This is Directed at Iano primarily, and intended to discuss the notion of free will. But obviously anyone who shares his views are welcome to respond.
Iano's viewpoint is that Free will is what makes us human, and within the confines of his belief system, If God were to make himself known to us in an explicit, undeniable way, this free will would be taken from us, as we would have no choice other than to believe.
my thoughts are as follows:
- It is my belief that if the Xian doctrine is to be believed, God is all knowing, and outside of time. He knows what will happen, what has happened, and what is happening. Therefore any notion of free will is a myth. We are merely playing out what is inevitable. Given this Predestination, I have the illusion of choice, but in truth there is only one path which can be followed, the one which Your God can see and knows to be true.
- It is my understanding that freedom to chose requires having ALL THE RELEVANT INFORMATION to make that choice. INFORMATION.. not hearsay, not stories, not ancient questionable texts. REAL INFORMATION. If god made himself undeniably known to us we would then have the CHOICE to accept or reject him.. 'Free will' still intact, this should be no problem to you. (Or does your 'free will' only apply to choosing to believe without evidence?
Does this mean that you have now lost your free will given that you have been saved and have had undeniable evidence of god?)
-You yourself state and have stated that in our fallen condition we are UNABLE to discern information or evidence correctly,
i.e. We cannot make the correct choices without God making them for us (Deciding to save us).Even if God made himself known to each and everyone of us, your teachings state that we are unable to choose because we are fallen or flawed. If you give 'free will' to a person who is unable to properly excercise that free will, what freedom do they really have?
to summarise: (the engineer in me likes to strip things down to the important points)
1) Free will is an Illusion, since God knows what will happen, what choices we will make.
2) Without the relevant information to make an informed choice our 'Free will' is not free at all.
3) Without the ability to even discern what information is correct (due to our 'fallen state'), free will is irrelevant, pointless, wasted. and point 2 doesn't even come into play.
I would appreciate a straight answer to these points. I have raised these points many times and the usual tactics come straight into play: dodge/weave/analogise/distract.
You analogise using the blind man story, and ignore the obvious gaping holes in this analogy.
If you choose to respond to this post I would appreciate as direct as possible responses to these three points. Please leave out the parent-child analogies, please leave out the leading question as a response tactics. simply address the points. And if your response is going to be along the lines of "well we couldn't possibly understand what god's plan is" don't bother... please.)
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