There are even people who think that Judas was trying to force Jesus’s hand–so he would fulfill the popular idea of what the Messiah should be. And when it didn’t work he killed himself.
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My ways are not your ways. It didn’t make sense for Job and it doesn’t have to do for others. We can’t hand pick what will make sense or not .
Agreed. God was the highest of all values for me.
But since he is incapable of stoping this nonsense he created or better putted incapable of stoping it from the begining ,well I guess I’m correct in being disappointed
He is incapable of understanding human suffering. He is incapable of giving the satisfaction of justice to you. He is incapable of punishing people in this life if they behave out of his law. He basically created something which he cannot control. He failed at everything with us. Yet he is so stubborn that he insists in his ways
Theres a reason why everyone who leaves God doesn’t come back. He is incapable of doing even that. And he knew from the begining that you would leave him . He knew and did nothing to change your mind.
How about nothing happens to anyone? Sorry this quote is dump
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His own son set Himself up to be tortured and brutally killed in accordance with His understanding that it was the Father’s will.
Which if God is real, is true.
This is the offense, the mystery of Christ.
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Our response to our life and its difficulties is a deeply personal one, and in that vane I can only express my feelings and beliefs, without pretending that I understand fully others (including yours) position. I am convinced that the dignity of man (and mankind) is determined by how we deal with the good and bad aspects of our life, and that accepting responsibility for my own actions is fundamental to this dignity.
As far as I understand God’s actions (based on faith and His grace), His Son, as the Word that brought everything into existence, also accepted His responsibility in taking on Himself the burden of sin. He also provided a way for us to live with all that entails, but only if we decide to do that.
The basic statement is this - God created freely, and this includes freedom for humans and freedom for God. This is the area that has interested me for most of my adult life. This means that my response to God’s revelation is essentially that of one person (myself) and Him (Jesus). It may sounds odd to you, but on this Christ and me are two chaps discussing various matters from time to time. If I get some help from Him, I am grateful, but I do not assume that He must … 
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This is where we disagree the most and always will. For you he doesn’t have to help you and you’ll still continue to have a relationship with him. For me a failed attempt to help me(Help me,not biding my will . These are very different things that’s why I bring this up)is a violation of our relationship and trust. If God doesn’t want to help me that’s betrayal on his part. And since the relationship is broken I won’t trust him again. He broke the deal not me . Everyone is responsible of his actions as you said. Even God himself. And I sure do hope that God can judge himself in the end times. Because he is no Saint to me. And you statement above gives me the right to say that
My obligations was to worship God at all times and to live as Christ did. I remembered him during my happiest and most disturbing times in my life. I was trying to live as he told me. He was a Father to me. I was loving compassionate. But in my distressed times he failed to do what he should’ve done. Helped me. Do you remember that quote As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Yeah he did just that . Forsaken me. He left deal with this sh@t alone. The deal is off. He broke it. No trust between us. He failed in my eyes. As I said again this relationship is a toxic one
And if I remembered correct you are an eastern Orthodox right? Do you know what the church did during these times? Yeah all those loving people? They shamed me and blamed me. Theres your flock. That’s your Christianity. Full of hypocrites and traitors. Christians who don’t live according to God yet God grants them all the “good” in life. And to those that are really faithful to him and live accordingly he doesn’t give a sh@.
To me, free will, is ability to act freely, whether on small or big scale, my choice is mine, it’s not caused by anything, it’s not random, if I choose something freely, I didn’t choose solely based on material factors, if I didn’t do that, what I do cannot be predicted, because it doesn’t follow any rules, yet it’s not random, it’s free, on what basis could God foresee our action if it’s free, not caused by anything in particular?
On the other hand, if he created us and can see our actions exactly, to the smallest flicker, that means there’s absolutely NOTHING in us that isn’t determined, that every aspect of our will is based on something, all those things were created by God, if there was even small aspect of us that is free, it wouldn’t be possible to say what you will do exactly 10 years in the future because of butterfly effect.
