"Many religious people love to talk about how god has a plan for each of us. If we die early, that's god's plan. If we win the lottery, god's plan again. If our baby has cerebral palsy, once again, god's plan. God works in mysterious ways, doesn't it?

Yet then to explain away the evilness of humans, these same religious people use the concept of 'free will', saying that humans were given the power to choose for themselves, and some choose evil.

So I must ask, how can both be true? How can god have a plan for us, AND give us free will? Free will by definition means that we can choose our own path. If we can choose our own path, how can we not change our future depending on the choices we make? If the believer then argues that you can choose a path, but all paths lead to the same place, which is god's plan, then he has contradicted free will. If I have a pre-determined destiny which cannot be changed, then I don't have any power in my own life, my choices ultimately are meaningless, and I never did have free will.

So I argue that both the concept of effective prayer and of free will contradict the concept of a divine plan. Free will and effective prayer do not contradict each other. So believers, you must either throw away the concept of a divine plan, or throw away belief in both the effectiveness of prayer and of free will.

If you choose to throw away the divine plan, then you have to admit that sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen, and it is not determined by god. When bad things happen to good people, such as children being gang-raped, god does not intervene, and didn't plan it either. Sh*t happens, and god doesn't seem to care. Also, it would shorten a lot of post-sports-match interviews, and awards acceptance speeches if we admit that god didn't have anything to do with it.

If you choose to throw away the concepts of effective prayer and free will, then you could save a lot of time and money. Praying for events no longer works, so you can shorten services in churches, and stop giving money to those fraudsters on TV. There is no such thing as free will, so you'll have to admit that god created some people to be evil, and part of its plan is for them to be evil. Why would your supremely-good god create people to be evil? This would surely have an effect on the morality teachings of most religions.

It seems that either of these options would be somewhat devastating for religions. In order to continue, they need all 3 (divine plan, free will and effective prayer) to be true. They're relying on it. And most religious sheep will never figure out that there is a problem with all 3 being true."

Source

Mr copy and paste whatever arguement i put forward will still be rejected by you. Why not do away with all these destrucive logic and use ur time well in doing positive things that will bring glory to man and GOD

2cato:
Mr copy and paste whatever arguement i put forward will still be rejected by you. Why not do away with all these destrucive logic and use ur time well in doing positive things that will bring glory to man and GOD

Miss*, and that sentence was incomprehensible.

Under what conditions does logic become destructive? When it unravels a concept you personally subscribe to?

2cato:
Mr copy and paste whatever arguement i put forward will still be rejected by you. Why not do away with all these destrucive logic and use ur time well in doing positive things that will bring glory to man and GOD

This is all you could come up with? This is not disappointing but disgraceful rather..

every idea of human making is prone to be scrutinized to deduct a reasonable outcome and not just swallowed hook line and sinker no matter how absurd it sounds.

if we let every idea go and fly about unchecked no matter how absurd, humanity will be thrown into a demeaning stage of accepting any ridiculous idea, whim or coercion out there.

that is like asking humans not to think, if we don't what then are we? Mor0ns?

So this is not the point of the OP, it is about scrutinizing the notion of a predetermined nature of humans which is a human idea.

The point of the OP is

If humans are like a programmed android robot with every second of their existence already programmed to go a certain way THEN humans are not free creatures but rather our choices are an exercise of a preprogrammed plan.

therefore was not even a choice in the first place.

So if humans have freewill then there cannot be predestination but if human lives are already predestined then there is no freewill and none really lives.

Cut and paste reply time

Your question presupposes that God exists in time, as we do. But if God exists timelessly, He does not have literal foreknowledge. For what is future for us is not future for Him. So He knows what is future for us, but He does not foreknow it. Defenders of divine timelessness, then, have no difficulty with your question, since it presupposes a temporal deity.

But suppose we think, as I do, that God does exist at every time that there is and so does literally foreknow the future. As you rightly point out, foreknowledge of free choices cannot be based upon inference from present causes, for that would imply determinism and annihilate free choice. So God must know future free choices in some other way.

In getting at this question, it is useful to distinguish two models of divine cognition: a perceptualist model and a conceptualist model. The perceptualist model thinks of God’s cognition on the analogy of sense perception. This model is implicitly presupposed when people talk, as you do, of God’s “foreseeing future events.” He somehow looks ahead in time and “sees” what is there. The language is metaphorical, but I can think of at least two ways to make a perceptualist model of divine foreknowledge work, though they both involve ontological commitments which I am not willing to make.

