To any theologians here...

[JohnnyReb]

How can free will exist when humans are born and conditioned to act a certain way?

A bit of if-then logic is in order.

IF the Bible is right THEN the only way to choose God is with God's help. Divine Intervention.

Remember when Jesus said that it is as hard for a rich man to enter in the the Kingdom as it would be for a Camel to go thru the eye of a needle. The disciples asked who then can be saved. Jesus said that with God all things are possible. (forget what you might have heard about a gate in the wall called the eye of the needle. That's complete fabrication).

Point here, is that it is impossible to be saved. Just as impossible as a camel going thru the eye of a needle. Complelely impossible, that is, outside of God.

God's intervention overwhelms our sin nature and our sin nurture.

No one can just decide to be saved. Jesus said that no one is saved unless he is called. We are not saved by the choice. We are saved by Grace, thru Faith (the choice), and that Faith being a gift of God.

John

 

[Moonbeam]

<<No one can just decide to be saved. Jesus said that no one is saved unless he is called. We are not saved by the choice. We are saved by Grace, thru Faith (the choice), and that Faith being a gift of God.>>

That is rather confusing. I can't save myself, I have to be called. I'm not saved by choicee but by Grace. And Grace comes through faith? Well how is it grace if there are stipulations? And Faith is a choice? How do you choose to have faith. To me it's like saying choose to be gullible. Sorry, no can do. And how can it be a gift if you choose it. You get gifts without asking for them. That's what makes them gifts.

What I hear is that some people have faith and to divert their attention from the fact that they are willingly blinding themselves to the absurdity (considering that faith is the means by which a person can believe the unbelievable) of that faith, ie are less analytical, by pretending that they aren't actually responsible for their own blindness, but were somehow favored by God in some mysterious and illogical way, with it as a gift, and the rest of us who couldn't for one reason or another swallow the lines are just not called.

Since there are many religions with many followers all believing something different on faith and many everywhere who don't believe, it would seem more likely to me that there is some statistical percentage of people who are called, perhaps for genetic or personal development reasons rather than that anybody is particularly called.

 

[PlatinumGold]

moonbeam

Grace is God's willingness to give Each of us a chance. Faith is another word for the Spirit that He puts within us that makes us capable of even recognizing His existence. No one is favored. God calls Everyone in their time. just because some are called earlier in their lives and others are called later, it means nothing in the grand scale of things. I'm not one that believes that their are "believers" and "pagans". All are God's Children All are called. Are there some that FLAT out refuse, yes. has happened before and it'll happen again. but they are all given that chance to make that final decision.

 

[Netopia]

Spent the day being sick as a dog and sleeping...now it's past midnight and I can't sleep! So... I'll post.

I agree with the essence of much of what PlatinumGold said in his long post way up in the thread.... though I disagree on some of the specifics.

I too believe that everything exists within God. I've often thought that for all intents and purposes, we are not actually real, but only exist within God the same way a hologram only exists for as long as it is being generated by a holographic projector.... we are not self-existant.

I believe that God is absolute in knowledge, power and presense (both spacially and temporally). As such, I believe that God exists always at every point of time within the boundries of time and exists also outside of time and in all places and even in the "no place" He existed before he created any "place". Because of this, I think it is reasonable to believe that God knows, has known and will know everything that has, is and will every happen and He has always known it and exists in the "eternal now"... a singular, all encompassing thought without change.

It has seemed to me that if that is all true, then EVERYTHING is written in stone, for if He is omniscient, then even He cannot change what He already knows is true. But this perspective is written by a being (me) who can only view and evaluate based on my existance within time. I have no reference or ability to truly comprehend what it means to exist as God does.

OTOH, I see that in the Bible, God holds people accountable for their heart's intent based on what THEY know to be right or wrong, as opposed to what WE know is right or wrong.... at least if they don't know Him.

• RO 2:12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

God judges the heart, not the action. These people will be judged on their "consciences", not on the actions that they did. If people are to be judged on their conscience, then they must have the ability to decided between good and evil.... even though they don't have the Holy Spirit.... God has let all of us know in our hearts what is right and wrong and leaves it to us to choose.

So, now I have this strange dicotomy, where it would seem that everything is predestined and yet everything depends on freewill. The ultimate conclusion that I've come to is that both are right and it is a limitation of US to be able to grasp that they are NOT mutually exclusive from God's perspective, only ours. Some of you may think that this is a cop out on my part... but let me tell you, it isn't easy admitting to myself that the limitation in the whole equation is me!



