Predestination and Free Will

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

This thread is a revision of the thread linked below – anything in the old thread that conflicts with this new thread is null and void –

viewtopic.php?t=152740&start=0

Predestination and Free Will

I start off asking a question for the purpose of introducing concepts in its answer: freedom and determinism: compatible or incompatible? Ultimately, though, the question is: predestination and free will… either/or… or both/and? It will be shown that determinism and predestination are different concepts – this is a key difference between this thread and the old thread.

Freedom and determinism: compatible or incompatible?

Defining freedom:

Incompatibilist freedom: “there are no conditions prior to an action that determine that action,” (p. 195, Intro. to Philo.). Compatibilist freedom: “there can be conditions prior to an action sufficient to determine that action, and yet that action can be free,” (p. 195, ibid.).

Defining determinism:

Determinism: “theories about universal causation and total predictability … the belief that all events are governed by laws,” (pp. 194-195, ibid.). “By ‘determinists’ here we mean those who deny that in moral decisions we are free to do other than we do. A determinist, as opposed to a self-determinist, believes that all moral acts are not caused by ourselves but are caused by someone (or something) else,” (p. 31, Chosen But Free; CBF).

Different views:

The Two-Level Theory (reasons are not causes) “maintains that beliefs in determinism and free will are in some sense independent. … Reasons are essentially different from causes,” (204, Intro. to Philo.). I’m not really interested in going into this.

Hard Determinism (no free will) “applies to what we may call the physiological states and changes in our body such as height, weight, growth, pulse rate, and so forth, as well as to our purposive deliberative behavior. …If the hard determinist account of action is true, it is difficult to see how anyone can be responsible for his actions. The only basis of either praise or blame is to be found in its consequences. … One imagines that he deliberates, but that is exactly what it is, an imagination. … The hard determinist denies that any alternative action is causally possible. Every action is necessary,” (198, Intro. to Philo.).

Theological determinism – “the view that God ordains every event and situation; man does not have the capacity to choose or influence his own ultimate destiny,” (205, ibid).

Soft Determinism (compatibilist) claims “(1) determinism is true, and therefore events including human behavior, voluntary or otherwise, arise from antecedent conditions, making alternative kinds of behavior impossible; (2) voluntary behavior, however, is free to the degree that it is not performed under external compulsion; and (3) in the absence of external constraint the causes of voluntary actions may be traced to certain states, events, or conditions within the agent, namely his will or volitions, choices, decisions and/or desires,” (199, ibid). “Soft determinists assert that all that is necessary (to consider the will ‘free’) is that we have reasons, we decide, and we carry out decisions without external compulsion,” (201, ibid) (they deny contra-causal power).

Jonathan Edwards’ divine determinism – “Jonathan Edwards ‘solved’ the problem of predestination and free will by claiming that (1) free will is doing what we desire; (2) but God gives us the desire to do good,” (23, CBF). This does not solve the problem because it does not account for evil desires, which God cannot give.

R.C. Sproul – “In spite of the fact that his mentor, Jonathan Edwards, rejects the view of human freedom called self-determination, R.C. Sproul speaks of free will as ‘self-determination’ … but Sproul simply means it is not determined (caused) by anything external to itself. It is determined by things internal to itself, namely, by its nature. This is not what is meant in this discussion by a ‘self-determined action,’ which is one freely caused by the self (the I) without either external or internal constraint,” (21, CBF).

Simple Indeterminism (no determinism) contends that uncaused events are our free acts, not governed by any law, scientific or otherwise. “Some defenders … invoke Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty … the basis for the quantum theory in physics,” (201-201, Intro. to Philo.). However, “if we should conceive of a decision as utterly without any cause (this would in all strictness be the indeterministic presupposition) then the act would be entirely a matter of chance, for chance is identical with the absence of a cause; there is no other opposite of causality,” (393, Schlick*).

Libertarianism (self-determinism) asserts “that our free actions are neither caused by another (as in determinism) nor are they uncaused (as in indeterminism). Rather, they are self-caused. Hence, the view is sometimes called self-determinism because of the theory of personal agency. / A human being (person or self… even Hume presupposes the real existence of an ‘I’ or entity behind his impressions which gives unity to them) is sometimes, although admittedly not always, a self-determining being. We are, in other words, sometimes the cause of our own behavior (not causing our self, but causing our behavior). The libertarian holds that for an action to be free it must be caused by the agent who performs it, and it must be done in such a way that no antecedent conditions are sufficient for the performance of that act. If an action is both free and rational, the action must be done for a reason, although the reason is not the action’s cause. This means that we could always have done otherwise. At least two possibilities were live options. / This account of freedom is the only one which does justice to the deeply-ingrained intuition that we do have contra-causal power. Second, this view alone makes any sense of the activity of deliberation. All the positions examined to this point, so it is argued, really do not properly account for human deliberation,” (202-203, Intro. to Philo.).

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Predestination and free will… either/or… or both/and?

Geisler & Feinberg’s discussion on libertarianism (self-determinism) in “Intro. to Philo.” does not address the reality that “…our free actions are determined from the standpoint of God’s foreknowledge,” (45) as Geisler does in “Chosen But Free”. Chosen But Free compares extreme Calvinism, which sacrifices free will to save predestination, extreme Arminianism, which sacrifices predestination to save free will, and the preferred moderate Calvinism, which shows free will is compatible with predestination. In “Intro. to Philo” it is said that “libertarianism holds that determinism and freedom are incompatible,” (202). This is because there is a difference between the concept of determinism mentioned above, and the way the universe is actually determined (predestination).

