Free will vs Omniscience

I don't know whether or not you're a believer.

We are in a Faith & Belief Forum so it shouldn't matter. Perhaps we will never truly know who does and does not believe that God exists, lives through Jesus Christ, and is interactive through prayer.jar might claim that a believer by definition believes in the basic message and attempts to do what the basic message says to do. In his scenario, a believer is one who follows Jesus command to feed(clothe) and encourage the " other humans....including the non-believers or other religiously minded.So to start with, what do you (Sarah Bellum) believe that the definition of a "believer" is? Personally, I see a necessary part of the definition involving trusting the Holy Spirit...which is essentially trusting (and accepting) Jesus Christ. My critics would disagree, telling me it matters not what a person believes but onoy what they do.For them, a good secular humanist atheist could be acceptable within the definitions of what a believer is.So I encourage us to more fully express what specifically we believe in....doing so will get us closer to a consensus.

I'll go along with C. S. Lewis who said that anyone who accepts the Christian doctrine (or professes to, for how can we see into any man or woman's heart?) is a Christian.And similarly for other faiths.

Humans are also subjects of the King and stewards of His world. They are not God's sons either in a literal biological sense, only in a figurative sense.But what has that got to do with the topic?

Which brings up what used to be an obvious question:
Is wanting independence from God a good thing or a bad thing? Before the prodigal son returned home to his Dad, did he change his mind and/or behavior? So....in light of what ringo hypothesized, is lying,cheating,greed and stealing a result of wanting to be independent from God? Do you believe that humans by nature want to be independent from God?

Isn't independence pretty much a good thing automatically? Do you want your mother picking out your clothes when you're sixty? Do you want the US to beg to be colonized by Peru? The story isn't about the son's behaviour. It's about the father's behaviour.

I just heard someone explaining that god puts souls into people at birth. Apparently he chooses what he thinks is best for the personNot many people talk about souls these days - or maybe I just don't mix in those circles. But is begs so many questions.Ignoring that this is just people making shit up, what do these people think god choosing a soul for someone does for freewill?I'd just assumed that, well, I'm buggered if I assumed anything about souls really, I think maybe I saw them as god's recording device - to be removed and recovered for analysis. But this guy seemed to be saying that it something like the person's personality.wtf?

I've never heard that and likely dont really believe it.Thinking of the hypothetical s, however....the real question is Gods foreknowledge robbing us of freedom of choice. After all, if he pre-programs us with a custom made soul, what choice do we really have in this matrix known as life?

This gets back to my protest at thinking of a concept of Heaven and a loving Father allowing any yahoo in the door even if they stubbornly (and disrespectfully) waltzed in smoking a cigarette or shaking off a hangover (which they chose to become trapped in the addiction) or whatnot. Thus, it is about both the Father and the prodigal sons mental states. Should a Father accept His murderous son home again if the son never showed repentance for his rebellious choices?

On the contrary, the father accepted his son back NO MATTER WHAT - i.e. no matter what his son's mental state was. Look at the context: the story is coupled with the parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin. Neither the sheep nor the coin had a mental state that was significant to the story.And the beginning of Luke 15 has the scribes and Pharisees complaining that Jesus ate with sinners; the whole point of all three stories is that the lost one that is found is MORE valuable than the ones that stayed at home like nice, obedient sheep, coins and sons. Yes. What else can you possibly get from the stories?

Namely that the son also had a change of heart. This is why I tell you that not everyone who says "Lord, Lord" will be accepted into Heaven. You gotta ditch the cigarette!

The sheep didn't and the coin didn't, so it's clear that that is not a valid claim. That's a different story, one that is not about a father's attitude toward his children. Clearly not. Neither the sheep nor the coin changed their behaviour.