<< So the lines are Drawn. the Test subjects are the next race that GOD creates, It just happens to be Adam and Eve. >>

This I more or less agree with.

• Eph 3:10 His intent was that now, through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms, 11 according to his eternal purpose which he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.

I've wondered about this, and what I'm about to write is pure speculation, but I wonder.... if man purpose is to show the fallen angels just how wise God is and how foolish they are. Consider that one third of the angels, who we can presume had seen God directly, rebelled and turned their backs on God. Consider that the Bible teaches that the majority of man will go to Hell and that we have never seen the Father. Consider that the "number of man" is 666... which is two thirds. I've wondered if God is showing the demons that 333 (one third) of all men who ever lived will choose Him without ever even seeing Him and point to the folley of those that saw Him and turned away.

Pure speculation.... but something I've thought about.



<< but rewind a sec. what separated Adam and Eve from God, was it the act of Disobedience? (this is where most people are mistaken in my opinion) NO. it wasn't the Disobedience, but the SHIFTING of responsibility. >>

No, it wasn't the shifting of responsibility. It was the turning of trust away from God and to satan. All God has ever done, since the beginning of time has been to ask His creation to trust Him and let Him give them what they need. He told them that fruit was bad and don't eat it, but that they could have other stuff... they didn't trust Him and the result was the fall of man. When He told the people of Isreal that HE would give them the promised land and then they said that the people they would fight were too strong, they failed to trust Him and for that they perished in the desert until others were raised up who did go in. He told them (the Isrealites) that He would provide for their life on the Sabboth by giving them double manna the day before... for those who wouldn't trust Him and worked for themselves on that day, the punishment was physical death... and that was the shadow of what He has given us. He has provided for our eternal life... He knows that it is something that we CANNOT workout on our own, so HE paid the price in full and offered us HIS sacrifice as a gift, a gift He gives freely and all we have to do is to accept it. If we do not trust Him in this, and try to do things on our own, then the result is eternal death. All He's ever wanted us to do was to trust Him and see that He loves us and wants to provide for us.... like any of us who are parents want our children to do.

• John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.

I really do think it's all about trust.



<< One question I eventually came to is why am I unhappy. >>

That's a REALLY good question to ask! If everyone on Earth truly pondered that, this could be a much better place than it is!.... well.... as long as people didn't start scape goating.



<< How do you choose to have faith. To me it's like saying choose to be gullible. Sorry, no can do. And how can it be a gift if you choose it. You get gifts without asking for them. That's what makes them gifts. >>

How do you choose to forgive? You simply make a decision to change your mental processes toward a situation... why is this different? To me, it's not like saying choose to be gullible, but like saying that if it feels correct at the core of your being, then maybe in some immaterial and unmessurable way, it is correct. As for the gift part... I know I've asked for gifts before... has no one ever asked you "what do you want for your birthday?". But even if that person buys you a gift and brings it to your house, you are always free to reject or accept it. Only the giving of a gift is the responsibility of the bearer, the proposed recipient must decide what happens after that... and so it is with God. If he forces us, then not only don't we have free will, but we don't trust Him and we don't love Him... we are only robots. It is only through His freely offering and allowing us to freely receive that makes it real.

I actually look at it more like we are overboard in the arctic and we will die of hyperthermia in short order if we don't get out of the water. God throw's us a life preserver and yells to us that if we don't grab hold, we will spend eternity at the bottom of an icy grave. He's warning us in advance and providing us escape... but He won't MAKE us grab the life preserver.

Hmmm.... I'm feeling sleepier now... perhaps I'll head up to bed. Thanks to anyone who read through all of that!

Joe

 

[Netopia]

<< All are God's Children All are called. >>

• JN 1:10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-- 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

I would say that only believers are God's children according to the scripture. All are His creation, but not His children.

Joe

 

[PistachioByAzul]

It's a Chicken-Egg complex, the question of free will existing. I see religions just overlooking it because it messes up the production.