Defining predestination compatible with free will:

“Whatever God foreknows must come to pass (i.e., is predetermined). … By ‘determined’ here we do not mean that the act is directly caused by God. It was caused by human free choice (which is a self-determined act). By ‘determined’ it is meant that the inevitability of the event was fixed in advance since God knew infallibly that it would come to pass. Of course, God predetermined that it would be a self-determined action. God was only the remote and primary remote cause. Human freedom was the immediate and secondary cause,” (44, CBF). Predestination “implies that God has actually determined (rather than simply saw) in advance the destiny of creatures,” (wikipedia). Consider that “God not only created all things, He also upholds all things. Hebrews declares that God is ‘sustaining all things by His powerful word’ (Heb. 1:3). Paul adds, ‘He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together’ (Col. 1:17). John informs us that God not only brought all things into existence but He keeps them in existence. Both are true for ‘they were created and have their being’ from God (Rev. 4:11). There is ‘one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live’ (1 Cor. 8:6; cf. Rom. 11:36). Hebrews asserts ‘it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering’ (Heb. 2:10),” (12, CBF).

“First, it is possible that God knows from eternity that an event that is future to us would one day occur (and then be true). In this case, it would not be true in advance before it occurred, but it would be true that God knew in advance that it would one day occur and then be actually true.

“Second, … God … is eternal, that is, beyond time … Hence, nothing is future to God. If God is beyond time, then all time is spread before Him in one eternal now. He sees the way a man on the top of the hill sees the whole train at once, while the man in the tunnel below sees only one car going by at a time, noticing neither the one already past nor the one yet to come. God is not standing on one day of the calendar of time, looking back at the days past and forward to the days to come. Rather, He is looking down on the whole calendar, seeing all the days at once (cf. 2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 1:2),” (110-111, CBF).

Questions in Wikipedia’s predestination article answered (told Bane I wanted to do this):

1. “Is God’s predetermining decision based solely on a knowledge of His own will, or does it also include a knowledge of whatever will happen?” (wiki)

Both. God’s predetermination is in accord (1 Peter 1:2) with His foreknowledge. If based solely on His will, this is ‘voluntarism’ which “affirms something is right simply because God willed it, rather than God willing it because it is right in accordance with His own unchangeable nature (a view called essentialism). If voluntarism is accurate, then there is no moral problem with irresistible grace on the unwilling, limited atonement, or even double-predestination. If, on the other hand, God’s will is not ultimately arbitrary, then extreme Calvinism collapses,” (244). The alternative to voluntarism is essentialism, which “contends that God wills it because it is right. … There are two basic forms of essentialism: either God is bound to will things in accordance to some standard outside Himself (as in Plato’s Good) or else by the standard inside Himself (namely, His own nature). The latter is held by Christian essentialists,” (247, CBF). On the other hand – “if God’s choice to save was based on those who choose Him (‘whatever will happen,’ wiki), then it would not be based on divine grace but would be based on human decisions,” (51, CBF) (Romans 9:16). He does not base His choice on who He foresees will receive His gift (Arminianism) – but He knows in advance who will receive His salvation (persuasive, but not coercive) because He is beyond time.

2. “How particular is God’s prior decision: is it concerned with particular persons and events, or is it limited to broad categories of people and things?” (wiki)

Both. He is intimately familiar with every detail. However, His sovereignty does not prevent free choice. Even if you have the power to force your child to behave a certain way, you can still step back and allow your child to make her own decision. The same is true in the case of God’s power and our decisions.

3. “How free is God in effecting His part in the eventual outcome? Is God bound or limited by conditions external to His own will, willingly or not, in order that what has been determined will come to pass?” (wiki)

God is free because this is all determined from beyond time (from His perspective, there is no “in order that (it) will come to pass” – it has already happened). God is bound to will according to His own nature. This sounds like determinism (above) but it isn’t, because He incorporates our free choices from beyond time. We, made in God’s image, are co-creator creations.

“Furthermore, the same sort of considerations apply to the freedom of man’s will.

1. “Assuming that an individual had no choice in who, when and where to come into being: How are the choices of existence determined by what he is?” (wiki)

“Don’t my background, training, and environment affect what I do? Yes, they do, but they do not force me to do it. They affect my actions, but they do not effect (i.e., cause) them. They influence but do not control my actions,” (26, 27, CBF). This includes predisposed or biological inclinations or character traits. I think this is important because I used to be the sort of determinist who would say that knowledge does not increase freedom as far as free will is concerned – everything we come to know determines how we will think, feel, behave, etcetera, differently, from that point on. I no longer deny free will, and the most essential person we can ever come to know who will lead us to increased freedom, on so many levels, is Jesus.

2. “Assuming that not all possible choices are available to him: How capable is the individual to desire all choices available, in order to choose from among them?” (wiki)

Only God is omniscient of all possible choices, and therefore only God is omnipotent (completely free). But one does not need complete freedom in order to exercise freedom; one need only two options, not all options, in order to make a choice. Granted, only one choice will be made, and from God’s perspective, the alternatives were never actual. Also, the closer our walk with God, the freer our will.

3. “How capable is an individual to put into effect what he desires?” (wiki)

This (like the previous questions) has nothing to do with whether or not he has free will, but it does point out there is a continuum of freedom. Not being able to affect what you ‘will’ (or ‘will’ all possible choices) does not negate the fact that you are freely willing. I disagree with a few philosophers that it isn’t “willed” unless it is “acted out”. That there is an obstacle does not negate the fact that if it were removed, I could then perform the action according to my free will that was free before and regardless of the performance of the action.

