You’re deviating from traditional Christian theology in denying God’s omniscience but just out of curiosity-- what about all the Biblical prophesies? Did those come from God or did they come from people? Is it possible for humans to have an ability that God doesn’t have?
If you wish to enter “free will” into the discussion, then you must explain it. Otherwise, there is no point in raising the objection.
As far as I can tell, “free will” (in the strong, internal sense) is a philosophical “idea” that exists purely as means for both humans and humans conceptualizing a God to avoid clear chains of either moral responsibility or arbitrariness that would render all claims of responsibility irrelevant. In other words, it’s an incoherent nonsense that stands in for a total lack of an argument, mostly to avoid uncomfortable conclusions and complications.
But please, someone do explain how a will can be free from its OWN FUNCTIONING, and yet still responsible for what is chosen.
Well, Apos, free will’s a hard thing to tackle. Namely because when a human “functions”, that human feels like he’s in control, whether or not he is controlling himself or not, a matter still up for debate. So raising it would kind of open up another can of worms.
I do not agree. God well knew that we woud screw up. Every time. And he allowed us to make that choice. Omniscience and Omnipotence do not necessary equal absolute control. Or rather, he could have absolute control, but he chooses not to. In other words, he allows to live with our own failures and successes.
He does this not because he wants to see us fail. Although it would be true to say that He wants us to come to Him voluntarily, I do not believe that is the whole answer. I believe the answer is simpoly that he loves us. And because of that lvoe, he knows it is absolutely neccessary to let us choose. Otherwise, He would really be a tyrant, by forcing us to say and believe what HE wanted.
So hence the irony. In not forcing you to do anything, you believe He is a horrible controlling fiend. Yet, were He to actually try and control everything, then He would be a Dark Lord of Evil, but you wouldn’t know or care.
The same thing with Satan. God loved and still loves him, but Lucifer, even with superior Angelic knowledge, chose to hate mankind. He simply could not accept that we would not love God with all our hearts.
What is God’s plan?
God has a plan. He does not force anyone to follow it, though he’ll give you a nudge in the right direction now and then. If everyone followed the Divine Schema always, the world would be near-perfect. There are some problems we cannot solve, but they would not be too terrible, compared to all the good that would exist.
I do not accept that death would be seen as a great evil under this Plan. Humans live and die all the time and we will as long as there are humans. You might extend the human lifespan for a while, but ultimately all you do is delay the inevitable. And indeed, under the Divine Plan, death is only a short stop on the way to Paradise, so really, what’s with all the weeping? If you wail in the face of things you cannot change, hve you helped yourself or the world any? It is indeed painful to be seperated, especially when you ahce barely come to know your own child. Yet remember than Sin and Death have no power over Him - did He not rise from the grave on the third day to show that all sin had been forgiven and the gates of heaven opened? The difference between 2 days of life and 200 is so small compared to that.
In any case, once you’ve allowed an omniescient and omnipoent being, why can’t you believe that being can create and allow us free choice? [iBy definition* he CAN do this. I’ve always found the arguments to the contrary to ignore that fact.
If God is omniscient and omnipotent then everything that happens is purely his choice. The argument that he “allows” stuff to happen doesn’t work because it was his choice to create a world in which he knew that it would happen. He could have just as easily created a world in which it didn’t happen.
if God doesn’t like evil he didn’t have to create it. If he wants it to go away he cam snap his fingers and make it go a away. There is no need for some dramatic, end-times war. Whatever God’s goal is can be accomplished instantly right now.
BTW, why does God need people to worship him at all? Why does he care? Why does he need his ego stroked like that? What is the point of creating people just so he can have slavish, adoring worshippers?
Also if he wants people that will “choose” him then he can just create people who will choose him. It’s pretty stupid on his part to create people who he knows won’t choose him-- who cannot logically choose him-- and then get his panties in a bunch when they do what he knew they had to do.
God being disappointed in human behavior is like a novelist being pissed at the ending of his own book. God wrote this shit. Everything that happens was exactly as he intended. It is not logically possible for something to not happen as he intended because he had the final say in setting this clock in motion.
To mix metaphors, this is the video he chose. He already knows everything that happens in this movie. It was his decision to hit play. If he doesn’t like the movie he has only himself to blame. He already knew he wouldn’t like the movie.
And what about Satan? That was God’s responsibility too. If you are told that you can snap your fingers and produce a robot out of thin air but that the robot will then go on a murderous rampage would you create the robot? Any noise about the robot’s “choice” to go on a rampage is really immaterial because you know, without any possibility of error, that the robot will “choose” to go on a rampage.
As soon as you choose to create that robot are you not accepting culpability for what the robot does? It’s the same with God and Satan.
Oh…and that whole thing about Jesus being crucified somehow “saves” us is nonsense too. If God wanted to “save” us (from himself) he could just choose to save us. No mechanism is required to accomplish that. He doesn’t have to fry people in hell for petty or non-existent offenses. It’s all his choice.
Unfortunately, if you DON’T open the can of worms, then you simply CANNOT use any argument which relies upon “free will” as an explanation for why god permits evil.
That human feels like he is in control, or heck, that a human IS in control of himself, is irrelevant to the issue. That people so often think it is relevant points to them looking at the wrong issue: whether an agent is externally forced into a choice. But that’s NOT the sort of “free will” we need to explain/justify at all. The real question is why does the agent choose the particular choices he does? And the problem is, no matter what agent you claim is responsible for choosing, you are again forced to explain the functioning of that agent’s choosing process, and why it is the way it is.
Not arguing with you there.
Brilliant summary, Dio.
This is part 2 of inexplicable theology.
How does the sacrifice thing work? It seems pretty clear that it made sense to people in earlier times because they believed in magical blood sacrifices to purify unclean things. It makes lots of sense in terms of the sort of quasi-magical thinking of early theologians, where there are all sorts of quasi-magical and ritualistic rules. But in terms of, well, non-pagan sacrifice concepts, what’s the deal? How does God having himself killed (and staying only briefly dead, at that, making the “sacrifice” a bit of a takeback) work to accomplish anything? Why was it necessary? Was it purely symbolic, to convey a metaphorical idea? What’s the causal or logical chain here?
God, if he exists at all, obviously doesn’t care abou the day to day random things going on. That means that if you’re ever in a jam and call out to God to save you, good luck!
My favorite is when the hurricane victims (who live) thank God for their survival. Umm…but what about the ones who died? Doesn’t he care about them? Wouldn’t it have been even nicer of God to not have the hurricane at all? Survivor’s bias?
I remember when my mother would visit the sick in hospitals. If they died then it was a good thing cause they’re in heaven. If they were still alive then it was a miracle God kept them alive. If they got better and left then of course it was a miracle. It’s all just jibberish.
As for the OP, I think her question was how can God allow an innocent to die. The response was that there is “sin” and this is why she died…although she herself didn’t sin as she’s a baby. We live in a fallen world, etc. I think that’s just jibberish.