Free will: an illusion

Sour wrote: The Scriptures claim that God came down to earth (the incarnation of Christ) and after dying for the sins of the world, gave testimony to his Deity (not to mention power) by resurrecting himself just as He predicted...So I think that God might consider it something of an insult to say that he offers no evidence of his existence when He proved himself quite powerfully and then left his witness with his disciples and the Church...and if that weren't enough, Romans 1:19-20 says

quote:

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Since what may be known about God is plain to them because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse

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So first God gave the revelation of nature - which according to Paul leaves men "without excuse"...But if that weren't enough...God manifested himself to us through his Son, tangibly in a finite way, at a specific moment in history, at a specific place..etc...In now way then, have God's interactions with man been the least bit ambiguous and to claim such is to poke God in the eye..Believing God does not exist will never make it so...especially when his own Word tells us the contrary...

ramoss wrote: I think you're confusing pre-knowledge (foreknowledge) with pre-determination (pre-destination)...just because something is fore-known does not make it pre-destined...

Sure, anyone can write anything and claim it to be true...but it may in fact be...and if the Bible is in fact true and therefore God has revealed himself to man...how can it be said that he hasn't? Does God need to hit you with lightning before you believe? what criteria would you set in order to believe God's (or a god's) revelation to man?

I don't see why that matters...my point is that fore-knowledge can't be equated with pre-destination...that's all

Let's try that again..what proof would be sufficient to you that God exists? what form do you need...an e-mail? an auto biography? maybe he needs a publicist? what?

Fine, we're veering off topic and this will be the last I have to say but how circular can your reasoning be? your proof that God exists is his existence?! THAT really answers the question, thanks...

The point is not that I'm claiming that something exists which you have no way of proving otherwise...all i'm asking is since people want to reject the proof of God that exists, then, hypothetically speaking (since none of the actual proof is sufficient), what proof or what type of proof would be required for you to believe in God's existence...Trite answers like "if God existed it would be obvious" don't cut it - and they certainly don't conform to the "scientific" standard that supposedly is so highly esteemed around here...

Which is?

Sorry 'bout that..I missed it...I think you're missing the distinction between the two words...Foreknowledge is NOT Predestination - even if it's hard for you to imagine; just because someone sees an event prior to its occurence it does not follow that that person caused the event...

OKScenario A:God is omnipotent, creates mankind, but doesn't know whether they will "accept" or "reject" him...they have free will...
You would agree that they truly have the option to choose, correct?Scenario B:Same as above except that God knows in advance who will accept and who will reject him...how does his knowing this in advance become a causal agent for determining who will reject and accept him?

I disagree..God creating men knowing the choices they will make - and going further than that, choosing to create men that he knows will make a specific choice, in no way negates their will in choosing that choice...Knowing what choices will be made does not equal making those choices for someone...

Maybe not, but that's true whether God knows that in advance or not...

What do you mean, does free will "include" eternal damnation for those that choose not to believe? Eternal damnation is the punishment for not believing, according to the Bible, regardless of whether the mechanism for not believing is free-will or predestination...

OK, everyone seems to be looking at God's foreknowledge as a hurt to free-will rather than as a boon to God...Let's look back at life from the end viewpoint...we'll use the hypothetical end of my life in hopefully many decades...at the end of my life I will have made thousands of decisions - small, large, HUGE, ones, that ultimately affect the course of my life...I could have made other decisions affecting the ultimate outcome - perhaps an inifinite number of different outcomes...Once I've finished my life, there's no going back...each decision that I have made is done with for all eternity - I can't undo them...they're permanent...Now let's suppose that someone on this forum who I never met in life knew the entire course of my life before I made a single decision...Granted in this world we can't conceive of anyone who has the ability to know that, but if that person in fact existed, would their pre-knowledge of my decisions have any affect on my decisions? No..they would not...that person's pre-knowledge of my life would have absolutely no impact on the decisions that I make...Am I free to make my own decisions? sure, but then that person's preknowledge of those decisions would reflect those decisions that I actually make in life...Think about it this way: It's as if the event is the cause and the foreknowledge is the effect....except the foreknowledge temporally comes first...but not causally...

Certainly, you've given me free-will within a specific context...as is all free will...Why is all free will within a specific context? because we live in a physical world with physical laws governing it...I may want a million dollars to magically appear but I can't manifest that as reality...If I am driving and the cops pull me over i have two choices: stop, or run...my choices are constrained by a reality not of my own making...still the choice is mine