“Chosen But Free” (Geisler) goes into verses of the Bible to show how extreme Calvinists, extreme Arminians and moderate Calvinists interpret them. If you are curious about a particular passage, just ask. The book also goes into TULIP – the five points of Calvinism, and compares extreme and moderate Calvinism according to those five points. I can go into them if you like. I highly recommend you purchase the book, as well as “Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective” by Geisler and Feinberg.

*Moritz Schlick, “Freedom and Responsibility.” [reprinted in The Philosophical Quest: A Cross-Cultural Reader, McGraw Hill, 2000]. It is interesting to note that all the articles on this issue in the reader were of the soft-determinist “goin’ with the flow” variety – basically, I’m free if I like whatever thought/feeling/action I’m involved in (though I’m not causing it… I’m just riding the kind waves of determinism). They pretty much deny the reality of personal responsibility, deny the crashing waves are caused by our own splashing around…

I also said in the old thread that I wanted to answer the problem of evil, as it pertains to God’s eternal omniscience and omnipotence.

This quote is taken from pages 329-330 of Introduction to Philosophy: A Christian Perspective (Geisler, Feinberg) –

b. the second argument for dualism

The second argument for dualism is more of an argument against non-dualism (especially theism). The dualist says that the theist cannot escape the following conclusion:
(1) God is the author of everything that exists.
(2) Evil is something that exists.
(3) Therefore, God is the author of evil.

Since theists affirm God’s sovereignty and creative power over all that exists, they cannot deny premise 1. Likewise, since theists do not, like pantheists, deny the reality of evil, they cannot deny premise 2. But this means theists seem stuck with an unwanted conclusion, since it makes God directly responsible for creating evil.

Theists respond to both premises. First, God is the author of some things only indirectly. For example, God created freedom, but He does not perform acts of evil Himself or through man’s free choice. To state it another way, God does not create evil directly or essentially but only incidentally. God is directly responsible only for the fact of freedom, not for all the acts of freedom. Of course, God did create the possibility of evil when He made men free. But it is free creatures who bring about the actuality of evil. God is indirectly responsible for evil in that He made evil possible. But the possibility of evil is actually a good—it is necessary for human freedom. The power of free choice is a good power; the fact that men abuse freedom does not make freedom bad. Men abuse everything, including the water and air in their environment. But this obviously does not mean that water and air are bad.

Many theists also object to the second premise. Evil is not a “thing” (or substance). Evil is a privation, or absence of good. Evil exists in another entity (as rust exists in a car or rot exists in a tree), but does not exist in itself. Nothing can be totally evil (in a metaphysical sense). One cannot have a totally rusted car or a totally moth-eaten garment. For if it were completely destroyed, then it would not exist at all. The Christian points to Scripture which says everything God made was “good” (Gen. 1:31); even today “every creature of God is good” (1 Tim. 4:11), and “nothing is unclean in itself” (Rom. 14:14). To be sure, the Bible teaches that men are totally depraved in a moral sense, since sin has extended to the whole man, including his mind and will (Rom. 3; Eph. 2). But total depravity is to be taken in an extensive sense (affecting the whole man), not in an intensive sense (destroying the very essence of man).

When the theist says that evil is no “thing” (substance) he is not saying evil is “nothing” (that is, unreal). Evil is a real privation. Blindness is real—it is the real privation of sight. Likewise it is real to be maimed—it is a genuine lack of limb or sense organ.

Evil is not mere absence, however. Arms and eyes are absent in stones, but we would not say that stones are deprived of arms and eyes. A privation is more than an absence; it is an absence of some form or perfection that should be there (by its very nature).

Sorry this was so long…. and took so long to post. If I forgot to include something, let me know.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

Over one hundred clicks and zero comments.

I was kinda hoping at least one person fully digested it enough to give some sort of response. See any kinks?

Maybe if I “advertise” it up there in the clouds of the philosophy forum…? We’ll see.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

In dorkydood’s “problem of evil” thread, “Omar” asked me,

Have you read Paul? How do you interpret his idea of predestination? How does that idea integrates the human will.

I answered,

I have read Paul. Have you read my determinism thread (needing revision, I’ll get to it)? Predestination is compatible with free will, because (as I said earlier) God transcends time. He takes requests. Though the past, present, and future are fixed from our perspective, He is intimately involved at every step. A possible analogy is a movie production. In your DVD player, the movie is fixed (every time you watch it, it never changes). During production, however, the end product is rarely the same as the original script – both producer/director (God) and actors (we ourselves) have made revisions. Only – in the case of the universe – the revisions and the original script are identical, because God gets it right the first time. That means we had/have a part in planning the original script… but only as far as we willingly participate with God in that endeavor. Otherwise, we’re just part of the script.

He replied,

You have many holes here, but this post is long enough as it is, so I’ll try to stay clear of it right now. Perhaps later, when I have more time…

If “Omar” is still around, I wanted to give him a chance to point out the holes. I see some, but I’m wondering if they are the same ones he sees. I’ll PM him an invitation to reply.

[Rouzbeh]

@Ichthus

I have read Paul. Have you read my determinism thread (needing revision, I’ll get to it)? Predestination is compatible with free will, because (as I said earlier) God transcends time. He takes requests. Though the past, present, and future are fixed from our perspective, He is intimately involved at every step. A possible analogy is a movie production. In your DVD player, the movie is fixed (every time you watch it, it never changes). During production, however, the end product is rarely the same as the original script – both producer/director (God) and actors (we ourselves) have made revisions. Only – in the case of the universe – the revisions and the original script are identical, because God gets it right the first time. That means we had/have a part in planning the original script… but only as far as we willingly participate with God in that endeavor. Otherwise, we’re just part of the script.

