IAmSabrina:

What of the creatures who aren't willing to be with him in loving fellowship? Was it God that created them? Are the choices they made not part of God's plan? He knew before they even existed that they'd rebel against him but he punishes them anyway, no?

"Regarding your first paragraph, I already explained this with that post. God speaks from foreknowledge as easily as we speak from increasing knowledge. He knew Pharaoh before Pharaoh was born. He knew the choices that Pharaoh would want to make. He decreed those choices after all to make it possible for Pharaoh to choose them when he decided that he wanted to. In other words, he designed Pharaoh to be what Pharaoh wanted to be. This was why Pharaoh was a "vessel of wrath". It was not an arbitrary choice that God made for him in spite of what he might prefer. It was what Pharaoh wanted to be in Time as a creature. This is applicable to every other person who has ever existed. The choices that God knew we would make with our free will are what He designed us to make.

Yes, I not only can but I have reconciled this to my Christian Faith. Jesus Christ died to save everybody. The Gospel was proclaimed right from the Garden of Eden to make sure that everybody who wants to be saved will be. But the fact that God made provision for everybody's Salvation does not mean that everybody will be saved whether they want to be or not. Even though the provision was made, they still have to choose. And God knew from eternity past who would reject it. Those ones were thus designed to reject it according to their desire. In other words, all rebels who will go to Hell are so because that is precisely who they want to be."
- Ihedinobi3 (https://www.nairaland.com/5020369/god-shoes/3#76349854)

IAmSabrina:
@bolded. This just proves that you've not understood what I've been writing.

First of all, there's two roads but they lead to the SAME stop.

God knows the end from the beginning. Is there any choice you'll make that will surprise God & alter where you're going to end up?

Why does God need to be surprised?

IAmSabrina:
You know exactly what it means. God is not a dullard. Or do you believe there is no free will in heaven?

If NO, are we just puppets on a string? One may say, you may be so blissful that you are not even tempted to sin any more--so we're just mindless automations in heaven? Does that mean God created temptation in the first place? Why didn't he just have the blissfulness to begin with? Because of free will?

If YES, how long until someone pulls another fast one and screws up? Until the next failure? It would be a cycle of Bible stories that time after time the God character has to wipe out most of humanity and start fresh, then they fall back into "sin" and he has to wipe them out all over again. Whether it be flood, fire, or what have you.

Permit me to use this excerpt from blogger Vexen Crabtree:
If we do have a 2D object, such as a picture, then we can turn it into a 3D object via a simple trick. If we make an exact copy of the 2D painting and change it slightly, and put them behind each other and repeat this 100 times, the result apparently turns 2D into 3D. Every school child knows this. If you draw a stick man in the bottom corner of a notebook, and a slightly different one on the next page in the same relative location, a school child can then bend the corner of the notebook, flick through all the pages and see each 2D drawing in quick succession. This creates an illusion of a 2D stick man moving. It is almost as if the 2D drawing has gained a third dimension of movement.

The child, who exists one dimension "above" the drawing, created the stickman's past and future (even if it is presently half way through its flickering existence). The stickman has no way of perceiving or inferring the existence of dimensions other than its native two (unless the stickman developed complex maths, as we have). It exists in ignorance of "higher" dimensions. Higher means dimensions that are not native to the theorized 2D object.
http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/dimensions.html#Dimensions

Do you think there's anything that stickman will do that will surprise the child?

Just like that child has authored the stickman's destiny, that's how God has authored our own destiny. So, I'm asking again. Isn't there a possibility that God could have created the universe without the unnecessary burden of sin and pain and punishment?

Regarding

"...do you believe there is no free will in heaven?"

Obviously, there is no free will after Death (or Resurrection for believers who live to see the Lord Jesus return). My responses from the beginning have implied that. Life on earth is the only time we make a choice whether to submit to God or rebel against Him. There is no point in still making a choice after you have been made an eternal part of God's Family or after you have been eternally rejected by Him.

As for:

"Isn't there a possibility that God could have created the universe without the unnecessary burden of sin and pain and punishment?"

What does this have to do with anything?

Edit: Regarding this:

"If NO, are we just puppets on a string? One may say, you may be so blissful that you are not even tempted to sin any more--so we're just mindless automations in heaven? Does that mean God created temptation in the first place? Why didn't he just have the blissfulness to begin with? Because of free will?"

As I said,

"Free will is not the ability to do whatever you please with or without consequence. It is the ability to choose between just two options:

1. Submit to God's Authority

2. Rebel against God's Authority.."

Free will is not the ability to choose whether to take a nap or to eat noodles or things like that. We only have to choose whether we will submit to God or not. Other choices are just the joy of existing, which God has granted to all His creatures. We can enjoy different experiences and discover the wonders of life all around us and take pleasure in that discovery. Only rebels will lose this gift in the end.

So, in the end, all of God's Family will still enjoy making choices but not of submission or rebellion. To their joy, they won't need to deal with that test again.

As for being automatons because they no longer have to make that choice, all believers with any lick of sense look forward to being able to live without sinning against God. In other words, they look forward to not being able to choose to sin against God anymore.

As for creating temptations, God did not. As I have said, God only sanctioned and made possible all creature choices. So, when rebellion came in, it brought temptation with it independent of what God preferred for His creatures. The temptation has served and will continue to serve to give other creatures a real opportunity to exercise their own free will but it is not at all necessary. If temptation did not exist at all, free will still would have. All creatures would only just not be interested in sinning against God at all so none of them would be trying to persuade the other to sin against Him. But some creatures did sin and they are the ones tempting others.

As for bliss, that is the issue of planning already spoken of. God's first creation was perfect and blissful. There was not a trace of evil or badness at all in it. Satan had no reason to sin. When he sinned, it was entirely because his own perfection went to his head, not because anything or anyone tempted him. Nothing did. Even after the angelic rebellion that followed and subsequent judgment, God still re-created the Universe to perfectly accommodate human life. Adam and Eve had no reason to sin either. The Garden of Eden was perfectly blissful in every way. The animals served the human couple's perfect pleasure. The trees and fruits delighted them. They had God to commune with every single evening and each other to enjoy all the time. Nothing was missing or unpleasant in any way.

When Satan tempted Eve, she had no reason to fall for his tricks. She only did because as long as free will exists, human beings and angels can decide to ignore all the perfection around them in search of a fantasy that is nothing more than a nightmare. She simply tried to see if there really could be some other way to exist. And there was. And it was very not-pretty.

So, it was not that God did not create perfect bliss. It was that bliss is not enough for people determined to rebel against God. Rebellion against God is all about insisting on replacing Him as Ruler. It isn't about getting anything good that is lacking or correcting something bad in our experience.

That is why those who believe in God will enjoy eternal fellowship with Him: they are perfectly happy to have God rule over them. But rebels will always be miserable to have that. But there can never be more than one God, so rebels can never be truly happy nor will what happiness they enjoy right now last because they will eventually see God and recognize the futility of all their rebellion against Him.

Ihedinobi3:

Straw man fallacy.

Straw man how?

You:

Ihedinobi3:


However, even though these multiple possibilities are absolutely genuine and real, God knows precisely how each moral creature will choose and therefore designs the Universe leading up to that choice in a way to make that choice actually possible. If He did not, the creature in question would be forced to make a choice they really didn't want to.

As laid out above there are two components to this predestination:

1. Foreknowledge: The god knows what all creatures are going to do and what the outcomes will be ie the god knows exactly who is going to "rebel" and thus go to hell.
2. Enabling: The god provides all the resources to enable the already foreknown choices to happen exactly as it foreknew it ie the god enables those making choices to go to hell to make those choices.

Conclusion: The god foreknew all those going to hell and enabled them to do so therefore the god predestined those going to hell to go to hell.

