A question for Christians

[Houseman]

There is also not really free will as god the allknowing creator is responsible for everything.

That causes a contradiction, because in the Bible, somewhere in Deuteronomy, God says "you must choose..."
Elsewhere in the bible, God implies that we have choices, free will, and that our use of this is an important factor that He considers when granting salvation.

I think that the bible says that we have free will, and that not everyone gets saved.

But I read before that you said that biblical literacy is a protestant thing, so if you're not coming at it from that angle, I suppose I can see how you can get around those contradictions.

 

[Kae]

I asked myself similar questions when I was a kid, raised under Catholic beliefs at first and then under Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, and my conclusion was simple, because I guess I'm simple, if God has a plan and has pre-determined every single action that we are to take under this life, or if he knows of them and chooses to do nothing, God is not worthy of worship, God is despicable because it's either evil or uncaring, but you know maybe I say that because my life is pretty shit and I know there are people that have it way worse than I do, and to me everyone that can either plan that suffering or witness it and choose to do nothing must be evil.

But I guess that's why you asked Christians, ultimately I'm an Atheist as I don't believe in magic and God is after all magic, but you know I used to believe and I hated it, if not believing in anything supernatural still allows me to spiral into horrifying existential despair, you can only imagine how much worse it was when I asked myself if God saw it and why it chose to do nothing or why it chose make me go through that, so I guess I'm ultimately am better off not believing, otherwise I'd be doing even worse right now and I'm doing pretty bad already.

 

[Xprimentyl]

I asked myself similar questions when I was a kid, raised under Catholic beliefs at first and then under Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, and my conclusion was simple, because I guess I'm simple, if God has a plan and has pre-determined every single action that we are to take under this life, or if he knows of them and chooses to do nothing, God is not worthy of worship, God is despicable because it's either evil or uncaring, but you know maybe I say that because my life is pretty shit and I know there are people that have it way worse than I do, and to me everyone that can either plan that suffering or witness it and choose to do nothing must be evil.

But I guess that's why you asked Christians, ultimately I'm an Atheist as I don't believe in magic and God is after all magic, but you know I used to believe and I hated it, if not believing in anything supernatural still allows me to spiral into horrifying existential despair, you can only imagine how much worse it was when I asked myself if God saw it and why it chose to do nothing or why it chose make me go through that, so I guess I'm ultimately am better off not believing, otherwise I'd be doing even worse right now and I'm doing pretty bad already.

'Tis a test of faith, indeed. Especially when one is behooved to a book of tales in which the prevalent "God" is often overt and direct with his direction. I asked in an early post: "Where's the burning bush in the 21st century?"

So I am agnostic. I don't firmly believe in cosmic chance, neither can I profess to believe in an unobjectively knowable deity based on stories from a thousands of years old compilation of tales.

I think atheism is easy; just dismiss any other possibility, and you've stuck to your tenets. Equally easy is faith; no need to prove anything; it is written, therefore it is. Agnosticism sounds like a cop out, but it's at least an admission that I don't know and will accept any ultimate truth (not that my personal belief has any bearing on anyone save for myself.)

When life is good, fine; let there be a "god" to thank for rewarding my efforts. When life is bad, of course there's no "god," because he would never allow the suffering I and others suffer at the whim of a grand creator that put me in this position, without my will or wish, to begin with. When you're in the middle, appreciating both the inevitable highs and lows of life, is there a "god?" Maybe, maybe not; there are lessons to be learned and gains to be earned, but which end of that stick I'm on are dealt with as they come up.

 

[fOx]

I asked myself similar questions when I was a kid, raised under Catholic beliefs at first and then under Seventh Day Adventist beliefs, and my conclusion was simple, because I guess I'm simple, if God has a plan and has pre-determined every single action that we are to take under this life, or if he knows of them and chooses to do nothing, God is not worthy of worship, God is despicable because it's either evil or uncaring, but you know maybe I say that because my life is pretty shit and I know there are people that have it way worse than I do, and to me everyone that can either plan that suffering or witness it and choose to do nothing must be evil.

But I guess that's why you asked Christians, ultimately I'm an Atheist as I don't believe in magic and God is after all magic, but you know I used to believe and I hated it, if not believing in anything supernatural still allows me to spiral into horrifying existential despair, you can only imagine how much worse it was when I asked myself if God saw it and why it chose to do nothing or why it chose make me go through that, so I guess I'm ultimately am better off not believing, otherwise I'd be doing even worse right now and I'm doing pretty bad already.

