dude i understand what you’re saying perfectly, i just dont agree
id apperciate not being patronized
i’ll set up my argument in the same childish way:
I can choose between seeing Paul or Rango in the theater. Say I choose to see Paul, but later change my choice to Rango. God knows you were going to change your mind. You can change your mind as many times as you wish, god knows what you’ll pick eventually.
I could see “Rango” if I so chose. God simply knows what choice I will go with eventually.
We can make choices, that is unquestionable. Making choices is very different from having free will. Algorithms can make choices, all computer programs need “if’s” (implicit or explicit) or they are useless, and those if’s are its choices. However, if you feed the same input to the program, it will give the same output, which means algorithms don’t have free will.
Looking from this perspective, giving free will to an algorithm in practice functions like giving it a truly random function and tell the algorithm to make choices based on this random function, which is a very stupid thing to do, unless you want the outcome to be random. That means that people should act randomly if they had free will. Free will is a childish idea, I don’t see any reason for an omniscient being to create it unless he expects people to use it for either the good or the bad.
However, people don’t act randomly, except for crazy people (but that just means they were made with bad algorithms). The choices we make always have a reason. When we have a choice to make, we measure the outcomes of each possibility and make a choice based on that. Sometimes the reason is brain malfunction (craziness and psychopathy). I’ve seen cases where one does something unpredictable because one wants to prove to someone else that one can make choices without any reason, but that is a reason in itself.
A person can make different choices when presented twice with the same situation because we are wonderful machines that learn. Choices also depend on a lot of factors like mood, distraction, emotions, physical conditions, etc. That is very known in Psychology. If our actions didn’t have reasons, then Psychology would be screwed.
You could argue that the reason some person gives for a choice is too stupid to be a reason, but then either the person is stupid or its brain was temporarily shut down because of anger, fear or whatever. If we had free will, stupidity and choices would have nothing to do with each other. However, they have. Free will don’t need to have a reason, and in fact it can’t have a reason, otherwise it is a choice that was thought about.
I hope this clarifies the distinction between choices, which we make, and free will choices, which we don’t.
That said, the only reason people say that God gives us free will is that he wants us to have dignity. That is just silly, an algorithm that does not always do what it is supposed to do is by no means a dignified algorithm. However, if a creature can gradually learn what it is supposed to learn, then that creature has dignity and the perfection that is expected for a creation of an omniscient being, although I’m not saying that this is necessarily the case.
Having all things to work only for people who love him looks like selfishness. A good father tries to make things work for all of his children, whether they love him or not. If God is omnipotent, he can make things work for everyone, don’t you agree? Even if that means making people reincarnate indefinitely until they end up loving him.
You were good until the last part. Were we created to be punished? Is that the final point? No. Every catechism says it clearly: Why did God create all things? For His own glory. First off admittedly some were created to be vessels of wrath. In Romans 9 Paul says
'For the Scripture says to the Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I may show My power in you, and that My name may be declared in all the earth.”18 Therefore He has mercy on whom He wills, and whom He wills He hardens. ’
So yes, there are some who are created to be vessels of wrath. However what again is the point in this? God created the world not to condemn it, but to save it.
Daniel, have you read Romans? Its an amazing book. With all these things in mind, maybe just read Romans 9. Here, Ill copy paste it here.
Some salvation then. I realize thats a lame answer, but youre starting on the problem of evil here, and thats another long post.
If your god created the world for his own glory, he has a huge ego.
I wasn’t talking about the problem of evil, but the problem of god choosing to benefit creatures that “love him” and condemn the other ones. I actually think that evil could have a purpose, for instance, to make people learn, but that falls apart if he decides to condemn someone.
About what daniel saying “we were created to be punished”: if god created all the people, including the bad ones, he knew the bad people would be bad. But he created them anyway, and for what? Just to condemn they. He could simply not have created the bad people and then he wouldn’t be “forced” to condemn them for their actions.
Imagine you pull the trigger of a gun and that ends up killing someone. Well, you could argue you didn’t kill the person, the bullet did, and bullet was boosted by the gunpowder, not by you. Then why are you responsible for their death? Because you pulled the trigger and you knew that pulling the trigger would indirectly result in that person’s death. Same goes for polluting a river, if the pollution kills someone, you are responsible.
If god created bad people and he knew that this action would, in the end, make those people to go to hell, then he is responsible for their condemnation. But then you tell me that he did not send them to hell and he did not commit the sins that sent those people to hell. However, he started the events that would ultimately send them to hell. He pulled the trigger, that makes him responsible.
There is an exception: if God did not know that they would do bad things. But then, even if that is the case and even if it is impossible for God to make people to repent their sins, instead of sending people to hell, he could simply make them disappear. By the way, there is always a way to make people repent.
