[KEMINOKANA]

>Mwanainchi,
>
>I think your analogy is fallacious. Everyone knows you will
>get drunk if you drink a bottle of vodka. Everyone knows you
>will die if you jump from a 30 storey building. Everyone knows
>you will lose your hair if you undergo chemotherapy. Everyone
>knows you will have bad breath if you don't brush your teeth.
>etc. Those are CONSEQUENCES, not signs of omniscience, and any
>reasonable man can accurately predict such consequences.
>
>There is a world of difference between knowing that a car
>hitting a pedestrian head-on at 200 MPH will kill the
>pedestrian (consequences) - and knowing what the 78th word a
>man will utter on June 23rd 2047 is (omniscience). You are
>trying to compare the two.


Atlian,

Do you know what an analogy is and what it's purpose is? If you did, you wouldnt wanna waste space basing your argument on the analogy itself but the argument put forth using the analogy. Sometimes dont take things too literally!

To help you understand using the analogy which u've based ur argument on, yes man knows the concequences but does not know when and who will drink a bottle of vodka and get drunk. God does know.

@CB, apparently someone still doesnt get it.

[milanya]

>I know that if you drink a whole bottle of vodo you will get
>drunk. You, however, make the decision to drink it or not.
>Just because God knows what will happen does not mean that you
>have no choice. You have the options and you make the choice.
>God knows what choice you will make (being all-knowing) but
>the decision is still yours. The responsibility for your life
>is in your hands. Don't try to put your life on auto-pilot
>because you think that "The Graph is Drawn".

I think this is a very poor analogy. If it were this simple, philosophers and theologists wouldn't have spent centuries arguing about free will and predestiny. It is a paradox. I have to agree with Atlian on this one. What you pointed out is consequences, not omniscience. God knows that if you drink 5 vodka bottles you will be drunk. However, you want to tell me if you choose not to God was caught unaware as if he was watching a soap? I understand, at the end of the day it is MY choice, God didn't make me drink 5 vodkas, however, God knew even before I was born that I was going to drink 5 vodkas, but he made me anyway.

If God knows that you won't accept him and that hence you will go to hell even before you are born, and he still creates you KNOWINg very well you will go to hell because of the choices you WILL make, then aren't you predestined? If not, and he didnt know, then He is not Omniscient.
Life's not a garden so don't be a hoe

[Msoto]

Great responses from everyone.

I think I may have been too cryptic in what I was trying to explain.

Lets start again...my first premise is that what I define as "free-will" is not the same as what God defines as "free-will". This is because my definition of "free-will" is limited by my limited sentience....My limited knowing...limits my complete and total description of what free-will is.

God on the other hand is NOT limited....He has no limited sentience...no limits in knowing...thus He can describe "free-will" more completely than I can...by virtue of having greater sentience and 'greater knowing' than I do.

Therefore In His (God's) description of what is "free-will", how can I be certain that it doesn't include "pre-destiny"? My limited sentience sees these terms as diverging...however God with infinite Knowledge may see these concepts as converging.

I like Mwananchi's argument because...he shows that just because it has been ordained what will come to pass. Does not mean that you as individual know that your options are limited. This is the key...that you as a human being have no way of knowing for certain that your options are limited. God's LIMITS are not Man's LIMITS...if he has any.

In saying that your options are LIMITED you PRESUME that you can UNDERSTAND and PINPOINT what God's LIMITS are...can you as a christian who believes God is omniscient and you aren't?

ATLian's argument assumes that what God Ordains is limited to happen in a pattern recognizable as human beings to be "limited" and thus we will be able to define it as "pre-destined" rather than "free-willed".

However as I said before if God is omniscient and man isnt.
Then you are not in any position to justify how one cannot be "pre-destined" and "free-willed" at the same time. Since you are using your LIMITED sentience to analyse the workings of a NON-LIMITED being.

How can someone use a 1M ruler to measure an infinite distance?

[chotadipo]

Msoto,

That was good attempt, but if I may further continue with your line of thought, then is it fair for a God who has unlimited knowledge of what is, was, and will be, to hold me responsible for actions of which I have no perception or thought of?

Simply put and you will be loathe not to agree with me on this. If I do something according to my feeling or sensation as distinguished from my perception and thought, is it fair to hold me accountable for it?

[KEMINOKANA]

>I think this is a very poor analogy.

Why is it?

If it were this simple,
>philosophers and theologists wouldn't have spent centuries
>arguing about free will and predestiny.

