If you were God?

Originally posted by Wulebgr
There would be no American beers like Miller and Budweiser, no cheap Chinese crap at Walmart, and Ray Kroc would have died before he opened his first "restaurant".

Would drinking cheap American beers and purchasing items from Wal Mart be equivalent to eating the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden? Should they even be given the freedom to choose such evils?

Originally posted by telerion
There isn't a regulator. Each person freely chooses. It's just that the only ones that are ever created to make the choice are the ones your god knows ahead of time will make the right one.

It's interesting that you bring up this objection though because, if you stand by it, it necessitates that omniscience trumps free will. As dottewell wrote a long ...[text shortened]... ew he would have to send to Hell. In our alternative world, he does not create those people.

No, the only thing that necessitates is that we are making our own
choices nothing more.
Kelly

Originally posted by KellyJay
No, the only thing that necessitates is that we are making our own
choices nothing more.
Kelly

Then the alternative world posed by myself and others here works then. So why did your god want people to suffer forever?

Originally posted by telerion
Then the alternative world posed by myself and others here works then. So why did your god want people to suffer forever?

Assuming God is the source of all creation and all life, what does rejecting him entail? Sin is what cuts you off from this life source and death will naturually follow. Sin and death are what cause us to suffer since we were not designed to engage in such behavior. This suffering continues as long as sin is present in our lives. It is akin to attempting to cut your hair with a lawn mower. You can do it but you will not like the results due to the fact that the lawn mower was not designed for such use. To not suffer and sin would mean that God would have been required to design us to sin so that we would not suffer as a result. The problem with this, however, is that sin is nothing more than going against God's word and his perfect plan for his creation. God would then be designing his creation to not fulfill his perfect plan and what is best for his creation. Not doing what is best for his creation would not be a very loving act, no?

Originally posted by whodey
Assuming God is the source of all creation and all life, what does rejecting him entail? Sin is what cuts you off from this life source and death will naturually follow. Sin and death are what cause us to suffer since we were not designed to engage in such behavior. This suffering continues as long as sin is present in our lives. It is akin to attempting ...[text shortened]... for his creation. Not doing what is best for his creation would not be a very loving act, no?

This isn't the alternative world we are talking about. Nobody would choose to disobey your god in the first place. Those that existed would choose freely to live without sin.

Originally posted by telerion
This isn't the alternative world we are talking about. Nobody would choose to disobey your god in the first place. Those that existed would choose freely to live without sin.

Setting your alternative world aside and getting back to my model of love demands choice, I say we must have the choice to sin. In a loving relationship, one must have the right to reject the other, otherwise you are forcing the other to love you back. This rejection, however, can only come in the form of sin when talking about a loving relationship with God. Sin is merely a rejection of his word and his perfect plan for his creation. Sin is pushing God away. There is no other route to achieve this goal other than to sin.

Originally posted by whodey
Setting your alternative world aside and getting back to my model of love demands choice, I say we must have the choice to sin. In a loving relationship, one must have the right to reject the other, otherwise you are forcing the other to love you back. This rejection, however, can only come in the form of sin when talking about a loving relationship with Go ...[text shortened]... tion. Sin is pushing God away. There is no other route to achieve this goal other than to sin.

Your model is flawed. Love does not require free will.

Originally posted by whodey
Setting your alternative world aside and getting back to my model of love demands choice, I say we must have the choice to sin. In a loving relationship, one must have the right to reject the other, otherwise you are forcing the other to love you back. This rejection, however, can only come in the form of sin when talking about a loving relationship with Go ...[text shortened]... tion. Sin is pushing God away. There is no other route to achieve this goal other than to sin.

But back on page 7 of this thread . . .

telerion
Must there be sin for there to be free will then?

whodey
No. In fact, Christ had free will and did not sin.


Anyway, in the alternative world that I'm espousing every free-willed agent has the choice to sin. They just choose not to.

Originally posted by telerion
But back on page 7 of this thread . . .

telerion
Must there be sin for there to be free will then?

whodey
No. In fact, Christ had free will and did not sin.


Anyway, in the alternative world that I'm espousing every free-willed agent has the choice to sin. They just choose not to.

What I meant to say is that one need not sin for there to be free will. However, sin must be an option. Note how Christ sweated great drops of blood before going to the cross as well as his temptation in the wilderness. Sin was always an option for him, he just never jumped at the chance. If God set things up so that man would never sin, would he still be considered to have free will? I, therefore, reject the notion that you can set things up so that you have free will to sin but never decide to sin despite this supposide free will. In your world the fix is in so that no one will sin even though you claim they still have free will. As it stands now we have the best of both worlds. We have the freedom to accept him or reject him. Just as Christ lived his life without sin, we too can choose to leave this world just as blameless through him as well as reject sin in our present lives. In the end, we still have the option to not die in our sins. In my mind, this would be equivalent to have never to have sinned in the first place.