You obviously didn’t understand. If God knows I’d change my mind then I’d have no choice but to change my mind. :hmph: Get it? IT. IS. NOT. MY. CHOICE. I cannot choose to do something that God does not expect. I. CAN. NOT. CHOOSE.
Also, Assassin47, if I reject God, He’d know I’d reject Him and, therefore, would be punished for not accepting Jesus as my savior.
You obviously didn’t understand. If god knows I’d change my mind that doesn’t change the fact I’d change my mind of my own accord. :hmph: Get it? IT. IS. MY CHOICE. I cannot choose to do something that god does not expect, but I. CAN. STILL. CHOOSE.
see i can be a douche too
edit: i’ll try to make my point clear:
let’s say that weather forecast is 100% accurate 100% of the time, does that mean the weather has been defined by the weather forecast? no, it just means we know what the weather will be before it has happened
I actually agree with the branching reality theory. God Knowing does not necessitate our actions, he merely knows what actions we will choose. There is a great difference between foreknowledge and predetermination.
Well, if you don’t agree with it, you might consider it drivel, but given the context that the Christian theology works in, it is not. The definition of God’s attributes put him beyond our conception. You are right, though, that it has no place IN a debate for the existence of God, as it is a direct criticism of having the debate in the first place. By debating about such a thing, the premise that God is perfect while we are imperfect is completely ignored, as, if that’s the case, imperfection cannot understand perfection. The best it can do is assume there might be perfection in light of the fact that it is imperfect.
I think you’ve missed my point. My point is that applying “useful information” to debate about the existence of the Christian, biblical God is inherently useless. I’m not saying we should not use reason. In fact, I even said that I think it’s the best that we have. I was merely noting that reason has its limits. Like I said, according to logic itself, logic may very well be incorrect. It seems to be, though, and humans put faith in logic and reason, because it seems like it works. But until we examine every case where logic can be applied, of which there are an infinite number, and prove that it works, we can’t be sure of it. The only way would be to apply faith in it. Again, I’m merely noting the limitations of our capacities, not advocating that we throw them out. Science and reason are clearly useful, but faith is a completely separate entity. You can argue against faith, but you’ll be using a system of argumentation which you ultimately believe to be correct (as you can’t be sure that it will always work) through faith. ‘Scientism’ is an example of this.
I’ve kept the cart behind the horse, I’m just saying the horse will probably not be able to go everywhere we want it to.
Some ideas are just some ideas. I can use your ancestral point to argue the contrary in that historically, even when we think ourselves to be correct, it seems to turn out that we were wrong down the line. The furthest science can go is theory; theories are not certain, they’re merely what seems the most correct given particular information. Again, I’m not bashing theories, I think they are a great way to better our understanding of the world, I’m merely pointing out that they have their limits.
My very point was that it answers nothing as far as reason is concerned. However, what does reason have to offer as an alternative? When it does, won’t it only be as strong as a theory?
I never said he was outside the universe and logic, I merely said that he’s beyond our conception of logic. Again, I agree with you that there is no point in making any reasoned conclusion about it.
Well, bur, like I said, you can still choose, but then you don’t have free will because your choice is already known. It is not God who determines it by knowing and understanding it, but it is determined nevertheless.
The weather is not defined by the weather forecast, but if the weather forecast is able to predict the weather, then the weather is already defined. The weather forecast does not change the weather, but the weather will change itself in a very strict and known way, exactly like the weather forecast predicts.
The fact that God knows what will happen does not predetermine what happens, but it proves that it is already predetermined.
If it were proven, this debate wouldn’t be occurring–especially not as prevalently as it still is in both theology and philosophy. Secondly, if you still think it to be proven, then you should provide the proof. The information you listed is still used to argue the contrary by those that disagree with you. You really haven’t shown enough “proof” to make your case.
Anyway, how can you have the ability to choose, as you say, without having free will? If there is no free will, you have no ability to choose but merely an illusion of choice.
I’m pretty sure omniscience includes knowing things that are not predetermined bro.
Not that I believe in god, but this argument is just nonsensical to me.
I feel like I’m beating my head against the wall here. Once again (and this will be the last time I will repeat myself on this): You can choose the steak or you can choose the chicken. It appears you have free will. You decide on the chicken. God knows you will choose the chicken. Therefore, it was impossible for you choose the steak regardless of how much you believe that you could because God knew you’d pick the chicken.
If you can do something God doesn’t know, that would be free will. If you can’t do something God doesn’t know, that would not be free will…regardless of what we believe.
Again, this is all within the theological realm of an omniscient deity (one I don’t believe in, by the way, so I believe that we do have free will).