 

[09philj]

An omnipotent and omniscient god is the kind of concept that would be attached to a religion by people who haven't quite grasped the full extent of it. Consider what it would like to be God. Put yourself in those ineffable shoes. Suddenly, for you, thought and action are indistinguishable. Your imagination is no longer an inland empire, isolated from reality; you are reality. An infinite space can be isolated and made to conform to certain rules, particular laws of physics, and you will know everything that happened in it down to the most fundamental level of matter, and it will exist alongside an infinite chorus line of other infinite spaces that comply to every iteration of rules you can think of, and you can think of them all. You would be able to project an avatar of yourself down to the level of those clusters of matter that exhibit behaviour that constitutes "thought" and interact with them if you so chose, but they will never be able to perceive you and yet you can perceive everything about them that is, was, and will be. That's the extent of how I, just a human, can imagine omnipotence and omniscience.

 

[Kae]

'Tis a test of faith, indeed. Especially when one is behooved to a book of tales in which the prevalent "God" is often overt and direct with his direction. I asked in an early post: "Where's the burning bush in the 21st century?"

So I am agnostic. I don't firmly believe in cosmic chance, neither can I profess to believe in an unobjectively knowable deity based on stories from a thousands of years old compilation of tales.

I think atheism is easy; just dismiss any other possibility, and you've stuck to your tenets. Equally easy is faith; no need to prove anything; it is written, therefore it is. Agnosticism sounds like a cop out, but it's at least an admission that I don't know and will accept any ultimate truth (not that my personal belief has any bearing on anyone save for myself.)

When life is good, fine; let there be a "god" to thank for rewarding my efforts. When life is bad, of course there's no "god," because he would never allow the suffering I and others suffer at the whim of a grand creator that put me in this position, without my will or wish, to begin with. When you're in the middle, appreciating both the inevitable highs and lows of life, is there a "god?" Maybe, maybe not; there are lessons to be learned and gains to be earned, but which end of that stick I'm on are dealt with as they come up.

I think any theological beliefs can be hard or easy, there can be an element of absolute despair to atheism, if a God doesn't exist and it's all just people and random happenstance , there's no absolute good or evil, there is no judgement, there is no karmic justice, what there is in this life is all there is and there's no way to make up for it, but you are faced with the question, if that is the case should you do everything in your power to live a better life or should you respect others lives?

Both can be argued for, after all if there's nothing else and the world sucks anyway there's no reason to concern yourself with other people, on the other hand thinking and acting like that leads to poor treatment of people and that kind of attitude is precisely why your life may suck, there's also the question of permanence, do you care about what happens in this World?
If so, then whatever happens here, in the only life anyone's going to have is that much more important than if you believe in an afterlife, after all nobody gets a second chance or a heaven, and the only way to right a wrong is to do it in this life, nothing about that is easy, it's a philosophically gigantic task to believe that in order to do something good you need to change this world in which we live in and have no power.

Similar arguments could be made to the complexity of reconciling the beliefs of your religion to what goes on around you, to what happens in the world and similarly for the vague existential nightmare of admitting you just don't know that could present itself under agnosticism, each system of belief poses it's own philosophical challenges and they can be as complex or as simple as each individual is willing to engage in, as such I'm not really a fan of this argument that life under any particular system of belief is easier than any other.

 

[Dreiko]

Assuming the following premises:

• God exists
• God knows the future
• God can't be wrong

How can anyone be said to have free will?

If God sees that someone is going to go to Hell, then why should that person even try to be good?
Why is God predetermining that people should go to Hell before they are even born to begin with?
Why reward or punish us based on what we can't change or control?

Unless there's some explanation, then it seems like the only way that God can be good is if God doesn't/can't know the future.

You're just assuming that knowing the future means that the future is set in stone like it's fate. God knows the future but it is one in a constant state of flux where each action changes it, God knows what it changes to but he allows us to hold the power to change it instead of setting it in stone.