This conclusion is from your very words so where is the strawman?

Ihedinobi3:

"Regarding your first paragraph, I already explained this with that post. God speaks from foreknowledge as easily as we speak from increasing knowledge. He knew Pharaoh before Pharaoh was born. He knew the choices that Pharaoh would want to make. He decreed those choices after all to make it possible for Pharaoh to choose them when he decided that he wanted to. In other words, he designed Pharaoh to be what Pharaoh wanted to be. This was why Pharaoh was a "vessel of wrath". It was not an arbitrary choice that God made for him in spite of what he might prefer. It was what Pharaoh wanted to be in Time as a creature. This is applicable to every other person who has ever existed. The choices that God knew we would make with our free will are what He designed us to make.

Yes, I not only can but I have reconciled this to my Christian Faith. Jesus Christ died to save everybody. The Gospel was proclaimed right from the Garden of Eden to make sure that everybody who wants to be saved will be. But the fact that God made provision for everybody's Salvation does not mean that everybody will be saved whether they want to be or not. Even though the provision was made, they still have to choose. And God knew from eternity past who would reject it. Those ones were thus designed to reject it according to their desire. In other words, all rebels who will go to Hell are so because that is precisely who they want to be."
- Ihedinobi3 (https://www.nairaland.com/5020369/god-shoes/3#76349854)



Why does God need to be surprised?



Regarding

"...do you believe there is no free will in heaven?"

Obviously, there is no free will after Death (or Resurrection for believers who live to see the Lord Jesus return). My responses from the beginning have implied that. Life on earth is the only time we make a choice whether to submit to God or rebel against Him. There is no point in still making a choice after you have been made an eternal part of God's Family or after you have been eternally rejected by Him.

As for:

"Isn't there a possibility that God could have created the universe without the unnecessary burden of sin and pain and punishment?"

What does this have to do with anything?

Edit: Regarding this:

"If NO, are we just puppets on a string? One may say, you may be so blissful that you are not even tempted to sin any more--so we're just mindless automations in heaven? Does that mean God created temptation in the first place? Why didn't he just have the blissfulness to begin with? Because of free will?"

As I said,

"Free will is not the ability to do whatever you please with or without consequence. It is the ability to choose between just two options:

1. Submit to God's Authority

2. Rebel against God's Authority.."

Free will is not the ability to choose whether to take a nap or to eat noodles or things like that. We only have to choose whether we will submit to God or not. Other choices are just the joy of existing, which God has granted to all His creatures. We can enjoy different experiences and discover the wonders of life all around us and take pleasure in that discovery. Only rebels will lose this gift in the end.

So, in the end, all of God's Family will still enjoy making choices but not of submission or rebellion. To their joy, they won't need to deal with that test again.

As for being automatons because they no longer have to make that choice, all believers with any lick of sense look forward to being able to live without sinning against God. In other words, they look forward to not being able to choose to sin against God anymore.

As for creating temptations, God did not. As I have said, God only sanctioned and made possible all creature choices. So, when rebellion came in, it brought temptation with it independent of what God preferred for His creatures. The temptation has served and will continue to serve to give other creatures a real opportunity to exercise their own free will but it is not at all necessary. If temptation did not exist at all, free will still would have. All creatures would only just not be interested in sinning against God at all so none of them would be trying to persuade the other to sin against Him. But some creatures did sin and they are the ones tempting others.

As for bliss, that is the issue of planning already spoken of. God's first creation was perfect and blissful. There was not a trace of evil or badness at all in it. Satan had no reason to sin. When he sinned, it was entirely because his own perfection went to his head, not because anything or anyone tempted him. Nothing did. Even after the angelic rebellion that followed and subsequent judgment, God still re-created the Universe to perfectly accommodate human life. Adam and Eve had no reason to sin either. The Garden of Eden was perfectly blissful in every way. The animals served the human couple's perfect pleasure. The trees and fruits delighted them. They had God to commune with every single evening and each other to enjoy all the time. Nothing was missing or unpleasant in any way.

When Satan tempted Eve, she had no reason to fall for his tricks. She only did because as long as free will exists, human beings and angels can decide to ignore all the perfection around them in search of a fantasy that is nothing more than a nightmare. She simply tried to see if there really could be some other way to exist. And there was. And it was very not-pretty.

So, it was not that God did not create perfect bliss. It was that bliss is not enough for people determined to rebel against God. Rebellion against God is all about insisting on replacing Him as Ruler. It isn't about getting anything good that is lacking or correcting something bad in our experience.

That is why those who believe in God will enjoy eternal fellowship with Him: they are perfectly happy to have God rule over them. But rebels will always be miserable to have that. But there can never be more than one God, so rebels can never be truly happy nor will what happiness they enjoy right now last because they will eventually see God and recognize the futility of all their rebellion against Him.

With all due respect, Ihedinobi, you're starting to sound like a broken record. And it just proves that this is one of those aspects of religion which has so completely lost track of logic that it makes the belief system irreconcilable with logic.

AN OMNIPOTENT GOD eliminates ALL semblance free will. In a universe containing an omnipotent god, all actions can only occur in accordance with the will of that god. This renders EVERYTHING, even the option to submit or rebel, the responsibility of the god. And all actions taken by human beings are subject to that control. The beings might think they are autonomous, but omnipotence means they are actually puppets. For game developers, this is exactly like the situation in a video game (If you're a fan of videogames, you must have heard of or played The Sims). The programmer is responsible for everything within the game cosmos. The programmer cannot blame game characters for their actions because their actions are entirely driven by the will of the programmer. Their appearance of autonomy is simply a trick.

AN OMNISCIENT GOD also eliminates all free will. Firstly if all actions are foreseen then the illusion of freedom is shown to be false. Individuals are merely acting out a pre-written script. No freedom there. Also, omniscience in a cause and effect natural universe means all the causes for decisions are known by the omniscient observer. This renders all actions as inevitable and driven by physical laws. No freedom there either. The addition of supernatural causes for decisions does not restore free will either. Neither does random quantum noise, souls, angels or time travel.

So to make free-will work, religion has to come up with a model where God backs away from humans, ceases to be omniscient and omnipotent, and allows each person a bubble of private operating space, in which, according to religion, true free will can operate, outside the controlling influcence and scrutiny of a god.

Of course there’s a problem with that too.

Free will is demonstrably not possible in any universe. The definition is itself a contradiction in terms.

Human beings enjoy the illusion of free will. Which for non-omniscient people, is pretty good. We can’t perceive the difference. But an omniscient observer could. So an omniscient god would regard a person as a cloud of atoms, all obeying the laws of physics, acting-out according to prior causes. (or whatever prior causes are abroad in the universe).

Any close scrutiny of the free will question, will always dismantle the mythology around sin, accountability, responsibily and judgement. This is not the first time we've had this argument and as expected, we've ended up running in circles.

LordReed:
Straw man how?

You:



As laid out above there are two components to this predestination:

1. Foreknowledge: The god knows what all creatures are going to do and what the outcomes will be ie the god knows exactly who is going to "rebel" and thus go to hell.
2. Enabling: The god provides all the resources to enable the already foreknown choices to happen exactly as it foreknew it ie the god enables those making choices to go to hell to make those choices.

Conclusion: The god foreknew all those going to hell and enabled them to do so therefore the god predestined those going to hell to go to hell.

This conclusion is from your very words so where is the strawman?

Your new conclusion is the correct one. Predetermination and Predestination are not the same thing.

As I said, you are exactly right that God has predestined many people to be condemned. That is part and parcel of the business of creating a universe with God's Plan. Because God wanted a Family of willing moral creatures, He gave a free will to all of such creatures (which is what makes them moral) and empowered them with His Decree to make perfectly free choices.

