Free will vs Omniscience

you have sucessfully made a word salad of your own.

The only flaw in your hypothetical is that *we* were not around before God nor even in the beginning with God. Here is what gets me. The basic argument, if I have it down correctly in my thinking, is that for God to be all-knowing limits our free will to His foreknowledge, thus rendering our free will moot.But I dont see how. Lets use an example:
JOE: If God *knows* what I will choose at 9 am tomorrow, I do not havee a choice in that I am bound by Gods omniscience.
FRED: How does this limit your choice? After all, you DID choose what the outcome ends up being anyway did you not?
JOE: Yes, but how could I choose any other way?
FRED: But the point is that it is irrelevant what God knows. You still made your choice.

That sounds like an argument that a hypothetical Satan would have used to convince God to let him have his own reality. What you are basically saying is that you want the right to make a choice that God cannot foreknow. Agree?

I see myself there, though I'm not mad at the Father. I do get a bit miffed at shoplifters that steal and feel that the need justifies the end. Why cant they play by the rules? I rebuke them in the name of Jesus if I catch them leaving with stolen items. I cant do anything to stop them but I can and will make their demons uncomfortable.

Not at all. Personally I think that every harmful and bad habit that we have is inspired by the "other" spirit. You can laugh all you want at the existence of demons, but whether they are real or whether they are independent attitudes of rebellion, they will flee in the presence of Gods unconditional love.The reason I argue with you about this is because you seem to think we can keep "them" and that God will accept us and them back home. But it is only we who end up back home.

I see your point, thought I understand it by attempting to understand the Godhead in Trinitarian Monotheism. Ellis Potter got me thinking more about the Trinity when I read his book, Three Theories Of Everything/
jar teaches that the Bible tells us that God was portrayed as imperfect in the sense that early humans often corrected Him in scripture. Jesus too was portrayed as fallible in that He let His human traits out rarely but scriptural(ly).The reason that I dont agree with this basic premise is because i disagree that the Bible was human derived. I disagree that the whole story was/is mythos and human attempts at understanding ourselves, God, and the world we live in.I see the point, however. I would believe that way had I not met God and become aware of his reality.God has eternally existed. He imagined/created our reality long before we were around (through evolution or creation) and able to describe Him. Stop and think.
1) We still choose (in time) our decisions. Obviously there are some things we do not choose...they just happen to us. What I said before, however, is that if my belief paradigm is true in that there is a Creator of all seen and unseen, the question is if it is even possible to relate (commune) with such a Presence. I believe that there is a possibility in Jesus Christ. The all-consuming power that created the universe is not some Hawking math/calculus problem...it is God.Many questions follow after my line of thought. Lets address yours.I can see God being the inventor/Creator. I do not see myself as an android. Explain why I would be?

Some would consider it fair in that God would let us keep our free will and still be called sons and daughters. This gets into the idea that God (being the fair One that He is) would save everybody rather than picking and choosing. Right?I believe that God offers to save everybody but places the onus on them to accept or reject the Communion. I agree with you that His love is unconditional. He loves all people...believers, Muslims, Spaghetti Monstertarians, Atheists, and Canuckistanian Evidentialists.You claim that "the devil" or Satan is a reflection of our own inner urges. The battle is within ourselves. We become the decisions that we make. While i agree with that to an extent, I maintain that there is such a thing as a regenerated soul and a changed nature. I believe that there is a spiritual conflict. Yin and Yang co-exist yet dont get along.

Good questions. I just heard a podcast that got me thinking also.

Is Faith In God A Crutch? If nothing else, read the transcript and tell me if any of it spurs you on to further questions also.

I have come around to semi-agreeing with this philosophy. One of the prime arguments that we have here (primarily between jar, ringo, and I)is the whole idea of "waiting on God, praying, and trusting in God to inspire,motivate and equip you vs simply going out and getting the job done. I see value in both disciplines. The main reason that people don't see any need for God to exist, be relevant in their lives, or a necessary Head of a Spiritual Body of Believers is (in my opinion) because unbelievers can't conceive of the fact(for us) that He is indeed real. Your side will attempt to scientifically explain away the feelings that we believers havee that for us verify His presence. That all being said, I do respect my opponents position that Jesus was the messenger of a very humane, Spirit Filled and sensible message and ringo will argue that it is only the message that is important to follow and do. In his mind, the "messenger" could have just as well been Fred Flintstone.