God doesn’t have time. God knows everything. God has no need to make alterations to his plan. God is perfect and need not make an illogical world. The Earth has been around for billions of years, life was not put here by an invisible hand which needed to interefere in its creation so as to insert the missing piece. He who is enlightened by god does not err in choosing his friends. Judas did not betray jesus, he did what was required of him and it was indeed his sacrifice that his beloved teacher leave his physical form, and the blame rest on his shoulders. Judas has his place below jesus and above his disciples.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

God doesn’t have time. God knows everything. God has no need to make alterations to his plan. God is perfect and need not make an illogical world.

I agree.

The Earth has been around for billions of years, life was not put here by an invisible hand which needed to interefere in its creation so as to insert the missing piece.

I don’t know how much of that is true and how much false. I don’t believe anything is by accident, ultimately. I do not wish to discuss this.

He who is enlightened by god does not err in choosing his friends. Judas did not betray jesus, he did what was required of him and it was indeed his sacrifice that his beloved teacher leave his physical form, and the blame rest on his shoulders. Judas has his place below jesus and above his disciples.

Jesus (God) did not err in choosing His disciples, nor in the existence of mankind, for that matter. Judas did betray Jesus, like mankind betrays God, and could have chosen otherwise. Jesus, God-man, died and rose again willfully for all of our sin; it is our choice to accept His message (“I love you no matter what”). Why do you care about Judas’ place? There was a tribe who thought Judas was the victor, because they highly valued those who could trick others. If you read the gospel account, it shows clearly that Judas betrayed Jesus – not that Judas was doing the right thing. If you choose to further this off-topic dicussion, please start a new thread on it and PM me a link.

[Rouzbeh]

This discussion is still on par with predestination and free will I believe so here’s the remainder. If you do wish to take it elsewhere, lead away.

The Earth has been around for billions of years, life was not put here by an invisible hand which needed to interefere in its creation so as to insert the missing piece.

@Ichthus

I don’t know how much of that is true and how much false. I don’t believe anything is by accident, ultimately. I do not wish to discuss this.

Well that is one of the fundamental issues with religion these days. Do you ultimately believe that miracles did indeed happen, if so then you could very well believe that life was a miracle (an event which took place by the direct interference of god in his creation in defiance of its laws). I take the stance that god created the universe and does not interefere in it for it doesn’t require interference. If something that has a low probability happens by your path, that is what a miracle is by my definition. That of all the possibilities, you happened upon something that would not in most cases take places.

@Ichthus

Jesus (God) did not err in choosing His disciples, nor in the existence of mankind, for that matter. Judas did betray Jesus, like mankind betrays God, and could have chosen otherwise. Jesus, God-man, died and rose again willfully for all of our sin; it is our choice to accept His message (“I love you no matter what”). Why do you care about Judas’ place? There was a tribe who thought Judas was the victor, because they highly valued those who could trick others. If you read the gospel account, it shows clearly that Judas betrayed Jesus – not that Judas was doing the right thing. If you choose to further this off-topic dicussion, please start a new thread on it and PM me a link.

I don’t believe you’re aware of Judas’ gospel. In his gospel, Jesus makes it quite clear that it was in fact he who understood Jesus the most and he discusses things with Judas that he does not with the other disciples. Events that have no significance in the other disciples’ ‘stories’ take worlds of their own. Judas did not ‘trick’ anyone, to think that an ordinary man could ‘trick’ the human manifestation of god means that either god is not all knowing or that jesus was indeed not god. If you believe in god, then I must urge you to revoke your belief in polytheism and take God for one entity and jesus for his messenger. The Bible with all its omissions and additions is ultimately the result of centuries of political turmoil and ‘rectification’ of the bible due to that turmoil.
For a little psychology, nobody loves an ideal more than a martyred ideal. Jesus is an ideal, for him to be a martyr means the eternality of his message. To see the amount of importance that christianity has attached to Jesus’ death, I doubt that 1. Jesus could not have died 2. Jesus died because he was forced to, not because he saw it as inevitable and Judas’ ‘betrayal’ was a requirement to that end.

[omar]

Hello Icthus:

— Predestination is compatible with free will, because (as I said earlier) God transcends time.
O- Actually God cannot transcend time, or chooses not to anyway, as He seems to squarely operate within time and does not go back in time but always acts in the same direction time flows.

— He takes requests.
O- Yes, but the requests are effectuated in the future or the present and not the past.

— Though the past, present, and future are fixed from our perspective, He is intimately involved at every step.
O- The past is fixed in His. His involvement does not necessarly mean that we are free. God, if you remember, is involved in setting His people free from Pharaoh but he predicts that Pharaoh shall resist and that it would be God himself that would harden Pharaoh’s heart. How is this possible? Well, God’s is considered in the story as omniscent and perfect and omnipotent. So, just as you could interact with the situation that develops in time, in your mind, that goes perfectly before the passage of such time, you can see path A and B and C etc. Being aware of which is the course you wish to reach and omnipotent to engage in the means to reach that end, means that whatever happens happens as a means to a perfect end envisaged by God from all time before. On the very day of Creation, we could imagine, all the sinners and all the saved had already been added to the admission lists of either Hell and Heaven and all that goes in-between is for naught as His will is irresistible.
Now, from our perspective, we do X but could as well (we feel) have done Z. But in actuality your action is rooted in the totality of your being. To be able to do Z you would have to cease being yourself. X is the inevitable result of “you”. It feels like your action is a choice you could avoid, but that is mere appearance. Besides, that would mean that your action is but mere caprise unregulated by any reason, because a reason too would be a determinative force that ties the will. For this reasons Paul spoke of those “predestined”. There is no confusion for his audience here. In Romans he explains how some pots were created for destruction. It seems unjust, but how can the pot hold accountable the potter?