So, that God predestined absolutely free moral creatures to go to the Lake of Fire just as they themselves prefer is still an act consistent with His Goodness and Love. As a loving God, He will not force people into fellowship with Him against their will. As a good God (because of His Justice), He will certainly reward every choice appropriately. It would be grossly unfair of Him if He gave His good eternal gifts to people who chose to rebel against Him even up to the point of trying to seduce or force others to join them in their rebellion.

So, again, those who will go to the Lake of Fire will completely deserve it and God will be completely blameless in condemning them.

Ihedinobi3:

Your new conclusion is the correct one. Predetermination and Predestination are not the same thing.

As I said, you are exactly right that God has predestined many people to be condemned. That is part and parcel of the business of creating a universe with God's Plan. Because God wanted a Family of willing moral creatures, He gave a free will to all of such creatures (which is what makes them moral) and empowered them with His Decree to make perfectly free choices.

So, that God predestined absolutely free moral creatures to go to the Lake of Fire just as they themselves prefer is still an act consistent with His Goodness and Love. As a loving God, He will not force people into fellowship with Him against their will. As a good God (because of His Justice), He will certainly reward every choice appropriately. It would be grossly unfair of Him if He gave His good eternal gifts to people who chose to rebel against Him even up to the point of trying to seduce or force others to join them in their rebellion.

So, again, those who will go to the Lake of Fire will completely deserve it and God will be completely blameless in condemning them.

I am not sure how you show a difference. You are saying god enabled people to go to hell where is the good in that?

Ihedinobi3:

So, that God predestined absolutely free moral creatures to go to the Lake of Fire just as they themselves prefer is still an act consistent with His Goodness and Love. As a loving God, He will not force people into fellowship with Him against their will. As a good God (because of His Justice), He will certainly reward every choice appropriately. It would be grossly unfair of Him if He gave His good eternal gifts to people who chose to rebel against Him even up to the point of trying to seduce or force others to join them in their rebellion.

So, again, those who will go to the Lake of Fire will completely deserve it and God will be completely blameless in condemning them.

This is the part that lays the haymaker to logic and knocks it down out cold,... i find it baffling how it is even an argument.

So God would rather let us suffer in eternal torment rather than alter our free will because he's a loving God? Excuse me...... Whaat?

Is it no longer possible for God to alter our free will whilst giving us the illusion of it? Are we here to act out a play then suffer for eternity because how a "loving " God decided to create someone and destine him for hell?

So, let's say God made us for himself. Then turns around and created "free will" again knowing that some people are going to hell. Why create them?

IAmSabrina:

With all due respect, Ihedinobi, you're starting to sound like a broken record. And it just proves that this is one of those aspects of religion which has so completely lost track of logic that it makes the belief system irreconcilable with logic.

About sounding like a broken record, you are of course very correct. I have, after all, just been copying and pasting excerpts from earlier responses in answer to your repeated questions.

But you are quite wrong to conclude from that that there is any problem of logic in the biblical position. The true conclusion is that you have recycled questions in an effort to try to undermine or suggest some kind of insufficiency in the answers that you have received. In fact, that is precisely why you have here declared that there is a problem with them since I have continued to demonstrate that you really have no new objection to the arguments I have made by simply copypasting old answers to the same objections.

If you do manage to demonstrate an error in the reasoning - other than unilaterally declaring the existence of one - then my position is bad. But you actually have to do it. You have not done it yet.

IAmSabrina:
AN OMNIPOTENT GOD eliminates ALL semblance free will.

Normally, I wouldn't separate the topic sentence from its explanatory paragraph sentences. But I am doing it here to demonstrate your major problem here.

Judging by your earlier responses, you did appreciate the consistency of the arguments I made. But then you did something that I always find disturbing in your arguments: you turned around to begin to cycle through the arguments all over again acting like the questions that had just been addressed were not even answered at all. Also, you started trying to get me to answer an argument that I told you was not my position.

Perhaps in philosophy, free will has a certain meaning, but my arguments on this thread, which you decided to challenge, presented a different meaning. Technical terms are everything for meaning. Words change in meaning as they are used in different contexts, sometimes very significantly too. And I made sure to explain what free will means in the Bible. But you have been trying to force me to argue for a meaning that I do not hold. And I simply pointed you back to the very arguments that you had decided to challenge.

As I said, exactly because creatures are creatures and therefore not self-existing, their free will can only be possible by the Will of their self-existing Creator. Thus, God created real possibilities and alternatives for His Moral Creatures and empowered them by His Own Power (the Omnipotence that exercises you so much) to choose between them. In other words, free will is only possible for creatures because an Omnipotent God guarantees it.

But when you ignore the meaning of free will as a biblical concept, then all you will have is absolute lies like the above for which you will be scrambling up all manner of rationalizations that really do not hold up under scrutiny. See below for an example.

IAmSabrina:
In a universe containing an omnipotent god, all actions can only occur in accordance with the will of that god. This renders EVERYTHING, even the option to submit or rebel, the responsibility of the god. And all actions taken by human beings are subject to that control. The beings might think they are autonomous, but omnipotence means they are actually puppets. For game developers, this is exactly like the situation in a video game (If you're a fan of videogames, you must have heard of or played The Sims). The programmer is responsible for everything within the game cosmos. The programmer cannot blame game characters for their actions because their actions are entirely driven by the will of the programmer. Their appearance of autonomy is simply a trick.

The key problem here is this:

"This renders EVERYTHING, even the option to submit or rebel, the responsibility of the god."

Now, why is the above true?

Your video game parallel works well enough up to a point.

A self-existing Creator exists purely by His Own Will. That means that He is whatever He is pleased to be. Creatures of His production, on the other hand, cannot be whatever they are pleased to be for the important reason that they did not will themselves into existence.

But unlike your game developers, the Creator here possesses the ability to create real alternatives that each moral creature can choose from. As I explained in my very first response to you (copying incidentally from an earlier response also to you in another conversation), these alternatives are as real as the Universe that you actually see. In other words, for every single unbeliever who goes to Hell, there was just as real a possibility that they could have gone to Heaven instead. Both possibilities were created by God, and until the choice was made, nothing was decided.

Of course, in order for any choice at all to be made, God must decree it. Otherwise, creatures being creatures cannot do anything at all. Therefore, because God, knowing all things, knew precisely what each creature would want to choose, He designed the Universe and the creature itself leading up to that temporal choice so that exactly the choice it wants to make is made. Again, that did not cancel out the other alternative. The other alternative remained just as real until the choice was made. But because the creature in question wanted to make the choice that was actually made, God empowered it with His Decree.

That means that God's Decree is actually made by our desires, in a manner of speaking. God decreed that we would be what we want to be between the options of a loyal subject of God and an arrogant rebel.

Thus, we decide. Thus, WE are responsible.

Now, if you decide to maintain your insistence on God's Responsibility, there is a simple answer for you: so what? So what if God unilaterally decided to make you a rebel? Then what? Did you make Him or did He make you? Who has a responsibility to the other here? The maker or the thing made? Does the video game have any right at all to challenge the developer? So God made you a vessel of wrath, what will you do? What difference does it make if you call Him evil for it? Will your calling Him that make Him evil any more than your pretending that He does not exist will put Him out of existence? You are in a no-win situation. Either you humbly submit to the One Who made you and live or you hang on to your arrogant rebellion and spend eternity in torment and regret. That is a choice. If you feel that it is not, well, I am happy enough being a believer who had no choice but to be one, even if that were true. I can't possibly envy you the future you have as an unbeliever.