Oops, something lostScroll down and the transcript is at the bottom.

You know, ringo, your brother jar from Deep South Texas always pins me to the wall with the charge that I embrace "bumper sticker theology" with scriptural soundbites taken "pieces parts out of context". This implies that you and he are more orthodox through simply reporting what the written Bible says and not adding my private interpretations to it. As a budding apologist myself, I challenge your charge. But thats another topic. My point here is that "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" could also be construed as a bumper sticker gleaned from the early young ringos formation of his world views in context of the times he grew up in.See...I'm not afraid to use "bumper stickers", scriptural quotes, or philosophically adding my own words when talking of the Bible and what I believe that it means. I respect your honesty in Message 982 and I think I understand your point about being held back by a thin social fence. Thats why I worry a bit about the shoplifters.(off topic I know but you know our other arguments) I'm quite honestly scared that in their increasing desperation they will sink the ship that is keeping me afloat. But thats another topic. (Tangle, I also appreciate your honesty. I love you guys. You sometimes make some very good posts. I particularly respect the honesty.Getting back on topic here....So when I read your "bumper sticker" the following thought process ensued:
" How do I answer ringo? That phrase sounds so 60's and so represeentative of the social change of those times! Let me look up the phrase and see what people think in other contexts." So I did. Let me present three of what I found on Quora:

quote:

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1) The proper line is Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose from the song Me And Bobby McGee sung by Janis Joplin and written by Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster.

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2)It means simply you have no other possessions but freedom, and you are essentially broke materialistically although not spiritually. However, in the context of the song it has a dual meaning. At the time it was written there were many free spirits who believed in either free love or not being tied down with the conventions of having only one meaningful lifetime relationship and only one partner. With the advent of the Pill, women and growing equality between the sexes, women had the freedom to pick and choose lovers rather than it typically being the man who did that in the paternalistic society the Sixties were waking up from. So what the song means in that context is something bittersweet: Bobbie may be the kind of free spirited woman who would hitchhike around the country with a guy, tramping about with without any possessions, or even really wanting any, but that freedom of spirit also means she has nothing to lose by changing lovers, or leaving her current situation searching for a new experience. The singer understands thatalthough he obviously is in love with her, he knows the freedom they share means she will likely be moving on. Also, although Janis Joplin covered the song very well, she did not write it. It was originally about a girl not a boy.
3)I’m sure there’s more than one viewpoint on this and by no means do I think mine’s the best, however; Me and Bobby McGee happens to be my all time favorite song, I thought I’d give it a shot.
I think it’s important to take the next line of the song into account when looking for the meaning. The next line is nothin’ don’t mean nothin’ honey if it ain’t free. I think Janis Joplin is referring to love and my take on it is that a person should give themself completely over to love, without trying to keep a tight hold on it. but The love is meaningless if the other person doesn’t have the ability to choose whether to love back. A love where one of the people feels trapped into it, isn’t love.

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It’s kind of like that old saying If you love something, set it free, if it doesn’t return.. In the song, Janis loves Bobby McGee, but knows that unless he’s free to choose to love her back, the love wouldn’t mean anything.

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So, Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose is, in my opinion, that you should love with abandonment while letting the person you love be free to love you in return.

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Now you can see how I think. But you are the original author using the phrase in this context. So in answering Tangle, what specifically did you mean?

This soundbite is what got me thinking about those shoplifters again. I have many stories. But they are for another topic.

