Free will vs Omniscience

And I would argue that true freewill was settled on the plane of the Angelic Realm. (Yes, you can charge it as being made up)
Angels had and have a onetime freewill choice. Humans were designed to have total freedom to choose and re-choose again. Repentance is a gift. Only a fallen angel would properly do things repeatedly that they knew to be properly bad. Humans can become oppressed and arguably even possessed with such tendencies...and I know that you label all so-called demonic oppression as actually and entirely a mental illness, which I will not argue with...I've no real desire to promote Satan. In fact, Mr.Tangle...even though you are an atheist and think no more about angels on the head of a pin than you do hottentots in a bushel of yarn, I would argue that in your Catholic upbringing you got an extra dose of the awareness of God. The fact that you dont even think about it is irrelevant. The only question left on our philosophical table now is the fate of atheists since birth and pagans of other beliefs.You will again ask me rhetorically why my belief is the correct one, and I wont be able to tell you. I do have a scripture for it though: Thus your argument that only a psychopath could kill their Mother is essentially correct in my mind also. The main difference now between you and I is that I think some things are caused by intrinsic evil and willful and continued autonomy which leads to blasphemy of the holy spirit whereas you simply label it all as mental illness.

That's a slippery slope for sure. Critics could and do say that the United Sates has been wrong for 100 years, Marshall Plan notwithstanding. Others may argue that our empire and imposition on others was the lesser of two evils.The Charismaniacs predict a one world government that is humanist, good and noble on the outside yet evil at its core (by denying Christ and seeking to replace Him with God knows what) and fair on the surface yet oppressive in actuality. On the other end of the political spectrum we have a scientifically measured global warming crises that will also lead to war\s and competition among nations and peoples unless some sort of consensus towards global cooperation is found. I honestly think that both extremes have common ground.

We have yet to see the effects on a global scale. And answer me this. Which will be the defining perception of government in such a scenario: Authority or Autonomy? You only get to pick one.

And I might add a second question. If authority is necessary to maintain order, will religion someday be outlawed due to its effect on social order? What would be the possible authority thus represented apart from consensual authority granted by the people upon themselves? Is that not in actuality global autonomy?

I want to discuss these ideas more fully after work.
For reference, I am currently reading The Conflict Between Authority and Autonomy by Robert Wolfe, in which he evidently proposes logic behind anarchy.

Way back in this topic, Message 127, ringo and I were arguing about the idea of God knowing whether or not a person would end up on His side or not.
Looking back on the arguments which I made, I have kept one of them: Message 119... and stand by it as an intrinsic part of my belief in Gods foreknowledge, omnipotance, and allowing for evil (for a time) as part of the overall plan.
jar brought up one of his standard arguments regarding Gods responsibility regarding ultimate foreknowledge. Message 118.

quote:

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But neither of you are asking "What did the God do?" and that is the issue.

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The God created the human and if that God had foreknowledge that that creation would be damned regardless of whether or not the creation had freewill, then that God is vile and evil.

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What the person does and whether or not it is done through freewill is totally irrelevant.

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It is only the acts of the God that are relevant.

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Lets assume for a moment that my basic belief is correct in that God had foreknowledge of what Lucifer would decide to do and therefore so loved the world that He sent His Son (even before Lucifer chose to rebel) and essentially made an endrun around the devils plot to ensnare humanity through tricking them into willfully accepting the knowledge of good and evil which made them responsible for every good thing and every evil thing which they knowingly chose to do. In this case, God is not responsible for our free will nor on whether we accept Jesus or not(and assuming that to be the antidote for being tricked by Satan)I know that Tangle is simply dismissing all of this religious hoopla, but I might point out that he would follow the hypothetical maths which "prove" that the universe sprang from nothing. He is thus responsible for the belief that he chooses regarding origins, meaning, and destiny.

You have said before that satan is essentially a plot device and is us. If satan were an intrinsic representation of the whole idea of autonomy from the Holy Spirit and if angels were given a onetime decision to accept or reject such a condition, satan would fit well withing a lot of stories of human misery. My question now is:
If God foreknew that Lucifer would choose to rebel and set up a dualistic good/evil paradigm that would impact human decisions and human events during the entire history of humanity on planet earth, would He be responsible for allowing even the possibility for one of his angelic beings to break free from the monistic authority of a loving Oneness God?

You have stated before that you believe GOD to be "complete" rather than simply "good". I might point out that God and His fallen angel together are in a sense "complete" but that God is eternally good.

I would argue several beliefs:

Hell was never created as a repository for humans. Hell was allowed to exist as a product of the free will of the fallen Archangel Lucifer. Hell is a place where Gods Spirit is absent. The cosmic battle between good and evil started when the fallen Arch Angel became jealous of humans. Critics will say that these religious beliefs are likely false mainly due to the fact that they anthropomorphize God (through Jesus Christ) as human and that this proves that humans made it all up. On the other hand, the very idea that a Creator of all seen and unseen even bothers with such a seemingly insignificant life form as humans can be very humbling, awe inspiring, and powerful for he who has an ear to hear.

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God never sends anyone to Hell except Lucifer who had to go there due to rebellion against the Holy Spirit. God is exclusive in this respect. Humans only end up in Hell (or apart from God eternally) through a lifetime of choices. We ultimately choose Hell by default due to our insistence on being left alone to grow up our own chosen way and in denial of the need for the Holy Spirit and Communion. If ringo means to suggest that he could live with a God who let him do his own thing eternally, he has the spirit of the antichrist whether he believes it or not. I think that ringo knows better, however. He just hates submitting to authority.

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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

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.

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.

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

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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.

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.