IAmSabrina:
AN OMNISCIENT GOD also eliminates all free will. Firstly if all actions are foreseen then the illusion of freedom is shown to be false. Individuals are merely acting out a pre-written script. No freedom there. Also, omniscience in a cause and effect natural universe means all the causes for decisions are known by the omniscient observer. This renders all actions as inevitable and driven by physical laws. No freedom there either. The addition of supernatural causes for decisions does not restore free will either. Neither does random quantum noise, souls, angels or time travel.

This one is the constant ugly duckling in any argument opposing free will. It has not even a prayer at all. What does knowledge have to do with anything here?

How does my knowing that the clock will strike noon today mean that it had no choice but to do so? How does my knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow make it rise? Knowledge has nothing to do with causation.

Knowledge, however, can inform action. In other words, if I deliberately act on what I know, then I can produce certain effects.

As I said above (and lots of other places still in response to you elsewhere), God exerted His Power in response to His Knowledge in order to create the Universe. In doing so, free will was made possible.

IAmSabrina:
So to make free-will work, religion has to come up with a model where God backs away from humans, ceases to be omniscient and omnipotent, and allows each person a bubble of private operating space, in which, according to religion, true free will can operate, outside the controlling influcence and scrutiny of a god.

Of course there’s a problem with that too.

Free will is demonstrably not possible in any universe. The definition is itself a contradiction in terms.

Human beings enjoy the illusion of free will. Which for non-omniscient people, is pretty good. We can’t perceive the difference. But an omniscient observer could. So an omniscient god would regard a person as a cloud of atoms, all obeying the laws of physics, acting-out according to prior causes. (or whatever prior causes are abroad in the universe).

Any close scrutiny of the free will question, will always dismantle the mythology around sin, accountability, responsibily and judgement. This is not the first time we've had this argument and as expected, we've ended up running in circles.

So, basically, there are no such things as sin, accountability, responsibility and judgment, according to you. That, of course, is the goal of all atheistic philosophies. If God does not exist, you can do whatever you want since there is nobody to judge or punish you.

An investment in such a thing would necessarily force desperate measures to avoid facing the Truth. The "free will question" is not at all a question. Obviously, you are not just an unbeliever, you are an anti-believer committed to opposing the Bible wherever you can and however you can, but I am a believer just as committed to following the Bible. The world is filled from end to end with people who are one side or the other. These are obviously choices. We are also obviously not self-existing so that we can "get behind the scenes" to observe whether or not we are really making choices. But people cross from one side to the other and back all the time. For all human intents and purposes, that is unarguable evidence that they are making choices.

I get that being God is a closely-held fantasy of atheists, but however hard anyone believes anything, it does not become true for all that.

Regarding your arguments, whatever religion may say, the Bible teaches that human beings were made "in the image of God". That is, we were made to possess a mirror of God's Sovereign Will. We have a real ability to choose who we will be. This makes us gods according to the Bible because God is the I AM. God does not step back at all for free will to work, as I have demonstrated numerous times now.

Not only is free will possible in this universe, it is the only reasonable way to explain this universe. As for a contradiction, this is not the first or the second time we have discussed it and the contradiction is still mysterious. Everything offered to validate it is all noise and no substance.

As for illusion and being non-omniscient, as I said, isn't that the crux of the atheistic objection: why does God get to be the omniscient and omnipotent one but not me? Well, you should have found a way to self-exist too and then we would all be worshiping you instead.

LordReed:


I am not sure how you show a difference. You are saying god enabled people to go to hell where is the good in that?

Perhaps you should read it again and ask a more specific question.

IAmSabrina:

This is the part that lays the haymaker to logic and knocks it down out cold,... i find it baffling how it is even an argument.

So God would rather let us suffer in eternal torment rather than alter our free will because he's a loving God? Excuse me...... Whaat?

Is it no longer possible for God to alter our free will whilst giving us the illusion of it? Are we here to act out a play then suffer for eternity because how a "loving " God decided to create someone and destine him for hell?

So, let's say God made us for himself. Then turns around and created "free will" again knowing that some people are going to hell. Why create them?

Up to this moment, I have been trying to keep the conversation out of absurdity but "freethinking", as your kind calls it, is wont to jump straight into absurdity after huffing and puffing fails.

What does "alter our free will" mean? If free will is altered, is it still free will? This is precisely the same thing as assuming that omnipotence means the ability to do contradictory things. So, if God is all-powerful, then He must also be able to lie, for example. What do these things mean?

As for creating somebody to go to hell, see my last response to you. Additionally, you are exactly right that we were made for Him. Exactly right. Therefore, how dare anyone rebel against Him?

Look, for example, at the atheistic position. You say that no God exists. When you are asked why you believe such a thing, you claim to have no evidence of His Existence. So then, how come you exist? How are you here? Your answers end up at "I don't know, no one knows." In other words, you completely reject a perfectly reasonable explanation for your existence in favor of complete ignorance. And that is the intellectually superior position for the lot of you!

Obviously, you didn't create yourself. Obviously something or someone caused you to exist. Why does it not register with you that if anything is powerful enough to produce something as awesome and incredible as you with your self-awareness and ability to reason that even the most talented animals completely lack, then that thing or person must have a reason for you to exist? It is entirely because you want to be responsible to no one at all that you pretend that your existence is a complete mystery. That mysteriousness gives you the delusion that you might be God yourself so that you can make your own rules and do as you please.

Clearly, if God made you, then He has a right to be obeyed by you. If you don't obey Him, whether it is because you are unable to do so or it is because you just don't want to do so, He has absolutely every right to throw you into the Lake of Fire with no resulting stain on His Character. In what way are you equal to Him that you would judge Him? You simply can't since you are His product.

This is painfully obvious in all of human experience. We do what we want with our possessions, especially with the ones that we produce. Why should God not do the same?

Ihedinobi3:

Perhaps you should read it again and ask a more specific question.

That was the crux of my statement you called a straw man. If the god is predestinating people to hell how is it a good one?

Ihedinobi3:

If you are asking where He has shown Himself in Creation without any shielding or covering (and I cannot see how you segued into that question), He has not. That is why we are still here making choices.

Really? Some claim Jesus Christ is one such instance. Do you disagree?

Ihedinobi3:

Up to this moment, I have been trying to keep the conversation out of absurdity but "freethinking", as your kind calls it, is wont to jump straight into absurdity after huffing and puffing fails.

What does "alter our free will" mean? If free will is altered, is it still free will? This is precisely the same thing as assuming that omnipotence means the ability to do contradictory things. So, if God is all-powerful, then He must also be able to lie, for example. What do these things mean?

As for creating somebody to go to hell, see my last response to you. Additionally, you are exactly right that we were made for Him. Exactly right. Therefore, how dare anyone rebel against Him?

Look, for example, at the atheistic position. You say that no God exists. When you are asked why you believe such a thing, you claim to have no evidence of His Existence. So then, how come you exist? How are you here? Your answers end up at "I don't know, no one knows." In other words, you completely reject a perfectly reasonable explanation for your existence in favor of complete ignorance. And that is the intellectually superior position for the lot of you!

Obviously, you didn't create yourself. Obviously something or someone caused you to exist. Why does it not register with you that if anything is powerful enough to produce something as awesome and incredible as you with your self-awareness and ability to reason that even the most talented animals completely lack, then that thing or person must have a reason for you to exist? It is entirely because you want to be responsible to no one at all that you pretend that your existence is a complete mystery. That mysteriousness gives you the delusion that you might be God yourself so that you can make your own rules and do as you please.

Clearly, if God made you, then He has a right to be obeyed by you. If you don't obey Him, whether it is because you are unable to do so or it is because you just don't want to do so, He has absolutely every right to throw you into the Lake of Fire with no resulting stain on His Character. In what way are you equal to Him that you would judge Him? You simply can't since you are His product.

