I believe, if I’m parsing it correctly, it means “possessing all-encompassing agape love.”
Well, the Creator has made most of us such that if we spot a $100 bill on the ground, we will pick it up. Given that we maintain the option of not picking it up, our free will is maintained.
Now it is not difficult to imagine a number of steps that G-d could do increase the share of Xtians in the world, all of which fall short of compulsion. I can also imagine a number of reasons consistent with my (partial) understanding of scripture why G-d would not take such steps.
My question for the panel is, according to your understanding of Christian doctrine, why was the world not set up so that there would be a greater share of Christian believers?
(Nice clarification of compulsion, btw. Apropos nothing, there is a further conceivable erosion of free will: that would obtain if the player not only has one and only one choice, but is also constrained from even conceiving that more than one choice may exist.)
Flowbark
Perhaps. But I can’t imagine a more reasonable step than saying, “I love you and want you to be with me. All I ask is that you trust me when I tell you this.”
Well, there’s a pretty good share already if you mean intellectual belief along the lines of Pascal’s Wager type bet hedging. But trust and reliance (better translations of the Greek pistuo) is another matter. And honestly, the world is set up just fine for that. We’re told to become like little children, to open our hearts and believe (trust), to accept God’s gift of Grace and Faith. These are things that we can do in direct proportion to our will to do them.
Jodi:
God DOES create only people he knows in advance will do a given thing. By your definition, none of us have free will! Currently he creates people who he knows will do one thing, and also creates people who will do another thing. But this is not what gives us free will! Free will does not depend on other people choosing something different; it depends on us choosing something ourself. That was the point of my example about you being the only human. If you were, then god created only you who he knew in advance would do a certain thing, thus you cannot be said to have chosen anything that you do in fact choose. Or can you? What actually changed about you just because you are the only human? Nothing. Free will is intact.
No, it is as if you were walking on a literal path, and trying to get off it, and there were many exits to take, but you chose a certain exit that god knew you would take. I don’t know where you got the idea that choices are being blocked. The choices are still there, everyone can see the choices, it is just that god knows which choice you will take.
“Because if I chose to do otherwise, you would not have created me”? I think I see the problem here… you are treating “not have created” as something that is done to an actual person. That is a logical impossibility. You cannot not create a person that you have obviously already created. Again, you do have a choice to pick up the dollar or not. Nobody is compelling you to make any particular choice. It is just that god knows what choice you will make.
You are arguing that free will depends on someone else making a different choice than you. I believe that free will depends on you being able to conceive of different choices you could make, and then choosing one yourself. Free will simply means that you are the one making the choice. Maybe I can make this clearer…
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God creates person A and person B. Both have free will. God sees that person A chooses to believe in him, while person B does not.
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God creates person A. He has free will. God sees that person A chooses to believe in him.
What is the difference between person A in (1) and person A in (2)? They are the exact same person. You cannot say that one of them has free will and the other does not. Free will is an individual attribute. Free will does not depend on the existence of person B who chooses something different than you.
The only answer I can come up with is that self identifying as “christian” is not the only way to be saved. I believe that if you truly have love in your heart for all your fellow creatures, and you truly try to do good, then you will be saved even if you never heard of christianity. I have faith in this belief, since judging people based on whether they call themself christian or not is so incomprehensible to me that I cannot even conceive of believing in a god who would do so. Also, there must be a reason why we have rebellious inclinations that lead some of us away from god, although I do not pretend to understand these reasons.
One of the things that riled my ass when I was an atheist was what I viewed as the hubris of Christianity. Love? You call that love?
It was almost like a life-long eunuch watching a man having an orgasm, and going, “Fun? You call that fun? Your face was contorted with agony, your muscles tightened like tension springs, you had trouble breathing, and you peed all over yourself.”
I suppose you could look at my first encounter with God as a sort of spiritual orgasm. And now I know what all the fuss is about. It didn’t look like love then, but boy it sure does now!
I must admit that I wonder what Gaudere thinks of my analogy.
With regards to free will.