Now, if there is freewill, then God’s hands are tied. His omnipotency would end where our freedom begins. Then the analogy of the potter would have to be revised in that the potter does not predestine some pots this way and some others another way, but the pots themselves achieve this feat and the Potter simply waits and see which becomes what and places them where they go. God becomes a divine assistant, a servant of humanity.

— A possible analogy is a movie production. In your DVD player, the movie is fixed (every time you watch it, it never changes). During production, however, the end product is rarely the same as the original script – both producer/director (God) and actors (we ourselves) have made revisions.
O- Problem: A human director, writer, actor etc, does make mistakes and error and so it takes 20 takes to get that one right and perfect one sought. But when the men responsible for the development of the film are perfect, then there is no division between attempt and success. From conception to finish product there are no editions or “deleted scenes”. An actor is asked to play someone he is not, that is why he has trouble to capture the right performance, but when the director, God, asks only that you play your self then there is no need for any retakes because you don’t have to capture the character: You are it.

— Only – in the case of the universe – the revisions and the original script are identical, because God gets it right the first time. That means we had/have a part in planning the original script…
O- You agree, then, with what I say above but reach a different conclusion.If the revised and original script are identical they are the same, therefore there is no revision and no original but one and only script. Since it is without change, all the changes in-between are only apparent and not actual changes.

— but only as far as we willingly participate with God in that endeavor. Otherwise, we’re just part of the script.
O- There is no need for participation because the script is one and also, because it it is one there is no “part” or “apart”.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

Rouzbeh

This discussion is still on par with predestination and free will I believe so here’s the remainder. If you do wish to take it elsewhere, lead away.

I see no link to the original post, actually. Here’s what I’ve decided to do…

The Earth has been around for billions of years, life was not put here by an invisible hand which needed to interefere in its creation so as to insert the missing piece.

I reply to you on this (at most deism) below. Look for your name in bold.

Ichthus wrote: “I don’t know how much of that is true and how much false. I don’t believe anything is by accident, ultimately. I do not wish to discuss this.”

Well that is one of the fundamental issues with religion these days. Do you ultimately believe that miracles did indeed happen, if so then you could very well believe that life was a miracle (an event which took place by the direct interference of god in his creation in defiance of its laws). I take the stance that god created the universe and does not interefere in it for it doesn’t require interference. If something that has a low probability happens by your path, that is what a miracle is by my definition. That of all the possibilities, you happened upon something that would not in most cases take places.

No, that’s not a miracle. A miracle is something impossible without divine intervention. I believe the very existence of existence is a miracle (though some in ‘science’ think what they consider “unanswerable questions” are pointless to ask). I absolutely refuse to get into an argument for or against evolution. I remain blissfully agnostic about the details. I know God exists and loves us, that life is precious – and God will answer all my burning questions when this gig is over. I dig talking about miracles though – see my “Signs” thread. Please do not further the discussion here in this thread.

I don’t believe you’re aware of Judas’ gospel.

I’ve heard of it, actually – it made the head-lines in the fairly recent past, though it was dissed by Irenaeus back in the day:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel_of_Judas

The correct thread in which to discuss the dissed contents of that non-gospel would be in my “Against Gnosticism” thread, but I pretty much feel like it would be beating a dead horse. In any case, please do not further the discussion here in this thread.

omar

— Predestination is compatible with free will, because (as I said earlier) God transcends time.

O- Actually God cannot transcend time, or chooses not to anyway, as He seems to squarely operate within time and does not go back in time but always acts in the same direction time flows.

I’m ignoring the “time flows” part, as it isn’t important and I don’t want to go into a major tangent. That we can only observe His activity in the now/present does not mean He is as limited to the now/present as we are.

— He takes requests.

O- Yes, but the requests are effectuated in the future or the present and not the past.

I think He could change the past as a “sign” if it didn’t change anything He needed to remain the same (and didn’t result in a paradox). That He hasn’t done so in our awareness doesn’t mean He never will or can’t.

— Though the past, present, and future are fixed from our perspective, He is intimately involved at every step.

O- The past is fixed in His. His involvement does not necessarly mean that we are free. God, if you remember, is involved in setting His people free from Pharaoh but he predicts that Pharaoh shall resist and that it would be God himself that would harden Pharaoh’s heart. How is this possible?

You brought up an interesting point. Only if He is involved (predestination, rather than determinism) can we be truly free (and that is the case). Wow. Interesting insight. I do agree the past is fixed in His perspective as well – but my point, that He is intimately involved at every step, still stands. Pharaoh hardened his own heart the first few times… God confirmed pharaoh’s will for the remaining times. Pharaoh forfeited his free will privileges for a while. Just like King Nebuchadnezzar, who became like an animal (blind will) for a while. The legitimate Word is stuffed full of interesting history.

Well, God is considered in the story as omniscent and perfect and omnipotent. So, just as you could interact with the situation that develops in time, in your mind, that goes perfectly before the passage of such time, you can see path A and B and C etc. Being aware of which is the course you wish to reach and omnipotent to engage in the means to reach that end, means that whatever happens happens as a means to a perfect end envisaged by God from all time before.

If Rouzbeh is reading this – either way, God works in time to bring that end to fruition—His involvement was always part of the plan. Back to Omar. It isn’t actual interaction when it is just in our mind, whereas when God interacts, it is actual. You could argue that the evil going on right now is a means to that perfect end, but that would fail to acknowledge that every moment is an end in itself. There is something on the tip of my reason but I cannot right now articulate it.