 

[lawaris]

Are you a free man ?
You are not ! There are a thousand and one bondages around you. You may not look at them - it is very embarassing , you may not recognise them - it hurts; but it does not change the situation: you are still a slave. - OSHO

 

[PistachioByAzul]

Dogma can be mixed & matched for every occasion, it's just vague, subjective and basically relative enough. That you have diehard violent "fundalmentalists" on one hand of a religionand peaceful monks on the other, the people who follow too intently, who try too hard because they feel that they're missing something vs the people who let their spirit do the following, trust in themselves and basically can feel the positive energy flowing into all aspects of their lives, who need not even speak because that's how much they radiate productive creative energy. These are maybe the extremes, where do we fit in, what should we be aiming towards? There are so many parallels amongs different religious followings, it hurts greatly, the prospect of choosing one and actually dismissing others. Any man who believes A is no more/no less confident than any man who believes B. How can I slap everyone in the world in the face and say "I'm sorry, your just wrong, it says so in my little book right here, here, right there, and then right over here" because that's basically what one does sub-conciously in the mind if not literally in the actions. Great learning lies beyond what we're so comfortable with.

 

[petrek]

"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; WHO GAVE HIMSELF A RANSOM FOR ALL." 1 Timothy 2:5,6

"...for there is no difference: for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:22-23

"For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him." Romans 10:12

It is the "same Lord OVER ALL", not one Lord for the saved and one for the lost.

"Therefore as by the offence of one, judgement came upon ALL MEN to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon ALL MEN unto justification of life." Romans 5:20

"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that any should perish, but that ALL should come to repentance." 2 Peter 3:9

"And it shall come to pass, that WHOSOEVER shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered." Isaiah 45:22

Dave

 

[petrek]

"BANKGOK- The government launched a campaign yesterday to encourage Buddhist monks to give up smoking, a habit widespread among the clerics, who are supposed to lead a simple life free of vices.
At least half of Thailand's 300,000 monks are heavy smokers and tobacco-related diseases are the main cause of death among the clergy, said Warabhorn Bhumisawasdi, the director general of the state Institute for Tobacco Consumption Control." -compiled from the news services, Winnipeg Free Press April 2/2002

 

[Moonbeam]

<<It's a Chicken-Egg complex, the question of free will existing. I see religions just overlooking it because it messes up the production.>>

Hehe, that's more or less what I think too. Their are two kinds of consciousness, ego consciousness, the self divided against the self; and higher,God, unified, consciousness that is undivided. In the first time exists. In the second it does not. In the first man does not have access to his ture feelings and acts according to principals, dogma, belief. In the second life flows from the love of being. In the first thought is governed by fear. In the other trust in oneself gives rise to spontaniaty. Because these two forms of consciousness are mutually exzclusive there arises a tremendous paradox in dealing with and discussing them that is further complicated by objectifying them and calling them something other than modes of perception, ie turning them into Satan and God, as a means of transmitting information about them and providing a mass alert to humanity that another higher state is possible. The point, I think, is not to philosophically explain away the paradoxes, but to realize their inner synthesis as a process of entering the second state. The door to God, it would seem to me, must lie in love. The question, it would seem to me, is why we don't. It seems to me too that the requirements of the law that is written in the heart that was spoken about earlier are the actions taken by a loving heart in whatever situation that heart finds itself. Since the heart and the capacity to love is the core property of the chimpanzee called man, and since the nature of language is to categorize and separate, as soon as man spoke it became possible to divide against himself.

Knowledge, the capacity to artificially divide perfection into good and evil and apply it to the self, to put oneself down, cast all men form the capacity to trust, to spontaneously love. Everywhere among all men there is the wish to heal, to reunify, and that is the intent and purpose of every religion provided by all Avatars, men who regained their true humanity. The exclusivity of Christianity arises out of the confusion of mistaking Christ with the one and only son of God instead of a perfect (fully realized) (son of man) example of the human capacity to trust, to love. Everywhere on earth man strives to heal the inner wounds. The radiance of God shines forth in every lover that risks. Truth is not the property of one people or another. The pagan who loves an ancestor tree is advanced way beyond the self identified Christian who hates and divides.

"But in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make."

 

[Netopia]

<< The exclusivity of Christianity arises out of the confusion of mistaking Christ with the one and only son of God instead of a perfect (fully realized) (son of man) example of the human capacity to trust, to love. >>



Are you sure you're not Eck?

But back to the topic. Hmmm.... don't know if I have anything to say right now.

THAT'S RARE!