According to the Bible God gave us free will. Free will allows you to accept or not accept Christianity. God says if you choose not to accept Him or Christ God will reject you and you will go to Hell. Therefore, assuming Hell is punishment, you must accept God or be punished.
That according to the Bible and conservative Christians.
If that is the case then where is free will?
Would you mind giving us the publisher of the Bible you’re reading? Considering this along with your story about Hercules in the other thread, I have to wonder where on earth you get your information. You have it the wrong way around about who rejects Whom.
Again with the Oliver Hardy “Now look what you made me do!” defence. If the all-powerful god that you believe in exists, he is perfectly capable of:
- Giving just enough evidence to every individual so that they could make an informed choice. How much evidence? He should already know!
- Letting everybody into Heaven that agrees to follow the rules, and just leave the rest of humanity to die peacefully without vague threats of eternal punishment.
Libertarian
I will answer that question with a question.
What happens to those who reject or choose not to accept Christ?
Are you going to tell me there is no Hell?
NIGHTIME –
You are absolutely misunderstanding me, because you refuse to acknowledge any difference between knowing something will be done and forcing it to be done. Assuming God gives us all free will, He may know that some of us will not choose to be Christian through the exercise of that free will, but He does not make us make that choice. As has already been said, this devolves back to the problem of evil – i.e., if God can do anything, why does He allow there to be evil? Or, more directly on point to this discussion, if God created us all, why didn’t He create us all to love Him? And the answer remains, though you refuse to see it, that if we have no choice but to love Him, then we are not loving Him freely. Let me ask you this: In what universe does one choice (and no other options) constitute any choice at all? Because that is what you theorize when saying God would create people who would all do only one thing. Where is there choice? If God asks us all to choose between black and white, but only creates people who will choose black, then we are not choosing black – because we never had the option of choosing white, not even before we were created. I frankly don’t see why you don’t get this, but I’m willing to acknowledge that you don’t. Maybe someone else can take a shot at explaining it.
Of course I can. Just because God knows what I will do – has known since before my birth – doesn’t mean He makes me do it by removing all my other options. If God creates one person who can go left or go right (and no other person), that person still can freely choose to go left or right – even if God knows which way he or she will go. It is not fore-knowledge that removes free will, but fore-knowledge coupled with the removal of every other choice but one. Contrast the one free-willed person above to a thousand people who will only go right because that is what they were created to do. Then cannot go left. God created them without the ability to go left. You have entirely failed to explain where you think such people “choose” to go right instead of left. Again, if I narrow the universe of your options down to one, you have not chosen the one thing you do, because it is the only thing you can do.
It is the action of failing to create anyone who will take any exit except one that effectively blocks the other exits. The other exits do not exist for the person who was created to take only one. Again, if I create in you the irresistible impulse to take a certain exit off the highway – such as you would not even have been created if you would do otherwise – in what universe do you imagine you have the “choice” to do otherwise?
Listen, it was your hypothesis that “in my scenario people who god predicts would not choose christianity are simply not created.” So if you want to change that now to mean something else, that’s fine, but then you’ll have to explain what you’re talking about then.
I never said that. Never. Are you related to David, God of Frogs? I am arguing that free will depends on you – just you, not anyone else – having an actual choice – not merely the appearance of a choice, but a real choice to either do A or to do B. You apparently feel that if you are created to do nothing but A – and in fact would never be created to choose to do B – that you still have “free will” to choose B. Frankly, it seems to me blindingly obvious why this cannot be.
Yes, but free will also implies there is an actual choice to be made. If the universe of options is limited to one, then there is no “choice.” This only tangentially involves the issue of free will, but really has more to do with recognizing that the very definition of “choice” implies at least two options, not one. If I am created to do only one thing and never another (such as breathe), kindly explain where any other choice is but to do that thing.
I can. Because your statement in #2 that “person A has free will” is merely that – a statement. If person A “chooses” to believe in Him because he (person A) has no other choice, then person A has not chosen to believe in Him. So let me ask you again: If you theorize (as you have to this point) that God would not only know who would follow Him, but would then create only those who would follow Him, at what point are those people “choosing” to follow Him? They never, ever had the option of doing otherwise, not since the first moment of their existence. One option is not a choice.
