[petermaumau]

God is the Director , we are the actors,and He chose us to be partakers of His gracious gift of eternal Life through faith in Christ Jesus...
God chose us >> And anyone else who will choose to be of the faith.. Well what that means is that if you know the gospel,the difference of being chosen or not is if you accept it..beats all logic..

[ATLian]

I still cannot understand how you can say that god knows exactly what Peter will do at 12:15 pm tomorrow - then in the same breath you say that Peter has the free will to either do that thing or not do it. The fact that god knows means that that thing, and only that thing, has to be done at 12:15. The fact that Peter has to do that thing, and can only do that thing, means he has no free will at all. He cannot do another thing. He cannot be at another place. He has to be where god knows he'll be so he can do what god knows he'll do. How do you still then claim that he has free will? Free will strips god of his omniscience and brings in the other option that Christians hate - predestination.

I think the problem is that when man created god, man gave god so many attributes that couldn't hold after a while. So, not suprisingly, some are now very obviously contradictory. The free will vs omniscience is one of the contradictions. So is god's omnibenevolence vs the evils that happen to his creation. etc.

The reason why believers of Religion X are so quick to condemn Religion Y and critique it's ambiguities, contradictions, violent parts, etc, is because they don't believe in Religion Y. This means they can look at Religion Y objectively. That's also the reason why believers of Religion X will see the specks in Religion Y's eyes but never see the log in their eyes, and why many discussions, like the above one, will never be concluded unless the believers can remove their tainted shades and look at the issue at hand objectively and without any religious bias...

It must be tough at times to be a believer. You are confronted with what is so obviously a contradiction, but you cannot admit it is coz that's tantamount to blasphemy or whatever. So you go to great lengths to try rationalize and justify or explain it. This extreme form of rationalization is what enables a believer to say with conviction that god is good, loving and just despite the fact that he has killed innocent babies and children over and over again. Or to say that yes, god knows all your future actions, but you have free will in deciding to do them or not. Hello, let's remove the blinders. The Emporor has no clothes. There is a pink elephant in the room. Or whichever other metaphor you want to use...

[ATLian]

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

Reggie,

there's a school of thought that holds that even god has no free will. Here is something I plagiarized from http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/god_...free_will.html that explains this notion.

1. AN OMNISCIENT (ALL-KNOWING) BEING DOES NOT HAVE FREE WILL

If you are all-knowing, you know your future actions, what choices you will make, and you cannot change them otherwise your knowledge would be wrong, and you wouldn't be all-knowing. An omniscient being has no free will to choose actions; all its actions are predetermined.

If you knew a decision you are going to make in the future... what would it mean? You would have no free will to change that choice. No option, no choices... based on the fact that you know its going to happen, it is predestined and no amount of strong will can change it. The further in the future the predicted choice is, the less free will you have to change it! Well imagine if for infinity you'd always known exactly what choices you were going to make, and that you could never be wrong. You would never have had any free will in any choice, ever!

In effect God is an observer. An omniscient being has no free will - its entire future is set out and it has no choice but to follow its predestined path.


2. A PERFECT GOD HAS NO FREE WILL

Out of the possible options in a situation God always makes the best choice because it is perfectly benevolent. It cannot do something that is less moral or "good" than something else, because that would not be perfectly good, but merely second-best good. In every situation, God only has one choice: The most moral/good one. God does not have free will. It can make no choices, there are no possibilities for an omniscient-benevolent God to choose from. In order to give God its free will, we would have to take away its omniscience - its all-knowing nature - or take away its benevolence.

When people say that God has free will, they must also mean that God is imperfect. If God is not perfect then it becomes possible for God to choose a less-than-perfect action. If God is not imperfect, then, it is impossible for god to perform imperfect actions. Therefore God has no free will.


3. A MORAL GOD HAS NO FREE WILL

God, as the ultimate creator, created goodness. God is also said to be a perfectly good benevolent God. This means that God fulfils every possibility of the goodness it has created. It is the be-all and end-all of goodness, perfectly good and unerringly good. If God was not 100 percent perfectly moral, God would not be perfect. This results in a complete lack of free will for God.

God knows the nuances and complexities of every situation. God knows which actions are optimal, it knows which actions are perfectly good. Only God, I would guess, is capable of performing actions that are perfectly good. And it does so unerringly, constantly, because it itself is perfectly good and never errs. It is all-knowing and perfectly good. But, the problem is for free will, in any situation, of all the possible things God could do, God does the perfectly morally right one. It never chooses an inferior course of action because it is perfect. If it acted imperfectly, it would not be perfect.

So, in any situation, a perfectly moral God has no choice: It must carry out what action is most good. God, in creating goodness, and being perfectly good, is completely limited to only a set, predetermined series of actions. In any situation, at any point in time or out of time, God has no free will: It must robotically and automatically carry out the precise action that is perfectly good.

[ATLian]

>God is the Director , we are the actors,and He chose us to
>be partakers of His gracious gift of eternal Life through
>faith in Christ Jesus...

PeterMauMau,

I think you're weakening, not strengthening, your case with such statements. When Spielberg is directing a movie, he knows which scene the bad guy will die in, what words the main character will say, who will survive, who will get the girl, etc. The bad guy cannot chose to survive, he has to die coz that's what the director wants, that's what has been predestined for him. Actors do NOT have free will in the movie, they have to say and do what the director wants them to say and do...

[KEMINOKANA]

>I still cannot understand how you can say that god knows
>exactly what Peter will do at 12:15 pm tomorrow - then in the
>same breath you say that Peter has the free will to either do
>that thing or not do it.

