ramifications of omnipotence for God

how boring to have kids that never have a personality!

Actually I believe thats how He did create us. We have the free will and yet we have an inner unction to obey truth. Its just a matter of discovering for ourselves (and being guided also) into what that truth is.

This brings up some great hypothetical questions and scenarios. I could go off on several tangents in discussing this stuff.

Is it wrong to be an honest atheist if there is simply no evidence of a God or if one chooses for any honest reason to accept no God as a fact? My answer would be no.

​

Lets engage in a hypothesis which asserts that a God could be real. For the sake of argument, we would first have to agree on the characteristics of this God. For now, lets assume foreknowledge and interaction with all creation at some point in our lives.

​

Thus, hypothetically, believers and non-believers all will interact with said Deity. Are we ok so far?

​

Now we come to your assertion:

​

Rrhain writes:

​

So which is it? Is god willing or unwilling? Capable or incapable?

I have no answers to this one, except to say that I believe God is capable of ultimate foreknowledge yet chooses to allow for human decision to determine ultimate destiny. Thus, God hypothetically leaves some foreknowledge open...awaiting our responses.

​

Now on to my scenario and belief:

​

Hypothetically, Gods foreknowledge is never evil if it involves my decisions. We could even go so far as to say that evil as an abstract reality exists, yet is never a personified reality unless chosen.

​

I have participated in a few of these hypothetical arguments which basically state that IF God exists, (premise 1) and if there are two groups of people...the saved and the damned, (premise 2)
and IF God foreknows which people will end up damned (premise 3) then this God is of necessity evil for fore knowingly creating damned people. Can you agree with me that my premise is OK so far?

​

Now... Many Christians will resort to standard replies to this line of questions and hypothetical situations.

​

Here is one:

God is God and can do whatever He wants. (The Potter and the Clay Argument, Romans 9:16-25) After reading that scripture, one could conclude that God could hypothetically call those who are not saved saved.

​

You may counter that by saying that this God would still foreknow who would actually end up damned or lost, or even stubbornly defiant in the name of rationality and freedom.

​

You would say that the Bible was not a trustworthy book and that if you ended up damned because of it, this God of the ignorant Christians would not be worth worshiping, trusting, or loving anyway. Right?

​

My point is that you, or I, or anyone else would only have a right to call this God evil if we ourselves were never given a chance to meet Him. We simply do not yet possess enough information to do otherwise.

​

It is irrelevant if this God foreknows that we will end up damned only if we are not given our day in court with such a Creator.

​

Would you be prepared to argue that such a God is still evil if He judges us based solely on our desire to be independent?

Sure. Why place limits on God? Perhaps a followup question would be Will God do everything that He is capable of doing and that He feels "needs" doing if humans have freewill veto power?Evidently we humans in general are not seriously convinced of Gods overall omnipotence. We even choose to wave His existence off all together! Thankfully, God foreknew our stubborn independent streak, and is gracious enough to let us grow up and make a go at our lives without His almighty meddling. (Now if only we can teach this Holy example to the Religious Right! )

I can only conclude several things:

God foreknew that humanity would reach for the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. God was not disappointed since He obviously foreknew the act would happen.

​

The first act of "disobedience" was not original sin. It was more like original choice, or freewill. IMB, God also foreknew that humans would decide for themselves what right and wrong in everyday life shall be.

​

If God foreknows that some humans will make bad choices and decisions, He is not necessarily *evil* for failing to rescue them if he sent a lifeboat, a helicopter, and a well meaning friend to meet them at their points of need. (needing a better answer)

​

We can't simply call God evil for refusing to change our freely chosen destinies now, can we? (Even if we called Him evil, it wouldn't change anything except to leave a bitter feeling in our guts as we died an unglorious death.)

Of course. The way that I see it, however, is that the only people who insist that God must be evil for foreknowing their eventual demise are the people who simply refuse to acknowledge God as God in the first place.The argument is really a non-argument as we have no actual case studies to follow through the portal of time. All we have to work with are hypothetical scenarios.My fallback position is that anyone with half a brain would never allow themselves to cling to their cherished freewill if they had any unction that God existed and did not approve. If they did, the blame would not be on God for foreknowing creating them as stubborn. (Of course this leads to the question of why God then allowed freewill in the first place if there were to be conditions attached to it! )

We are not now talking about Adam and Eves dilemma. We are talking about our own relationship with this God of the Bible. You have, of course, declared that your God is not the Christian God. Thus, I cannot comment on your relationship. I can get an inkling by your response, however. To Wit: *pause*
Are you saying that you have the right and power to not only micromanage your life but to in fact micromanage your death? If so, where does God fit in? As an unbiased observer? Kinda strips Him of His omnipotent quality. I suppose He did give you freewill, however...so who am I to quibble? I guess I am not a Calvinist. They maintain that God had to give me the ability to acknowledge Him I suppose that spiritually I could micromanage my decision to surrender to Him, as I would undoubtedly surrender upon physical death, anyway.