This is painfully obvious in all of human experience. We do what we want with our possessions, especially with the ones that we produce. Why should God not do the same?

Been observing your arguments on this topic and I have to say you have a very warped concept of free will....
Unlike others here, i have neither the time nor the desire to start writing down epistles, so I just need you to settle down, stop flinging your faeces all over the place and answer this one question:
Can we make a choice that god did not expect?

LordReed:


That was the crux of my statement you called a straw man. If the god is predestinating people to hell how is it a good one?

I called it a straw man. Because it was a straw man. As I also explained.

I'm sure I don't need to repeat my entire argument answering the same question over and over again. IAmSabrina called me a broken record for doing that already. I did it with her for a reason. I have a reason too for not doing it with you.

budaatum:

Really? Some claim Jesus Christ is one such instance. Do you disagree?

That the Lord Jesus during His First Advent was God manifesting Himself without any shielding? The very ridiculousness of it!

In Philippians, it was made clear that He "voided" His Deity in order to live a truly human life and die a truly Human Death. Why on earth would anyone think of that as a naked display of God's Glory? Ridiculous is the understatement of all understatement here.

JujuSugar:

Been observing your arguments on this topic and I have to say you have a very warped concept of free will....
Unlike others here, i have neither the time nor the desire to start writing down epistles, so I just need you to settle down, stop flinging your faeces all over the place and answer this one question:
Can we make a choice that god did not expect?

The very first time that you address me you found it necessary to insult me as well. Very interesting.

A warped concept of free will, you say. What is the straight one and where does it come from? Are you going to make a straw man for me? I have observed that atheists in their arrogance often think they know what the Bible says and then proceed to throw straw men everywhere claiming that those ridiculous constructs have something to do with the Bible and Christians are responsible to defend them. Is that what you have in mind when you think of free will: a straw man?

As for your question, obviously not. God's knowledge of all things is complete. Nothing takes Him by surprise.

Are you now going to repeat that travesty of an argument that omniscience magically negates free will? IAmSabrina already made it, you know.

Ihedinobi3:

I called it a straw man. Because it was a straw man. As I also explained.

I'm sure I don't need to repeat my entire argument answering the same question over and over again. IAmSabrina called me a broken record for doing that already. I did it with her for a reason. I have a reason too for not doing it with you.

You did not address how the god is good if it is predestining people to hell which was what my statement was about until you decided to quibble over nothing as usual.

Ihedinobi3:

About sounding like a broken record, you are of course very correct. I have, after all, just been copying and pasting excerpts from earlier responses in answer to your repeated questions.

But you are quite wrong to conclude from that that there is any problem of logic in the biblical position. The true conclusion is that you have recycled questions in an effort to try to undermine or suggest some kind of insufficiency in the answers that you have received. In fact, that is precisely why you have here declared that there is a problem with them since I have continued to demonstrate that you really have no new objection to the arguments I have made by simply copypasting old answers to the same objections.

If you do manage to demonstrate an error in the reasoning - other than unilaterally declaring the existence of one - then my position is bad. But you actually have to do it. You have not done it yet.

How many more times will i illustrate my arguments before you finally see what I am saying?

Let us look at God's plan & Free will exclusively
God's Plan: Fate or god's plan, whatever you wish to call it... implies that our actions have to be predestined
Free will: ......implies the opposite. That our actions and choices are completely a personal decision.

For example, let's see how these two ideas function together. Let's say, your fate or plan/destiny is, as you Christians say describe it... to spread the word of the lord. You're supposed to be a good christian, and found a highly successful church in Africa. And this church, through donations, is able to feed and give shelter to thousands. And all of them convert to christianity, and your followers and set up other churches, as a result of your actions and leadership, which help millions. That's your fate. But, let's say you have free will, you make your own decisions. So, perhaps at a relatively young age you hear about the Christian churches abhorrent sexual abuse scandals, and disgusted by the organization, you want nothing to do with the church. You decide to be an atheist, and instead of opening churches, you open a brewery and use your hard earned cash to buy hundreds of expensive cars. By one choice, you've completely destroyed the plan.

Get it now?

Ihedinobi3:

Judging by your earlier responses, you did appreciate the consistency of the arguments I made. But then you did something that I always find disturbing in your arguments: you turned around to begin to cycle through the arguments all over again acting like the questions that had just been addressed were not even answered at all. Also, you started trying to get me to answer an argument that I told you was not my position.

Please, I'd like to know where in particular I expressed satisfaction in any of your comments as related to this argument thus far in this thread

Ihedinobi3:

Perhaps in philosophy, free will has a certain meaning, but my arguments on this thread, which you decided to challenge, presented a different meaning. Technical terms are everything for meaning. Words change in meaning as they are used in different contexts, sometimes very significantly too. And I made sure to explain what free will means in the Bible. But you have been trying to force me to argue for a meaning that I do not hold. And I simply pointed you back to the very arguments that you had decided to challenge.

What does that say about your definition of free will? There's a reason I copy-pasted that excerpt from Britannica you know....

And even by your definition of free will, the problem of a supposedly "loving" God still arises. Hence why I keep asking you and you keep dodging this question in particular: Isn't there a possibility that a "loving" God could've created the world without pain & sin, and we still maintain our free will? Is this impossible for him to do?

Ihedinobi3:

As I said, exactly because creatures are creatures and therefore not self-existing, their free will can only be possible by the Will of their self-existing Creator. Thus, God created real possibilities and alternatives for His Moral Creatures and empowered them by His Own Power (the Omnipotence that exercises you so much) *LOL * to choose between them. In other words, free will is only possible for creatures because an Omnipotent God guarantees it.

Again...... This. Concedes. That. God. Has. No. Plan
I literally don't see how you don't get this
LordReed

Ihedinobi3:

[s]But when you ignore the meaning of free will as a biblical concept, then all you will have is absolute lies like the above for which you will be scrambling up all manner of rationalizations that really do not hold up under scrutiny. See below for an example.[/s]

Ihedinobi3:

The key problem here is this:

"This renders EVERYTHING, even the option to submit or rebel, the responsibility of the god."

Now, why is the above true?

Because God has scripted everything that will ever happen in the universe the moment he set it into motion in his omnipotence AND omniscience

Ihedinobi3:

Your video game parallel works well enough up to a point.

A self-existing Creator exists purely by His Own Will. That means that He is whatever He is pleased to be. Creatures of His production, on the other hand, cannot be whatever they are pleased to be for the important reason that they did not will themselves into existence.

But unlike your game developers, the Creator here possesses the ability to create real alternatives that each moral creature can choose from. As I explained in my very first response to you (copying incidentally from an earlier response also to you in another conversation), these alternatives are as real as the Universe that you actually see. In other words, for every single unbeliever who goes to Hell, there was just as real a possibility that they could have gone to Heaven instead. Both possibilities were created by God, and until the choice was made, nothing was decided.

God created alternatives. Fine. Now does God know EXACTLY which alternative said creature is going to choose?

If NO, he's not allknowing. Hence, omniscience should be scrapped from his character list
If YES, then he is malevolent for creating that creature and watching him in end in hell

Its as easy as ABC really.

Ihedinobi3:

Of course, in order for any choice at all to be made, God must decree it. Otherwise, creatures being creatures cannot do anything at all. Therefore, because God, knowing all things, knew precisely what each creature would want to choose, He designed the Universe and the creature itself leading up to that temporal choice so that exactly the choice it wants to make is made. Again, that did not cancel out the other alternative. The other alternative remained just as real until the choice was made. But because the creature in question wanted to make the choice that was actually made, God empowered it with His Decree.