This has been a surprisingly fruitful conversation.
[COLOR=‘MediumTurquoise’] Ok alot of things here. God does send people to hell, and God is the one who decides who goes to Hell and who is saved, so yes. The Bible says that Man is responsible for his actions, but how is this possible if the person can not act outside of God’s will? This was fairly difficult for me to grasp here. See the bottom of this post.
God saves you, you would naturally rebel unless God works in you. Natural man is dead to sin and is completely unable to save himself. Concerning the free will bit, it is impossible to act outside of God’s will yet God is not the author if sin. How? See the bottom of this post.
In some ways it does seem like an illusion.
wait what? You dont believe in God? For what then are you arguing?
Do I believe God is the Author of sin? No, I do not. Then how can God control sin completely without being the Author of it? First off, we know for sure God is not the Author of sin because the Bible says so. Deuteronomy 32:4 says “He is the Rock, His work is perfect; for all His ways are justice, a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He. James goes on to say that God tempts no one, and He Himself is not tempted.
Now can this perfect God wield the imperfections of sinners to His own glory? Can He do this without being contaminated by the sin? The answer is a clear yes. For instance look at the most wicked act ever done, the crucifixion of Christ. If ever there was a sinful action, that would be it. But Acts 4:27-28 says " For truly against Your holy Servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.”
So what is this. This verse proves that the crucifixion, a work of evil men, was completely planned by God. Do you see this? Both the Jews and Pontius Pilate were in sin, and yet this is what God was in control over. Acts 2:23 says as well “Him, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death…”
So, these verses show that God uses evil to accomplish His purpose. Ill get to the free will bit in a second dont you worry. God causes all things to come to pass, including sin. But he does this without being contaminated by it. I am reading through 2 Samuel right now, so the example of Absalom is on my mind. “Thus says the Lord: ‘behold I will raise up adversity against you from your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this sun.’”
In this verse, God gives Absalom the wives. But still Absalom had to right to them. This seems strange. But its what the Bible teaches. One more example. In Isaiah 10 God sends Assyria against the Jews as punishment for their actions. The Jews are here described as an ‘ungodly nation’. But then verse 12 says “I will punish the fruit of the arrogant heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his haughty looks.” So God sent Assyria against the Jews, and then punished them for going.
This is exactly what you guys have been complaining about. But how does this work? Heres how we should understand it. God controlled Assyria’s actions totally, and yet the arrogance and pride was not God’s but Assyria’s. And this leads exactly into what I was saying earlier about how this is a huge necessity that "All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. In a world full of sin, God could not make such a promise unless he had absolute authority over all evil. If He didnt then that ‘freely willed’ evil could harm a Christian apart from God’s plan.
Ok, I lied, Ill talk about the free will thing next post. Ask questions on this then free will. Obviously the question you will be asking is how is God not responsible and how does God blame us and yadda yadda. But if you have other questions then i can take those now too.
look buddy putting your argument in different analogies doesn’t strengthen it in the least
I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN AND I DISAGREE OKAY
MY ARGUMENT: KNOWLEDGE OF CHOICES DOES NOT TAKE AWAY THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE
YOUR ARGUMENT: KNOWLEDGE OF CHOICES TAKES AWAY THE FREEDOM OF CHOICE
I’M SAYING THAT IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ANOTHER CHOICE BECAUSE THAT’S THE CHOICE I’VE MADE AND THE OMNISCIENT ENTITY KNOWS THAT’S MY CHOICE BECAUSE IT KNOWS EVERYTHING
YOU’RE SAYING IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO MAKE ANOTHER CHOICE BECAUSE THE OMNISCIENT ENTITY KNOWS THAT’S MY CHOICE
ARE WE CLEAR THAT WE DISAGREE AND NOT THAT I’M TOO STUPID TO UNDERSTAND YOUR INFANTILE ANALOGIES?
btw, caps are for effect, not because i’m actually sad enough to be worked up about this irl
How does it not make sense? God knows everything, yes? God knows the choice I’m going to make, yes? I can’t make any other choice but the one God knows I’m going to make.
Man, stop for a second, please, breathe. You said you understood, but you don’t. You are free to disagree with it, that is ok, but you did not really get the point. All the time you are saying that we are saying that
It is actually the other way around.
For instance, if you know there is a fruit in the basket, that does not put the fruit in the basket. Instead, the fruit was already in the basket before you looked at it and that is what makes you aware that the fruit is in the basket.
God knowing what will happen in the future means he saw it. If he saw what happens in the future, then, in particular, what happens in the future is already there. If the future wasn’t there, God would not be logically able to see it. It is like the fruit in the basket: the fruit is there, that is why you see it.
