God, the schizophrenic?

Originally posted by The Chess Express
[b]Perhaps, except that God designed the concept of "wrong" AKA evil. That doesn't seem perfect. Moreover, his design clearly had a serious flaw since a great many of the angels and all of the humans did "wrong." You'd hope that God could make a world where at least some humans choose not to do evil.

[/b]His design is actually quite perfect. ...[text shortened]... e possible for us to not choose evil. If this weren’t so then we wouldn't have free will.[/b]

Originally posted by The Chess Express
[b]Now, God didn't/doesn't punish us for doing wrong. Hell is simply the consequence of sin. Just like gravity is a law of the phyiscal world (I drop something, it falls), hell is a law of the spiritual world (I sin, I destine my soul for hell).
It's a common thought that God punishes us by sending us to hell.

I think you have the wrong ide ...[text shortened]... tions here on earth, or in the afterlife, God’s law dictates that unforgiven sin be paid for.[/b]

Originally posted by telerion
This is "God in a Box," and I address them in the post above.

Originally posted by The Chess Express
[b]The "God in a Box" argument claims that laws within Creation governed the the type of Creation God could make, that is to say these natural laws bound God before they even existed! Obviously this is silly, since God's omnipotence and Creator status necessarily imply that God could have chosen any sort of natural laws he desired, and that he was ...[text shortened]... s that I gave. This has nothing to do with God being forced to abide by preexisting laws.[/b]

Originally posted by telerion
I say this because you are forcing God to abide by what you belive is the created nature of free will. However God, as Creator, designed free will and therefore if it necessitates good and evil, that was a design choice of God not a pre-existing condition that had to be respected by him.

BTW You probably know that I disagree with the contention that free will necessitates the existence of good and evil.

First off, whatever the nature of free will, God authored it. He is the designer. He was not constrained by any of it's current characteristics.

To the second part, free will does not necessitate a choice of good and evil actions. Here is a definition of free will.

If an agent chooses action A in the state of nature S, then the agent has free will if the agent could have chosen a different action A' in the same state S.

Simply put, free will means that the state of nature does not reduce the agents choice set to a singleton set (containing only one element). If the state of nature did constrain the agent to a unique choice, then we would say that his choice is determined, thus determinism.

Now given this more general view of free will, we see a choice over good/evil actions is just a subset of the collection of all possible choice sets.

I'd like to point out that an agent does not need to have an unlimited choice set in order to have free will. If this were not true, then this discussion would be trivial as it is simply evident that every human has a constrained choice set. For example,no one can choose to drink all the water in the ocean or extinguish the stars in the Milky Way. Just as our choices are constrained by our physical limitations, an agent's choice set could be constrained so that he could not choose actions that have good/evil associations. Really all the agent needs for free will to be possible is a choice set with at least two distinct elements and the freedom to choose either in a given state of nature.

Ok, so an example of free will in which you do not have a choice over good/evil actions. Ice cream. An agent walks into an ice cream shop with 50 flavors available. If the agent can choose any one of those flavors in that state of nature, then he has free will. There is no reason to think that choosing one flavor or another has any good/evil value attached to it. Nevertheless, by the definition above (and its a pretty standard one) the agent in the ice cream shop has free will.

Originally posted by whodey
You must understand God's nature. As corny as it may sound he is a God of love. Love demands a free choice. We must have free choice to love him back and do. You say that he can do anything he wants. Why is giving us free will to love him back not included in this? Why then can he not, on the one hand, design us to serve him and, on the other hand, let ...[text shortened]... e continue from revelation to revelation. We even do this with ourselves, don't you agree?

Originally posted by The Chess Express
If this is all you want to know then it's all you ever will know.

Originally posted by STANG
Killed by God, in one day, for premarital sex (1 Corinthians 10:8)
23,000 dead

Killed, at God's behest, for not giving God his due (Exodus 32:26-28)
3,000 dead

Killed for being counted by David (1 Chronicles 21:1-14)
70,000 dead

Killed by God for questioning Moses and Aaron (Numbers 16:35)
14,950 dead

Killed by God, in a plague, for who ...[text shortened]... – except a few on an ark

Comply or spend eternity in hell (Rom. 6:23, Rev. 19:ll-15; 20:8)

Originally posted by telerion
First off, whatever the nature of free will, God authored it. He is the designer. He was not constrained by any of it's current characteristics.

To the second part, free will does not necessitate a choice of good and evil actions. Here is a definition of free will.

[i]If an agent chooses action A in the state of nature S, then the agent has [b]free ...[text shortened]... inition above (and its a pretty standard one) the agent in the ice cream shop has free will.