It is my understanding that Christians can sin and still do sin after they are "saved". By definition, being saved equates to becoming in communion with the Holy Spirit vs simply knowing about the concept. I do not believe that everyone is born "saved". Critics may say that one turnoff they have about Christianity is the idea of exclusivity. I will argue that the only real exclusivity is the exclusivity of the Holy Spirit over all other spirits, gods, and ideologies.But we all are capable of doing anything. Tangle argues that we are not, and I can see his argument also. I would never think of harming a child. I would never think of punching my 97 year old mother in the face. I will amit that when some arrogant or uncaring adult cuts me off in traffic, I am thinking of what I want to do to them for at least a few seconds after they violate my space---but I have never engaged in road rage. I think that the main difference between being saved and unsaved is the degree of awareness. An unsaved person sees no more awareness towards the spaghetti monster than they do Jesus or Allah. They may, however, lean towards the evidence based trust in science. Science is useful in the materialistic plane. It can critically evaluate anything you use the methodology towards.Perhaps this is why jar advocates throwing God away. He, like ringo, sees the message as the main thing rather than the messenger. I do not see it this way.(Or Him)

True. And being that we are in a Faith & Belief Forum, reality can include the philosophy of the belief. The jury is forever out on whether belief equates to objective reality.Two points.

When Lucifer chose autonomy rather than obedience, he lost any free will that he once had. One reason is is because he is not free to be God. At best, he can fool people into thinking that he is (or that they are). Thus in regards to human free will, we are also limited in that we can not decide to do or be something or somebody that God is unaware that we will choose to pursue.

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I really want you to at least see this scripture the way that I do. Everyone is obviously free to disagree with my interpretation.

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Rev 1:4-5 writes:

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Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits before his throne, 5 and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, the firstborn from the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth.

If John wrote Revelation, he would have known the incarnate Christ as well as the Spirit which essentially represents the crucified Christ alive forever.

Rev 1:8 writes:

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"I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty."

Was before time began and before the very universe was formed/created. Was before our imaginations. Is eternally.

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Rev 1:17-18 writes:

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"Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.

Do not be afraid. Fear not. For God has not given us a spirit of fear but (a Spirit) of power, love, and a sound mind. Tangle and ringo might argue that any God, character named Jesus, and Spirit are in fact limited to the book. Thus, God, Jesus, and the Spirit are products of the mind of the author. I would disagree, citing the very book itself in saying that Jesus was with God in the Beginning and through Him all things were created. All universes. All books. And all humans with their own imaginations. Potter helped me to be able to better describe my beliefs.

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What jar, ringo and others cant understand but most definitely don't believe is that there is a remnant within mainstream Christianity...perhaps no more than 20%, who are in Communion with the Spirit(the comforter) of the living God (alive in the sense that the Son lives eternally and that a human understands what life and death are. ) Thus God never died but Jesus did. God is beyond terms like life and death but Jesus isn't. Jesus is essentially Gods character incarnate. Keep in mind, however, that there are some things that only the Father (GOD Creator of all seen and unseen) knows that the Son refers to His Father on. As Potter would say, Jesus is 100% humanity and 100% divinity. Whether or not all humans will rise from the dead is yet to be seen, but we think that some will go unto eternal life and some will die, just as the branches cut from the vine that produced no fruit died and are burned.

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Now Sarah...granted this is simply my belief. I wont stand on a soapbox and tell everyone that God told me anything nor will I listen to any one or group of apologists in order to mimic their message. My intuition plus my reading and study allow me to form my belief, and it is highly insulting when some critically thinking skeptic such as jar comes along and attempts to discredit any validity beyond claiming I merely make shit up. His message is not received by many at all, and appeals only to fellow evidence based critical thinking skeptics who likely will remain skeptics and never take the step of faith to bec ome believers out of fear of appearing ridiculous to themselves or others. The one encouragement that I have for him and them is that God likely will weigh the evidence just as Judge Caprio does in Providence RI and accept them anyway.