Joe

 

[JohnnyReb]

As a reminder, I predicated my comments with IF the Bible is true, as this discussion is about what the Bible teaches.

Well how is it grace if there are stipulations?

Grace means that we didn't earn it, not that it is completely outside us.

And Faith is a choice?

No, Faith is a gift. We make a choice under the power granted to us by that free gift. The unregenerate man is unable to make a decision for Christ by himself.

You get gifts without asking for them. That's what makes them gifts.

Tell my grandson this. I don't even know what a Deluxe Kongozord is, but he's getting one for his birthday -- as a gift.

How do you choose to have faith. To me it's like saying choose to be gullible. Sorry, no can do.

I think an old man's poor vocab contributed to this confusion. You don't choose to have faith, you choose to act under the authority/power/right granted to you by the free gift of faith.

What I hear is that some people have faith and to divert their attention from the fact that they are willingly blinding themselves to the absurdity (considering that faith is the means by which a person can believe the unbelievable) of that faith, ie are less analytical, by pretending that they aren't actually responsible for their own blindness, but were somehow favored by God in some mysterious and illogical way, with it as a gift, and the rest of us who couldn't for one reason or another swallow the lines are just not called.

(BTW, that's one long sentence). When you say that Faith is the means by which one believes the unbelievable, you are almost right. It is the means by which one can believe that which one has not seen.

Since there are many religions with many followers all believing something different on faith

Yes, but this is different than Christian Faith. This faith is the faith that I have that my mom is my real mom. They trust their religion because people they trust trust that religion. Faith as a free gift of God to enable us to do that which we CANNOT do without it is uniquely Christian.

Once again, all the above is under the criteria IF the Bible is true.

John

 

[PlatinumGold]

Finally

for all those that want to say, many other cultures have Gods, isn't it arrogant to say that only your God is real.

i'll say this, christianity (true christianity, not necessarily the way it is practiced) is the only religion where God comes to save man. All others, man must earn their way to the god.

 

[PistachioByAzul]

i'll say this, christianity (true christianity, not necessarily the way it is practiced) is the only religion where God comes to save man. All others, man must earn their way to the god.

Well, to begin with I'm not sure that's true. But more importantly, the significance of that is entirely subjective. My religion is the only religion that tells you to play the violin while doing an Irish jig in a bowl of tapioca, and only by doing that you will experience God. Since no other religion has that, well, I guess mine is true.

 

[hoihtah]

i haven't read the whole thread, but let me take a stab at the whole debate between free will and predestination.

there's a word in english dictionary that describes the debate well.

antinomy it basically means two truths that seems to contradict eachother.

when it comes to 'free-will and predestination', i believe the Bible teaches both.
i can probably quote 3-5 on each side of the argument.

basically, what it comes down to it is this,
if you choose to believe in one and negate the other,
it doesn't matter which side you argue against,
you are only seeing a half of the big picture.

another example of an antinomy in the bible would be the whole doctrine of Jesus Christ being fully God, and yet fully Man.
If Jesus is anything less than fully God, His death only means another death of a common man.
If Jesus is anything less than fully Man, then it leaves no hope for mankind from His resurrection.

again, you may choose to believe one or the other,
but unless you see the larger picture of the two co-existing,
your not getting the full picture.

going back to free will and predestination...
one thing that helps me understand the existance of these two is the whole realm of time.

we live in a 4d world, 3d+time.
(i'm sure you can add many other dimensions but for the sake of argument, let's say 4.)
however, God does not. the Bible teaches that God is omniscient and omnipresent.
Alpha and Omega.

the word predestination, we look at it with a certain time frame in mind.
our actions are predestined. our future is predestined. "predestined" with a past tense.
so we think of it as something that's happened in the past. and after all, isn't that what the word means?

however, God does not live under the realm of time. there's no past, nor present, nor future for Him.
this is a difficult concept to grasp. but the Bible teaches that... "the Great I am"

if you can imagine God being above the realm of time, then it's easier to see how Predestination and free will can co-exist.

i know i'm not explaining this well..., but for what it's worth, i'm not sure if it can fully be explained.

anyhow, i hope that helps.

 

[Athanasius]

Well, as usual I am wading into a discussion rather late, but here goes.

The original post seemed to me to be asking three questions:

1) Is free will an illusion?

2) How can punishment for original sin be just?