Let’s go back to the example of breathing. God creates us all to breathe. We have no choice but to do so; it is imprinted in us since before our birth. Those of us who do would not breathe are simply never created. Do you then say we “choose” to breathe? Do you say that “not breathing” is for any of us a viable option, and therefore a choice? If so, at what point do you imagine we “made the choice” to breathe instead of choosing not to breathe? If we are created to do a given thing, then we have no choice but to do that thing. If you think we have such a choice – when, exactly did we have it?
I never said that it did. With all due respect, I don’t see why you don’t get this point, though I’m perfectly willing to concede it’s probably because I’m not explaining it well enough. So maybe someone else can take a shot at explaining it, because I’m frankly out of ideas here.
XINGU –
Although this wasn’t directed at me, I would certainly tell you that in my opinion there is no hell, in the sense of a pit of eternally torturing fire. It is my belief that people who love God and serve Him – and even people who do not believe in Him may serve Him, if they love one another and strive to do good – continue to live beyond this life, though in what form I don’t know, though personally I doubt it’s harps and halos. People who embrace evil and by doing so give up their souls – and I believe there are very, very few who do this – I believe simply cease to exist upon their death – they truly “die,” while most of humanity does not.
As a Christian who believes in an all-loving God, the idea of a traditional hell where God would permit the torture of His children is totally repugnant to me, and I absolutely reject it.
Gaudere wishes your analogies were not so frequently scatological (you also have an unusual talent at making common, natural functions seem deviantly disgusting). If I want to read graphic depictions of orgasms, I’ll read MPSIMS. I generally prefer to keep my debates as free from cum, piss, and shit as humanly possible. 
I know this completely fails to address the substance of the analogy, but I just don’t like dealing with it.
Incidentally, I think Nightime is doing a good job so far with his/her argument. Welcome to GD, Nightime.
Jodi
You exhibit a problem one has whenever one speaks to a Christian. The problem is what Christian God do you choose to believe in?
There are, worldwide, over 33,000 different Christian denominations. They all have their version of a Christian God. Like you they all believe their God is the one true God based on the Bible.
But I find it curious that some of these “true” Gods hate other “true” Gods. For example, conservative Christians, not all but many, think Catholics and Mormons are not Christians and will go straight to Hell. Other Christian Gods have no Hell. Some Christian Gods preach hate and intolerance towards other religions and lifestyles. Other Christian Gods show respect and tolerance for all.
It gets confusing talking to Christians because you don’t know which God or what part of the Bible they believe in.
If your belief is in a God or Supreme Being that shows love and toleration for all then you are closer to believing in The Light, as seen by those who experienced Near Death Experiences (NDE).
The Light shows unconditional love for all souls regardless of their religion or beliefs. Unconditional love rejects no one. Unconditional love treats all equally. When one dies and leaves this dimension they are no longer a member of a nation or religion. They are part of all spirits that reside in the dimension of The Light.
I can’t prove to you that this is the way it will happen but for those that have experienced this it is as real as anything they have ever experienced in life. This is not a religion. Unlike Christianity, you will not get a free ticket to Heaven based on your beliefs. It makes a lot more sense than what can be found in the Bible. It is also much nicer, more logical, more humane and more loving.
Have you ever heard the saying, “If you want to know what people are like, look at their children?”
Well along the same vain I like to say, “If you want to know what a person is like look at their God”.
XINGU –
The one that makes sense to me. I have never believed that God, in asking us to take certain matters on faith, asks us to abandon our common sense or the morality He instilled in us.
I don’t actually believe my God is “the one true God” based on the Bible. I’m not much of a Biblical scholar. Nor do I believe (or assert) that the God believed in by other Christians (or, for that matter, Muslims or Jews) is not “the one true God.” I believe there is only one God; this is the first and chief tenet of my faith. So I don’t think Christians who believe differently than I do are worshipping some other God; I think they’re worshipping in the same God in different ways. This, of course, begs the question of why One God would not tell all of us the same thing, to which I can only frankly admit that I don’t know.