Concerning being accepted into Heaven As Is: My but you are a stubborn one! You rejecteed the authority of religion, which I can see as a plausible option. You have an understanding of God as a God Who rejoices in the return home of a lost coin,(some objecct of value) lost sheep(who blindly exists without self awareness or need of repentence) and a Prodigal Son, taken from the story in Luke. Lets examine your claim that the Father would accept the son even with wild women on his arm and cigarettes in his mouth:Perhaps the Father would. My point is that in this family, relationship was biological, spiritual, and unconditional. The Father and the son were brought back together into communion through an initiation by the son\ to return home. Without that initiation, the son would have remained lost.The son knows better than to bring home a concubine. (Look Father what I have purchased with my inheritance) If he once smoked, he has enough respect for his Father that he wo0uldnt have a cigarette. He knows that the decision to accept him is entirely the Fathers choice.My argument with you is the idea that anyone can simply waltz back home, perhaps even Satan included, and be accepted into Heaven with no strings attached. I am arguing that it isn't that easy to take Dad for granted. If you wanted to bring your spare change accepting, homeless drinking buddies with you to meet Dad, you might try and show respect for Dad first.What you are telling me is that Dad (God) would accept any lost sheep back home with no strings attached. I agree on the behalf of the love of the Father, but I disagree that anyone should return home carrying the weight of the sins they found in the world. For the Prodigal, what separated him from Dad was his own rebellious entitled nature. He dropped that before daring to return.

It sounds like you're saying that the human father was a better father than God. We don't know that. By analogy with the shepherd and the lost sheep, he might well have gone looking for his son. There is nothing in the story about repentence. The son planned to confess to his father that he had sinned but his father came running to meet him before he could do it. Clearly the father didn't care how his son came home as long as he came home. The story doesn't even hint at that. You're making it up. No, he didn't expect his father to accept him at all. He only wanted to go back as a servant because his father's servants had food. Your argument is with Jesus. The parable is exceedingly clear that that's exactly the situation. What strings were attached to the sheep? No he didn't. Read the story.And while you're reading it, notice that the obedient son is the one who is angry at his father, who thinks his father has handled the situation wrong, who thinks his brother should not be rewarded. Does he remind you of anybody?

Almost, but not quite.Add the qualifier "and God created everything" and you're right.But if God (or "something/someone" in general) did not create our choices, then they could be all-powerful, and all-knowing and we can still have choice.For example:First, let's assume we have choice in order to explain what I'm talking about.3 days ago, I made a choice to buy pink lemonade instead of regular white lemonade.
If you were to look at this history of this choice from 3-days ago, it would be viewed as if I was "following a script."
-but, the choice was created by me, I chose what I wanted... but, if it was recorded, anyone could view the script-looking history and see the choice I made.Let's take this knowledge and apply it to the possibility of an all-powerful, all-knowing God:
-it requires a definition clarification: "all-knowing" is encompassed to the universe we live within" - does not necessarily encompass outside of our universe
-in the same way we say "gravity affects all things" - it is encompassed to the universe we live within, it does not necessarily encompass outside of our universe
-to an all-powerful, all-knowing God... it doesn't matter if the choice I make was 3-days ago or 3-days in the future, it all "looks like a script" to Him, and He could see all the choices we make in our entire lives.The obvious question is: how are they "the choices we make" without God knowing them, if God knows everything?
-If God does not know all the choices we are going to make, then makes the universe, and only then "can see the future of the universe (and all resulting choices we're going to freely make within that universe)"
-This gives us a universe where we freely make all our choices, and God knows what all those choices will be past/present/future... but it's still US who make the choice, as there was a moment (before the universe was created) where God did not know what we would choose.It's all in the definition of "all-knowing"Any God who knows everything that has happened, and will happen within our universe certainly fits the bill of being "all-knowing"
-however, there needs to be a moment when God will not know what we will choose, in order for use to have free-choice
-place this moment before the creation of our universe... and all requirements are fulfilled:God is all-knowing, all-powerful and we have free choice.Of course, I don't believe in God at all... but that doesn't mean such an idea is impossible to imagine.