Theological Opinions , PART II

[Lief Erikson]

The fact that I believe his statement to be baloney doesn't make his statement baloney. Believing a myth doesn't make the myth an accurate account of history. Neither does refusing to believe a myth make it not an event of history. Beliefs don't make reality. They make our opinions about reality, and that's it. Humans differ from one another. But their views don't change history in any place except their heads.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Except that which was first perceived by the soul. The "senses" can't explain the supernatural gifts of the Spirit, and people have other experiences with the spiritual and supernatural that could not have come first from the senses.

What is in the senses is perceived by the soul.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

What is in the senses is perceived by the soul.

Agreed. But there are also things perceived by the soul, or the spirit, which are not perceived by the physical senses. People have more senses than can presently be determined by biology.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."

[Gwaimir Windgem]

That was the bard. Homer is the poet.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I wouldn't say robots. Maybe animals would be a better analogy. A dog can think feel and experience life, and even make some day to day decisions that might end up being good or bad, but it's future completely depends upon the whim of it's owner.

You seem to be painting humans as little more than god's pets.

Well, of course it's true that God is incredibly high above us. We're taking that for granted. Jesus refers to himself as the shepherd, and to us as his sheep. He is far higher above us than we are above the animals. So saying a dog is to a human as a human is to God isn't that insulting. That God, as Creator, should have a different relationship with people to that which they have with one another likewise is not insulting. It's only natural.

God didn't make us his equals, though he does bring those who are in him closer and closer to him always, and make them more like him. God did make us in his own image, though, and hence we have many similarities to God. One of these is that we have as much freedom as he, in that we both do what we want according to our personalities. So this "dog" has equal freedom to the master. God may control its fate, but his own fate too is controlled by sovereign Love. Love predestines our fates, and God too, who is Love, must only act in accord with Love and according to his own personality. His fate, just like ours, is controlled by Love. That is not an abuse or a degradation to either God or man.

Also, consider that to be predestined by Love is far better than to be left to random chance. If Love, as Creator, did not control our futures, he would be leaving our destinies to random chance, playing the dice with human lives. Which is callous, not loving.

Think about it this way too. A parent, while he or she has a child, teaches the child, makes rules for the child, influences the child's personality, and brings the child up with some measure of control until the child has grown to adulthood. Note also that the more below us the child is, the more control we have over the child's life. The younger the child is, the more we are dominant and in charge of the child's activities and life. When the child is a newborn, he or she is completely helpless.

A mother who refuses to fully take care of her newborn child's needs, who doesn't give him toys, milk, and doesn't take him on walks, change his diapers, bathe him, clothe him, or give him anything to do (remember that the child is completely dependent), but rather leaves him to his own devices and only offers suggestions, is being a nitwit and very unloving.

Now remember again our size, the extent of our abilities, and the level of our growth and maturity in comparison with God . . . infinity. We are far, far less than the newborn. As God is infinite and us finite. We are in certain respects on an unimaginably lower level of life, and his having complete control only makes sense, considering that he is loving.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

As you know, I'm not religious, but my impression is that most catholics see free will as god giving people the ability to choose salvation for themselves. Not just by random chance, but by guiding them towards the right path.

Right, so you offer a carrot to try and lure the rat in the rat cage onto your hand. Just picking the poor creature up beats that, IMO . For the reasons I spoke about, above.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Take Adam and Eve for example. In a nutshell god says, "you can do whatever you like, but don't eat the fruit or you are going to be sorry." They have a choice to make and they know, at least to some extent, what choice god expects of them.

Are you saying that Adam didn't really have a choice? That he was predestined by god to eat the apple. This would mean, logically, that god intended for him to eat the apple. That's all fine and well, but it kind of throws the idea of responsibility out the window. There's no pride, but there is also no humility, all that is left is pure obedience.

When you read a book, and you detest the villain, do you curse the author for making such a villain? Unless the story doesn't come out with a satisfying conclusion, generally we hate the villain rather than the author. We are satisfied that the villain be called to account for his or her actions, even though the author is directly responsible. If the author was called to account instead (again, unless the story ended in an unsatisfactory manner), we'd be quite disgruntled.

The same is true in real life. God predestined all events with a good conclusion and purpose. God created some people in circumstances and with personalities such that they would choose evil. He predestined that pain and injustice to be caused by these people. These personalities are judged, not God's personality, for God had a good reason for making them, and he has wisdom sufficient to know that this is an excellent action.

People may do evil with the intent of doing evil, and their motives are evil. God predestines them to do evil, but his purpose is holy, so his action is not the same as theirs, and their personalities and souls can be justly judged, but he is not guilty of the same crimes that they commit. He was responsible for their actions having been committed, but they committed them with evil intent while God predestined them with flawless good intent that will eventually be revealed in full. So the only question that remains is whether or not God did right in creating those evil souls in the first place.

