03-20-2007, 10:41 PM | #981 | ||||||
Elf Lord
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If we self-create our own personalities, then what's the "we" that does the self-creating? And where does it come from? And if you say genetics, environment and family create our personalities without God also creating them, and that after these forces fashion our personalities, we act according to who we are, then our choices are being predestined by humans and nature (though they don't know what they've produced), for we'll act according to the personality they've given us. We don't have freedom from God, but freedom from God is not necessary for real freedom to exist. We have the freedom to be what God made us to be; we have the freedom to be ourselves and do whatever we choose to do in life. Quote:
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Humans do evil with evil intent and evil result. As far as they have any control over what they are doing, evil is all that comes of their actions. Hence they are not responsible for the good God brings from their choices, but only for the evil they planned and accomplished, as it is all they intended and achieved. From them, it is evil. From God, it is good. And as for being forced to do things, we are not forced. It would be the height of absurdity if a character in a book I was writing complained to me, from the book, "why don't you allow me to give that character a present?" I would reply, "don't be silly. Give the character a present." I write the story and the characters' personalities, and I determine their actions, but I don't make them behave in ways that are out of character. So that character who addressed me could easily go and give the other character a present. I wasn't stopping him, because God is a good author and only a poor writer interferes with his characters' personalities and makes them behave in ways that are out of character. God doesn't force people to do anything. He predestines that they do exactly what they want to do, according to their own choices that come from their personalities, who they are. They are individuals with equal freedom to God. God has no more freedom than they do. God can only act according to his personality, and in that sense, his "free will" is limited in that he cannot behave in any way other than according to who he is. And his actions must and always will come from his personality. Just as our actions will come from our personalities. We and he have the freedom to be ourselves- no more, no less, and God's power over us does not deprive us of that freedom in any way. Quote:
Brute force would only have been used if God had made Moses do as God commanded, because it was in Moses' character to refuse to do what God commanded at that time. Quote:
Do you think that a sinner shouldn't be judged if he or she is taught to sin by someone else, and then sins? No, I think you think the person should still be judged because he chose to accept the wrong teaching and act according to it. In the same way, sins that come to a man, which God plans will come and enter the man, only enter him because of his choices that he makes according to who he is and according to his personality. It's not like God forces the entry of sins in any illogical fashion. Man does his own will, and God does his own will, but man sins and God does not, because man purposefully commits evil while God does no evil, but commits the same actions with good motives and results. From God, the actions are not evil, but from man, with man's planning evil and accomplishing only evil as far as he is responsible for the results of his actions, these actions are evil. So man and God both are responsible, for as different entities who have equal freedom, they both committed the same actions according to who they are. But man created evil and God good, so although both are responsible, only man is guilty. Quote:
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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03-20-2007, 11:10 PM | #982 | |
Elf Lord
Join Date: Jan 2007
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Actually, Count, there's some of that, too.
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03-21-2007, 06:28 AM | #983 | ||||||||
Word Santa Claus
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Lief: The alternative is not to God creating our personalities, but to God micromanaging each act we take. I agree to the first, but I remain convinced that a personality can have facets that make multiple reactions to the same stimuli possible. Quote:
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I feel that you are ripping out the element of true choice in a religion based on choosing salvation. If Man does not have the ability at any moment, regardless of the past, to say "I accept Jesus Christ as my savior," what becomes of the Paul's cry "Be ye therefore followers of God" (Eph 5:1)? What becomes of the exhortations to change your ways, if whether you will change is already a known quantity, weighed and (possibly) found wanting?
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Sufficient to have stood, yet free to fall. |
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03-21-2007, 10:52 AM | #984 | ||||||||||||||
Advocatus Diaboli
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It may or may not be natural from your point of view only because Rowling did not create, and thus does not control, your personality. Quote:
The concept is so basic, I feel silly even having to explain it. Quote:
Let me ask you a question: do you think god has free will in the common definition of the term (i.e. he can do whatever he wants with no outside control)? Quote:
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Also, why would we have to "give account" to one who "knows everything"?