Then that means, if Judas “will” was based on other factors God could foresee, and all of those factors could be foreseen, there’s nothing about Judas that God didn’t cause in the grand scheme of things. Then Judas will is illusion, there’s only God’s will and nothing else.
If Judas had free will on the other hand, there’s no logical way of knowing what he will do in the next 30 years because by definition free will is something not based on anything, if it’s not based on anything, it can’t be predicted, if it can then it’s not free, it’s based on something.
So there is that, if something can be predicted exactly, it’s deterministic. Free will by definition, at least my definition, is not deterministic.
We could have the same argument with randomness, if something is random, it can’t be predicted, if God can predict random thing happening, it’s not random.
My statement was meant to indicate grace instead of some arrangement of quid pro quo.
As I said, our responses to difficulties is very personal and I can only hope that you are well and can live with a degree of happiness we all desire.
On how people respond, I was just discussing with my daughter the acts of neighbors of my parents - these have shown the finest aspects of humanity, and yet they probably cannot have a theological discussion of note. They attend church when they are able, try and cope with their difficulties, and exemplify the golden rule perhaps in small ways (they do not solve the world’s problems, they just do what they can). I think Christ is pleased with such Christians, whatever the denomination.
I suppose I can think of people who have been cruel and nasty as well - I again state that we are responsible for our actions. My view of God is something that I have grown into, and I suppose the only one who can decide if it is right or not is God Himself.
I struggle to understand your comment - any act must be preceded by intent and based on capability. A spontaneous view of activity may be ascribed to certain biologically based factors (we breath without deciding to do that now and not latter, so that is predictable - does this destroy our free will?).
If I have some sort of handle on your view, my guess is that you cannot accept the notion that God may know what you and I may do at any and every point in our life. So, if He knows, it means He has determined it and you are not free, but if He does not, it means He is not all knowing and thus cannot be God. Have I got this right?
This is a complicated topic I have to admit, but to me, free will is an idea, just what you said about ideas far earlier in this discussion, it’s something that doesn’t have any ground in reality, there’s nothing that can be uncaused and not random, it’s illogical, but this is what free will is to me.
In my worldview, our spirit influences our bodies, it doesn’t have unlimited control like over GTA V character, it’s influence is quite weak to be honest, but a small influence after influence, our bodies start to reflect our spirits, and overriding our brain’s desire for air takes a lot more effort than just spontaneously willing it.
Yep, that’s exactly what I mean.
But I don’t agree with that. To me God doesn’t need to be able to do every possible, even illogical thing to be God, free will cannot be predicted, it’s above logic itself, just like God, so God, can’t predict it, but God still is the greatest being there is, and if there is ability that is possible, God has it, but as he cannot foresee what he will do himself, or create a stone that is impossible to be lifted, he cannot foresee what free willed spirit will do. If he can do those things, then God is on a level we can grasp and there is no meaning trying understand him, so I try to argue about God that we have a chance of understanding.
You may have misunderstood me for an atheist, but I am not, I have just peculiar ideas about how this all works.
The answer is God created humans without sin and with free will, but we use our freewill to choose to sin. All you have to do, all we have to do is choose not to sin, and God sent the Messiah Jesus to enable us to do that.
God cannot give us free will, and then prevent us from using it because it might cause us to sin. Being human means to be a self, that is to have and use free will. To be selfish, to put oneself first is to sin. To love others is not to sin. Both are done freely.
I will think on this for a while.
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Well, I am sceptical to such interventions as there are people that say God helped them and also those that say he didn’t help them, on what basis does it work? I don’t know.
But let’s assume for example that miracles that Maggie experienced was valid, God indeed caused them, in eternalism I assume he would just make every little thing fit in the picture, that means that God already prepared everything for Maggie, like before she was born it was already ready for her, for this situation, every little thing, even the guy’s action to hire her was planned perfectly by him, that’s interesting albeit weird vision. If God was really able to fit everything perfectly in place so she becomes happy, why didn’t he do it for so many other people that struggled with their faith?