There are so many simple things that havent been figured out even by geniuses. It is only until they do that one wonders why we never thought about that before.

>If God knows that you won't accept him and that hence you will
>go to hell even before you are born, and he still creates you
>KNOWINg very well you will go to hell because of the choices
>you WILL make, then aren't you predestined?

Wrong. You are only predistined by your own actions and not God's. Here is how you guys' arguments is shallow. The govt constructs roads where thousands die from every year. Knowing that people are going to die on those roads, why does the govt go ahead and construct them? Because not all people will die on those roads. They will be used by many for good purposes. On the same note, you may go to hell, but you may have helped many go to heaven while alive. There are many pastors that will go to hell while the people they preached and baptized march to heaven. Simple as that!


I think the problem with yall is that you do not know what predistine is. Predistine means to destine, decree, determine, appoint, or settle beforehand. There is a world of a difference between Predistine and Omnscience which means having infinite awareness, understanding, and insight, possessed of universal or complete knowledge.

Being omniscient, God knows which path YOU will predistine yourself into. Gitch?

[reggie_woic]

"Being omniscient, God knows which path YOU will predistine yourself into. Gitch?"

This is what i gitch, Kemi:
Didn't he know this before creation as well? YES, He did.
He knew what was going to become of us before he created us.

This has led me to a discovery of epic proportions:
GOD HIMSELF IS PREDESTINED!!!!

I will take my nobel peace prize now, thank you.

http://www.zazzle.com/znews/archives/stewie.jpg
*laughs secretly*

[KEMINOKANA]

>"Being omniscient, God knows which path YOU will predistine
>yourself into. Gitch?"
>
>This is what i gitch, Kemi:
>Didn't he know this before creation as well? YES, He did.
>He knew what was going to become of us before he created us.
>
>This has led me to a discovery of epic proportions:
>GOD HIMSELF IS PREDESTINED!!!!

Predistined into what? Answer that and u shall get ur nobel prize.

[milanya]

Keminokana, I am not arguing that God decides our fate. I am arguing that he knows our fate but still creates us anyway.
I don't want to believe in predestination. Just because I DON'T want to does not mean I should have blind faith.

Every time something goes wrong or something happens, everyone says 'It's God's will. God has a plan for you.'
Do you believe it is possible to go against God's plans? By this I don't mean disobedience, because everyone does it. If God intends for me to know Jesus from my best friend's death, is it possible for me to stop my best friend from being in a car crash? No. What is meant to be is meant to be. Everyone has their appointed time to die. God knows when it is. He knows milanya will die on _/_/_. Am I not predestined to die on a certain date? Can I choose to avoid the date of that death?

When it comes down to it, God knows what we will choose, so in a sense we choose our own fate. He does not make us choose these things, but he let's it happen. It is a difficult thing to accept. If God knew all this pain and suffering would take place, why did he create Adam and Eve? he could've created other people who he knew would make the right choice and we'd be kickin it in the garden of Eden.

In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will -Ephesians 1:3-5

He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. -Romans 8:28-30



For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose predestined to occur. -Acts 4:27-28

Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began. - II Timothy 1:9

Life's not a garden so don't be a hoe

[reggie_woic]

God knows what he's going to do and yet He does it.
Can He help it?

If He knows what he's going to do, but doesn't do it, did He know that he He would change his mind? Since He's ALL knowing, yes he knew--which brings us back to the starting point on this circle:
He knows what He's going to do and yet does it.

If that isn't pre-destiny, i don't know what is.

Kemi,
Lets leave 'what He's been predestined to' for my second nobel prize. (in other words, we humans are the lesser beings and have no business knowing the agendas of The Supreme One)


http://www.noinput.net/blog/06-01-25_stewie.jpg
*continues laughing*

[KEMINOKANA]

Milanya, there is nothing like blind faith. Eve was led to believe that she shouldnt live by blind faith and see where we are. It is either you do or you dont.

Reggie, you correctly summed it up that we cant understand God. Doing so would be like us becoming God himself. So there will be mysteries about Him eternally. Imagine not even enock, elijah and etc who are with him know what he's thinking about. Our job is to strive to make it to that land, and we will be fine. What I see here is people trying to shift blame for our weaknesses back to God. Remember even Adam went like, "It is this woman YOU gave me". It is human nature to feel like we cant make it as we are full of the evil spirit that makes us think so.