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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03-21-2007, 11:04 AM | #985 | |||||||
Elf Lord
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If you have multiple options at any given time and choose between them, without your personality determining what you'll choose, then you're a random program, for who or what does choose between the options (and how does it choose- on what basis does it choose?) if your personality, environment, condition and socialization simply leave multiple options before you and don't also choose between them. Stripping away all those facets of who you are, what's left to make the choice? And if you're going to say the soul, what is the soul's choice but random selection if it doesn't choose between the options before you the one most in tune with your personality? If the personality, environment, socialization and condition all just produce a limited set of options, what's left to make the choice between the options? What is this Free Will, really, but a random program? Quote:
Let's say that Frodo suddenly started acting like Aragorn at the foot of Mount Doom. That would be interfering with his personality, because he's no longer acting like himself, making choices that he would naturally want to make from his personality and from his own will. The author is intervening to make him do things he wouldn't want to do, which is interference and slavery. If Frodo continues to act like exactly who he is, however, then he's not enslaved or interfered with, even though Tolkien is writing the book. The author doesn't "stop them from doing things" either, for that implies the character (from his or her personality) wanting to do something but being prevented by the author changing the person's personality from what it would naturally be so that he doesn't want to do that thing. Poor writers do do that sometimes, but not good ones. Good ones write their characters behaving in ways that are in character all the time. Quote:
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If God just changed us without our having any choice to change that came from our personalities, he'd be interfering with our personalities. When he appeals to us, we can choose to change based upon who we are, just as the Free Will model assumes, and even though God already chose whatever we choose, he didn't "force" our choices. They came completely naturally from God's personality as well as from our different personalities. This "micromanaging," is not interference. It just means that man does whatever man wants, and God does what he wants in and through those actions at the same time. And it had to come out that way if God is omniscient, for if he foreknew and created in the way he did with his foreknowledge, then he ordained the way that every event would come out. There were, undoubtedly, other options of how the world could come out, but he chose this one. Hence, he is responsible for every act committed if he is all-knowing, and the result is the same as we have with predestination- our choices all coming from ourselves (who we are), and from God and who he is.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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03-21-2007, 11:26 AM | #986 | |||||||
Elf Lord
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Environment? How is that superior to God predestining, exactly? Quote:
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I'll try to respond to the rest of your post later.
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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03-21-2007, 11:58 AM | #987 |
Elf Lord
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Well, I want an inventory, then.
Just who is damned? I want a list.
Adam and Eve are damned, because, although being unable to act differently from their God-given personalities, and placed in the way of certain temptation they're responsible for yielding to it. All their descendants are damned, too. That's Genesis 3 16-24. Things continue on like this until the possibility of salvation through Christ Jesus shows up. That leaves people dying between 1 CE and 33 CE theoretically eligible? or no, because "The Sacrifice" isn't complete until the resurrection. But from 33 on, they're definitely on the hook. If you die after 33 CE without being personally saved by Jesus Christ, you're damned. So, are Roman Catholics, and Eastern church members only damned AFTER the Reformation? Do they get half points for joining the only game in town, Christian Church wise? Or, since they believe in all that Papist Idolatrous stuff they don't make the cut. I really need a headcount. |
03-21-2007, 12:28 PM | #988 | |
Master of Orchestration President Emeritus of Entmoot 2004-2008
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ACALEWIA- President of Entmoot hectorberlioz- Vice President of Entmoot Acaly und Hektor fur Presidants fur EntMut fur life! Join the discussion at Entmoot Election 2010. "Stupidissimo!"~Toscanini The Da CINDY Code The Epic Poem Of The Balrog of Entmoot: Here ~NEW! ~ Thinking of summer vacation? AboutNewJersey.com - NJ Travel & Tourism Guide |
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03-21-2007, 01:27 PM | #989 |
Advocatus Diaboli
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I'm surely damned whether I do or I don't at this point.
Of course, since god created my personality in such a way that I do not believe he exists, I can't really blame him for anything or I would be a hypocrit.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
03-21-2007, 02:30 PM | #990 | |||||||
Dread Mothy Lord and Halfwitted Apprentice Loremaster
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Crux fidelis, inter omnes arbor una nobilis. Nulla talem silva profert, fronde, flore, germine. Dulce lignum, dulce clavo, dulce pondus sustinens. 'With a melon?' - Eric Idle |
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03-21-2007, 03:29 PM | #991 | |
Advocatus Diaboli
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If we have some control, then god's control is not complete. If god's control is complete, then we have no control. Lief has decided to create a semantic construct where god has complete control over all our actions, but we still have the "freedom to act within our personalities". A freedom that he denies by giving god complete control in the first place, and a freedom you deny by saying personality is a combination of genetics and environment.
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Your reality, sir, is lies and balderdash and I'm delighted to say that I have no grasp of it whatsoever. |
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03-21-2007, 06:18 PM | #992 | |
Elf Lord
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...did someone mention mirrors? (sorry Lief! ) best, BB |
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03-21-2007, 07:00 PM | #993 | |||
Elf Lord
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If the world has indeed, as I have said, been built of sorrow, it has been built by the hands of love, because in no other way could the soul of man, for whom the world was made, reach the full stature of its perfection. ~Oscar Wilde, written from prison Oscar Wilde's last words: "Either the wallpaper goes, or I do." |
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