See above

Ihedinobi3:

Now, if you decide to maintain your insistence on God's Responsibility, there is a simple answer for you: so what? So what if God unilaterally decided to make you a rebel? Then what? Did you make Him or did He make you? Who has a responsibility to the other here? The maker or the thing made? Does the video game have any right at all to challenge the developer? So God made you a vessel of wrath, what will you do? What difference does it make if you call Him evil for it? Will your calling Him that make Him evil any more than your pretending that He does not exist put Him out of existence? You are in a no-win situation. Either you humbly submit to the One Who made you and live or you hang on to your arrogant rebellion and spend eternity in torment and regret. That is a choice. If you feel that it is not, well, I am happy enough being a believer who had no choice but to be one, even if that were true. I can't possibly envy you the future you have as an unbeliever.

LOL
JujuSugar, I guess the faeces is being flung already
I always laugh to tears when I see christians drive into this lane of thought. Victim complex much?
Thanks for admitting your God is not benevolent

Ihedinobi3:

[s]This one is the constant ugly duckling in any argument opposing free will. It has not even a prayer at all. What does knowledge have to do with anything here?[/s]

How does my knowing that the clock will strike noon today mean that it had no choice but to do so? How does my knowing that the sun will rise tomorrow make it rise? Knowledge has nothing to do with causation.

@bolded: Not if you're an all-knowing, all-powerful, supposedly omni-benevolent deity
budaatum

Ihedinobi3:

Knowledge, however, can inform action. In other words, if I deliberately act on what I know, then I can produce certain effects.

As I said above (and lots of other places still in response to you elsewhere), God exerted His Power in response to His Knowledge in order to create the Universe. In doing so, free will was made possible.

[img]https://media./images/a60ee85b02d7cc273b22a8acc5f6dcf2/tenor.gif[/img]
Ihedinobi, let me ask you:
Which came first: God or the Universe?
Because most of what you're suggesting in the post above would make sense if the Universe came before God, which would make no damn sense

You said: God exerted His Power in response to His Knowledge in order to create the Universe.

"Knowledge" of what exactly?

Ihedinobi3:

So, basically, there are no such things as sin, accountability, responsibility and judgment, according to you. That, of course, is the goal of all atheistic philosophies. If God does not exist, you can do whatever you want since there is nobody to judge or punish you.

LoL
There is no "goal" in atheism. Atheism is simply accepting reality the way it is without adding concepts we aren't sure of or cannot explain satisfactorily. It is a rejection of belief in a deity because of lack of evidence.

Now that's what I call strawman...

LordReed

Ihedinobi3:

An investment in such a thing would necessarily force desperate measures to avoid facing the Truth. The "free will question" is not at all a question. Obviously, you are not just an unbeliever, you are an anti-believer committed to opposing the Bible wherever you can and however you can, but I am a believer just as committed to following the Bible. The world is filled from end to end with people who are one side or the other. These are obviously choices. We are also obviously not self-existing so that we can "get behind the scenes" to observe whether or not we are really making choices. But people cross from one side to the other and back all the time. For all human intents and purposes, that is unarguable evidence that they are making choices.

@bolded
It was only a matter of time before you resumed this tactic you love to use; as someone here hilariously termed it - the random flinging of poo all over the place.

Whilst you stay branding me with whatever term you like, I advise you look up on "Occam's Razor".
Just between the two of us, you're the one drifting further from reality.

Ihedinobi3:

I get that being God is a closely-held fantasy of atheists, but however hard anyone believes anything, it does not become true for all that.

LOL. And just how did you get this? I'd like to know

Martinez39

Ihedinobi3:

Regarding your arguments, whatever religion may say, the Bible teaches that human beings were made "in the image of God". That is, we were made to possess a mirror of God's Sovereign Will. We have a real ability to choose who we will be. This makes us gods according to the Bible because God is the I AM. God does not step back at all for free will to work, as I have demonstrated numerous times now.

Not only is free will possible in this universe, it is the only reasonable way to explain this universe. As for a contradiction, this is not the first or the second time we have discussed it and the contradiction is still mysterious. Everything offered to validate it is all noise and no substance.

As for illusion and being non-omniscient, as I said, isn't that the crux of the atheistic objection: why does God get to be the omniscient and omnipotent one but not me? Well, you should have found a way to self-exist too and then we would all be worshiping you instead.

The Christian God is omnipresent (everywhere and anywhere at the same time); omnipotent (all powerful, having no limits in ability); and omniscient (all knowing, not lacking in any knowledge). If God is all knowing, then he was aware, antecedent to all existence, of every possible paradigm of existence that could possible be, ad infinitum. If God is omnipotent, then he had the power to create any possible paradigm without limit (for if there were any limits whatsoever on his power to create, he would by definition not be omnipotent). And if God is omnipresent then he could be simultaneously within and throughout all possible paradigms of existence.

So, if God was aware of all possible paradigms, throughout all possible paradigms, and empowered by himself to create any somesuch paradigm he arbitrarily chose, then every single limitation and event and consequence of this current paradigm was foreseen and actively chosen by God before it came to be. That means that God knows the eventual outcome of every single event, every single moment, every single life that ever was, and is, and possibly can be in the future. Not only does he know it, he actively foresaw it as a possibility and then chose it and all it contains, out of an infinite number of possible choices (because, again, if the number of possible paradigms is not infinite then God's power, foresight and presence are not infinite). Therefore, with both the beginning and end of all that is being seen as one simultaneous God-chosen paradigm, all that is, is already predetermined. If God exists, then humans are only afforded the illusion of choice insofar as this: we are able to perform a limited number of functions within a predetermined paradigm of existence.

After the numerous topics & numerous threads we've encountered, you've not been able to answer this riddle, Ihedinobi

LordReed:


You did not address how the god is good if it is predestining people to hell which was what my statement was about until you decided to quibble over nothing as usual.

Exactly. The "kitchen sink" tactic at its very best.

Ihedinobi3:

The very first time that you address me you found it necessary to insult me as well. Very interesting.

A warped concept of free will, you say. What is the straight one and where does it come from? Are you going to make a straw man for me? I have observed that atheists in their arrogance often think they know what the Bible says and then proceed to throw straw men everywhere claiming that those ridiculous constructs have something to do with the Bible and Christians are responsible to defend them. Is that what you have in mind when you think of free will: a straw man?

As for your question, obviously not. God's knowledge of all things is complete. Nothing takes Him by surprise.

Are you now going to repeat that travesty of an argument that omniscience magically negates free will? IAmSabrina already made it, you know.

Ihedinobi3:


As for your question, obviously not. God's knowledge of all things is complete. Nothing takes Him by surprise.

Then there is no freewill. Simple
The rest of your rant couldn't bother me less honestly.

LordReed:


You did not address how the god is good if it is predestining people to hell which was what my statement was about until you decided to quibble over nothing as usual.

Your statement was that God was predetermining that some people would go to hell, LordReed. Not that He predestined anybody for anything.

As for what I addressed or didn't address, I am not going to repeat my argument for you. If you actually have some way to demonstrate that it is insufficient or wrong, I will listen. Your claim that it didn't do its job is a waste of time.

Ihedinobi3:

Your statement was that God was predetermining that some people would go to hell, LordReed. Not that He predestined anybody for anything.

As for what I addressed or didn't address, I am not going to repeat my argument for you. If you actually have some way to demonstrate that it is insufficient or wrong, I will listen. Your claim that it didn't do its job is a waste of time.

Then you could have corrected me and answered the substantial issue instead you chose to quibble over nothing without even addressing the main issue. It remains your problem when you fail to address the issue at hand.

IAmSabrina:

Exactly. The "kitchen sink" tactic at its very best.

The guy should win a Guinness book of record award for his tactic I swear.