On the very day of Creation, we could imagine, all the sinners and all the saved had already been added to the admission lists of either Hell and Heaven and all that goes in-between is for naught as His will is irresistible.

His saving grace is not irresistible. You are putting forth extreme Calvinism. His will is resistible, as evidenced in Pharaoh’s and Nebuchadnezzar’s rebellion. That He took their free will away is not what Calvinists are referring to when they say His grace is irresistible – they are referring to God saving us despite our resistance. God cannot do that. Love must be chosen. You can see how God did not make Pharaoh or Nebuchadnezzar love Him when He took temporarily their free will away. Love is impossible without free will.

Now, from our perspective, we do X but could as well (we feel) have done Z. But in actuality your action is rooted in the totality of your being. To be able to do Z you would have to cease being yourself. X is the inevitable result of “you”. It feels like your action is a choice you could avoid, but that is mere appearance. Besides, that would mean that your action is but mere caprise unregulated by any reason, because a reason too would be a determinative force that ties the will.

All of this is addressed in the original post. We have contra-causal power, even though we can’t exercise every last option, though several of them may “be rooted in the totality of our being” (whether or not we exercise them). And, no, choosing one option over others is not mere caprise or indeterminism. That our options are “given” rather than “chosen” does not negate free will (the ability to choose from among the available, conceivable, options, whether or not that choice is one we can exercise) – it merely points to a range of freedom (read above original post).

For this reasons Paul spoke of those “predestined”. There is no confusion for his audience here. In Romans he explains how some pots were created for destruction. It seems unjust, but how can the pot hold accountable the potter?

Zondervan NASB note on Romans 9:11-23 (18) The first part of this verse again echoes Ex 33:19 (see v. 15) and the last part such texts as Ex 7:3; 9:12; 14:4,17, in which God is said to harden the hearts of Pharaoh and the Egyptians. “on whom He desires” Cannot mean that God is arbitrary in His mercy, because Paul ultimately bases God’s rejection of Israel on her unbelief (see vv. 30-32). (19) Someone may object: “If God determines whose heart is hardened and whose is not, how can God blame anyone for hardening his heart?” (20) “who are you, O man, who answers back to God?” Paul is not silencing all questioning of God by man, but he is speaking to those with an impenitent, God-defying attitude who want to make God answerable to man for what He does and who, by their questions, defame the character of God. (21) The analogy between God and the potter and between man and the pot should not be pressed to the extreme. The main point is the sovereign freedom of God in dealing with man. (22-23) An illustration of the principle stated in v. 21. The emphasis is on God’s mercy, not His wrath. (22) No one can call God to account for what He does. But He does not exercise His freedom of choice arbitrarily, and He shows great patience even toward the objects of His wrath. In light of 2:4, the purpose of such patience is to bring about repentance.

Now, if there is freewill, then God’s hands are tied. His omnipotency would end where our freedom begins. Then the analogy of the potter would have to be revised in that the potter does not predestine some pots this way and some others another way, but the pots themselves achieve this feat and the Potter simply waits and see which becomes what and places them where they go. God becomes a divine assistant, a servant of humanity.

No – He can (and has, as seen above) squash (or confirm) our free will when necessary. When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power. The same can be said when He became flesh and taught us that the last will be first, the first, last. Jesus could have taken up all His power the whole time Satan was tempting Him to do so, but it would have defeated His purpose in becoming flesh (Jesus did not fall under temptation because the Point will never miss the Point).

— A possible analogy is a movie production. In your DVD player, the movie is fixed (every time you watch it, it never changes). During production, however, the end product is rarely the same as the original script – both producer/director (God) and actors (we ourselves) have made revisions.

O- Problem: A human director, writer, actor etc, does make mistakes and error and so it takes 20 takes to get that one right and perfect one sought. But when the men responsible for the development of the film are perfect, then there is no division between attempt and success. From conception to finish product there are no editions or “deleted scenes”. An actor is asked to play someone he is not, that is why he has trouble to capture the right performance, but when the director, God, asks only that you play your self then there is no need for any retakes because you don’t have to capture the character: You are it.

Yup. However, a new character is created when we are reborn. Can’t just follow the old script (and by that I do not mean the “one script” of below).

— Only – in the case of the universe – the revisions and the original script are identical, because God gets it right the first time. That means we had/have a part in planning the original script…

O- You agree, then, with what I say above but reach a different conclusion.If the revised and original script are identical they are the same, therefore there is no revision and no original but one and only script. Since it is without change, all the changes in-between are only apparent and not actual changes.

There aren’t even any apparent changes. Unless you’re talking about the changes we observe between past, present and future – in that case, I agree, those changes are not changes to the one and only script – keeping in mind our creative efforts are part of that one and only script.

— but only as far as we willingly participate with God in that endeavour. Otherwise, we’re just part of the script.
O- There is no need for participation because the script is one and also, because it it is one there is no “part” or “apart”.

To say there is no need for participation is to suggest we participate by doing nothing, for we have no choice but to choose (participate) (which isn’t to say we are “condemned” to be free, because freedom is a gift… indeed, a privilege). Our participation, the physical/material universe’s information, and God’s hand are all inseparable parts of the one script. One thing I would change about what I said in what you quoted me as saying, is that we can be more than just part of the script – not just by cooperating with God, but by willingly participating against Him… but that would be casting ourselves in the roll of the bad guy, the guy who just doesn’t get it, the guy who is doomed to fail to the eternal (Love). Pretty lame. I’d rather cast myself as a soldier of life, truth, and love… and that’s only possible when we create with God, rather than hopelessly against Him (resistance isn’t impossible… just counteractive and temporary). Romans 8:28. To say that there is no “part” or “apart” is to say that God sees evil as a wanted part of the script. That makes no sense in the light of Him saving us.