God knows more than we do, in his infinity, and he has the right to decide whether or not it is worth it to create temporary creatures who will commit evil and be destroyed for it. We don't know the fullness of how the story will turn out, or the fullness of the meaning God teaches through these different acts of evil and the people predestined to be evil.

If you pick up a book, open it at random and read some particularly nasty part in it without reading all the way through the book to the end, you might be mightily displeased and think the author is a terrible writer. You might think that the scene is sappy and so the author is stupid- but you might not know that that scene was intended to be sappy, because those were a couple characters that the author was purposely mocking for humor's sake, and which the readers who started in the beginning are laughing uproariously about. Or you might read a particularly violent part, and if you're sensitive, be turned off from the book at once. If you had reached the end, though, you might have found that it was all very well in place.

Here is a key error people make with the problem of how a just God can allow (or even, from a predestination perspective, create!) pain and injustice. They haven't seen all the plot threads to the end, but are making snap judgments based upon their minute place in the story. No offense .

But I hope you see what I mean about God being responsible for the same actions people committed, but not having committed the same sins. For they committed those actions for evil purposes, whereas God committed them for holy purposes that come out in perfect righteousness, in the end. And the only guilt, therefore, lies with the created objects, and it is God in his wisdom, and not us, who has the knowledge to know whether or not it is right to create certain people to be evil and judged for their crimes.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

In a strange way I kind of agree with this. Ultimately, I have never thought free will existed. But my reasoning has nothing to do with god. It has to do with the idea that we are basically creatures shaped by our genetics and our environment.

If you are broke and really want a new CD, whether or not you try to shoplift it from the store has nothing to do with "choice". It is a result of a combination of genetics (which influences personality) and upbringing (which also influences personality). In the end, you always make one "choice". Humans just believe that they would have been free to make another because they have a mind that is developed enough to be able to imagine having made the other choice.

That's a kind of scary perspective too, though, IMO. For if this is the case, then rather than having your fate determined by Love, your fate is determined by selfish genes. And selfishness is often destructive. It's pretty much an impotent God with a badly flawed personality. But considering your view on reality, I can see how it makes some logical sense. Though Quantum Mechanics, which claims that on the smallest level, everything comes down to chance, would seem to challenge it.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

All that said, in terms of religion and the rules that surround most of them, it seems as if you must believe in free will. If not, why bother to preach to people all the time about how they should act when it comes to important decisions if they are not really in control of that decision-making?

Hey, that's why you also pray . You're absolutely right that going on one's own steam, one won't get anywhere. No one can change themselves for the better, IMO, and it doesn't make logical sense to me that they could, either. A messed up person trying to clean himself is like a person trying to clean a dirty table with a dirty washrag. The messed up person, because he is messed up, will make endeavors that will be messed with the same taint. Only Jesus Christ, who has abolished all taint, has the authority to really change people's lives. Jesus might act through certain people to reach others, though.

This is why I often pray, before going into a tricky situation, that God will use me as his mouthpiece, as a "window washed clean, that the sunlight may pass through," is how I pray it.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'm sure that if Harry Potter turned evil, all except the most-demented would blame Rowling, and not the character Harry Potter.

Right, but only because it would come out an unsatisfactory ending. George Lucas, on the other hand, abstaining here from spoilers for any wandering visitors, wrote how Darth Vader turned to the Dark Side in a way that has most people satisfied. Because of how it ends .

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

They'll always be good people and bad people. And by that I mean good for society as a whole or bad for it.

In response to this, I'll quote what I said earlier, because I don't think you've responded to it yet.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Who defines what's a "responsible manner" or a "positive contributor" to society? Who's to say what's responsible and what's positive? If humans define it, then so do the parents you'd say are being irresponsible or are bringing their children up to be negative influences on society. They'd probably say they're doing right. And who's to say they're wrong? The majority? The majority's view of practical experience? That view might be different fifty or a hundred years from now.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

What has changed when I say "improved" over the generations are the ideas of democracy, inclusiveness, equality and just the general understanding that we all depend and need one another.

And who's to say that those things are good for society?

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

This is why you see that the most successful countries in our time tend to be the most democratic and the most respectful of individual's rights. This does not mean that another Hitler couldn't pop up tomorrow. But I'd say that it is much more unlikely these days, especially in the countries that have established democracies, for a Hitler to be able to take over and thus enforce the will of one individual, for good or evil, over a vast population. Contrast that to a few thousand years ago when almost every society was more or less authoritarian.

Often, those authoritarian empires and kingdoms lasted for hundreds of years or even over a thousand years. Democracy, in its modern form, is still new on the block and, according to many historians, still is an experiment.

Remember that the Nazis were only 60 years ago, and the USSR was much more recent. So saying that it's much less likely now that anything like that could pop up doesn't make a whole lot of sense. Humanity hasn't changed. Being self-serving can easily create violence.

