We are on a circular logic pattern here.
God sees but does not control. He knows but does not use that knowledge to manipulate.
The dynamics of linear verses omnipotence are very complex (try watching Star Trek episodes that include Q)
The purpose and reaction to prayer is a very long and complicated sermon, which I would rather not attempt to summarise or extol.
RIchard
So hes indifferent?And why he has to use the knowledge to manipulate?Way out of topic here but ok
Also that is about prayer which is out of topic here and ill admit i wrote it because it sounded good as an argument beforehand.But since youve read my comment above ive raised way more stronger points that the one of prayer i think
@Combine_Advisor @Dale @heymike3
The One and the Many problem is usually presented as, Which is prior (or Which is ultimate) the One or the Many? Does Reality begin as pure One and then become Many, or as pure Many and then become One? Most people think that Reality is basically One, but if true, from whence becomes the Many? or vice versa?
However if both Unity and Diversity, the One and the Many, are ultimate for the Trinity, what kind of a clue is that for the One and the Many?
Hmmm, first time I hear this term, but from what I read it’s beliefs that belonged to scholar Origen, maybe I share some beliefs with him but probably not much.
Well, only humans have free choice, everything else in this world, on bigger or smaller scale is done by God. So everything you want, money, happiness, health, it can be done by God. God probably wouldn’t want to change someone’s will (a girl agreeing to you asking her on a date for example) but he could still do it even if it seems paradoxically, our free choice even though it has more will on things than before still is limited, even our bodies aren’t perfectly controlled by us.
In my view, no. but I’m unsure how that would work. So maybe.
Humans that sin a lot, that let earthly desires to define them, are quite easy to predict by a being such as God. It’s easy to misunderstand but my view don’t mean that each decision you make is a free one, obviously you choose this food for breakfast or your favorite color because that’s how your body is. Many things God can foresee easily, if we take this in years, decades or centuries though, it’s nearly impossible to say what will happen.
It’s probably “election” that you are talking about, well, I will not say for sure that my view is right, because it’s left up to interpretation but I don’t think that those verses mean that Humans are predetermined. If you want to talk about which verses disprove my view I will very much like to talk about them.
But my general view is that free choice is visible only in long term, in short term like next minute or next hour God can pretty much say exactly what you will do.
What I’m saying is that how do you compromise those two statements:
If in the end everything came into being from God, us and our choices would come from him too. What I am talking about here is fatalism. Do you see souls as made by God? If yes, then aren’t our choices predetermined by God? Going further, isn’t everything that we done that is sin, decided by God?
I understand your position but I want to know on what basis is it made.
God is timeless (or ‘timeful’) and is not bound by our pretty linear (not close to relativistic extremes) and sequential time. We cannot get our heads around his relationship to us in time, but he is instantaneously past, present and future (Jesus said “Before Abraham was born, I AM”).
So blaming him for our sinful choices doesn’t fly, because of the dynamics of that mysterious relationship between his freedom from time constraints and our time boundedness, and we are still responsible for our choices. We also have objective evidence of his independence from time and sovereignty over it, where he does not violate anyone’s free will.
A choice is not a thing. All things come from God, but God gives us the ability to choose, so we are responsible for our choices.
Something I never understood about the business of free will was the idea that since God knows what we’re going to do, that must mean fate rules us and we have no will of our own. This doesn’t follow for me, because we’re still making conscious choices; this argument leaves memetics out of the picture, and doesn’t say anything about God pulling strings in our brains to get his “desired” outcome, so it just never made sense to me why people would think this negates free will.
I like to think about the ability to step back from our immediate impulses to weigh choices that is necessary for everyday free will of the kind the legal system recognizes. Every creature that is able to learn from its experience is somewhere on the continuum between circumstantially constrained determinism to the kind of free will we enjoy when we are not under extreme duress, in the grips of a compulsive habit or suffering some biochemical imbalance rendering us in the state described as “not being in our right mind.
I do think there is something real which leads to God belief. But I don’t believe what that is to be some sort of master puppeteer running the whole show for His own amusement.
@DGX37 The questions revolve around our comprehension of the Divine, freedom, and human capabilities. Concerning God and the creation, natural philosophy has proposed views that: (1) God acted as He willed to gift the Universe and is actively engaged in the creation, and (2) God established immutable laws which are etched on all things, and He ensures these are maintained in the creation. Both views are interesting but debates on this site currently focus on the notion of laws of nature.