Think of it this way, there's infinite futures each millisecond, and god is aware of all of those events that could transpire in each of those infinite futures, but gives people the freedom to make that choice and actually pick which world line to travel. And free will means that he doesn't really know which of the infinite futures will be chosen, so while he knows all the possible potential futures, he lets us actualize the one we choose. Or alternatively, there's infinite parallel worlds, where each choice possible IS enacted, so to a god who exists outside of dimensional concepts he is able to see all of those futures happen simultaneously. Either way, you don't know which world line you're on, so you better try your hardest to choose right and end up in the good ones and not the one where the roaches are the size of tanks!


(not a christian any more but i got enough education growing up where I did where this basic question is very easy to answer, a better one is "if god can't be wrong then why is anything he made able to be wrong,, assuming god is perfect nothing he made would have any flaws either because that would imply imperfection on his part, and if being able to be wrong is something that's fine, since a perfect god made it, then him being wrong is also fine since we just established wrongness is fine, but we just said that he can't be wrong, that he's perfect, it's an inherent contradiction you can't argue your way of quite as easily)

House is trying to do a Epicurus quote.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

And asking how christians come to terms with such.

They'd just tell you that evil comes from satan and free will and man's failures, and that god allows evil to allow free will. And god doesn't take care of evil to preserve free will. It's kinda like the gun laws, he doesn't wanna take our freedoms away.

But yeah I mean, any god who stays god after making everything and doesn't just relinquish control to the forces of his creations is definitely malevolent. Just trust em to do the right thing if you really think you made em right, no need to sit there and judge and whatnot.

 

[Houseman]

You're just assuming that knowing the future means that the future is set in stone like it's fate.

Yes.

God knows the future but it is one in a constant state of flux where each action changes it, God knows what it changes it to but he allows us to hold the power to change it instead of setting it in stone.

Okay, I can see that.

That doesn't get around the "knowledge of your own future" problem, though. If a time traveler (or God) says "you're going to slap yourself in the face in 5 seconds", and you can't choose not to do it, then what does that say about your free will? That your free will was suspended just for that brief moment of time, but you are otherwise unfettered at every other time?

a better one is "if god can't be wrong then why is anything he made able to be wrong

Free will, would be my answer. God made everybody as perfect creatures, then they used their free will to sin. The descendants of these sinful creatures are not directly created by God, and can safely sin without meaning to, and it wouldn't reflect poorly on God.

 

[Dreiko]

Yes.



Okay, I can see that.

That doesn't get around the "knowledge of your own future" problem, though. If a time traveler (or God) says "you're going to slap yourself in the face in 5 seconds", and you can't choose not to do it, then what does that say about your free will? That your free will was suspended just for that brief moment of time, but you are otherwise unfettered at every other time?



Free will, would be my answer. God made everybody as perfect creatures, then they used their free will to sin. The descendants of these sinful creatures are not directly created by God, and can safely sin without meaning to, and it wouldn't reflect poorly on God.

Read my above edit for a bit more stuff, it may answer your second paragraph.


And assuming god has free will too and is not bound to be correct and wholesome all the time by some natural limitation (which would also be an imperfection in itself mind you) that alone does not give birth to evil/wrong stuff.

Basically, you need to figure out where the imperfection in the creations of the creations of god stem from such that they can just generate evil out of nowhere. Them just being defective enough to just birth evil onto the world is a sign of a faulty creator if we are to say that being evil is wrong and not natural and fine.

 

[Houseman]

Think of it this way, there's infinite futures each millisecond, and god is aware of all of those events that could transpire in each of those infinite futures, but gives people the freedom to make that choice and actually pick which world line to travel

El Psy Kongroo, brother.

Yes, that seems valid as far as an explanation of how time works, but I don't think it sufficiently solves the problem of knowing one's future. To say that an event will happen with certainty, like you'll slap yourself in the face, would be to say "you're on this world line and nothing you can do can get you off it, so you're basically predestined as far as this is concerned".

I'd like to hear your answer to how "knowledge of your own future" doesn't cause problems.

Unless you're also saying that God doesn't do that, at all.

And assuming god has free will too and is not bound to be correct and wholesome all the time by some natural limitation (which would also be an imperfection in itself mind you) that alone does not give birth to evil/wrong stuff.

Basically, you need to figure out where the imperfection in the creations of the creations of god stem from such that they can just generate evil out of nowhere. Them just being defective enough to just birth evil onto the world is a sign of a faulty creator if we are to say that being evil is wrong and not natural and fine.

