If God hates sin, why would he create humans with a propensity to sin?

Indeed. And this is an important part of evolution also. Organisms evolve because they face challenges. This is a more likely role for God in evolution than controlling mutations. This is a role given God (or His servants) in the Bible.

Yes/and…

The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.
Proverbs 16:33

“We have to believe in free will, we have no choice.” I.B. Singer :slightly_smiling_face:

Are we talking theology or science, the VFB or the VFA? We’re clueless how he controls, we just know that he does.

No. Whatever you may believe, I don’t believe God is a control freak. I believe in the God who chose love and freedom over power and control – and I always will. It is the only God worth believing in. Atheism is preferable to me over the watchmaker control god.

There is no battle. Just opinions and rhetoric

Any evidence about God is subjective and personal. So strictly the answer is no

This is not about evidence it is about your views on God and the world and the fact that you think God made a hash of it.

Which says more about you than it does about God

Richard

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Whatever you may believe about what I believe, neither do I believe God is a control freak.

That just demonstrates that you do not know what I know about the vitality of the loving Father who marvelously, personally and dynamically intervenes into his children’s lives through his providence. Your watchmaker control freak characterization just displays your mistaken preconceptions.

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Maggie had factual, not subjective, evidence about God, and so did Rich Stearns. Phil Yancey did too.

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Incorrect. I very much do believe in the God who intervenes through providence. I have said so many many many times. And I really don’t understand why you are pretending otherwise. I just don’t buy into your inconsistent rhetoric which seeks to justify God as a designer and controller. I am simply consistent in drawing a line between the God obsessed with power and control and the God who prefers love and freedom. God participates in events because that is part of being in a relationship. God does not control events completely because letting others participate in events is the other side of the coin of what makes for a relationship. Writing the story of our lives together is what makes it a relationship. Otherwise it isn’t a relationship at all.

And this is the story the Bible tells as well. Where God plays a big role in events but where God also clearly doesn’t get what He wants all the time.

How does he do it?

He made the laws of nature indeterministic, allowing both His intervention and our free will. He doesn’t have to control everything like the Deist Watchmaker God because the universe He made isn’t like a machine where the only way to make things happen is to set it all in motion like a big billiard ball table. Instead there are constantly events with no previous conditions determining their outcome. And as long as the probability distributions remain the same the laws of nature are unchanged. We know that the laws of nature allow energy to appear from nowhere to alter the course of events as long as it disappears in a time inversely proportional to the quantity of that energy. Thus God has a free hand in events even without altering the rules or controlling everything that happens. This also explains why his interventions are the exceptional miracle. God doesn’t want to change the rules because those rules are essential for life.

How does he do it without being in control of time and place, timing and placing for people to be where they need to be and when, and the myriad of precursor events of his beautiful orchestrations to play out like they do?

Maybe you should reread about Maggie and Rich Stearns, for instance. There were a whole lot of events that needed to be orchestrated! Think of God as the conductor of an orchestra making beautiful music and lose your deist tyrant nonsense,

Shall we talk about the vanishing small probability of (here we go again ; - ) of someone winning five independent lotteries in the same sequence that the tickets were bought and they bought the only ticket sold in each lottery?

Darwin said - that human morality is a by-product of evolution.

The ability to have a moral sense is due to slight, subtle differences between humans and our closest animal relatives. So, how did our species’ social nature give rise to morality?

Is the idea that humans’ morality, unique in the animal kingdom, is a consequence of our tendency to collaborate and cooperate?

Is shared intentionality the basis of morality? Tomasello argues this in his book, “Social Intelligence Hypothesis.”

He says some psychologists and philosophers break morality into two components: sympathy, concern for another individual, and fairness, the idea that everyone should get what they deserve.

Many animals are capable of the former—a chimpanzee, for example, will behave altruistically, like retrieving an out-of-reach object for another chimp—but only humans, it appears, have a sophisticated understanding of fairness.

So, evil, lust, violence, envy, hate and anger come from harmful social competition?

I think this is a fair attempt to develop Darwin’s idea. I also think it misses the mark.

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I got some evidence that can refute yours though

:grinning:. I didn’t notice you trying to refute mine. Guess my subjective evidence is true lol

Really ? What does it says exactly?

It amazes me . You guys are all for love and care and yet it seems many here sees me as an outcast ? Why don’t you like me?

When it comes down to the last word either you or Dale or anyone seems to resort to character bashing.

Have fun in your dream world Richard. Using the devil or whatever you think as a scapegoat .

I see it differently to this claim. We cannot ignore that God created Adam and Eve with freewill…reference of this is found in Genesis 2: 16And the LORD God commanded him, “You may eat freely from every tree of the garden, 17but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; for in the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.”

Some may argue that freewill cannot exist if there are dire consequences for the transgression of rules. However, i would highlight that our prison systems are full of individuals who had freewill but made very bad choices and are paying the wages of those bad choices by being incarcerated in “correctional facilities”…is one really going to make the claim that because of rules, we dont have free will in countries such as the U.S, U.K or Australia?

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I really don’t see how your inability to understand how God does what He does without maintaining rigid control over everything proves squat.

As for me, I see many many people accomplishing detailed plans, scientific experiments, elaborate social events, feats of tremendous engineering etc… all without absolute control over events. Yeah they participate, but no they don’t have to micromanage. They do very well with delegation, automation, training help, and taking the time to understand people. Certainly complex plans do a lot better when those helping have the autonomy to adapt your plans to fit changing circumstances.

And the fact still remains that God does not always get what He wants.

Yes only some humans have this delusion. Others including chimps are well aware that no such thing is possible.

Unless… you mean justice then yes that is concept humans have… from God I think.

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I should start a list of your deprecating vocabulary. It doesn’t help your arguments and in fact it probably means they are weak.

You missed the the part where it is dynamic in his omnitemporal vitality, not cast in concrete.

If you do not know I am not going to tell you.

Like, or love do not enter into the conversations. Your views are not really welcome because of the nature of them and thie critique of God which I (et al) find unacceptable.
You can hardly expect t o be popular with Christians if you are promoting an anti-God stance.

.

And you accuse me of derogatory comments?

Richard

Such questions have often been posed about human sin even without evolution. It comes down to the fact that God has allowed freedom of action. Karl Rahner and Paul Tillich both wrote of the consequences of freely evolving beings able to say no to God and their divine ground of being. Tillich also supposed that if intelligent life evolved anywhere else in the universe they would suffer from similar defects in their nature and needing salvation.

Hmm, that seems to be claiming that God made errors.

Richard

I don’t see that. God gave freedom matching the divine love and freedom.
if in the tradition of immediate divine creation Adam and Eve have a freedom they abuse. Evolving creatures to have conscious freedom makes not different to the case. Moreover we can take the view that God knew this potential for deviation towards sin and already planned for salvation when it happened.