Ihedinobi3:

Up to this moment, I have been trying to keep the conversation out of absurdity but "freethinking", as your kind calls it, is wont to jump straight into absurdity after huffing and puffing fails.

You don't say

Ihedinobi3:

What does "alter our free will" mean? If free will is altered, is it still free will? This is precisely the same thing as assuming that omnipotence means the ability to do contradictory things. So, if God is all-powerful, then He must also be able to lie, for example. What do these things mean?

I'm so happy you said this. Now even you can see the contradiction and problems that arise when humans suddenly decide that a supernatural deity exists

Ihedinobi3:

As for creating somebody to go to hell, see my last response to you. Additionally, you are exactly right that we were made for Him. Exactly right. Therefore, how dare anyone rebel against Him?

Look, for example, at the atheistic position. You say that no God exists. When you are asked why you believe such a thing, you claim to have no evidence of His Existence. So then, how come you exist? How are you here? Your answers end up at "I don't know, no one knows." In other words, you completely reject a perfectly reasonable explanation for your existence in favor of complete ignorance. And that is the intellectually superior position for the lot of you!

Obviously, you didn't create yourself. Obviously something or someone caused you to exist. Why does it not register with you that if anything is powerful enough to produce something as awesome and incredible as you with your self-awareness and ability to reason that even the most talented animals completely lack, then that thing or person must have a reason for you to exist? It is entirely because you want to be responsible to no one at all that you pretend that your existence is a complete mystery. That mysteriousness gives you the delusion that you might be God yourself so that you can make your own rules and do as you please.

Clearly, if God made you, then He has a right to be obeyed by you. If you don't obey Him, whether it is because you are unable to do so or it is because you just don't want to do so, He has absolutely every right to throw you into the Lake of Fire with no resulting stain on His Character. In what way are you equal to Him that you would judge Him? You simply can't since you are His product.

This is painfully obvious in all of human experience. We do what we want with our possessions, especially with the ones that we produce. Why should God not do the same?

Sorry if it appears like i'm starting to goof around, but this brand new argument you've constructed saying "how dare we question and/or rebel against God?" is sincerely amusing
What more can i say? The more we atheists question the position of your god, the more you people push him further into the deep ends of abstract with arguments like this.

IAmSabrina:

How many more times will i illustrate my arguments before you finally see what I am saying?

Let us look at God's plan & Free will exclusively
God's Plan: Fate or god's plan, whatever you wish to call it... implies that our actions have to be predestined
Free will: ......implies the opposite. That our actions and choices are completely a personal decision.

For example, let's see how these two ideas function together. Let's say, your fate or plan/destiny is, as you Christians say describe it... to spread the word of the lord. You're supposed to be a good christian, and found a highly successful church in Africa. And this church, through donations, is able to feed and give shelter to thousands. And all of them convert to christianity, and your followers and set up other churches, as a result of your actions and leadership, which help millions. That's your fate. But, let's say you have free will, you make your own decisions. So, perhaps at a relatively young age you hear about the Christian churches abhorrent sexual abuse scandals, and disgusted by the organization, you want nothing to do with the church. You decide to be an atheist, and instead of opening churches, you open a brewery and use your hard earned cash to buy hundreds of expensive cars. By one choice, you've completely destroyed the plan.

Get it now?

It's the same here. Or rather it would be if I was concerned about persuading you about anything. There are two reasons we are having this conversation:

1. It's an opportunity to explain some things in a different way to an audience that may comprise believers who don't understand this stuff.

2. I decided to extend the same benefit of the doubt that I give all antichristians to you just to demonstrate that I can be as generous as I told you I was. I have answered your questions and arguments multiple times and excused the underhanded tactics you have employed just to make a difference from the last time we did this.

Otherwise, it matters nothing to me what you believe to be true. If it didn't, I'd be pulling teeth by now.

As I always say, atheists have a completely different set of assumptions about reality than Christians do, so it is hopeless to expect a reconciliation of views here. I haven't answered you in order to convince you of the correctness of Christian beliefs. Can't care less what your opinions of them are.

God's Plan: to get an eternal Family of willing subjects composed of human beings and angels.

Free Will: the tool through which such a Family is produced.

Illustration: Jesus Christ died on the Cross for everyone. If anyone believes in Him and perseveres in Faith, they will end up as part of that Family. If anyone does not believe or falls away, they will be rejected from that Family.

I can't credit your position then.

IAmSabrina:
Please, I'd like to know where in particular I expressed satisfaction in any of your comments as related to this argument thus far in this thread

"@bolded answers free will a bit. But concedes that God has no plan."
- IAmSabrina (https://www.nairaland.com/5020369/god-shoes/3#76350436)

That was you admitting that at least a part of my post at least explained free will to some extent for you. Then, I found that I had to start over again and run the gamut several times.

IAmSabrina:
What does that say about your definition of free will? There's a reason I copy-pasted that excerpt from Britannica you know....

And even by your definition of free will, the problem of a supposedly "loving" God still arises. Hence why I keep asking you and you keep dodging this question in particular: Isn't there a possibility that a "loving" God could've created the world without pain & sin, and we still maintain our free will? Is this impossible for him to do?

What does it say then? That I ought to worship God according to Britannica or according to the Bible? My arguments are made to defend the Bible's position, not Britannica's, and the Bible has specific meanings suited to its own "philosophy", if you will. That is my business.

And again, I ask you what your question means. Does omnipotence mean the power to contradict things and even one's own nature? If possession of free will means that some creatures will sin and thus introduce pain and suffering into the world, how then can a world where free will exists be devoid of these things? Is it still free will if God were to "alter" it, as you said?

IAmSabrina:
Again...... This. Concedes. That. God. Has. No. Plan
I literally don't see how you don't get this
LordReed

As you know, I don't take your word for it.

IAmSabrina:
Because God has scripted everything that will ever happen in the universe the moment he set it into motion in his omnipotence AND omniscience

Have you ever heard of a non sequitur?

IAmSabrina:
God created alternatives. Fine. Now does God know EXACTLY which alternative said creature is going to choose?

If NO, he's not allknowing. Hence, omniscience should be scrapped from his character list
If YES, then he is malevolent for creating that creature and watching him in end in hell

Its as easy as ABC really.

Yeah, still a non sequitur. Even if you say it a little louder and a few more times too.

IAmSabrina:
See above

Same as above then.

IAmSabrina:
LOL
JujuSugar, I guess the faeces is being flung already
I always laugh to tears when I see christians drive into this lane of thought. Victim complex much?
Thanks for admitting your God is not benevolent

I know that you and other atheists are very sensitive to any mention of Hell, but I was only saying that if we have no choice, then, of course there was no point in these arguments since I am a believer and you're not. We're not going to be choosing anything different, are we?

IAmSabrina:
@bolded: Not if you're an all-knowing, all-powerful, supposedly omni-benevolent deity
budaatum

Why is this not special pleading?

IAmSabrina:
[img]https://media./images/a60ee85b02d7cc273b22a8acc5f6dcf2/tenor.gif[/img]
Ihedinobi, let me ask you:
Which came first: God or the Universe?
Because most of what you're suggesting in the post above would make sense if the Universe came before God, which would make no damn sense

You said: God exerted His Power in response to His Knowledge in order to create the Universe.

"Knowledge" of what exactly?

It's not a very good question to ask because even human engineers and builders work in accordance with a plan with clearly spelt out details. Does their product precede them then? It is the plan that informs their actions.

Is it really in doubt what His Knowledge was of? Is this really the first time I'm saying that?

IAmSabrina:
LoL
There is no "goal" in atheism. Atheism is simply accepting reality the way it is without adding concepts we aren't sure of or cannot explain satisfactorily. It is a rejection of belief in a deity because of lack of evidence.