I mean God made her do what she did so there’s no really big difference between her and other people that struggled in their lives, if he didn’t do anything, didn’t set it up to help her, she could’ve very probably become an atheist, live in poverty for couple of years and hate God forever. So it’s not like her faith was greater than that of others, just like thousands atheists just simply said to herself that if God does something he exists and if not then he doesn’t I guess.
In presentism he would probably see months before it happened that she won’t end up well, he could’ve already start to curve the future in a way that would help her, because it’s like with meteorology in my opinion, we can predict how weather will look like today, tomorrow and the day after tomorrow but it’s nearly impossible to say how it will look after week or two for sure. God has enough knowledge and understanding of world that even if our free choices makes it impossible to say what will exactly happen in far future.
But there is a simpler way to do it, few hours before she prayed to him or immediately when she prayed to him he could start to make changes that are unnoticeable to humans but result in a way it happened.
That would then mean that God actively acts on his creation instead of things happening on their own, according to plan, because they were planned. And I don’t see a problem with that. I would even say it quite well reflects in what manner God acted throughout the Bible.
What my point is that neither your, neither mine view on reality will exactly say how God affects our everyday lives. But there’s nothing in either of those theories that will make the divine intervention invalid, but it’s still a boogeyman, there are some blurry aspects that we can argue are true but at the end of the day, there’s no way to know how and when it happens for sure. At least I don’t know.
Sigh. Again with this? You won’t change my mind by insisting at every response you give that same bs. You have too much freedom. People like you who are like""oohhh I wouldn’t given up my free will for nothing " are what’s wrong
I have said it again and I said one last time for you since you clearly are not going to read the interesting parts of this thread. We have too much freedom. We have too much “free will”.
Imagine having to be humiliated in order to save your creation which yourself put them in such a situation in the first place. Mind boggling
I guess it’s so hard for Christians to admit that God isn’t actually all-powerful. No one has come up with a counter argument yet. Only street preaching unintelligible stuff.
Some of us (people you would label fundamentalists with maybe a few braincells more) have just decided to play it safe and let this conversation go on without us, knowing it could easily break into a brawl and the atmosphere seemed pretty charged to begin with. I’ve checked in a bit here and there to see what’s going on.
I don’t think anything I could have to offer to this conversation would be welcome, “no matter my level of certainty” or no matter what approach I took.
Carry on.
See you elsewhere.
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Indeed, God does have His ways and they are not what you care to dictate. The expectations and judgements of the others speaking in the book of Job were wrong.
It seems to me it is your stubborn idea of God which has failed. And I think when an idea of God brings you to blaming Him for things, then it is better not believe in such a God at all. This is the separation between man and God which goes back to Adam and Eve.
The God I believe in understands human suffering. But I certainly don’t think His role is to deliver justice or control everything. I think it obvious that this is not why He created and I wouldn’t respect or believe in a God who did.
Demonstrably incorrect.
You got that much right. I am reminded of God’s indictment of religion in Isaiah chapter 1.
That is only their delusion, which I do not share.
The gospel of Jesus and Paul is not entitlement.
My response to such a God is the same as Albert Camus in “The Myth of Sisyphus,” defiance. But you can also respond by disbelieving such a God or even changing your idea of God.
Neither are your limitations which you seem to put on him but anyway.
From my experience it’s correct.
Hardly to believe that. All Christians share them
I won’t change my idea of God to a fairytale one where he is just and in the end all is good etc etc. I’m realistic . I don’t expect nothing from him anymore
And personal experiences are highly misleading.
All Christians do not share them. I am Christian and I repudiate them. I believe what I believe only because I think it is correct, just as I believe quantum physics and relativity is correct. I don’t think my belief earns me anything. That is a Gnostic gospel and thus a big distortion of Christianity. This is why I routinely denounce Pascal’s wager. It is based on the false premise that belief will get you anything.