VivaHedone

1. There is no free will. The concept is impossible. Everything has a cause: the cause of our actions is our decisions; the cause of our decisions is our thoughts; the cause of our thoughts are our sensations. We are in the unique position of hearing our thoughts, thereby giving us the illusion of control. There is some stuff on this on the philosophy part of the site, but it's hard going for those with no understanding of quantum mechanics!

2. Even if there was free will, then an omniscient god would still have known what the choice of Adam and Eve would be. He would have known that the world would be plunged into evil, he would have known about all the misery he would create, he would have known that if he designed the human brain slightly differently it would have been averted.

3. Even discounting the above arguments, why should we be punished for the actions of our first ancestors? Humanity is not a whole, as god would know, it is a collection of individuals. What responsibility do we have for the sins of Adam and Eve? What responsibility do all the innocent children dying in natural disasters have?

spurly

Who created and designed them? Good question. Here is my best take on that.

Everything God created was good. Even Lucifer, in the beginning, was good. Satan's pride led him to choose to rebel against God. Now he wants to take everyone down with him.

How does he do that? By perverting the good things that God created. All evil that exists in our world, with the exception of disasters and diseases (which I will address in a minute) are counterfeits and perversions of the good that God created.

Okay, so what about natural disasters? What about diseases? They came about because of sin and evil and wickedness. We had a perfect world - but when sin entered the world - the perfection was lost.

Since then, God has been working to get us back to what he intended in the beginning.

Lobstrosity

In the perfect world, animals wouldn't eat other animals. There's nothing perfect in a system that forces one creature to survive by causing another creature pain (and don't delude yourself, other animals can experience the same physical suffering we can, since pain is nothing more than a base survival mechanism). No, the reason why carnivores exist is because they fill an ecological niche. It is possible to survive that way, so they have adapted to exploit an abundant energy source. It still doesn't come anywhere near fitting the "perfect" world a perfectly good and loving God would design (and please, don't respond by saying that this is all because the animals are sinners).

I also fail to see how earthquakes and Ebola are the result of human sin. Is there any way you could possibly explain that in a bit more depth? The way I see it, god decided that plate tectonics was the way to go and just couldn't figure out how to implement the system without the occasional hiccup (and who can blame him--nobody's perfect). If I'm mistaken in my ideas and the motion of the Earth's continental plates is actually driven by evil sin-power, please let me know.

ex-xian

Spurly...let me ask you the question that caused Billy Graham's best friend and evangelism partner to turn away from his faith.

He was looking on the cover of a news magazine at a picture of a woman weeping over her dead son. They lived in a draught stricken region of Africa. Billy's buddy (I can't remember his name) looked down at the pain and grief of this helpless and powerless woman and asked, "How can a good God exist when all this woman need was rain?"

Amos

Close enough. So who says I don't make sense around here!

spurly

Jesus said God causes his rain to fall on the just and unjust alike. But sometimes countries go through periods of extended droubt - it even happened in Israel with God's chosen people. For them, it was their sin that led to the lack of rain. But I know that is not always the case.

It's very sad when people die from lack of rain, or from an epidemic of AIDS or some other disease ravaging their country. I wish those things were not so, but they are.

Here's my question though, if those things were never meant to be, and they were brought about after the first humans rebelled against the perfect world order that God provided, are those things really God's fault, or are they the fault of the effect of sin on mankind?

Yes, God could have overlooked the first sin, and the second sin, and the third sin, ... and the billion trillionth sin, and continued to allow us to live in a perfect paradise. But we would have had to live there without him. His holiness would not have been compatible with our sin, thus he would have had to withdraw himself.

But that's not what he wanted. He wanted a relationship with us based on love. And he knew that that would be costly - both for us and for him. So he set in motion a play to make that relationship happen.

I weep when I see tragedy around me, and I long for the day when those types of tragedies will not exist. In the mean time, I work to bring justice and relief to people that I can impact by being the hands and feet of our good God.

Kevin

Starboy

spurly, did you read your own post? Can't you see how tortured your logic is? Why can't you just say, you do not know? That it's doesn’t make any sense? Why do the Christian cha-cha? Why lie to yourself and others buy pretending that you even vaguely understand it?

Starboy

ex-xian

Spurly:
Ok, I'm going to go through a process here that takes your words and the Bible at face value, and you tell me where I've a mistake.

1)God made man to live in paradise
2)Man sinned and was cast out
3)As a result of the fall, man, animals, the earth, in fact, all of nature was cursed
4)From 3, natural disasters such as drought, earthquakes, and floods kill people all the time
5)God isn't happy about 4, but he has to be true to his justice

the problem is that the Bible says in ezekial says that God won't kill people for their parents sin. So if adam's sin caused the natural disasters, god is punishing people with death for what their ancestor did.

Also, Jesus did say that God causes rain to fall upon the just and the unjust. Does that mean that God conscioulsy withholds rain from the just and unjust?

Lobstrosity

I'm a little disappointed you didn't address my post as I was very curious to hear your reply.

Sure, if we brought this on ourselves it is by definition our fault. What you seem unable to do is explain how we brought this on ourselves. What was the mechanism by which this happened? How does sin equal virus? An even more fundamental question is where you get the notion that these things were never meant to be. How is it you know with certainty what was meant to be and what wasn't? Maybe the zebra was never meant to be and instead it was brought about after the first humans rebelled against the perfect world order that God provided. Maybe zebras are our fault! Gasp! It's a simple question: how do you know what was and was not meant to be? Where do you get this unique intimate knowledge of God's motivations when God is something that works in mysterious ways--something you can never actually comprehend?

Simple question here: how can an all-powerful being be incompatible with anything? Being incompatible with something is a weakness, and all-powerful creators do not possess any weaknesses. Once again, where do you get this intimate knowledge of God's innermost desires? It seems like sheer hubris (almost sinful, actually) for you to proclaim such a deep understanding of something you could never hope to fully grasp. You think your measly little brain can fathom the infinite intelligence of God? You're willing to reduce his awesomeness into trite adjectives that belittle his greatness?

spurly

To answer your question as completely as I can, I get my ideas from a lifetime of searching after God. I don't have a complete understanding of his majesty, justice, grace, wrath, mercy, compassion, kindness, goodness, and everything else that makes up who he is yet - but I want to know more. Knowing God more is one of the two pillars of my life. The other is using the knowledge and love God gives me to help as many people as I can in whatever place I can.

Kevin