A visible God would deny us of free will. True or false?

Great Debates
1

While falling asleep last night, my addled mind started thinking about how the world would be different if there was a real Eye of Providence somewhere on the Earth. How much better would humanity behave if we knew there was a giant roaming eye doing surveillance on us?

I think it would scare the shit out of people who are inclined to be scared. But these would likely be the people who’d be obedient even if the Eye didn’t exist.

Then there would be the people who wouldn’t be impressed. Maybe they would convince themselves that the Eye was a giant hoax. Or maybe they would accept it’s real, but not be convinced it belongs to any one religion. Or they would rationalize to themselves that the Eye notices heinous crimes (like killing babies), but ignores relatively trivial stuff (like shoplifting). And just because the Eye is always there and it looks judgmental, that doesn’t mean it is actually judging us. Perhaps it’s just supposed to serve as a reminder that we aren’t alone in this world…that the world is a lot bigger than it seems. And if the deity who installed the Eye was really about judgment, wouldn’t he making lightening bolts come out of it whenever people do wrong?

I think the majority of people would fall in the middle of these two extremes. “Yeah, the Eye is watching and judging, and yes I’m afraid and filled with awe. But I’m just a human and I’m going to still make some mistakes. And if I should err, I should be able to beseech the Eye for forgiveness. The Eye will be able to see into my heart and know when I’m truly repentant. The Eye represents love, not wrath. It hasn’t struck me down yet. That’s proof it is merciful.”

When Christian Believers are asked why they think God doesn’t show himself, they say stuff along these lines:

This doesn’t make sense to me.

Most of us have parents, right? Flesh-and-blood people who were ever-present in our lives as kids, and sometimes as adults. It is true that we seem to be born with a natural inclination to love our parents, but this is far from a given. Many people grow up actively disliking their parents, whether because of abuse or just because. And love doesn’t translate into submission. You can cuss someone out and still love them very much.

I also don’t understand how a visible God would deny us the choice to do wrong. Raise your hand if you had strict disciplinarians for parents. Now raise your hand if you ever made bad choices as a kid…choices that you knew would get you in major trouble. People who live in authoritarian, fascist societies still rebel and try to subvert the system. Prisoners riot. The oppressed always resist. Whether these are “choices” or just natural coping strategies engrained in human psychology, I don’t know. But even the Bible shows us numerous examples of humans exerting “free will” while interacting directly with God. See Adam, Eve, and Cain.

So I think this explanation is a very weak one. It would be much more intellectually respectable if Christians would admit that no one knows why God doesn’t reveal himself.

2

Maybe God doesn’t want us to believe in Him. Perhaps we’ve reached the stage of our development as a species that belief has become a crutch.

3

Didn’t seem to in Satan’s case, or Pharoah’s, or the people who witnessed miracles (Moses, other bible peeps).

4

Heck, the whole point of Christianity is that a guy started performing miracles and the locals said, wow, that’s super, now hold still so we can kill you, kthxbai!

5

In addition, the provable existence of a powerful apparently supernatural entity doesn’t guarantee that everyone is going to recognize it as “God.” As comes up often in “What would it take to make you believe?” threads, an overtly interventionist “god” could just as easily be an advanced alien race, or some sort of powerful trickster spirit pretending to be the Creator. And there’s always folks like Der Trihs, who would oppose the real deal deity just on principle.

Plus, if God is really all powerful, he could make it so that we could see his presence in the world, and still have free will to love him or not. Hell, he could make it so that we all have free will to love him, and cannot choose not to love him at the same time, and make that not a contradiction at all. He’s God. A can be both A and !A at the same time if he so wills it. To suggest that he’s bound by the rules of logic is to admit that he is not omnipotent.

6

This argument really only works at all with a tyrannical god; which is admittedly the kind of god that most believers push, but tyranny is hardly a logically necessary quality in a god. An indifferent or genuinely benevolent god wouldn’t terrify people into mindless obedience just by looking at them. Even the writer feels obligated to use a concentration camp guard as a metaphor for God…

Suppose for example that there was an “eye of God” wandering about that showed only minimal interest in the doings of humanity; pretty soon it would just be regarded as part of the landscape. Or if it wandered about indiscriminately performing helpful miracles, people would soon lose the fear that it was going to torture them forever for not grovelling to it.

As well, taken seriously this is an argument either against the value of free will, or against anyone with any power at all helping anyone else, including parents helping their children. If I pull a drowning person out of the water, am I evil because I “violated their free will”? If the government (which is far more powerful than individuals) helps the people by feeding the starving, protecting the helpless and in general performing the more benevolent functions of government, is it actually evil because it’s violating people’s free will just by appearing to them? Are parents violating the free will of their children because they don’t hide from the kids?

This is an argument that falls apart upon examination.