Thank you very much for the discussion.

[omar]

Hello Ichtus:

— I’m ignoring the “time flows” part, as it isn’t important and I don’t want to go into a major tangent. That we can only observe His activity in the now/present does not mean He is as limited to the now/present as we are.
O- I do not know if He is or not, but by the Bible’s account, we find a God that interacts with His Creation within the flow of time. If he does not like a certain part of His Creation, he corrects it in time. Never did it occur to God, it seems, to go back in time to the Garden and start all over from scratch. He instead sends a flood to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.
Ever done something you regret as God obviously did and said to yourself:“If I had (or could) to do it all over again, I would do this or that differently.” Well, this is as much wishful thinking for us as it would be for God.

— I think He could change the past as a “sign” if it didn’t change anything He needed to remain the same (and didn’t result in a paradox). That He hasn’t done so in our awareness doesn’t mean He never will or can’t.
O- I cannot prove a negative, of course, but likewise cannot prove what is not recorded in history or in Scripture. Both remain founded on speculation. yet, in my own opinion, until proven otherwise, it is a limitation in God, if we go only by what has been recorded alone…this includes the prophecy of revelation that takes us to the end of history. So if that history is set in stone, I don’t think that it matters anymore whether at one point He could have gone back in time, now the question could well be that since he has prognosticated His own actions into the future, could he change His mind and alter that future, and if He cannot alter the future, can He alter His own mind?

— You brought up an interesting point. Only if He is involved (predestination, rather than determinism) can we be truly free (and that is the case).
O- I think that your argument rests on definitions that are very particular about what is “determinism”. Leibnitz took necessity to consist of two kinds: One, ex hypothesis, the other an absolute necessity. In the later, he found the abolition of freewill while in the previous he would found what may be considered our freewill. I don’t know if this is what you mean. But, that said, whether the necessity of an action rest on logic or in God, they seem pretty much the same if one considers certain other attributes that are admitted of God, for example, Perfection and Omnisense. By hypothesis, our actions are determined by God’s omnipotence, but that does not make the contrary action impossible, or inconceivable, for God could have desired otherwise and the action as well been the opposite, so it is not absolutely necessary and thus neither determined. Now what do we mean by “free”? Well, if our action depends on something outside of ourselves, we are not free but compelled. If what we do is caused by us, from within, then it is a free action. A man who murders ten people because a person was holding a gun to his head and treathened to shoot him if he didn’t, is excused because he was determined to do it. It was an action that did not originate in himself, he did not want it, but someone else wanted it and forced him into it. That is determination. When a man kills then people and it is discovered that he is insane, again, like before, even though the action came from within, he could not want it, choose it, it could not have been otherwise, even if it involved no logical contradiction, it did involve a biological limitation, determination, that compelled the man and prevented him to make a choice. He was compelled. he was determined.
My point is that determination need not mean the logical impossibility for an action’s opposite, only the lack of a choice.
Now let’s consider your point away from Leibnitz. What God has predestined, what God has Chosen, trumps whatever choice we may have, and if that is the case then our choices are determined by His Choice which is sovereign. A man is compelled by God’s choice. A man is enslaved by God’s Choice. A man in fact, according to Paul, can claim as much freedom as a piece of pottery can claim freedom in being at all.
So not only is “predestination” equal to “determinism”, but no one can claim to be free, or else God would be enslaved.

— Back to Omar. It isn’t actual interaction when it is just in our mind
O- I do not lift the mind off from this world. What happens in the world gives rise to what happens in the mind and so what is in the mind preceedes and also is preceeded by what goes on in the world, so that the mind is a process of interaction between the mind and reality.

— whereas when God interacts, it is actual. You could argue that the evil going on right now is a means to that perfect end, but that would fail to acknowledge that every moment is an end in itself. There is something on the tip of my reason but I cannot right now articulate it.
O- I will wait. But let me just offer this: Maybe there is a perfect end, a perfect Heaven right, which could justify what we have to endure in this world. Now take away what the Bible itself calls a “prize” and a “reward” (implying that all else is a mere means to this end) and instead raised every moment to an end in itself; how would each momemnt of senseless death and pain be justified? That is, if the death of 50 or even 5 million was an end in itself, a goal carried by means of gas chambers and firing squads, how would you justify even a second of this creation? If such attrocities are actual ends, then God is wicked.

— His saving grace is not irresistible. You are putting forth extreme Calvinism. His will is resistible, as evidenced in Pharaoh’s and Nebuchadnezzar’s rebellion.
O- Ahem! Pharaoh’s rebellion? How did Pharaoh subdue God’s will under his own?..Yes, it is calvisnim but only partly. I also have in mind Luther’s “Bondage of the Will”.

— That He took their free will away is not what Calvinists are referring to when they say His grace is irresistible – they are referring to God saving us despite our resistance.
O- I am not going to speak for the calvinists, but I could agree with saying that His grace is irresistible and that God saves us despite our will- you call this resistance but there is no resisting the irresistible- that is absurd. What Paul spoke of is that certain pottery has noble purposes and other haves ignoble purposes, but who decides these purpose is the Potter who made them and not in the pottery themselves. Those who are saved are saved by God’s purpose that they should be saved and those that are not save, the vast majority, were made for the distinct purpose of their destruction. People go to Heaven or hell because of His choice, not their own.