One way would be to adopt a tenseless theory of time, according to which all events, past, present, and future, are equally real and temporal becoming is just a subjective illusion of human consciousness. The perceptualist model runs into trouble only if time is tensed, for then there is nothing in the future to see. But if all events in time are equally existent, then there is something there for God to perceive. He can just look and see what actually lies ahead.

Another way would be to hold that there are abstract objects (propositions) which bear the values true or false. On a realist view of such objects, there is no need for God to look into the future in order to know what will happen. Rather He can know the future simply by inspecting future-tense propositions (or tenseless propositions about future events) which presently exist and bear the properties true or false. An omniscient God cannot be ignorant of the properties which presently inhere in things. If we are reluctant, as I am, to ascribe reality to abstract objects like propositions, perhaps we could substitute for propositions God’s own belief states or thoughts and the truth values inhering in them.

But there is no reason to adopt a perceptualist model of divine cognition, which is a terribly anthropomorphic way of thinking of God’s cognition—God certainly doesn’t know mathematical or ethical truths, for example, on the basis of anything like sense perception. Rather we can adopt a conceptualist model, which thinks of God’s knowledge more on the analogy of innate ideas. Plato thought that human knowledge is innate and that education consists in simply helping us to recollect the knowledge that we have forgotten. However implausible such a model might be for human cognition, it seems perfectly suited to divine cognition. As an essentially omniscient being God has the property of believing only and all truths. He didn’t get this knowledge from anywhere; He just has it innately. Compare other divine attributes like omnipotence. It makes no sense to ask how God is omnipotent. Exercise? Practice? No, God simply has the essential property of being omnipotent. In the same way He simply has the essential attribute of being omniscient. But then it follows that He must know all future-tense truths, which gives Him complete knowledge of the future.

I am perfectly satisfied with such a simple conceptualist model of divine cognition, but we can push the analysis a notch further. For if God has what theologians call “middle knowledge,” then foreknowledge immediately follows as a consequence. By His middle knowledge God knows what every free person He could have created would freely do in any set of circumstances in which God might place him. So by creating certain persons and placing them in certain circumstances, God knows exactly what they will do, and that without abridging their freedom in any way. God knows the future simply on the basis of His middle knowledge and His knowledge of His choice of which persons and circumstances to create, without any sort of perception of the world.

Of course, this raises the question of the basis of God’s middle knowledge, and here the same sort of answers will be replayed. For example, if individual essences exist (e.g., your essential properties), then God can simply inspect them to see what contingent counterfactual properties inhere in them concerning what the relevant persons would do in various circumstances, were those essences to be instantiated. I’m inclined to regard God’s middle knowledge simply as innate knowledge, which is His in virtue of being an omniscient being.



Read more: http://www.reasonablefaith.org/how-does-god-foreknow-free-choices#ixzz46ZWCSwjC

If only u had the sense I would argue with you but your posts so far shows you don't have the sense to be argued with.

UyiIredia:
If only u had the sense I would argue with you but your posts so far shows you don't have the sense to be argued with.

just say you have nothing to contribute.....the op clearly included her source up there

UyiIredia:
If only u had the sense I would argue with you but your posts so far shows you don't have the sense to be argued with.

How does that refute the OP

Please all theists replying should not insult the OP. @OP, do not believe the concept of pre-destination. God has given you the right to choose your way. You see, you atheists are right in having doubts and I see it as the failure of religionists who misinterprete scriptures. God will only help you in actualising your dream by making sure you do not fail. He will make sure you succeed only if you ask for His help. He has already given you the will to plan your life.

lordnicklaus:
Please all theists replying should not insult the OP. @OP, do not believe the concept of pre-destination. God has given you the right to choose your way. You see, you atheists are right in having doubts and I see it as the failure of religionists who misinterprete scriptures. God will only help you in actualising your dream by making sure you do not fail. He will make sure you succeed only if you ask for His help. He has already given you the will to plan your life.

What could be the reason for failure, sickness, death, accident, the gang-rape the op stated? If God only help you actualize your dream.

Myosotis:


What could be the reason for failure, sickness, death, accident, the gang-rape the op stated? If God only help you actualize your dream.

It's simply because you have failed to let God help and if God helps without you calling, that would also contradict free will and will make it seem as He was pugnosing in your business without you calling.....

lordnicklaus:




It's simply because you have failed to let God help and if God helps without you calling, that would also contradict free will and will make it seem as He was pugnosing in your business without you calling.....