It is theologically accepted that God created everything from nothing, and all the creation is subject to, and is sustained by Him. Human beings are created with the capacity to reason and act, within the limitations we observe in our existence. The Creation provides humanity with (to us) is an inexhaustible range of possibilities and choices. We may summarise the choices we may make as either good for life, or bad with consequences that diminish us. When we choose life and what is good, we grow in the attributes (discussed in the bible), while if we choose evil, we are diminished and are considered to develop bad habits. This is what I understand as predetermined. God does not force us to choose, but He knows us and thus we would consider this as for-ordained.
There is extensive literature that deals with the various views on freedom. Freedom is often a term that encapsulates self-determination, autonomy, and unconstrained or spontaneity of a rational human being, including the absence of submissiveness and servility. The subject matter is all encompassing as the concept of freedom may be considered as an abstract and normative value of human action, or as a concrete experience of humans. It may be inferred that freedom within a completely determined world would be an act of will, so that a passive person is transformed into an active one through reason, and in this way attain to freedom. Although an act of will may be consistent with choice, the inference in this view is that freedom is considered within a completely determined world. Such a view is difficult to reconcile with choice, change, chance, and uncertainty found in the world (particularly that of human choice and the ability to interfere with other people’s activity, and to interfere with natural activity). Does this mean that freedom cannot be equated with a human capacity to choose?
Our reality is faced with chance, possibilities, and outcomes that are often such that we would wish to choose otherwise, after a conscious choice had been made. Additionally, even though we were to believe we had made a correct choice, the outcome may be contrary to what we initially understood should have been. The causality we believed was correct, may in fact prove otherwise for that act, resulting in an illusion of choosing correctly, but actualising as other-than the intended choice. Indeed, we are subject to the necessity of seeking the distinction between good and evil, which is accompanied with the bitterness of choice, highlighting the biblical teaching that we are slaves to sin, and all having sinned and come short of the glory of God.
As you would note, the subject matter is large and this post is sufficient for the time being.
Does that mean God doesn’t know what we will choose? After all it would seem that we are the ones that were given the choice.
If God knew that few billion years after he created the universe that the stone will fall from the cliff, was this stone’s fall a free choice? The same example, it’s tiger that just killed deer and God knew from the moment he created everything that he would do it. Was that a free choice? And finally, If God, during the Big Bang, foresaw that I would be having cereal this morning, was this my free choice? In this examples, what makes me different than the stone or the tiger except I think that I was the one that made the choice? If I was unable to escape even the littlest thing that God knew I would do when he created me, what free will we have left?
Sorry that I am picking what I want and not really trying to address the whole answer but I really want to get to the most important part right, simple question is, can God say exactly, right now, your every action and choice during 24 hours during the day ten years from now?
Why I am putting such emphasis in this topic you may ask? Because I think that question whether we have free will or not is more important than any other truth that we can find in the Bible. Problem of good and evil, how we should treat our neighbour, historicity of Jesus sacrifice, it all means nothing if we have no free will.
(I probably seriously strayed from this topic with this post)
Foresaw is a tensed verb (as are all our verbs) and since God transcends time, is outside of time or all through it, tensed verbs in sequential time to not apply to him. He knows all things ‘all the time’. Yes, we have free will, but it is not outside of his plan, because ‘plan’ is a time word.
Well time is used as a scapegoat here.Out of time but can interact with time and even go in time.Doenst make any sense
We are told that God is inscrutable. We are not going to get our heads around him – he is too big. But he is trustworthy.
Have you listened to this, or read the transcript?
That would correspond with the definition of omnipotence, yes. But that doesn’t mean that those actions are predestined or guided in any way. In terms of our living, the future is undefined. That God actually knows does not matter. It’s not what He knows but how He acts upon it that matters.
For instance, Jesus did not force or coerce Judas. He already knew what Judas would do, but it was still up to Judas at any one time. As far as God was concerned Jesus was betrayed, it did not matter really who it was did it. So it was Judas. Next.
Richard
I often think of how we would judge our fellow humans if they were put in a similar position.
For example, there are two small children playing in their front yard. Someone left the gate open, so the children go through the gate and start walking towards the road. Just ahead of them, standing at the edge of the curb, is a man who sees the small children approaching the busy street. The man does nothing to stop the children as they walk into the street and are struck by a car.
How would we judge that person who let the children walk into the street? Would we think of him as a moral person?
Why It’s Hard to Punish ‘Bad Samaritans’
Legality and morality are not necessarily the same thing.
I know; I’ve retired from the Internal Revenue Service where I was an Internal Revenue Agent; I’ve had three in-laws who were lawyers; and I’ve observed and heard about some fancy skating around the law which only a pure libertarian would not consider immoral.
Brief mention in my post referred to legality; however, the quoted statement: “Rescue is the rule, even if it isn’t the law” goes to morality.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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