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"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain "
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We must realize that the Reformation world view leads in the direction of government freedom. But the humanist world view with inevitable certainty leads in the direction of statism. This is so because humanists, having no god, must put something at the center, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state.- Francis A. Schaeffer

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The whole war between the atheist and the theist comes down to this: the atheist believes a 'what' created the universe; the theist believes a 'who' created the universe.
- Criss Jami, Killosophy

Some Christians claim that we are all born sinners, but I ask that we examine the mind of a baby. At first, the baby is entirely dependent on her Mother to feed, clothe, soothe, provide for, and quiet. Mother and Dad represent a benign and acceptable authority that the Baby can trust. This is why babies and children from broken homes can become psychotic and unstable in life because they had no initial stability. In Genesis, Adam and Eve were like children. They initially had the stabilizing presence of God and basked in the security of that authority. As children grow, they also have a desire for autonomy. In order to achieve this, they must fight the authority in their environment. Some would argue that authority and autonomy are as natural as yin and yang, but I do not believe this to be the best state of affairs. No man is an island, and humans were never meant to be autonomous from either God, each other, or our societal structure of family, government, and community. Now you all know my theory and take on Revelation and the introduction of The Beast as a counterpoint to God. I believe that there is a cosmic war of sorts...not simply a dualism of opposites which is the natural order. In the link that I was sharing with PRC, the author alluded to the idea that God represented more than just another choice on the shelf. ( according to Catholic Author Mark Brumley who wrote Aquinas Proves Atheists Are Closer to God Than They Think )
he mentions Aquinas understanding of a God Who exists as a Being Outside Of All Others.

quote:

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It may seem obvious to say that a Christian or even a generic theist is someone who says, God exists, and an atheist is someone who says, God does not exist. However, the traditional Christian (even the mere theist) wants to say more things about God, things that affect the use of the word exist as applied to God. Here is where Thomas comes in. When he says, God exists, he doesn’t mean by exist exactly the same thing that he means when he says, Rome exists or Jupiter exists or even, I exist.

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There are, says Thomas, things that receive their existence, that are dependent for their existence. I exist because my parents existed; I received my existence from them. That mountain exists because the earth exists and certain geological principles exist that go into the formation of mountains. And so on.

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Not everything, argues Thomas, can be a receiver of existence. Something (or Someone) must exist in its (his) own right, and not because of something else. Otherwise, there would be no existence to be passed on by the all various receivers of existence we encounter in the world around us. That something which (or Someone who) exists in its (his) own right and not as dependent on another is God. He, says Thomas, simply is, with the fullness of all that the word is can contain. This is why God is called the Supreme Being. Lesser beings are dependent for their existence on others. Not so God.

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I have just summarized one of Thomas’s arguments for God’s existence. Whatever you make of it, my point here is to focus on the kind of existence that Thomas says God has, not on Thomas’s argument for God’s existence. God’s kind of existence is uncaused and independent. That is why Thomas can say that God is to be thought of as existing outside the realm of existents (Commentary on Aristotle’s Peri Hermeneias, 1.14). That does not mean it is right to say, There is no God. If we use the word existent to refer to beings that get their existence or are dependent for it on another or others, then it is right to say that God is outside the realm of existents. Indeed, God, in this view, would be the cause of existence, the reason there is something rather than nothing. Yes, there is a perfectly good sense in which we must speak of God as existing, but, as Thomas would quickly add, God’s existence is radically different from the existence of everything else.

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Only God Truly Exists
Davies says we can look at the same truth from a different angle. If we want to use the word exists for God’s kind of existence, then everything that is not God can be said to exist only in a qualified way. The atheist, in such a scenario, is as wrong as he can be. For he says that God does not exist, but if we use the word exist in the fullest possible sense of the word, then only God exists. Other beings can be said to have existencethey get their existence from something else. Only God fully exists, only God is existence; that is, only God exists by nature. Only God is not dependent on anything or anyone else for his existence. He simply is.

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So if we want to talk about God using the word exists in the way we use it of everything else, the daily objects of our experience, then we can say, God does not exist. That is, he does not exist as dependent, as receiving his existence from somewhere else, the way everything else does. If we want to take God’s way of existing uncaused, independent, not received full existence, then we must say that nothing but God exists, because everything else is caused, has existence as dependent, and received, etc.

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The atheist would be on to something when he says, God does not exist if he meant by exist that God is a being or object like all the beings and objects of our immediate experience in the universe. That God does not exist.

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It goes on...And Stile, I know that the argument is only acceptable within the realm of philosophy and not so much within scientific materialism, but it is an attempt by humans to eloquently argue for belief over materialistic rationality.

Edited by Phat, .