Free will gives them the ability to 'generate evil out of nowhere', assuming that disobeying God is evil.

If God tells Adam not to eat from the tree, and Adam uses his free will to eat from the tree, then he has essentially "created evil". It wasn't borne of imperfection, or any defect. It was a conscious, fully considered, decision to disobey.

There's no imperfection in that, per se, unless you want to say that Adam made himself imperfect with that act. I consider the imperfection to come about when God kicked Adam out of the garden and allowed him to age and die.

 

[Dreiko]

El Psy Kongroo, brother.

Yes, that seems valid as far as an explanation of how time works, but I don't think it sufficiently solves the problem of knowing one's future. To say that an event will happen with certainty, like you'll slap yourself in the face, would be to say "you're on this world line and nothing you can do can get you off it, so you're basically predestined as far as this is concerned".

Unless you're also saying that God doesn't do that, at all.

God is basically the gm and sets the rules, you still have to choose which line you're on. Basically with things like who you slap there's no need to use a microwave to jump lines, you are the microwave.

Free will gives them the ability to 'generate evil out of nowhere', assuming that disobeying God is evil.

If God tells Adam not to eat from the tree, and Adam uses his free will to eat from the tree, then he has essentially "created evil". It wasn't borne of imperfection, or any defect. It was a conscious, fully considered, decision to disobey.

There's no imperfection in that, per se, unless you want to say that Adam made himself imperfect with that act. I consider the imperfection to come about when God kicked Adam out of the garden and allowed him to age and die.

Well, having that ability to just generate evil is a pretty damn huge defect! That alone just shatters the notion of a perfect creation.

 

[Houseman]

God is basically the gm and sets the rules, you still have to choose which line you're on. Basically with things like who you slap there's no need to use a microwave to jump lines, you are the microwave.

Okay. I would still like a clear answer to the following dilemma:

God says that you'll slap yourself in the face, five minutes from now.
Can you prevent slapping yourself in the face?
If you can't, then doesn't that say something about free will?
If you can, then doesn't that say something about God?

Well, having that ability to just generate evil is a pretty damn huge defect! That alone just shatters the notion of a perfect creation.

What if having the ability to generate evil is intended (or logically necessary) for a perfect creation with free will?
I'm defining perfect as "exactly according to design and functions exactly as intended"

God could have just created robots, incapable of doing things he doesn't want them to do, but then that would be a hollow victory.

 

[Dreiko]

Okay. I would still like a clear answer to the following dilemma:

God says that you'll slap yourself in the face, five minutes from now.
Can you prevent slapping yourself in the face?
If you can't, then doesn't that say something about free will?
If you can, then doesn't that say something about God?



What if having the ability to generate evil is intended (or logically necessary) for a perfect creation with free will?
I'm defining perfect as "exactly according to design and functions exactly as intended"

God could have just created robots, incapable of doing things he doesn't want them to do, but then that would be a hollow victory.

God saying that is more of a description than a prescription. It's like saying if you let go of a ball it'll fall to the ground. You're not making it happen, you're just aware of the forces in play and how they interact so you don't need to throw the ball down to have it fall. It just so happens that the forces at play include free will. Just because we have free will doesn't mean that our ways are unknowable. Especially when we have lore in play that indicates sinful though can be perceived. Clearly if you can analyze all of someone's thoughts you can pretty clearly predict their pattern of behavior 5 minutes into the future without needing to limit their free will. Also we don't even need to limit this on a time-scale. God can just go to the future and tell you what you did but the process through which you did it was still free will, you've just not done it yet. (though him telling you may cause a butterfly effect so it'd be interesting to see you still doing it despite that)


And if the ability to generate evil is fine then evil is fine, that's kinda the idea, so you enter the contradiction I listed above.


And no we're incapable of doing a ton of things as humans, hell we can't even see all the spectrums of color or hear all the sounds that animals like dogs and bats and whales can, who knows how that would have influenced the free will bit.