Think of the basket as a place where you put all true affirmations and the fruit as the affirmation that you will make choice X. If that affirmation is in the basket, it is already true, choice X will be made. Omniscience means to be able to see all fruits in the basket. If it is not yet determined that you will make choice X, then that fruit is not yet on the basket and God cannot see it.
I don’t know if daniel will agree, but, in short, this is my argument:
Freedom of choice takes away knowledge of choices
It is the opposite of what you said.
I hope the idea is clear now.
I didn’t mean that when I said “proves”. A better explanation is written above.
There is room for discussion, there always is. The problem with logical proofs is that they can only be made with assumptions. You can always modify the assumptions, that is where the discussion takes place. In this case, the assumptions are the definitions of free will, omniscience, choice, God, knowledge… if you define them differently, then you might not have contradictions.
See? Changing assumptions changes the discussion as well
Well, you might disagree that calling it a choice is a good idea, but, to me, a choice that is determined by environment, algorithm and memory is still a choice. It is an useful ability of us to make decisions based on what we know. To me, it is a lot more useful than a free choice, because the last one is completely random and have no reason to exist. I discussed that idea in a previous post.
There is an issue with the points you make, though. You are citing passages of the bible, which is ok, but the passages of the bible do not prove themselves. The bible just makes affirmations, but it rarely gives a reason or an argument for those affirmations. You are free to do that, but I personally doubt you will convince anyone that way.
And, by the way, I said that “If your god created the world for his own glory, he has a huge ego.”, you answered “Not necessarily. Ego implies pride. God has no selfish pride.” but you actually didn’t explain how the fact that god wants his own glory is not a selfish pride. Like the bible passages: no reasoning.
Do you find it strange that atheists disagree with themselves sometimes? I think it is actually fruitful and healthy to (respectfully) disagree. He is not arguing against what we are arguing for, but against the arguments themselves.
Atheists also like to play devil’s advocate sometimes. I tend to enjoy arguing theists from within their own perspective rather than outside it, because I was a methodist christian at one point too, so I can see where they are coming from.
I understand what you guys mean by “God knows, but does not determine for you” but that still implies some kind of destiny. Even if god does not choose for you, you do not exactly choose entirely by yourself.
Assassin 47, I have a question for you. God is perfect yes? Then why would he make a loophole in his laws of forgiveness and animal(/human) sacrifice that he would furfill himself by making jesus, instead of just having sins be forgiven if you believe in god (instead of needing jesus as well) in the first place?
We are supposed to feel that god did soooo much for us, in that he gave his one and only son (who is also himself and the holy spirit at the same time) to sacrifice to himself to fulfill prophecy he laid out, all to comply with the arbitrary rules he made up in the first place? God could make infinite jesuses if he wanted, not to mention that already we know supposedly jesus will come to earth again, so what makes his death mean anything if he can so simply go on living once again?
If you ask me, all of this sounds very much like the writings of flawed humans rather than an infinitely wise god creature, which if you watched that history of god video you would probably understand much more clearly.
@oblivion: ok im not sure I understand everything you are saying. The sacrifices in the old testament never fully worked. Thats why they had to keep sacrificing. And God isnt satisfied by those sacrifices at all actually. Those were all pictures for the final lasting sacrifice, Jesus, a once and for all thing. Im not even sure thats what youre asking.
And Jesus’ death was much more than death. All of the sin in the world ever was placed on Him. For my sin Jesus was placed on the cross. We all put Him there. Punished for sins in our stead. And additionally, so you got the whole Trinity thing, Jesus was seperated from the Trinity at that point. Dont ask me how that worked I have no idea.
@Gug You mention convincing someone by quoting scripture. I am explaining the viewpoint of the Bible by using the Bible… Im not sure what youre driving at. For the most part I dont think I can say why God did what he did and says what He says, only what scripture expands on itself. Am I missing something?
jesus christ im not retarded, i do understand what you’re saying, even if my wording of it isnt 100% spot on
my point is that an ALL-KNOWING being is perfectly capable of knowing EVERYTHING, and by definition knowing EVERYTHING means knowing EVERYTHING REGARDLESS OF TIME and it does not require those things to have happened already or to have been predefined in some way because KNOWING EVERYTHING is simply KNOWING EVERYTHING without any implications as to the mechanics of time
do you understand my point? you may not agree, but please stop telling me i dont understand, because i do
“The problem with logical proofs is that they can only be made with assumptions.”
This is basically my whole point. Your “logical proof” requires the assumption that time is linear and that an omniscient being cannot know your choices in advance unless it can predict them in some straightforward manner. My point is exactly that: you are making assumptions.
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