There is a problem with christianity predestanation and free will .Thats why i guess its so hard for people to argue in favour of it. But i guess that goes with every pholoshopichal topic.
For some reason, God decided to give us free will. The problem with free will is that there is always the possibility that the person selects to do something bad instead of good, selects to walk away from God rather than towards God. To prevent such fates, God would have to take free will away. After that we would be closer to robots than humans.
I have not studied free will, so I cannot point to any study indicating that we have free will.
Legal systems around the globe are based on the assumption that we have some amount of free will. If we would not have, it would be unfair to condemn anyone.
Why? Banging people up for being antisocial is a security matter. And itâs perfectly fair. You take from us, we take from you. I see Community Payback guys all over the place. Good! Thatâs fair. However the reasons for criminality are due to predestination from greater social injustice. One day we must make the architects of that pay.
ok, Iâll venture into a somewhat obscure area: God âdecidedâ to create a universe and life in it, and also human beings ⌠and we can take it from here. Do we understand what we are and how we go about life, as free moral agents? as loyal citizens? as biological entities deluded into beliefs?
I guess we may argue on these and many other vague generalities and add âgodâ bits to all of it.
However, I prefer to consider human characteristics and differences within a framework that I am personally convinced as good and faithful understanding of man, Christ, and the ultimate telos that is inherent in the Creation. This is both free and predestined. 
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You completely missed my point and jsut made a strawman argument.Good job.
As i was saying God gives free will ,yet he knows the human he created will end up an atheist.But he goes ahead and creates him anyway.Only to sent him to hell later.Why all that fuzz exactly?
Again let me give an example.
I created a robot.I give this robot two commands.One is for helping people and doing good and the other for killing people and doing horrrible things.
I programm the robot to have a higher percentage of choosing the latter .Lets say a 70% over the 30% of choosing good. Now i know that the algorithm will choose thew higher percentage from the begining.So the robot does bad and i destroy it because i cant let it hurt others anymore.
What was the point of me creating the robot in the first place?
Same goes with God
Now there are two answers here which you could propably consider giving (unless you want to sound like a delusional fundemntalist)
Either you say âi dont knowâ since God is God i guess
Or either you say âfor his amusementâ which then again we come into some other argument
As fine an answer according to faith as I ever did see.
Like the ââ. God donât decide nuthin. And doesnât create one-offs. He has always instantiated nature and it creates universes where life and mind emerge.
Where did he do this? I know some in the evangelical community reacted badly to the idea of Open Theism and called him a heretic. Later, I believe an evangelical council (for what its worth) concluded that Open Theism and Boyd were within the bounds of orthodoxy. But Iâm more curious whereâŚexactly⌠the logical flaws are with Boydâs reasoning, e.g., is there something in his blog post here that you think is incorrect?
Heâs a demiurgist. Obsessed with âthe Fallâ, evil and Satan, literally in every rock, let alone under.
Oneâs viewpoint on the activity and existence of the demonic is a separate issue from the topic of this thread (although Iâm with you in that I personally do not agree with all of Boydâs statements about demonic influence in the world). But, trying to stay on topic-- Iâm interested in your objection to what Boyd has raised about Molinism or Open Theism, particularly, if anything? Thanks.
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Boyd deals with the objections. I donât see how any agreement is going to be reached on this. Some prefer the comfort of an already written future â and this is the case in both theistic and naturalistic worldviews (under the names of predestination and determinism respectively). Existentialism speaks a great deal about the discomfort even dread, anxiety, and terror people feel confronted by a personal responsibility for the future. Thus it is not difficult to understand why some people refuse this.
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The 9th comparison between Open theism and Reformed theism is theodicy. Boyd: God âdoes not completely control or in any sense will evilâ because the world is âheld hostage to a cosmic evil forceâ [the gnostic demiurge] Gregory A. Boyd, God at War: the Bible and Spiritual Conflict (InterVarsity Press, 1997), 20, 291. So his thinking on the demonic is intrinsic to Open theism.
Molinism, Reformed and Open theism all miss the point. The eternity of infinite nature in God. That is the prime rational proposition to filter that of God against. No theology I can think of survives it. None. No atonement theory. The atonement fact (proposition) of God in Christ is it. God is ever so, ever so, ever so, ever so, big minded. Has seen it all before infinite times. Doesnât have to plan a thing. The competence of Love is absolute. There is no situation that nature can come up with which hasnât happened an infinite number of times. Which is why God could not care less. Whatever happens naturally, is transcended. Fixed. Made up for. Restituted.
Complete and utter NONSENSE!!! There is NO mention of the demonic in the vast majority of explanations of open theism (Internet Encyclopedia and Wikipedia explanations for example). This is just Boydâs explanation because of his personal belief in the demonic. Although I am not a big fan of this demon stuff either, this is still a perfectly understandable belief in the Christian spectrum because of its extensive presence in the New Testament. So I think this is more about Klaxâs opposition to the majority of Christianity and pushing (excessively) his personal universalist agenda than anything else.
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I agree with mitchellmckainâs assessment here. There is nothing within Open Theism per se that requires Boydâs beliefs about the demonic. There is enough mention of the demonic in the NT that within a Christian framework, it is understandable (and probably expected) that one would posit that âdemons can do some stuff against Godâs willâ. That said, I do feel that Boyd flogs his âcosmic warfareâ model too hardâto the extent of granting demons âcreativeâ powers within evolution. But that is an entirely different question.
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Tell Wikipedia.
The reason why God created the universe with humans is beyond my knowledge. I could speculate but that would be just speculation. We could write many words about the speculations but that would not give a better understanding about the matter.
I would not compare humans to robots that are programmed to do something with a certain probability. I would rather use the comparison of parents and children. Parents hope that their child would make the right decisions in her/his life but, after the child becomes adult, parents do not decide what their child will do - the child makes her/his own decisions even if those would hurt the feelings of the parents and cause much suffering.
Of course it would. God, if anything, creates. Always has. Always will. Nature and supernature. Nature tells us many things about God. He humbly lets it rip according to the prevenient laws of physics instantiated in Him, for a start. Nature is necessary for supernature, is the only way of populating supernature. Otherwise, why bother?
parents dont know what the child is gonna choose God does.The robot analogy is much suited here just because of that little small detail
The Bible actually gives us more than a clue, and more than just one.
Jesusâ motivation is a big one:
âŚJesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, scorning its shameâŚ
Hebrews 12:2
That joy is us if you belong to him, and reciprocated familial love is the reason.
Another big clue is from the Lordâs Prayer and the first petition in it, âHallowed be thy name.â Jesusâ heart is interested in his Fatherâs renown, and so should ours be. That echoes what we know from the Old Testament as well as in the rest of the New. A loving family is proud of its head and does not want it defamed, but rather the opposite. That also speaks to familial joy and Godâs motivation for creating in the first place.
Let me get this straight
A God knows his creation will betray him and Ultimately even try to destroy him (assuming he is all knowledgeable) and yet he finds joy in creating it?
Iâm not even sure if Einstein himself can grasp at it. There is zero sense at least from our human perspective for this. Zero.
If I knew my child will end up betraying me or even trying to kill me I wouldnât even consider having marital sex