Now that's what I call strawman...

LordReed

I take it that there are no implications in such a rejection?

IAmSabrina:
@bolded
It was only a matter of time before you resumed this tactic you love to use; as someone here hilariously termed it - the random flinging of poo all over the place.

Again, your sensitivity to things like that notwithstanding, that was part of a demonstration that people choose sides and change them all the time. That means that choice is rather obvious.

IAmSabrina:
Whilst you stay branding me with whatever term you like, I advise you look up on "Occam's Razor".
Just between the two of us, you're the one drifting further from reality.

Second time now that you are offering me that advice. Still not clear why you do.

As for drifting from reality, I'm a Christian, you're an atheist. Reality has very different meanings for both of us.

IAmSabrina:
LOL. And just how did you get this? I'd like to know

Martinez39

Easy: deductive reasoning.

IAmSabrina:
The Christian God is omnipresent (everywhere and anywhere at the same time); omnipotent (all powerful, having no limits in ability); and omniscient (all knowing, not lacking in any knowledge). If God is all knowing, then he was aware, antecedent to all existence, of every possible paradigm of existence that could possible be, ad infinitum. If God is omnipotent, then he had the power to create any possible paradigm without limit (for if there were any limits whatsoever on his power to create, he would by definition not be omnipotent). And if God is omnipresent then he could be simultaneously within and throughout all possible paradigms of existence.

So, if God was aware of all possible paradigms, throughout all possible paradigms, and empowered by himself to create any somesuch paradigm he arbitrarily chose, then every single limitation and event and consequence of this current paradigm was foreseen and actively chosen by God before it came to be. That means that God knows the eventual outcome of every single event, every single moment, every single life that ever was, and is, and possibly can be in the future. Not only does he know it, he actively foresaw it as a possibility and then chose it and all it contains, out of an infinite number of possible choices (because, again, if the number of possible paradigms is not infinite then God's power, foresight and presence are not infinite). Therefore, with both the beginning and end of all that is being seen as one simultaneous God-chosen paradigm, all that is, is already predetermined. If God exists, then humans are only afforded the illusion of choice insofar as this: we are able to perform a limited number of functions within a predetermined paradigm of existence.

After the numerous topics & numerous threads we've encountered, you've not been able to answer this riddle, Ihedinobi

I will answer this in another post. Your premises are faulty (because of those straw men I always talk about) and your conclusion is a non sequitur.

LordReed:


Then you could have corrected me and answered the substantial issue instead you chose to quibble over nothing without even addressing the main issue. It remains your problem when you fail to address the issue at hand.

I did. Told you it was a straw man. I have debated you probably more than any other atheist on this board, you know. So I have a general idea when it is worth it to correct you and when it isn't

Ihedinobi3:

I did. Told you it was a straw man. I have debated you probably more than any other atheist on this board, you know. So I have a general idea when it is worth it to correct you and when it isn't

Gosh! Can you stop quibbling and answer the main issue?

Ihedinobi3:

That the Lord Jesus during His First Advent was God manifesting Himself without any shielding? The very ridiculousness of it!

In Philippians, it was made clear that He "voided" His Deity in order to live a truly human life and die a truly Human Death. Why on earth would anyone think of that as a naked display of God's Glory? Ridiculous is the understatement of all understatement here.

Does make one think Jesus was human, no? And not God?

IAmSabrina:

You don't say

I do, in fact.

IAmSabrina:
I'm so happy you said this. Now even you can see the contradiction and problems that arise when humans suddenly decide that a supernatural deity exists

Already touched on this in my other response to you. Will expand on it in the next response I promised.

IAmSabrina:
Sorry if it appears like i'm starting to goof around, but this brand new argument you've constructed saying "how dare we question and/or rebel against God?" is sincerely amusing
What more can i say? The more we atheists question the position of your god, the more you people push him further into the deep ends of abstract with arguments like this.

As with two other instances in my last response, this was merely part of an argument. The argument was this: if you are willing to assume that God made us for Himself, then obviously no one then has any right whatsoever to rebel against Him. If anyone does because they can't help it, it is still perfectly all right for God to throw them into the Lake of Fire since they are rebels anyway.

I do know the triggers but the dangers involved in debate devolving into absurdity and nonsense is connected with emotional investment in a point of view that is erroneous. If you are certain that your position is correct, it matters little that others do not share it or that they mock it.

As for pushing God into some deep end or other, as I already said elsewhere, these discussions are not about you or about other atheists. I consider you all enemies of the Faith and antagonists to all believers. I am more interested in protecting believers from you than in saving you. The situation with atheists is actually insanity, and willful insanity at that. An atheist has to deliberately choose to question themselves in order to have a shot at being saved. It is impossible to argue and atheist into seeing the Truth because he attacks anything at all that even hints at it. Consider the example of Nairaland where when intellectual strength fails the atheist, insults and belligerence come quick to hand. Granted that Christians here also suffer from the same malady, it only shows that very few believers actually know what it is that they believe. For you, it is obvious what you believe. You simply believe that there is no God. But that requires denying existence itself. And there are some atheists who will go far enough to deny the existence of all things except their own selves (see solipsism).

Suffice to say that I don't care what atheists do as a result of my arguments. I don't make them for yours or any other atheist's sake.

LordReed:


Gosh! Can you stop quibbling and answer the main issue?

Go and do some work, LordReed. The post is right here on this thread. Read it and point out what is wrong with it. Or don't, if you prefer. I'm not repeating it for you.

budaatum:

Does make one think Jesus was human, no? And not God?

Can't see why it does. Why does it make you think so?

Ihedinobi3:

Can't see why it does. Why does it make you think so?

It could also, is in fact, the clad God, as in, "God with shielding".

IAmSabrina:

How many more times will i illustrate my arguments before you finally see what I am saying?

Let us look at God's plan & Free will exclusively
God's Plan: Fate or god's plan, whatever you wish to call it... implies that our actions have to be predestined
Free will: ......implies the opposite. That our actions and choices are completely a personal decision.

For example, let's see how these two ideas function together. Let's say, your fate or plan/destiny is, as you Christians say describe it... to spread the word of the lord. You're supposed to be a good christian, and found a highly successful church in Africa. And this church, through donations, is able to feed and give shelter to thousands. And all of them convert to christianity, and your followers and set up other churches, as a result of your actions and leadership, which help millions. That's your fate. But, let's say you have free will, you make your own decisions. So, perhaps at a relatively young age you hear about the Christian churches abhorrent sexual abuse scandals, and disgusted by the organization, you want nothing to do with the church. You decide to be an atheist, and instead of opening churches, you open a brewery and use your hard earned cash to buy hundreds of expensive cars. By one choice, you've completely destroyed the plan.

Get it now?

No! I don't. Your fate was to become "an atheist, and instead of opening churches, you open a brewery and use your hard earned cash to buy hundreds of expensive cars" .

Ihedinobi3:

As I always say, atheists have a completely different set of assumptions about reality than Christians do, so it is hopeless to expect a reconciliation of views here. I haven't answered you in order to convince you of the correctness of Christian beliefs. Can't care less what your opinions of them are.

God's Plan: to get an eternal Family of willing subjects composed of human beings and angels.

Free Will: the tool through which such a Family is produced.

Illustration: Jesus Christ died on the Cross for everyone. If anyone believes in Him and perseveres in Faith, they will end up as part of that Family. If anyone does not believe or falls away, they will be rejected from that Family.

It is the freewill of every human being to decide to be a part of the "eternal Family of willing subjects composed of human beings and angels" with freewill.

Correct? Is that what you wrote?

Whether one wants to be like God is up to one and being like God is how to be like God?