It seems pretty straightforward to me. But I suppose only intellectuals get that concept.

Peter is free do to the thing or not, but God knowing peter in and out, He knows which thing peter will or will not do. Peter was not forced to do the thing. He did it out of His own choice. God only knows the choice Peter will make. He DOES NOT MAKE THE CHOICE FOR HIM. Or do you guys not understand what free will means?

To make is simpler for your brains here is a perfect example. Suppose the CIA taps your phone and in the conversations, you say you will be boarding your plane to Miami at date X, time Y. Can you turn around and say that now you dont have free will to make the trip just because the CIA knows about your plans without your knowledge?

[ATLian]

>Peter is free do to the thing or not, but God knowing peter in
>and out, He knows which thing peter will or will not do. Peter
>was not forced to do the thing. He did it out of His own
>choice. God only knows the choice Peter will make. He DOES NOT
>MAKE THE CHOICE FOR HIM. Or do you guys not understand what
>free will means?

I guess some of us just don't get it. Kemi, I wish you could think outside the Christian box for a second, it would make a world of difference. Christians believe that EVERYTHING happens according to god's will. That statement alone eradicates our free will, since everything happens not coz we will it but because god wills it.

Anyway, back to your discussion, let me again plagiarize http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/goddeniesfreewill.html. Hopefully she'll explain things more eloquently and unambiguously.

The existence of an omniscient or omnipotent God denies Humans free will

The problem here is that God knows everything that has happened and everything that will happen. Its knowledge cannot be wrong. There is not a single event that it has not foresaw. Given that it created the Universe the way it did, do we have free will? Consider that when God made the Universe it could see every possible result of what it was doing. Which means: it could not create something without knowing what the results would be, and without knowing how it would be affected (and effect) the things around it.

Let's say that Fred has a choice that will save his life, to accept God or not to accept God and the final choice is to be made tomorrow. God knows already what choice he will make - God cannot be wrong therefore Fred cannot choose otherwise to what God has predicted. When God created the chain of events that made Fred it also knew that it was making Fred's choice for him, and knew how the various circumstances and character would make him choose either right or wrong. Fred would go forth and make that very decision that God knew he would make, and by virtue that God knowingly set up all the factors that affected his decision, it was not up to Fred but to God to decide how Fred would fare.



>To make is simpler for your brains here is a perfect example.
>Suppose the CIA taps your phone and in the conversations, you
>say you will be boarding your plane to Miami at date X, time
>Y. Can you turn around and say that now you dont have free
>will to make the trip just because the CIA knows about your
>plans without your knowledge?

Again you're giving a bad analogy. First of all, my boarding the flight is a consequence of events (I have bought a ticket). Secondly, it's something the CIA learnt by tapping my phone, not through some supernatural power. Finally, of course I can change my mind and do something else that the CIA doesn't know about. I can decide not to board that flight, to use my car, take the train, not show up, use another flight, walk to Miami, etc. The CIA doesn't know any of these. But god, by his definition, knew which of those choices I'd make. And he didn't have to tap my phone to know it, he already knew from Day One. How can you compare the two?

[KEMINOKANA]

Atlian,

The key to comprehension is you stopping taking examples literally. Did you go to college? I have never seen a grown man given an example and ends up analyzing the example itself instead of using it to see the big picture of the problem at hand.

And stop referring me to pagans, summarize their rantingss by your own opinions here. Otherwise it is only fair I refer you to the bible.

[ATLian]

>Atlian,
>
>The key to comprehension is you stopping taking examples
>literally. Did you go to college? I have never seen a grown
>man given an example and ends up analyzing the example itself
>instead of using it to see the big picture of the problem at
>hand.

Kemi,

you cannot give fallacious analogies in an intelligent argument and expect rational mature people to brush them aside and look at the big picture. Our analogies are based on the perceptions we have of the big picture. Maybe in your mind, the perception of the big picture is flawed. This leads you to giving analogies which according to you are legit, but which are infact flawed only coz they are describing a flawed impression of the bigger picture. Sorta like the 10 blind men who touched the elephant. Their analogies of how an elephant looks were flawed because their impressions were flawed. So of course I have to question your fallacious, ambigous and contradictory analogies, otherwise we'll end up going in circles. At least that's what I learnt from Logic 101 in college...

[milanya]

It is hard to think outside of the religious box - I have tried to let go of fear and do it. How can I ever understand my faith if I cling blindly to it? If you want something to be true really badly you will find ways of justifying it.

Questions to ask oneself about predestination and omniscience from wikipedia:
1. Is God's predestinating decision based on a knowledge of His own will, or does it arise from a knowledge of whatever will happen?
2. How particular is God's prior decision: is it concerned with particular persons and events, or is it limited to broad categories of people and things?
3. How free is God in effecting His part in the eventual outcome?

about man's will:
1. Assuming that an individual had no choice in who, when and where to come into being: How are the choices of existence determined by what he is?
2. Assuming that not all possible choices are available to him: How capable is the individual to desire all choices available, in order to choose from among them?
3. How capable is an individual to put into effect what he desires?


Some philosophers argue that man has free will, and that his free will is predestined to lead him to God. However, man gets enslaved in sin and loses his free will

[milanya]

Kemi answer me this one question:

Before he created me, God said I will die on (mm/dd/yyyy) no matter what I do I will die on that day. I can't chose to not die and say 'hey can I go to my daughter's wedding the next day?'
Do I have free will in that case or am I predestined?
Life's not a garden so don't be a hoe