Yep, it’s a poser. Again, I don’t know why I in good faith believe I’m being told one thing, while another person in good faith believes they’re being told the exact opposite. All I can do is try to be true to my faith, as I understand it, and my God, as I understand Him, and when I find other Christians declaiming for things that are abhorrent to me and inconsistent with my idea of God (like spreading hate and fear), stand up and say “not all Christians believe that.”
Yep. You kind of have to ask them. But I don’t think it’s quite the difficult task you seem to think it is. Many (most?) Christians organize themselves in identifiable groups, and if you want to know what, say, the Catholics believe, you can investigate that, or what the Methodists believe, you can investigate that. Beyond that, you can largely divide American Christians into fundamentalists and non-fundamentalists and make certain educated guesses based on that distinction – like that the former probably believe in Biblical inerrancy, while the latter probably do not.
Uhhhhgh. I’m not sure where I’m at on Near Death Experiences. They smack to me of psychic phenomena, which I do not believe in. But then I’ve never had one, so what do I know? But my belief in God does not devolve down to The Light At The End Of The Tunnel, for sure.
Okay. I’m not sure I buy that, but then I’m not sure I don’t, so I’ll go with it. (As a purely personal matter, I have enough trouble figuring out what to do with the life I have; I’m not much interested in what’s going to happen in the next life (if there is one), since I figure I’m going to find out later anyway).
I am not among the Christians who believe you get a “free ticket to heaven based on your beliefs.” Neither do I believe access to heaven is based on works. Rather, I believe that God asks all people to love Him, as they understand Him, and to try to follow Him. I have never understood how a person who professes to follow Him (believe in Him) can do bad or evil in the world. Neither do I believe that ticket is “free;” believing in God and following Him are hard work, and IMO more is asked of those who believe than is asked of those who do not. Being truly Christian is very hard work. Personally, I suck at it myself.
“Vein.” And, yeah, I’d buy that, though of course it again begs the question of why a God who is all-loving would create people who believe He thirsts for blood. And again, I don’t pretend to have an answer to that; I can only follow God as it has been given to me to understand Him.
Grienspace: Sorry for the delay in response. pldennison targeted it: “all-loving” with the love being agape. I doubt it’s in any dictionaries; it’s a coinage on a parallel with omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and so on, that fit what I needed to express there. Sorry!
Jodi: My personal “take” on the Atonement is not that God demanded a human blood sacrifice and therefore sent Himself to pay the debt, but that something in human nature is touched by the idea to someone willing to go the length of martyrdom, and that “if I am lifted up, I will draw all people to Myself” explains it better than any other single quote (the various attempts to show a parallel with OT sacrifice notwithstanding).
POLY, I wasn’t talking about the Atonement or the Crucifixion; I was talking about societies who believe in gods who demand human or animal sacrifice. I do not believe God asks for such things, so then the question becomes why He allows others to think that He does, or to believe in other gods who do. And you may be right – it may be that the idea of “sacrifice” (giving up something you want or need to keep) reflects a desire to become closer to God (or gods), and is a demonstration of the extent of devotion to Him (or them), so the tougher the sacrifice, the greater the love (cf. Abraham and Isaac). But that does not explain why God would allow (much less demand) the removal of a beating heart from a living body on an ancient Aztec altar. It is (again) the Problem of Evil, or rather a corrollary to it: the doing of an arguably evil act but with good intent – white heart, black hand.
Actually you are misunderstanding me, because I have repeatedly said that god is NOT forcing it to be done. You are the one who always says that god is forcing people to choose him, when my scenario suggests no such thing. God is not doing anything to the people he predicts will believe in him; they are EXACTLY the same as they are now. I do not understand how you come to the conclusion that god is forcing them to do anything. They are not changed by god, not compelled by god, there is simply nothing different about them that should lead you to deny their free will. You have already acknowledged that free will is an individual attribute, so if they are unchanged why do you think they suddenly lose their free will?