God “hardened Pharaoh’s heart”; he was a mind controlled puppet who had no “free will”; no choice in his actions or feelings.

7

I’m somewhat persuaded by the counterargument that God’s inability to do something logically contradictory says nothing about God and everything about the incoherence of doing something logically contradictory. Claiming that God can be both A and !A is not making a valid claim; it’s the equivalent of saying that God can friznibbet.

8

That’s a workable argument for a lot of religions, but if the central tenet of your monotheistic religion is that your singular God is also three people, the logic boat has already sailed.

9

Yeah, that’s pretty messed-up. He could have likened God to a smothering, over-protective helicopter parent. But instead he had to go there.

The idea that God created us to love him seems to contradict the notion of free will.

10

Why God doesn’t reveal himself, as demonstrated in the classic documentary:

GOD: Arthur! Arthur, King of the Britons! Oh, don’t grovel! If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s people groveling.
ARTHUR: Sorry–
GOD: And don’t apologize. Every time I try to talk to someone it’s “sorry this” and “forgive me that” and “I’m not worthy”. What are you doing now!?
ARTHUR: I’m averting my eyes, oh Lord.
GOD: Well, don’t. It’s like those miserable Psalms – they’re so depressing. Now knock it off!
ARTHUR: Yes, Lord.
GOD: Right!

11

Isn’t it true that the vast majority of people already believe in an all-seeing god? They still have free will (whatever that actually means), and sin and break laws.

12

The argument certainly wouldn’t work for those who claim that the Bible is proof of God’s existence.

13

Hopefully my brain isn’t broken, but I don’t get the analogy to concentration guard aside from the ugly implications. If the assertion is that even fierce power like that has its limits and can’t force love, then how does it then follow that God revealing himself renders us unable to freely choose to love him? Seems to me we’d always retain the ability to choose…to the extent that love is a choice.

I feel bad for whomever wrote this tortured piece of “logic”. It’s not even able to keep up with itself.

14

I agree.

But the argument about free will still seems extremely weak. Your parents are nearly omnipotent when you are small, and most children love their parents, but some don’t. And the ones who don’t love their parents don’t choose that because their parents are somehow less powerful. In may cases, it’s because their parents abuse their power.

It seems evident to me that if there is an omnipotent God who created the universe, that God has either lost interest in his creation, or doesn’t care very much exactly how we approach Him/Her. Because if God wanted us all to follow the One True Religion, we would all know perfect well what that One True Religion was.

(That doesn’t preclude the possibility that God thinks some religions are correct for some particular people. But it does preclude the possibility that it’s the same religion for all of us.)

15

ack, I agreed with a post way up higher. Several of them, actually. But I hadn’t seen the one right before mine when I wrote that.

16

Would a visible G-d deny us of exercising free will? True or false.

Going to have to go with false on that, as mentioned Adom and Eve is pretty strong.

And if I may make the analogy the web isn’t so far off from G-d these days, doesn’t seem to stop us from acting poorly, and that is being kind.

17

Also I as a parent am visible, in colour, and my kids have had no problem rebelling even if in the most minor of ways and they are good kids, so what does that mean.

I think it is part of how we are hardwired, we explore and discovery boundaries be they scientific or religious.

18

Yeah, the argument in the OP makes no sense whatsoever. Whether or not I love something is contingent on whether or not it exists in exactly one way: I cannot love something I do not know exists. I can love or not love something that I do know exists. However, God making it impossible for me to believe in him (which, given that he’s all-knowing, he should damn well know is happening) makes it completely impossible for me to love him, at least beyond the way I “love” Twilight Sparkle (as an obviously non-existent concept for a character, which I’m pretty sure is not what God is going for). What’s more, simply knowing that something exists can hardly be said to negate my ability to love it. Every single thing I love exists. If god proved his existence to me, I could then evaluate whether I love him or not based on his actions. Going off the bible, I can firmly say that the answer is “no”, because he’s kind of a genocidal asshole. But if he doesn’t prove his existence, how could I love him?

19

The quote is answering the question: Why doesn’t God show himself more blatantly.

The answer it gives is that it would be unproductive for God to do so. Showing off his power and majesty wouldn’t inspire love, which is what he wants. Awe, humility, fear, resentment or a bunch of other things maybe. Love, no.

Free will is only relevant to being able to choose to love, not to obeying or disobeying, in this instance.

20

So once again god chooses to do the thing that makes it look like he doesn’t exist.

But in most religions god does blatantly reveal himself; just to a select few people and/or at some past time. So, what about the free will of those people to whom god does that?

In this context, there is no distinction. If I believe god exists then I have both the choice to love him and the choice to obey him whether or not he physically shows himself (though “choosing to love” is an odd notion).
If I don’t believe in god, I have no option of doing either.