3) How can a good God allow evil to exist?

To these three questions I would add a fourth, from the intrepid Moonbeam:

4) How can grace be grace if there is a stipulation that requires faith?


I will respond in similar order

1) Is free will an illusion?

I think free will may be an illusion, depending on how one defines free. I think most people define "free" as the power to do whatever I decide. If that were the definition, then I would conclude that freedom does not exist. But we do have freedom to operate within the confines of our nature, and in this sense God is totally free. What he does, He does without any outer constraint or confinement. No outside force can stop Him; He is totally inwardly driven. In psychological terms, He is self-actualized. But this does not mean that God can do anything, for He cannot sin, nor can He do that which is intrinsically self-contradictory for Him. Hence freedom is the power to operate without outside factors. Hence, few humans attain true freedom. We rarely make a totally "self-actualized choice." Whether we are consciously aware of it or not, most of our "choices" are more the result of introjects from heredity, genetics, environment, pre-cognitive memories, etc., etc.

That does not mean that freedom is an illusion. It means that freedom is something that God possesses and we no longer do. But there was a man who was free, because he was God: Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus was the only truly free man this world has ever seen.


Now for the more philosophical side of the question: "How can I be free to do what I will do tomorrow if God already knows what I will do?" Texmaster has a point: we really can?t answer the question since we have no way to determine what ?knowing everything? is like. But that is no fun; we need to guess and explore Still, I think our difficulty in this area is not so difficult as it may appear. I have used the analogy before:

My wife and I have a three-year old son. Let?s say that he and my wife are out in the front yard one day and my son starts to head into the street. My wife says, ?Son, I?ve told you many times not to play in the street. If you go into the street, I am going to have to take you inside.? Now my son looks back over his shoulder and flashes his most mischievous grin. At that moment, with perfect foreknowledge, my wife knows that he is going into the street. She knows it because she knows my son so well. So, does my wife run over and snatch him up and take him in before he actually disobeys? Of course not. Though she knows very well what he will do, the important thing is the volitional act itself. It is this volitional act that is what my wife most treasures, and it is this volitional act that reveals to my son his obedience or disobedience. The volition is the key issue, not the foreknowledge. Besides, one can see from this simplistic analogy that foreknowledge and volition are by no means opposed.

What did my wife?s foreknowledge have to do with my son?s choice? She knew perfectly what he would do before he would do it. Yet in no way did that intimate knowledge of his choice mar or predetermine the choice itself. My wife had perfect foreknowledge and my son had unhindered volition. There is no contradiction. That God knows what you will do tomorrow has more to do with his ability to dissociate from time and his innate knowledge of you than it has anything to do with violating your will.

2) How can punishment for original sin be just?

God is not punishing us for ?original sin.? I am not entirely sure what each person means when they use that phrase. It is a loaded term with a wide range of meaning to different people. It has to carefully be defined to be properly discussed. Move away from legal thinking and move more into considering the image of God within. We are a spiritually diseased race. God is not punishing us for what two humans and a reptile reportedly did however many eons ago. The story of Eden is the story of how spiritual disease ensnared humanity in a spell and introduced malignancy into our spiritual condition. We struggle with the concept because we are so individualistic: we see ?Adam? as distinct from us. Yet this is an illusion. All of humanity is connected. Your individuality is more like the individuality of a single leaf on a tree. You are an individual, but you share a common life. If disease enters the root, it spreads through the whole tree. This is not ?punishment,? it is a fact of the nature of the tree. If that seems unfair, look at the whole picture and realize that this ?common life? also works to our advantage. Because the Word became Human in Jesus of Nazareth, eternal, divine life (the cure for our disease) has also entered the tree of humanity. The same principle by which humanity is corrupted is the principle by which it is saved. That the Word became flesh benefits the whole tree, just as ?Adam?s sin? defiled it. God is not punishing anyone for another?s choice. God is asking us to take responsibility for our own diseased condition, to accept His diagnosis honestly and with courage, and to submit to the Cure.

3) How can a good God allow evil to exist?