Also, even if a totalitarian state didn't reemerge in the West, that wouldn't prevent massive abuses being committed by the masses. Laws can be changed, and the masses, and their elected politicians and the lawyers who work for them, are perfectly capable of changing them for the worse.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

On all humanity being dust one day? Sure, we could get hit by an asteroid 100 years from now and no one might survive it. But, in my mind, that's like worrying about the afterlife. Don't lose sleep over what you can't control.

I don't see how your answer is really relevant to what I was saying . Maybe you wouldn't lose sleep over the end of the human race, and neither would I, but it seems that your perspective logically leads to the conclusion that this future event means there is no actual meaning. Things might have value to you, but they have no intrinsic value. All value is purely in the eye of the beholder, and when they die, the value dies with them. Which stinks .

It means that in the end, actions of great good are exactly equal in value to actions of great equal. They equally have no value or meaning. As Rana was saying, earlier . . .

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Pride? That's a word with many meanings. You can be proud of a certain accomplishment while still acknowledging that you could never have succeeded without all the people that helped along the way, which is a certain humility as well.

Sometimes you can have it both ways.

Sometimes, maybe. But in this case, it sounds rather condescending.

[brownjenkins]

I won't quote too much 'cause it'll make the post too long. I'll just hit on a few key points

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
God predestined all events with a good conclusion and purpose. God created some people in circumstances and with personalities such that they would choose evil. He predestined that pain and injustice to be caused by these people. These personalities are judged, not God's personality, for God had a good reason for making them, and he has wisdom sufficient to know that this is an excellent action.

I'm not going to argue whether this is the truth behind reality or not, because we know that is pointless, as it is unprovable, but I will ask why?

The god you are painting is simply a puppeteer putting on a show for himself. Or an author writing a book for an audience of one (himself), if you prefer to think of it that way. He "loves" his creations in the same way that an author "loves" his characters, because it is a representation of his own ability and creativeness. It's a love that stems from self-pride. "I made that marvelous thing", he thinks.

Having children is a different kind of love. It starts, as you mentioned, with another being for which you are totally responsible for. You must feed them, care for them, teach them how to survive. It really is like caring for a pet. But, in time, they begin to learn to care for themselves. They still look to you for guidance in times of need but, day to day, they do quite well.

Then, eventually, they begin to move beyond that need. They learn to solve problems for themselves and make their own choices. Some of these choices may be ones you lead them towards, while some may be ones you never considered, or some even ones you don't quite agree with. But the love remains. And it's no longer the simple love of "I made that". It's the love of something that is greater than you ever anticipated. They may excel in ways you could never imagine. They may see things in ways you haven't thought of before. They may understand that they are just as important to you as you are to them.

It's like the love of a man and a women (or two people, these days ), mutual appreciation.

In fact, the more I think about it, I have a hard time conceiving of a truely omniscient/omnipotent being even being capable of love. How can one who knows everything and needs nothing love anyone but himself? It's like the "you can't have good without evil" question. Love stems from dependence and mystery.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
Here is a key error people make with the problem of how a just God can allow (or even, from a predestination perspective, create!) pain and injustice. They haven't seen all the plot threads to the end, but are making snap judgments based upon their minute place in the story.

We are what we were created as. How could this god you paint expect anything else from us?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
But I hope you see what I mean about God being responsible for the same actions people committed, but not having committed the same sins. For they committed those actions for evil purposes, whereas God committed them for holy purposes that come out in perfect righteousness, in the end. And the only guilt, therefore, lies with the created objects, and it is God in his wisdom, and not us, who has the knowledge to know whether or not it is right to create certain people to be evil and judged for their crimes.

I see that you should be a lawyer.

I read this as Sophistry with a capital "S". Where's GW when I need him?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
But considering your view on reality, I can see how it makes some logical sense. Though Quantum Mechanics, which claims that on the smallest level, everything comes down to chance, would seem to challenge it.

It has to do with the difference between perception and reality. Many kids who play baseball in high school think they have what it takes to be in the pros one day. A pro scout could probably tell them whether they are kidding themselves or not, but most would go through those years thinking as if "they might make it some day".

They key is not whether everything is determined, but whether we can see that determined path. If life is predestined in a way that we can neither see or conceive, it is random chance as far as we are concerned. I could "make it to the pros" until I fail to, whether or not someone with more understanding could have told me I would fail long before that.

Our world is our perception of it.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
And who's to say that those things are good for society?

There is no "who" to say what is good. It's simply a matter of societal evolution. What works the best is what survives and thrives over the longterm.

I won't claim that I'm so smart that I know evil and oppression won't win out in the longrun, but I don't think it will. I do know that, generally, there are a lot more law-abiding citizens than criminals, so I have reason for hope.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
Also, even if a totalitarian state didn't reemerge in the West, that wouldn't prevent massive abuses being committed by the masses. Laws can be changed, and the masses, and their elected politicians and the lawyers who work for them, are perfectly capable of changing them for the worse.