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Your model is flawed. Love does not require free will.

Then you MUST love me!!! If not, then I will twist your mind so that you will want to love me.

Is this love?

Give me an example of love devoid of free will.

Originally posted by whodey
What I meant to say is that one need not sin for there to be free will. However, sin must be an option. Note how Christ sweated great drops of blood before going to the cross as well as his temptation in the wilderness. Sin was always an option for him, he just never jumped at the chance. If God set things up so that man would never sin, would he still be ...[text shortened]... our sins. In my mind, this would be equivalent to have never to have sinned in the first place.

The alternative world is no more fixed than the current one. In either world, god knows before hand who would choose to sin and who would not. To put it in Darfius' terms 'who would choose to serve God' and who would not. If I apply your argument back upon you, I could claim that I really don't have free will because God made me knowing that I would choose not to serve him. It's the old omniscience trumps free will argument that xians (except for Calvanists) hate.

In the alternative world, those that exist are only those that would choose not to sin (serve God). Nobody's free will is violated anymore than their free will is violated in the actual world.

Again for clarity, it may seem like the alternative world is fixed because god designs the world so that everyone chooses to freely serve him. The key to realize is that is that god designed this world so that some choose freely to serve him and some do not. If one is fixed so is the other.

A Calvanist would probably agree with me that this alternative world could have existed, but his god wanted to select some to follow him and others not to. While that brings up a lot of moral questions about the character of his god, it is more consistent I believe than what xians in this thread have argued.

Originally posted by whodey
Then you MUST love me!!! If not, then I will twist your mind so that you will want to love me.

Is this love?

Give me an example of love devoid of free will.

You are not capable of twisting my mind, so your plan won't work.

Do you want a hypothetical example or a real world example? If the latter, then we're just going to get into a long discussion about free will and whether it exists in reality. So, I'll start with a hypothetical.

Suppose God created Adam such that Adam instinctively felt an overwhelming love for him. There you go. Love is an emotion. Emotion does not require free will; for example, I always want to be happy, yet I cannot just be happy at will. I've tried...it doesn't work like that. I never want to be miserable or depressed; if my will was in charge I never would be. Yet I have been both of these in my life.

Or, maybe you mean "love" as the verb. In that case God could mind control a person to do exactly what that person would do if he voluntarily chose to perform the "love" action, whatever those might be (and no I don't mean sex).

Originally posted by AThousandYoung
Suppose God created Adam such that Adam instinctively felt an overwhelming love for him. There you go. Love is an emotion. Emotion does not require free will; for example, I always want to be happy, yet I cannot just be happy at will. I've tried...it doesn't work like that. I never want to be miserable or depressed; if my will was in charge I never woul ...[text shortened]... ly chose to perform the "love" action, whatever those might be (and no I don't mean sex).[/b]

You raise a very important point. We instinctively love or do not love, no? So tell me, if I try to force you love me, what is your gut instinct? I don't think your instinct is to love me back, rather, it is to push me away. Adam is no different in this regard.

As far as love being an emotion, some seem to think this is all it is. I am not so sure about this, however. When Christ was asked what it means to love your neighbor as yourself, he gave the parable of the Good Samaritan. You had a total stranger offer help to save anothers life. In fact, the two men came from opposite sides of the track and should have naturally been at odds with one another within their respective societies. There is no mention about the two "liking" each other or even interacting in any way. The Samaritan bound his wounds and paid someone to watch over him until he recovered. As we see in this illustration, love was a choice and not an emotion.

In the Greek there are five different kinds of love. There is Agape (which is a "pure" type of love), Eros (which is passionate love), Philia (which is a friendship type of love), Storge (which is a natural affection like that between mother and child), and Xenia (which means hospitality. Hospitality shown in the ancient world was a very big deal). What I am referring to, however, is Agape. This is the term in the New Testament that was used to describe God's love towards humanity.

Originally posted by telerion
The alternative world is no more fixed than the current one. In either world, god knows before hand who would choose to sin and who would not. To put it in Darfius' terms 'who would choose to serve God' and who would not. If I apply your argument back upon you, I could claim that I really don't have free will because God made me knowing that I would choos ...[text shortened]... er of his god, it is more consistent I believe than what xians in this thread have argued.

In your little scenerio it would seem that man is not repsonsible for his actions, ie sins. Man is simply going through the motions and in no way should be held accountable for his choices in life. I know some who feel this way, however, I am not one of them. Most people that I have met who have a similar mind set often blame society as a whole or their parents rather than God, however.

Originally posted by whodey
In your little scenerio it would seem that man is not repsonsible for his actions, ie sins. Man is simply going through the motions and in no way should be held accountable for his choices in life. I know some who feel this way, however, I am not one of them.

But that's getting Telerion's point completely the wrong way round.

The thought-experiment is asking you to imagine a universe of people who, like you, freely choose god.

They are all responsible for their actions - just as you are responsible for your actions in this ACTUAL world.