Define good and evil. The Scriptures have a different concept of evil than most people have today. In Isaiah 45:7, God is said to be the source of both good and evil. Although there is tension between good and evil throughout the Bible, there is no true dualism. In a moral sense, there is only one absolute Good, that is God. Only God exists beyond any concept of change or time. All other rational creatures are only relatively good or relatively evil. They are good if they maintain their proper relation to the Good. Evil is motion away from that. ?Satan? is not the opposite of God, for there can be no opposite of God. Satan is the creature that has moved the farthest away from the Good. But all that makes Satan so destructively evil is good in and of itself: power, beauty, intelligence, subtlety, influence, etc.

Now come back to the question: ?How can a good God allow evil to exist?? Go back to the image of God. Only God is beyond change, yet God is also said to be love. The highest desire of love is to share itself. Hence it is God?s nature to create, and to seek to share His love with creatures whom, after their own fashion and kind, can reciprocate. This reciprocation would be most advanced in creatures that were most like God. But the creatures are not God. By nature they are subject to change. Still, in some fashion, love exists in humanity, and I would presume in angels. We may know little about love, but we know that love cannot be forced. It is not an issue of power; it is an issue of non-contradiction. It is not within love?s nature to be forced. God?s omnipotence does not mean the power to do anything that one can imagine. The better taught theologians have always understood this. Omnipotence means the power to do what is non-contradictory. It is the power to do what is intrinsically possible. To say that God could force rational creatures to love each other and Him is a contradiction. It is not a power issue; it is a logical absurdity. God cannot give creature the ability to love and at the same time force them to love, because love by nature is unforced. Those creatures that bear the image of God (which, in part at least, is the ability to love) are by their own intrinsic nature very perilous.

Yet it is love?s nature to be shared. To ask why evil exists is really to ask, ?Why did God create such a perilous world?? Yet there is no other world that a God a love would ever create. It is His nature. It is not as if God was caught in some Shakespearean quandary: ?To create or not create, that is the question.? God is Love. Therefore he creates. This is not the best of all possible worlds; it is the necessary world to eventually bring about the best of all possible worlds. Evil is not the opposite of Love (or ?Good?), for evil is not the opposite of God. Evil is the absence of Love. It is intrinsic to love itself that those with the capacity to love cannot be forced to abide in it.

4) How can grace be grace if there is a stipulation that requires faith?

The essence of faith is trust. Trust is not a ?stipulation,? it the foundation upon which any real relationship can grow. God sheds His grace to all people, without favoritism. Does sunlight show favoritism as to which mirror it is reflected in? Trust is the ?Windex? that allows our smeared and blighted mirrors to be returned to their original shine. If I trust a doctor, I take his advice. Does a loving doctor dispense advice with favoritism? Still, we are but reflectors. The light does not generate from within us, it is reflected in us by nature.

Grace shows no favoritism, though to a dull mirror like myself it often looks that way. None of us is all that clean yet. We see but through a glass darkly.

 

[Rio Rebel]

As usual, Athanasius posted an interesting and insightful commentary on these theological/philosophical issues. Since I cannot measure up in a discourse, I will focus on one point and try to explain my disagreement.

The question is whether God's knowledge of the future necessarily implies that we are not free to alter that future. To be very clear in the argument, let me try to restate it:

1. Everything that God believes MUST be true (It is necessarily true that if God believes X, then X is true.)
2. God believes that event Y will happen at time Z.

Therefore,

3. It is necessarily the case that event Y will happen at time Z.

Given the truth of the two premises, it is IMPOSSIBLE that a human being could act in such a way that event Y did not happen at time Z. The truth of event Y at time Z is as immutable as the truth of the WTC's collapse on September 11, 2001. It is a logical necessity.

This is not saying that God's knowledge "causes" the event. There is no causal claim being made here. It is simply a logical relationship - IF God knows it will happen, then it MUST happen. Similarly, IF John Doe is divorced, then he MUST have been married. The divorce did not cause the marriage, but the existence of the divorce logically implies the marriage.

I do not see any way around this argument. I can see several possibilities, but none of them allow for "free will" in the sense that most of us mean when we discuss it. For example:

1. We are free to choose our actions, but those actions are still determined (a refined definition of free will). Or,
2. There is no such thing as "future". God knows everything that can be known - the present, and the past. But God does not know the future because there is no "future". Thus, even though God "knows everything", this has no bearing on the future because there is nothing to "know".

I had a philosophy professor who believes number 2, and I am inclined to agree with him.

Interesting discussion.