Today's "peasant" has much more power today than they did even 50 years ago. If George Bush decided to start imprisoning every Muslim in America, how long do you think it would last?

There is still plenty of room for bad people to take advantage in a democracy, but it is no where near the room it once was, and I believe it will continue to move that way. Even today's Russia and China, while still oppressive, are much more influenced by concerns about the will of the people than they ever were in the past.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
Things might have value to you, but they have no intrinsic value. All value is purely in the eye of the beholder, and when they die, the value dies with them. Which stinks.

My value comes from fellow human beings, which doesn't "stink" as far as I see it. If human beings cease to exist through some disaster, so would the value, but it wouldn't really matter if there is no one to appreciate it.

The idea of intrinsic value seems kind of selfish to me. I prefer extrinsic value.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
Sometimes, maybe. But in this case, it sounds rather condescending.

I don't think it's condescending to be proud of one's accomplishments while acknowleging what brought you there.

Personal accomplishments often bring just as much joy to the person who helped you get there as they do to yourself.

[Lief Erikson]

I'll see about responding to the rest of your post at another date. For now, here's the part responding about predestination:

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I won't quote too much 'cause it'll make the post too long. I'll just hit on a few key points

I understand your doing this, certainly, as I'm quite verbose . However, some of the points you didn't reply to actually are direct responses to some of what you posted, so I'll be repeating myself a bit here.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'm not going to argue whether this is the truth behind reality or not, because we know that is pointless, as it is unprovable,

Huh. Nothing at all in our present experience is provable, so whether or not it's provable is irrelevant. The question is how strong the evidence for it is. If the evidence is very strong, belief can become valid beyond reasonable doubt.

The evidence for predestination is the Bible. And the evidence for the Bible's accuracy as a witness of God's truth is absolutely vast and provided by many different fields. I think that Christianity's accuracy as the true world religion is proven "beyond reasonable doubt."

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

but I will ask why?

The god you are painting is simply a puppeteer putting on a show for himself. Or an author writing a book for an audience of one (himself), if you prefer to think of it that way.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

God didn't make us his equals, though he does bring those who are in him closer and closer to him always, and make them more like him. God did make us in his own image, though, and hence we have many similarities to God. One of these is that we have as much freedom as he, in that we both do what we want according to our personalities. So this "dog" has equal freedom to the master. God may control its fate, but his own fate too is controlled by sovereign Love. Love predestines our fates, and God too, who is Love, must only act in accord with Love and according to his own personality. His fate, just like ours, is controlled by Love. That is not an abuse or a degradation to either God or man.

Also, consider that to be predestined by Love is far better than to be left to random chance. If Love, as Creator, did not control our futures, he would be leaving our destinies to random chance, playing the dice with human lives. Which is callous, not loving.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

He "loves" his creations in the same way that an author "loves" his characters, because it is a representation of his own ability and creativeness. It's a love that stems from self-pride. "I made that marvelous thing", he thinks.

Having children is a different kind of love. It starts, as you mentioned, with another being for which you are totally responsible for. You must feed them, care for them, teach them how to survive. It really is like caring for a pet.

I don't know what you felt about your children when they were newborn, but I seriously hope they weren't mere pets to you . And I, naturally, don't believe it either. I don't think that you're that callous, and I don't think that God is either. I think you deeply loved your children from the moment they were born, even if you have to provide for their every need and don't yet get much mature feedback.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But, in time, they begin to learn to care for themselves. They still look to you for guidance in times of need but, day to day, they do quite well.

Here is where the analogy falls short, and that is why I only referred to the child as a newborn. God is infinite. So we might eternally come closer to him, but he will always be infinitely above us. We'll never grow out of the infant stage when compared to God, because of his very nature as infinite compared to the finite.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Then, eventually, they begin to move beyond that need. They learn to solve problems for themselves and make their own choices. Some of these choices may be ones you lead them towards, while some may be ones you never considered, or some even ones you don't quite agree with. But the love remains. And it's no longer the simple love of "I made that". It's the love of something that is greater than you ever anticipated. They may excel in ways you could never imagine. They may see things in ways you haven't thought of before. They may understand that they are just as important to you as you are to them.

Yet you love them because you know them. If you didn't know them at all, you wouldn't love them as much. God's knowledge of us ensures that he knows all, which naturally deepens the love that much more.

You might argue that this kind of knowledge would naturally turn people away from one another, and I think that to a very large extent, you'd be right. Here's another place at which an analogy of human relationships falls short when applied to God.

