Free will vs Omniscience

In one sense, "well duh". God created all things seen and unseen and is thus responsible for everything. My answer is so what? You still owe Him a choice. I beg your pardon?You are the one who thinks you can label Him fiction, live your life your own darn way like the old hippie you are, die without believing He exists, and then at the same time telling us that our God is wrong and that your God would accept you home without casting any of those stubborn little sixties ideological kum ba yah demons of all inclusiveness and everybody is welcome home at the Fictitious Fathers house as they are....no strings attached. You despise exclusivity. I despise inclusivity. I am the older son bitching at Dad for letting your deadbeat self back in the house and killing the fatted calf that I wanted for my entitlement meal. Sheeesh.You still owe Dad a choice. Are you gonna stay independent from His will or are you gonna shape up and swallow your leftist ideological pride? I am reminded of some of these homeless people who think that we all owe them a meal.

Christian God is all powerful by definition.An all powerful God does not mean He wants to know or to control your every choices.

Both are technically easily accomplished. That's your interpretation not mine.My claim is that, for instance, you are incapable of killing a baby just because you feel like it today. If that is the case, you need to explain how you think you have free will. This is not about after the fact regret, I'm saying that you can't actually do it can you? It's not 'morally difficult to choose', you can not do it (without qualifiers). Or can you?This is not an academic question, it's a practical, pragmatic one. Bollox. So our freedom to act varies by individual. Which is exactly what I say. Our free will is bounded and only the psychopath are able to operate entirely freely - if they so wish. The clever ones don't of course, because there are social consequences.Empathy constrains our freedom to do evil.

Why? Yes. There is nothing inconsistent or complex about that. It's what Jesus said. You're the one who has to jump through hoops, as I said, to make that simple message into your evil theology. So does God. See the story of the prodigal son. Yes, it's clear that you despise the message. Why? I'm not an ideologue. We do. We're all our brothers' keeper. We're all responsible for the well-being of the least of these.

Because He is more than a fictitious character in a book. The fact that you can't see this or grasp the implication is one big reason why you have no business using the words of the book to support your evil theology. (see what I did there? Now I must defend the idea that much of Leftist Philosophy is noble on the surface yet evil in practice) Oh so *my* Theology is evil because it is exclusivist, right?:
But its what Jesus said. Now granted you can make a case that simply doing the message will in fact allow for anyone to "know Jesus" and thus know God.In fact, it would be nice if you did so, rather than continually braying on about how God does not exist, how the Holy Spirit does not exist and how Jesus was nothing more than an Elmer Gantry message boy sent to give the socialists a useful message for a humanist society. Picking and choosing which stories support your Leftist interpretation of the "message" will not work when you consider the characters as limited to the book, fictitious, and that the message alone has value. The message and the messenger are inseparable, and in researching scriptures with which to argue aginst your inclusivity I found that you are right about some things. I think you are wrong about the characters being limited to the book, the message having value while Jesus becomes nothing more than a human envelope, and the stories being logical yet fictitious. I know you, though. You will fire this one back at me: Thus in trying to defend exclusivity I am finding scripture that supports inclusiveness. So you are right in that the issue is not black and white. Its both inclusive and exclusive. God has a way of doing this to me sometimes. Here I go and try to find scripture that supports exclusivity and He points me towards scripture that supports inclusivity. Go figure.
Scriptures that support exclusivity:
1. Matthew 7:13-14-- Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.2. Luke 13:23-25-- Someone asked him, Lord, are only a few people going to be saved? He said to them. Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, ‘Lord, open to us,’ then he will answer you, ‘I do not know where you come from.’3. Isaiah 35:8 And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness; it will be for those who walk on that Way. The unclean will not journey on it; wicked fools will not go about on it.

That's not an answer. On the contrary, the book supports what I say and condemns what you say. That's how we can tell that your reading of the book is wrong. Yes. You went back in time to when you were five years old by saying, "I know you are but what am I?" It's Jesus' philosophy that you're calling evil. Yes. I have done, which is why you admit the case can be made. Well, I shouldn't have to continually repeat the obvious truth to you but you continually deny, deny, deny without making a case FOR your evil theology. There's no picking and choosing involved. If you can support another reading of the message, do it. You need to learn that fiction has value. We can learn from fiction - but not if we confuse it with reality. Nope. Still false, no matter how often you repeat it. And you know it - you don't throw your mail away and keep the envelopes. So why are you still so arrogant in claiming that I'm wrong about everything (and "evil" to boot)? Of course you are - because that's what it says. No, I have not recognized any exclusivity. None of your quotes support exclusivity.The "broad road that leadeth to destruction" is the "mainstream" theology that you keep touting. It's the theology of the Pharisees.Note that when Jesus was asked if only a few would get to heaven, He didn't say yes. He told people to choose the hard way, the way of blood, sweat, toil and tears.If anybody is to be excluded, it's the exclusvists.

But suppose the super-smart being makes the prediction before the events happen? Suppose, a billion years ago, before any recording was made of any actions of any humans, the super-smart being could look at the trajectory of every atom in the universe and predict what was going to happen?If the super-smart being could do this before the evolution of humans, then how could it be said the humans had free will and were not just following a mechanical trajectory like the planets in their orbits?

To such a deity the universe is nothing but a clockwork, atoms moving in precisely defined trajectories. There is no more "free will" for humans, who are collections of atoms, than there is for the planets following their orbits.

Scripture actually supports your hypothetical position somewhat, though the overall process is more than simply mechanical. Whether or not He knows the trajectory your life will take, perhaps the issue is whether or not you accept your destiny.Edited by Phat, : spelling

Perhaps.But it seems illogical that the choice of a human (whatever it means to "accept" one's destiny) would affect the knowledge of a deity.

deletedEdited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

I see your logic, and apart from the scriptural understanding that I have regarding the character of such a Deity I too am clueless what A Creator of all seen and unseen would think.
Perhaps one key is that even if we cannot deny that God foreknows all things (a trait which makes Him evil according to some arguments) we must admit that we ourselves do not know our destiny. One may argue that it matters not what we do since we are pre-programmed robots anyway, but I would argue that we can at least imagine that we can determine our destiny and attempt to do so with all honesty and passion.Lets re-examine jar and ringos favorite scripture: 1) God knows who the sheep are and who the goats are. They themselves do not know to which group they belong.
2) God informs them that they are sheep (or goats) because they did what they did. Thus, even if He foreknew their destiny, they chose their destiny based on what they did in this life.One cannot say that they didn't know what to do. We become the decisions we make.We are not mindless zombies living out a pre-planned script. We ourselves are writing the script as we live day by day. Whether God sees the finished script before we write it out in time, we are still the ones doing the choosing.Note how he says to the sheep, Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. Does that mean that the sheep were foreknown to be sheep without the responsibility of their choosing their actions?Edited by Phat, : No reason given.Edited by Phat, : No reason given.

Phat, you still refuse to even consider what you post and so post stuff that is simply silly. The reason the god you and the Apologists market and worship is so evil and despicable and vile and unworthy of anything but scorn is not what the individuals do or don't do, it is what you say your god did.Is the god you worship and market the creator of all that is, seen and unseen?Does your god have foreknowledge?Stop dancing and playing the Apologist palm the pea con.Is the god you worship and market the creator of all that is, seen and unseen?Does your god have foreknowledge?Edited by jar, : deplorable ----> despicable just to keep the Word Nazi happy.

The God I believe in is not one whom I "market." The God I believe in is the God over your mind as well as mine.

So once again you simply tap dance, palm the pea, try to con the rubes.Is the god you worship and market the creator of all that is, seen and unseen?Does your god have foreknowledge?