 

[lebe0024]

Jonathan Edwards, years ago, wrote a classic masterpiece called The Freedom Of The Will - a book which even to this day is vigorously studied in universities by philosophy students. It can admittedly be a hard read at times, but that not withstanding, it is well worth the effort. In it - and Edwards was a classic theologian, a devoted Calvanist, one who believed deeply in God's Sovereignty (including over salvation...) - yet in it, Edwards worked it out like this: The Bible does teach absolutely, that we have free will. You know what it means to have free will? Free will doesn't mean that you are free to choose or do anything (one can't choose to be a bird and grow wings to fly, obviously). Free will means that you only and always and ever do that which you most desire to do. We have free will - which means you never, ever do anything but that which you most want to do. No coerciion, you are never overpowered or undully persuaded in what you do - that every choice in your life you make freely, soley because it's what you most want to do. And so, Edwards says, that also establishes responsibility.

 

[Netopia]

<< 2. There is no such thing as "future". God knows everything that can be known - the present, and the past. But God does not know the future because there is no "future". Thus, even though God "knows everything", this has no bearing on the future because there is nothing to "know". >>



If one accepts God's existance outside of the constraints of time, there truly is no future. Nor is there a past. There is only the ever present eternal NOW.

Joe

 

[JohnnyReb]

2. There is no such thing as "future". God knows everything that can be known - the present, and the past. But God does not know the future because there is no "future". Thus, even though God "knows everything", this has no bearing on the future because there is nothing to "know".

Rio,

Exactly right. This is a Biblical stance, and to understand it we can look at our friends in thy physics department. I remember someone quoting an article in Discover magazine where a discussion on what happened before the Big Bang. The point made was that since time is a product OF the Big Bang then asking what happened before it is like asking what is north of the North Pole. It is nonsensical.

Let's take this a bit farther. Substitute Creation for Big Bang in the above. Time is a product of Creation. God created time. It did not exist "before". From this, we can see that God is easily outside time. He can look forward and back thru time just as He can look across the landscape. It is simply another dimension. It is ALL there in front of Him. Of course he knows what we will do. This does NOT mean that he controls what we will do.

John

 

[Rio Rebel]

I can't accept an argument that God exists "outside" of time. This is completely nonsensical to me and to any being that experiences the world in a similar way.

Like Kant, I believe that time is a part of the very fabric of our ability to experience. We cannot conceive of what it would be like to exist "outside" of time - while we can put the words together, we are not forming a concept that makes any sense to us. It would be like discussing a "squared circle" - we can imagine four equidistant sides, and we can imagine a circle, but just because we can put the words together does not mean that it is a coherent concept.

Every experience we have follows a temporal order. The best we can do in our imagination is to isolate one phenomenon, or snapshot of experience. As soon as we imagine two phenomena, we are forced to put them in a temporal order. We cannot move outside this, and we cannot imagine what it would be like to experience a set of events in a non-temporal order.

No offense to anyone who believes the "God outside time" idea, but I would have to hear an awfully lucid explanation before I could accept it.

 

[LadyJessica]

As a reminder, I predicated my comments with IF the Bible is true, as this discussion is about what the Bible teaches

Even if the Bible is true, I don't see how there can be any free will given that we are all made up of physical objects that behave in a deterministic fashion.

 

[Rio Rebel]

<< Even if the Bible is true, I don't see how there can be any free will given that we are all made up of physical objects that behave in a deterministic fashion. >>



Wow. I don't that think that this is "given" at all. I am not at all convinced that:

1. We are all made up of solely "physical" objects, or
2. All physical objects behave in a "deterministic" fashion.

Until mental activity can be clearly and fully explained in physical terms (and I don't think it ever will), your statement is very premature.

 

[petrek]

"There is no such thing as "future". God knows everything that can be known - the present, and the past. But God does not know the future because there is no "future". Thus, even though God "knows everything", this has no bearing on the future because there is nothing to "know"."

Because you say that "God knows everything that can be known-the present, and the past", I disagree, that would imply that God is uncertain as to the future, and thusly we would be unable to trust in his word as his word contains prophecies (future events).

JohnnyReb sums it up good when he states, "God created time. It did not exist "before". From this, we can see that God is easily outside time. He can look forward and back thru time just as He can look across the landscape. It is simply another dimension. It is ALL there in front of Him."

Dave

PS JohnnyReb search KJV and you will see my new thread.