When they know too much of one another's faults and lose that mystery, they might become less appreciative. That depends on the people, I think, and it also is merely an analysis of man's imperfection. God is Love, however, and so doesn't turn away from people just because they sin. The knowledge he has of people doesn't make them boring to him. Knowledge we have of one another just makes the relationship more interesting, and if it instead makes it boring to us, it's because we are at fault and are weak in certain parts of our attitudes, thinking and understanding. Divine love of people is not limited by human imperfections, so the knowledge will only deepen the excitement and depth of God's love.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It's like the love of a man and a women (or two people, these days ), mutual appreciation.

I think that that would logically exist between man and God, given predestination. Man appreciates that of God that he does know, and the less he knows, the less he appreciates. The more he knows, the more he appreciates. The same is true of God. He knows all, and so he appreciates all, unlimited by the weaknesses and failings humans sometimes succumb to when responding to knowledge of others.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

In fact, the more I think about it, I have a hard time conceiving of a truely omniscient/omnipotent being even being capable of love. How can one who knows everything and needs nothing love anyone but himself? It's like the "you can't have good without evil" question. Love stems from dependence and mystery.

I think experience shows differently. Know someone, and you will sometimes come to love the person. Fail to know someone, and you usually won't care that much about that person. But for humans, it's true that when we know too much about one another, sometimes, depending on the people, that can damage the relationship. I think that that's because we're flawed, and not an innate fault to having that much knowledge. We should be able to ceaselessly love others, no matter what.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

We are what we were created as. How could this god you paint expect anything else from us?

He doesn't. He creates some people for glory and some for destruction, according to his choice. But an evil personality deserves judgment no matter how it becomes evil, because it is evil, and evil deserves wrath, no matter how it becomes what it is.

We can sympathize with people as they experience horrible things that turn them toward evil. But once they are evil, if they reach the point of utter rejection of mercy (as we're assuming the damned do, from a Christian perspective) and salvation, then there's nothing left for them but judgment. And contempt, in fact, for a personality of such villainy that it rejected all that is good and right.

If God creates something contemptible, the fact that he made it the way it is doesn't validate the contemptuous object. If a human creates something contemptible, the fact that he made it doesn't validate it. The creation stands on its own as a good or a bad creation.

The very selves of these damned are corrupt and evil, and thus from those evil selves come all kinds of evil choices, and in the end (note that it is the very end of time that we're talking about, when the courses of everyone's life paths have reached their final conclusions) there is nothing for the evil person God created but well deserved judgment.

Even if created to be evil, the evil exists and won't repent. The appropriate response to existing evil is wrath.

And God has the wisdom and personality to be trusted when he creates some evil people for the achievement of his holy aims.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I see that you should be a lawyer.

I read this as Sophistry with a capital "S". Where's GW when I need him?

As you aren't giving any reasoning to show that what I wrote is Sophistry, your claim sounds pretty weak to me at present .

Here's an example. A tells B to rob a noble. B says, "yeah!" and goes and does it. The motive of A was stop the noble from using the money to fund a campaign that is ravaging the villages of nearby peasants to keep them all in a state of submission through fear. The motive of B is fully self-centered greed. B did evil, as he would as willingly have stolen from a good person as from a bad one, and his action was not based upon defending the helpless but on satisfying his own lust for money. The motive of A, however, was compassion.

This example may very well be flawed in various ways that you, or even I may end up pointing out. And it doesn't cover the aspect of God creating the personality that would become greedy. It just is an attempt at illustrating my reasoning where I pointed out that an act by man, made with evil motives, isn't necessarily evil when God is responsible for it, with his pure motives.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Lief

I think that Christianity's accuracy as the true world religion is proven "beyond reasonable doubt."

There you have it, then. Some fractional portion of the 7% of the world's population who are Protestants, have the actual truth.
http://www.zpub.com/un/pope/relig.html

"And to think that I saw it on Mulberry Street."

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

As you aren't giving any reasoning to show that what I wrote is Sophistry, your claim sounds pretty weak to me at present .

By that I mean that you are creating a valid-sounding argument based upon an invalid premise. Namely, that you can know that "all will turn out for the best", or even know what your god's true intentions are.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

By that I mean that you are creating a valid-sounding argument based upon an invalid premise. Namely, that you can know that "all will turn out for the best", or even know what your god's true intentions are.

We were assuming the accuracy of Christian doctrine for the sake of discussion, and examining whether or not predestination makes sense, given the assumptions of the Christian religion. So throwing in these new issues you're bringing up is saying that that discussion is at an end.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

We were assuming the accuracy of Christian doctrine for the sake of discussion, and examining whether or not predestination makes sense, given the assumptions of the Christian religion. So throwing in these new issues you're bringing up is saying that that discussion is at an end.

I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that anything was off limits.

But, back to predistination, which I find to be a very interesting concept for a devout christian to hold, how does the story of Abraham and his son fit into that concept? Why would god need to test someone who's "personality" has already been determined?

In fact, why would he need to do anything at all? Earlier you said:

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Right, so you offer a carrot to try and lure the rat in the rat cage onto your hand. Just picking the poor creature up beats that, IMO.

