somehow? I don’t see why not.
 That’s a panacea response I have seen in many arguments.
Still, I am concerned with it because it goes to the heart of your argument – if god knows all possibilities, then I’d like to know what’s a possibility and how, given my free will and an unwritten future, some possibilities are more likely than others.
I’m having trouble with this response. The odds are relevant because if god knows better than my wife what I will choose, he must know which odds are greater. It’s as simple as that. On another note, I’m not sure what the odds have to do with whether something is made through a libertarian choice or not.
Agreed. But I maintain that logically impossibilities may not extend as far as some may think. Most logical impossibilities derive from definitions and not from practice. A square-circle and married-bachelor are illogical by definition.
My point was that, when searching for a reason, you do not always need a reason for the reason. I agree that if your tooth hurts, it hurts irrespective of why.
As for laws, yes we could agree that we need laws, but this is not irrespective to why.
Sure it does. Are you telling me that if you see sleeping in as properly basic then it is, whether others agree or not?
I know I’m not the author in the same way. But I am the author, nonetheless. And these are creations.
It would be hard for you to claim full creative merit for anything (that goes for everyone). Nothing you can think of has a null reference. Personally, my dreams are more likely to contain fantastic and unique images than my waking thoughts.
Why would this make our existence less worthwhile to god? I think you are assuming this because it is your judgement. I’m not sure why god would share your opinions on this.
Maybe.
I simply can’t agree with your definition of worth…the again, what is your definition of worth, exactly? A think a baby is worth more to society than a rampaging serial killer. A baby may bring pleasure. A serial killer brings death and fear.
Well, evolution’s not for sale.  But the facts are pretty clear. I won’t argue evolution here with you, but it is as strong a fact as anything we know in this world. To rephrase what you said about logic a few paragraphs up, either we agree that we can know some things and that there are ways of determining facts, or everything we know to be factual is meaningless. As well as we understand the principles of electricity from its conversion in a generator to the power supply in your microwave, we understand evolution.
I won’t argue who had the first souls or free will. That’s not disprovable. Still, my point was that free will could simply have never existed.
Sorry, I’m not understanding you exactly. But if you’re saying that subjective information can still be more reliable or less reliable, I agree. Universal application is also not necessary for information to be valid. But I would just not give much way to subjective experience *if* the issue was universal truth.
My point is that the discussion is not about the importance of free will. It is about the importance of free will to god according to the Christian concept. Big difference.
It’s relevant to the degree that your reasoning will be created with a certain bias, of course. But me asking you to prove to me that love is good is not an statement regarding my valuation of love. That is important to understand, and it is how a debate keeps from degenerating into a personal critique of values.
P.S. This response was 20 pages in Word (!) If we continue to discuss this issue, we should try to find an agreement regarding which issues are most relevant to the OP.