This is the must hilarious thing I have read today.

Do you mean to say that the people who encounter accident is as a result of their disbelief in God? And You mean no child of God has ever experienced a tragedy?

Because what this topic is about is why does god still let his followers suffer from so many unpleasant experience as meN of God will say it's the "will of God" ....


Please sir do not divert from the question asked, if you have no answer to it stop trying to beat around.

Myosotis:


This is the must hilarious thing I have read today.

Do you mean to say that the people who encounter accident is as a result of their disbelief in God? And You mean no child of God has ever experienced a tragedy?

Because what this topic is about is why does god still let his followers suffer from so many unpleasant experience as meN of God will say it's the "will of God" ....


Please sir do not divert from the question asked, if you have no answer to it stop trying to beat around.

I must have misread the OP or your question. The world lies in the power of the evil one, Jesus even said that there would be afflictions in the last days. God being patient with the evil one doesn't mean He doesn't know what He is doing.

lordnicklaus:





I must have misread the OP or your question. The world lies in the power of the evil one, Jesus even said that there would be afflictions in the last days. God being patient with the evil one doesn't mean He doesn't know what He is doing.

I literally laughed out loud ...

You mean all evil things are as a result of the power of the devil? And God is only over looking the devil

If you say that god is not powerless but has power to do any thing at all, and the same god still let the devil inflict suffering and pain on his people when he can stop it. It's then safe to say that God he is a wicked God and not worth worshipping .... Alternatively you can look at the reality that no god existing anywhere will do that to his children.

Let's give an example of two people leaving the house. They both prayed seriously, rebuked the evil awaiting them outside...

The first one; after 30minutes of departure got into an accident and died.

The second; after an hour got into an accident but nothing happened to him only for a few scratches on his car. He then goes to the church and thank God for saving his life.


The question is, was it truly God's mercy? If so why did the first one die and if it's the devil like you said, why did God choose to let the devil kill him?

From my about question you can see that it's either the accident happened by mere chance and the other got away also by mere chance.

Or

God is involved! And incompetent of fighting off the devil....

taurus25:

just say you have nothing to contribute.....the op clearly included her source up there

Well everyone is free to believe what they chose.

lordnicklaus:
Well everyone is free to believe what they chose.

Yes.

Some choose to think deeplu and reason logical before believing things while others dogmatically follow what Is in the Bible and Quran be it right or wrong.

No. They are both reconcilable and compatible. For God sets each and everyone of us apart from our mothers' wombs for His Free Will and Divine use and pleasures.

There is divine plan and there is free will. Because we are in the world and mostly ruled by flesh, we usually take a detour from the plan. God doesn't force people to follow the divine plan, rather, he expects us to seek him for direction. The only way we can know the plans of God for us is if we truly walk in the spirit.
However, when we pray and insist on our way, He answers because He promised. Remember that God's plan was not for the Israelites to have a king but they insisted and He gave them king. It wasn't God's plan that man shall fall. Man applied his free will and fell, but out of God's love, He came to our rescue.
Several times when we pray, we do so out of flesh. That's why we are normally selfish in prayers.
Paul said in Colossians 1:9 "...I desire that you be filled with the knowledge of His will in wisdom and spiritual understanding." This is a prayer all Christians should always say, replacing 'you' with 'I'.
Again, one of the reasons why we are given the gift of tongues is to help us pray for the unknown, and pray rightly according to His will.
Romans 8:26 says "Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities; for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groaning which cannot be uttered" in articulate speech.
There is a divine plan; there is a free will, but our free will determines whether we will work in accordance with the plan. Jeremiah 29:11 says "I alone knows the plan I have for you, plan of good not of evil...to give you the expected end"

2cato:
... Why not do away with all these destrucive logic and use ur time well in doing positive things that will bring glory to man and GOD

Do you even make sense to yourself?

lordnicklaus:




It's simply because you have failed to let God help and if God helps without you calling, that would also contradict free will and will make it seem as He was pugnosing in your business without you calling.....

This is so lame. Isn't he all knowing and all merciful? Aren't we his creatures? Will caring or intervening for your child who you love be tantamount to poke nosing? After all from Bible stories he even chose to ve mercy on individuals who didnt merit it? Recall the story of Esau and Jacob, King Solomon and David who had several wives and concubines.
What about little children who are born with terminal/painful illnesses and die of same? ow does your response apply to them?

FREE WILL FREE WILL

confusion all over, eyah. Life must be hard on the ungodly side.