Why not take it one step further and just create the rat in your hand? Why bother with the cage at all in the first place. Or, to remove the analogy, just create souls in heaven and skip the rest.

Basically, what's the point of earthly existance if there aren't some choices humans make. Some learning, some growth, some something?

Like so many other times in the past, you seem to limit everything to two stark, black and white choices:

1) God controls us, at least in all important ways.

or

2) Everything is random chance.

You give absolutely no credit to god's creations, or to god, for that matter. Is god not powerful enough to create creatures that can make their own choices, or is he afraid to?

What's so terrible about the idea of creating beings with the ability to control their own destinies, showing them the choices that can be made and the likely outcomes in each situation, and then hoping they make the correct choice?

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

as a weird way to approach "created in God's image."

It limits that to "God is a biped".

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

as a weird way to approach "created in God's image."

It limits that to "God is a biped".

Thats assuming if we all see it that way.

"God's image" may mean such things as discernment, logic, compassion...

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by hectorberlioz

Thats assuming if we all see it that way.

"God's image" may mean such things as discernment, logic, compassion...

In order to see 'predestination' as 'that which we must do according to our inborn personalities', however, we must assume that beings who are 'created in God's image' are doomed to damnation.

I have trouble seeing that.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'm sorry. I wasn't aware that anything was off limits.

They're fine questions, and I wasn't banning them. I was just mentioning that they would make the question no longer a matter of whether this part of Christian doctrine makes sense when compared to the rest, but rather whether Christianity is true in the first place. So it changes the whole issue in discussion. No longer would it be a discussion of predestination, but rather it would be a question of the reliability of the Bible, and other issues. So it's changing the topic of discussion- I was just pointing that out.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But, back to predistination, which I find to be a very interesting concept for a devout christian to hold, how does the story of Abraham and his son fit into that concept? Why would god need to test someone who's "personality" has already been determined?

People grow through testing. They learn. So did Abraham. His personality may have been planned out by God and set up by God to turn out in a certain way, through tests of faith and other experiences, but it still had to grow. The results and path may have been predestined, but that doesn't mean growth wasn't occurring on that path or in those results. I don't see how growth and predestination are contradictory. Abraham was predestined to grow.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

In fact, why would he need to do anything at all? Earlier you said:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
Right, so you offer a carrot to try and lure the rat in the rat cage onto your hand. Just picking the poor creature up beats that, IMO.



Why not take it one step further and just create the rat in your hand? Why bother with the cage at all in the first place. Or, to remove the analogy, just create souls in heaven and skip the rest.

One could ask the same question to someone who believed in Free Will- it makes equal sense or nonsense . For if God foreknew but didn't predestine, then he foreknew that sin would take place if he created in this way, but he did it anyway. So the responsibility for all actions is still ultimately his, and the choice to create with these results was likewise made by him. Unless one argues that there's no way he could have created without sin resulting (something I don't know how one could begin to try to support with logic or evidence), he could have created so that sin would not result, but he chose not to.

My answer to the question is that we learn from the experiences we have on Earth. Experiencing the absence of God makes experiencing his fullness a greater bliss. Having sinned, we can know the beauty of grace on an experiential, rather than merely intellectual level. Having experienced injustice on whatever level (and the deeper the level, the deeper the experiential reward), the greater is our appreciation for justice. We come to know God through our experience here on Earth in ways we couldn't come to know him without evil and pain. The door is opened here on Earth for new depth of life in the hereafter.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Basically, what's the point of earthly existance if there aren't some choices humans make. Some learning, some growth, some something?

There is learning and growth. They're predestined to occur, but that doesn't negate their existence. Growth and learning will never bring us up to God's level though, and if that's bothering you, I don't yet know why. Doesn't a creator have the right to create something that is less than him?

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Like so many other times in the past, you seem to limit everything to two stark, black and white choices:

1) God controls us, at least in all important ways.

or

2) Everything is random chance.

You give absolutely no credit to god's creations, or to god, for that matter. Is god not powerful enough to create creatures that can make their own choices, or is he afraid to?

What's so terrible about the idea of creating beings with the ability to control their own destinies, showing them the choices that can be made and the likely outcomes in each situation, and then hoping they make the correct choice?

The way I see it, by his allowing creatures to make "their own choices," he'd be just surrendering creatures to random chance. By saying the creatures can make their own choices, that means God is not making them, but if God foreknows without predestining, and creates anyway, then he's responsible for the result, and the result is basically the same as if he'd made it all that way himself. It all goes according to God's will. So the only way to avoid that is for him to have just left it all to random chance.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I don't see how growth and predestination are contradictory.

Growth in a mental and/or moral sense has to do with how we make decisions. We say someone has "grown" because they have learned something, either by doing something right or by doing something wrong. If they make a choice, and things turned out better as a result, they are more likely to make future decisions with that lesson in mind.