You are the only one theorizing a world in which there is only one choice. Just because god knows you will do a certain thing does NOT mean he is taking away all other options. As an example, do you believe in god? If so, are you completely incapable of conceiving that there was another choice you could make? I hope not. Just because you eventually made one choice, does not mean you could not see other choices, and in fact does not mean that at one time you did not favor other choices. As for your example, assume god knows that everyone will eventually choose black. This does not mean we never had the option of choosing white! In fact at any given time more people might choose white than black. Everyone can see the choice, and everyone makes the choice at different times for different reasons. God knows that at some point each of us will choose black, because he can see the future, but I frankly don’t see why you think there are no options.
I am becoming increasingly confused as to the origin of your claim that god is removing every other choice but one. I have made no such claim, and in fact have said that this is not the case, but you continually use this premise of your own creation to argue against my conclusions which come from entirely different premises.
You now agree with me that a single person who can go left or right, even if god knows which way he or she will go, has free will. So what if you duplicated that person? Would they no longer have free will? If they are an exact duplicate of someone with free will, why do you suddenly deny their free will? What if there are three duplicates? Four? A billion? And what if these duplicates are altered to have different personalities? Now we have a group of people who all choose the same thing out of their own free will, despite your nebulous suggestions that god is somehow compelling them now that there are more of them. What number of people leads you to believe that free will is no more? And why, when you have already agreed that free will is an individual attribute, does it even matter what the rest of the people choose?
Your arguments are not even consistent anymore. Now you are saying that it IS the fact that nobody is created to choose something different than you that makes you have no free will. In other words, Person A’s free will depends on Person B choosing something different. But you have already denied that this is what you are saying. As for being “created to take only one”, I have no idea where you get this idea. Nothing has changed about this person. They can still see all the other exits. They may even want to take one. But eventually they will choose a certain exit on their own. God knows this, because he can see the future, but he is not forcing it any more than he is forcing us to choose anything we choose now. Because, again, there is nothing different about anyone. Nothing is being done to people who exist. You could argue that something is being done to people who do not exist, that they are not being created, but first of all I do not think “not being created” can really be considered an action, and secondly it doesn’t matter because even if something is being done to these people who do not exist you still must admit that NOTHING is being done to the people who do exist.
Never? Do you remember writing this: “It is the action of failing to create anyone who will take any exit except one that effectively blocks the other exits.” Just because an exit is possible does not mean anyone has to take it.
You are merely stating that person A has no other choice. You have not explained why you believe that, and you have not explained what the difference is between person A in (1) and person A in (2). They are the exact same person. Why does one have free will but not the other?
If you want to argue that belief in god is imprinted in us in the same way that breathing is, and therefore we do not have free will, go ahead. It has nothing to do with my argument though, because I have said many times that the only difference between the two possible worlds is that in one god knows that everyone will believe in him, while in the other god knows that certain people will and others will not. The nonexistence of certain people does not constitute imprinting anything in anyone; in fact, nothing is done to the people that exist, so arguing that they lose their free will makes no sense.
Well, with all due respect, that is exactly what you are saying and I have quoted you as saying it. I’ll give this another try.
World (1) contains Jodi, who chooses to believe in god. It also contains Frog, who chooses not to believe in god.
World (2) contains Jodi, who chooses to believe in god. It does not contain Frog.
Jodi is exactly the same in both worlds. Nothing has been imprinted or compelled. They are the same person. The only difference is that one does not have the company of Frog. Therefore, when you say that Jodi (1) has free will, but Jodi (2) does not, you are saying that simply because Frog does not exist to choose something different than Jodi, Jodi no longer has free will and is no longer making a choice. I am arguing that Jodi still saw the choices, and still made the same choice. Therefore it is possible to have a world that only contains believers, and yet let free will remain intact. There are other reasons why this did not happen, but free will is not the problem. Why exactly do you think Jodi (2) lacks free will?
Grienspace(and I double checked the spelling this time): my bad.
Nightime, in world (2), is it possible for Jodi to choose not to believe in God?
If so, than God’s Omniscience or Omnipotence have been proven false.
If not, than how is free will reconciled when the possibility of choice is taken away?
No, this argument does not apply to world (1), because, I assume, God doesn’t undertake “selective human creation” in that instance.