 

[Houseman]

God saying that is more of a description than a prescription. It's like saying if you let go of a ball it'll fall to the ground. You're not making it happen, you're just aware of the forces in play and how they interact so you don't need to throw the ball down to have it fall. It just so happens that the forces at play include free will. Just because we have free will doesn't mean that our ways are unknowable. Especially when we have lore in play that indicates sinful though can be perceived. Clearly if you can analyze all of someone's thoughts you can pretty clearly predict their pattern of behavior 5 minutes into the future without needing to limit their free will.

So can you or can you not prevent yourself from slapping yourself in the face five minutes from now?
The answer to this question is crucial, and has not been clearly given.

And if the ability to generate evil is fine then evil is fine

How so?
It's "fine" in that "the rules of the universe allow for it".
Humans can swallow sand and gravel until they choke and die, and the rules of the universe allow for it.
Humans can throw babies and pregnant women off of cliffs and the rules of the universe allow for it.
It doesn't mean that these things are "fine", just that they are "allowable".

And no we're incapable of doing a ton of things as humans, hell we can't even see all the spectrums of color or hear all the sounds that animals like dogs and bats and whales can, who knows how that would have influenced the free will bit.

Yes, but those are physical limitations. There is no logical way for us to have free will and yet be unable to disobey God. That's a logical impossibility, not a physical impossibility.

 

[Dreiko]

So can you or can you not prevent yourself from slapping yourself in the face five minutes from now?
The answer to this question is crucial, and has not been clearly given.



How so?
It's "fine" in that "the rules of the universe allow for it".
Humans can swallow sand and gravel until they choke and die, and the rules of the universe allow for it.
Humans can throw babies and pregnant women off of cliffs and the rules of the universe allow for it.
It doesn't mean that these things are "fine", just that they are "allowable".



Yes, but those are physical limitations. There is no logical way for us to have free will and yet be unable to disobey God. That's a logical impossibility, not a physical impossibility.

You can but you won't, that's kinda how this thing goes. A reason will always end up contriving itself into being to make you choose to do it, but the process of your choosing will be free. As long as the process is free, the outcome really doesn't matter, because in the act of choosing it is that we become people, and not just animals running on instinct. Overly focusing on the outcome isn't really important here.


And no it's not the same for something to be allowable and to be fine. The universe can just have no evil and nobody would ever know anything was missing and you'd still have free will, same with how a million other concepts we've not yet come up with do not prevent us from having free will. Same as how the primitive people from back thousands of years ago were said to have free will but didn't know what germs or electricity was. In the modern setting you can't imagine someone making a meaningful free choice without such information but if it was indeed free back then then it really doesn't matter how much you know of what is possible in the vastness of the universe. So the capacity to know evil or even have evil as a thing exist in the universe is not necessary.

 

[Houseman]

You can but you won't, that's kinda how this thing goes. A reason will always end up contriving itself into being to make you choose to do it, but the process of your choosing will be free. As long as the process is free, the outcome really doesn't matter, because in the act of choosing it is that we become people, and not just animals running on instinct. Overly focusing on the outcome isn't really important here.

I don't think so.

If you can, then God's wrong, and God can't be wrong.
If you can't, then you have no free will. It's very simple logic:
- You must be able to choose to be able to have free will.
- This experiment proves that you can't choose.
- Therefore, you don't have free will.

If you just "feel" like you're choosing, then that's just the illusion of free will.

And no it's not the same for something to be allowable and to be fine. The universe can just have no evil and nobody would ever know anything was missing and you'd still have free will,

Except you can't choose to disobey God, so you don't really have free will. Or God just doesn't make any commandments, so when you murder someone, you're not disobeying God, so therefore, it isn't "evil". But now we have a problem where "good" and "evil" is meaningless. Evil technically "doesn't exist" because it simply lacks a definition, but you still have people murdering each-other.

Free will logically requires "evil" to be at least theoretically possible. "Obey" needs an antonym: "Disobey". I don't see any other possibility.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Assuming the following premises:

• God exists
• God knows the future
• God can't be wrong

How can anyone be said to have free will?

If God sees that someone is going to go to Hell, then why should that person even try to be good?
Why is God predetermining that people should go to Hell before they are even born to begin with?
Why reward or punish us based on what we can't change or control?

Unless there's some explanation, then it seems like the only way that God can be good is if God doesn't/can't know the future.

Call me crazy but I like Supernatural’s interpretation of him. A struggling writer who utimately got bored with his universal creations. Except for the main protagonist brothers of course.