But if all of our important decisions are predestined (the "choice" was never made in the first place) then they are not really "decisions" at all.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

There is learning and growth. They're predestined to occur, but that doesn't negate their existence.

It may not negate their existance, but it kind of negates their meaning. If I load a piece of software onto my computer, you could say that my computer has "learned" something new. But, since nothing the computer did or did not do led to the learning, we just call it programming a computer to do something.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The way I see it, by his allowing creatures to make "their own choices," he'd be just surrendering creatures to random chance. By saying the creatures can make their own choices, that means God is not making them, but if God foreknows without predestining, and creates anyway, then he's responsible for the result, and the result is basically the same as if he'd made it all that way himself. It all goes according to God's will. So the only way to avoid that is for him to have just left it all to random chance.

Well, since god made everything he is ultimately responsible for everything. I don't think there is any way to get around that. You said earlier that what we see as evil may just be a misrepresentation since we don't see the grand plan but, if you follow that line of logic, then "evil" doesn't really exist at all, since everything is a part of god's plan and god is only good.

So, god is responsible for everything, but everything is ultimately good.

On the rest, maybe god is extremely powerful, but he does not foreknow everything. In fact, his "change of tactics" in the bible, from the wrathful and direct god of the old testament to the more indirect and nuanced god of the christ and post-christ era may be proof that he is not 100% sure on the best way to shepard his flock and he is working it out along the way.

Incredible power and incredible knowledge does not necessarily have to mean absolute power and absolute knowledge.

[Rían]

*scans thread*

eh, I might have to get off of my lazy rocker and join in, because I disagree with Lief...

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Growth in a mental and/or moral sense has to do with how we make decisions. We say someone has "grown" because they have learned something, either by doing something right or by doing something wrong. If they make a choice, and things turned out better as a result, they are more likely to make future decisions with that lesson in mind.

But if all of our important decisions are predestined (the "choice" was never made in the first place) then they are not really "decisions" at all.

One could just as well say, "God can't make any decisions, because his personality is love, so he has no choice but to act in a loving way. Since he has no choice but to act in a loving way, his decisions aren't decisions." You seem to me to be saying, "we should be able to act in ways that aren't according to our personalities," for act according to our personalities is what I've already said we have the freedom to do, but you want more. You want our decisions to not be God's decisions too, but only our own. Which seems to be desiring that we turn into random programs without personalities. Our own personalities are the limits that exist on our selves, and God is not a limit. What is freedom if it isn't the ability to act according to who we are?

People can act exactly as they please (ignoring sin and other such qualifications). They make decisions according to who they are, their own personalities and souls, while God makes those same decisions for them according to who he is. The will of God does not negate the will of man, for it does not confront it or overcome it, but rather works through it and with it. Mankind can still make decisions, can still learn and grow, and the fact that Love planned and uses those decisions too does not make them any less man's. It just makes them God's as well. Again, I reemphasize, man does exactly what man wants, without God forcing him to do anything he doesn't want to do, or changing man's personality against man's will. The fact that God wants and does the same as man, though for different reasons, doesn't negate man's freedom.


Here's a tangent:

Interestingly, according to Christian doctrine, sanctification is the process that makes us more and more like Christ, and that is the goal. To become Christ-like, to have him in one's heart doing his will through us, rather than us having our own way. This requires submission and humility before purity, which comes to fill God's believers who truly follow him because of his presence in their lives. So having Christ's personality, which is loving and full of every virtue, take over our own personalities, abolishing the impure in them and putting on the pure, is a central desire both for Christians who believe in Free Will and those who believe in predestination. We seek to put off the "old self" and put on the new, as Paul says in the Epistles.

Becoming virtuous is the opposite of becoming sinful. While sin involves separation from God's will, and so might be seen in this sense as an opposite of predestination, it also enslaves so that people have no choice but to act in those destructive ways that they originally pursued. However, while complete surrender to God's will and submission to him might be seen as slavery, in fact, it brings greater and greater freedom for us to be personalities that do not bind. Sex, money, drugs, addictions, selfishness, the desire to stay alive, all forms of attachment have no power over us except God, who is love. Even family and friends come second to the love of God, and that love frees by allowing none of the things of this world to control us. Rather, they are under control, for while we on our own become enslaved by many things that shows up and try to gain control of us, God allows us to be free of all those things in him, and he protects us from the enslaving and destructive influences of the world.

I only brought up this tangent to illustrate that we may need to define freedom and slavery differently from the way we normally do. The freedom to be ourselves rather than be God to the world is actually slavery, for it constrains us to be bound by many things around us in the world as a slave, and to have no power over those things.