Originally posted by KneverKnight
Well, with Fundies around, no need for God, since they know it all.
Praise be.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Personally, the second para, i knew would come out wrong. I do think that the world is amazing. But not in a 'ooo, must be the work of god' way. More in a 'wow, that's really cool' way. You say something along the lines of 'it can't be wow, cool without being part of god' but that's where you and me differ. I accept for what it is, period.

I think it is benificial to define evil. Biblically, what is evil? Evil is merely lack of faith in the word of God. It says in the Bible that whatever is not of faith is sin.

First, I see no reason to think that evil is "merely lack of faith in the Word of God." No offense, but that definition seems very contrived. It is completely different than any normal use of the word 'evil.' Moreover, we have a very good word for the definition you offer. It's called 'disbelief.' We must be careful with words. If we redefine things in unorthodox manners every time we need to get around a philosophical dilemma then our language loses its meaning.

As evidence of this very practice we need only look to the first page of another nearby thread entitled "if there is no evil then how do you know good?" There you define evil several different ways according to what seems to benefit you in the discussion.

Originally posted by whodey
Goodness exists as where evil does not. The term evil is used to denote the absence of God's love in ones heart.

Originally posted by whodey
As I said before, evil is a term to describe the absence of good.

So now we have three versions of evil. Evil is

1) merely lack of faith in the Word of God
2) the absence of God's love in ones heart
3) the absence of good

Can we harmonize all three of these definitions? Let's see. By (3) evil is the absence of good, and by (2) it is the absence of God's love in ones heart. Therefore good must mean the presence of God's love in ones heart. However, evil is also lack of faith in the Word of God. Good then must mean the absence of lack of faith in the Word of God or not lacking faith in the Word of God. Thus "the presence of God's love in ones heart" and "not lacking faith in the Word of God" must mean exactly the same thing. But clearly this is not true. While one may contend that "having God's love in ones heart" and "not lacking faith in the Word of God" go hand in hand, they are not the exact same thing. They are two seperate conditions, one concerning the whereabouts of God's love, the other concerning the state of a humans belief.

Another problem which arises from this strict definition of good is that it doesn't make any sense in other contexts. For instance when God looked upon the second day of Creation and said to himself, "It is good," he surely did not mean that the Sky and the Water have God's love in their hearts or Sky and Water do not lack faith in the Word of God. No. Good here means that it was well-made. When a believer proclaims, "Yea, God is good!" he is not merely saying that God has his own love his his heart or that God does not lack faith in his own Word, he means that God has a benevolent character.

So even if, as you say, it is beneficial to define evil, I think your attempt is a non-starter. As I have detailed here, your definition leads to a dual identity which is illogical, and it is completely at odds with the context in which the word 'evil' is normally used, even in the Bible itself.

In other words, when they partook of the fruit they forsook the warnings given to them by their creator. They no longer recognized the Lordship of their creator, and decided to be their own god. God gives his creation this choice because he is a God of love. Love involves relationship and to have a relationship you must have free will to love someone back. You therefore must either have the option of choosing him or rejecting him. Thus, choosing evil must be an option in regards to free will

Whoa. Now evil has another implicit definition. The way you use evil above is best described as 'rejecting the Lordship of God.' Again using the definition (3), good must be 'accepting the Lordship of God.' Is it true that when a believer proclaims, "Yea, God is good!" he simply means that God accepts the Lordship of God? Of course not!

I think your narrow use of the term free will is nonsensical. Free will is essentially the 'freedom to choose.' My definition captures this, and does not restrict free will to mean 'only the freedom to choose between good and evil actions.' Being able to choose any flavor of available ice cream in the exact same state of nature means having the freedom to choose. My definition also fits in very well with the idea of determinism which contends that the state of nature restricts your choice set to one option.

Finally, once again, all that you write here about love necessitating free will and free will necessitating evil is "God in a Box." If these necessary relationships hold in Creation, it is because God chose to make it that way, not because these were universal laws that God had to respect when creating. You are using the Creation to constrain the Creator.

Originally posted by whodey
I think it is benificial to define evil. Biblically, what is evil? Evil is merely lack of faith in the word of God. It says in the Bible that whatever is not of faith is sin. When Adam and Eve where tempted, the serpent said something very interesting. He said that if you partake of the fruit you will be as gods. In other words, when they partook of the ...[text shortened]... ep us from having fun or discover some magical great knowledge that will make us equal to him.

Originally posted by whodey
Fair enough. I view our positions as both not having all the answers, however. Would you not agree?