Isn't a man who feels a craving for money that must be satisfied, and so pursues money relentlessly, a slave of money? But isn't a man who can be rich one day and poor the next without being crushed by it, but who accepts both situations as God's will for him and continues to live his life unaffected by the change one who controls money, without it controlling him? He may have a good head for business and enjoy money while he has it, but he can be without it without despairing. Money is a tool in his hands, and he not a tool in its hands. God's love can create that freedom for people, and the more they are like him, the less they are bound by the things of the world. So "being ourselves", or being the old self which is separate from God, is slavery, whereas giving God mastery in one's life is freedom. And choice that God chooses for us means greater freedom on our part, whereas choice that we make independent of God is enslaved in various ways (our own ignorance, addiction, etc.).

So our traditional, "I make my own decisions," persona may actually be the one who is enslaved, whereas the one who does only God's will is actually the most free. It's very ironic how the realities are reversed in the eyes of modern culture.

Here this tangent ends.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It may not negate their existance, but it kind of negates their meaning. If I load a piece of software onto my computer, you could say that my computer has "learned" something new. But, since nothing the computer did or did not do led to the learning, we just call it programming a computer to do something.

If someone runs into a burning building and saves a child and God predestined it, this doesn't negate the meaning of his act, for he didn't know that it would come out right with absolute certainty like God did. Hence, the man was still brave regardless of God's act- and God's act also did not force the man to do what he did. The man chose to do what he did, according to his own personality and self, and God also chose it.

A computer has no will of its own, and that's a key problem with your analogy. In the case we're discussing, people have their own wills and God has his own will. Both of their own wills, and people do exactly what they want without God forcing them to do anything. A computer is forced to do exactly what you want it to without having any personality, but God does not force, and people do what they want according to their personalities. Whatever anyone does is God's plan, but it also is humans' will, and the fact that God plans what humans will, and the fact that humans' will comes from him and is determined by him, does not mean that humans' will does not exist and does not also come from the people's own personalities and selves. God doesn't override people's personalities. He makes them and makes their personalities, and all their subsequent acts come because God willed them. However, people have the freedom to act according to who they are, and to behave in the ways they would naturally behave, according to their own personalities.

Back to learning again, prepare yourself for me to be a bit longwinded, in order to make a supported claim about learning.

But if you brought your daughter telling her things and she remembered them, you would call that learning, even though that's a similar route to that which the computer takes. She comes out of the environment of your home with certain knowledge that she "learned". Learning from life experience is just one more way of learning, a different process by which the information is digested. If you hired someone to act miserable over losing in gambling in front of your daughter, and she was taken in and learned something from it, that life experience still came as a result of your teaching- only it comes through a different method. Or you might hire someone to ask her for help, presenting a strong case for needing that help, and if she went and helped the person, she would learn. And if she failed to learn, you might teach her in another way.

This would all be pretty wierd coming from a human, but my point is about the nature of learning. Even if your daughter learned through human events that were planned by you, it would still be her learning. In the same way, even if humans learn in ways that are planned by God, and even if God determined that the humans to learn in those ways (which does not mean forcing- I'm not talking about unnatural techniques), humans still learn. Through lessons of all kinds in life, people learn, and I assert that God teaches people through these lessons, and they receive the information he wants them to receive when he wants them to receive it, but the scale of his control over events doesn't negate the people's learning. No matter how constructed events are by some outside force, the pupil can still learn from them. And the control God has over the pupil's own personality is irrelevant in this case, since he isn't disrupting the person's personality in the education, but is letting it take its natural course. The person can be himself, even as God's plan is accomplished.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Well, since god made everything he is ultimately responsible for everything. I don't think there is any way to get around that. You said earlier that what we see as evil may just be a misrepresentation since we don't see the grand plan but, if you follow that line of logic, then "evil" doesn't really exist at all, since everything is a part of god's plan and god is only good.

So, god is responsible for everything, but everything is ultimately good.

The way I look at it is that there are things that occur which are opposed to God's will, but which are according to his plan. Such as when an author writes an event and hates what he or she is writing, and finds it tragic and weeps over it, but simultaneously knows it needs to occur for the good of the story. It's against his will, but in his plan, for in the end, it is better that it occur.

So it's better that evil exist for a limited time, because of what will result from it. I'm out of time- I'll try to talk more about this later.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

On the rest, maybe god is extremely powerful, but he does not foreknow everything. In fact, his "change of tactics" in the bible, from the wrathful and direct god of the old testament to the more indirect and nuanced god of the christ and post-christ era may be proof that he is not 100% sure on the best way to shepard his flock and he is working it out along the way.

Incredible power and incredible knowledge does not necessarily have to mean absolute power and absolute knowledge.

But once again, this is getting outside of our area of discussion, and is questioning whether or not Christianity is true and not whether or not predestination makes sense as a Christian religious belief.

[Butterbeer]

so many words ....

(by each and all)

seems to me the debate here is not a penny for your words but a Million for a well thought out response, concisely put.

best all, BB