— God cannot do that. Love must be chosen.
O- Very well. What about Esau? God already hated him, according to Paul, while still within the womb of his mother. Before he had done good or evil, before he had chosen to love or to hate God. What benefit did Esau gain from his own freewill? Nothing. Those that love God were predestined by God to love Him, just as the Potter made those pots for noble purposes; what could be nobler than to love the Potter? That love comes from Grace, not from the wisdom of man, and that Grace is given by His Mercy and not by our earning it, or chosing it. We do not simply choose to love. Love is funny that way. We love when we have no reason to love and even when we have reasons to hate…Love is stronger than us, stronger than our judgment and we either love or not love in spite of our reason. When we do believe that we have chosen that which we love, we are rationalizing the love which was already there. It had nothing to do with reason, but now we add reasons to it, after the fact, and make what came by itself, as if it was a product of our own device. Reason is too fickle to be the origin of true love…

— No – He can (and has, as seen above) squash (or confirm) our free will when necessary.
O- Who sets the standard of necessity? God? The God squashes our wills whenever He wants. Even if He refrains from doing so, that still does not mean that our will is free, because it is contingent on His Freedom. That is, if we are free it is by His Choice, not ours, by His power to reafrain, not by a power within us, but outside of us that can curtail that apparent freedom. We are so to speak, determined in our own freedom. If we are free then it is because we were determined to be so. If we are determined, or hardened, then it is still by the same design. Either way does not change the nature of the determinant factor which is God.

— When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power.
O- You’re right, it does not because we do not have a “free” anything in being allowed some slack in our leash.

— Yup. However, a new character is created when we are reborn. Can’t just follow the old script (and by that I do not mean the “one script” of below).
O- Problem: The “new” is actually just part of the old because the rebirth was predestined, that is, it was all within the same old pot, designed to have just such rebirth. Some might say that re-birth implies a “new” pot, but then we are back to the same movie script where each pot performs only what it is…by their fruits you shall know them. Now the pot might be ignorant of what is it’s true design and purpose but the potter always knew. In being reborn, perhaps the pot recognizes the true design and purpose but that does not change what the director had scripted because he had always known the design and purpose of the pot he cast for the “noble” role.

— keeping in mind our creative efforts are part of that one and only script.
O- This “creativity” is german mysticism at it’s best, but where do you find that in the meaning of “predestination”? It is not creativity that is crucial but obedience…

— To say there is no need for participation is to suggest we participate by doing nothing,
O- Our roles were predestined by the Potter…

---- and that’s only possible when we create with God,
O- …obey God. A soldier obeys orders, not create orders along with his general…

— rather than hopelessly against Him (resistance isn’t impossible… just counteractive and temporary). Romans 8:28. To say that there is no “part” or “apart” is to say that God sees evil as a wanted part of the script. That makes no sense in the light of Him saving us.
O- God’s ways are not our ways. Indeed, your position is similar to those jews who balked at the notion that we are predestined to our role. But Paul simply points to the omnipotency of God. What shall the creature, whatever his purpose be, say to it’s creator? Sure, the pot design for destruction for the glory of the potter might object that such a design is unfair, or ask why it was created at all to beging with. I feel you. But Does the pot has a right to lament? Does it have a right to demand anything when it owes everything? Because in either case the result is the same. If God had not created us then we would be nothing and if He destroys us then we are also nothing, so what are we to complain of? We can say that we wish we had been made for Heaven, but that is our will and not His, that is to His pleasure, not ours, bound to His freedom, not our choice. Evil is a point of view. From ours, the particular event is evil, but in God’s larger perspective maybe it is not. Of course this leaves us in the dark as far as knowing what is indeed evil, for we lack His perspective on matters, but that is why we live by faith.
Last of all, remember that nowehere does it say that everyone will be saved…

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

We have contra-causal power, even though we can’t exercise every last option, though several of them may “be rooted in the totality of our being” (whether or not we exercise them). And, no, choosing one option over others is not mere caprise or indeterminism. That our options are “given” rather than “chosen” does not negate free will (the ability to choose from among the available, conceivable, options, whether or not that choice is one we can exercise) – it merely points to a range of freedom (read above original post).

– myself

To that I would add that even though our options are ‘given’ rather than chosen – we can shape which options will occur to us (as conceivable) – (and to that extent they are chosen)…

Knowing that you will only think about what you are exposed to and how you react to it, and that habits form by repeating attitudes/behaviors, you can willfully control what you are exposed to and/or how you react to it. You can therefore condition future reactions.

And as I’ve said elsewhere… Align your will with the will of God, so that by habit you will perform God’s will even when there is no time for thought. If you make an effort to behave against inclination, that inclination is not your will. That you want to make and do make an effort against it describes who you want to be (and therefore already are). Your inclination is an obstacle to who you want to be, like a broken leg is an obstacle to where you want to go. That inclination is just like a broken leg and does not describe your will. Who you struggle to be, and where you struggle to go describe your will. It’s like when you quit smoking cold-turkey, but still experience the pangs for nicotine – your body/brain wants it (but it is not your will) – it is not you who wants it. It is also like when you decide you are going to change your eating and exercising habits to permanently get rid of accumulated flab – that flabby body does not reflect the current state of your will. That flab is like the light of stars (hehe) – it is like looking into the past.

I will reply to you, Omar, I just don’t have time right now.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

— That we can only observe His activity in the now/present does not mean He is as limited to the now/present as we are.
O- I do not know if He is or not, but by the Bible’s account, we find a God that interacts with His Creation within the flow of time. If he does not like a certain part of His Creation, he corrects it in time. Never did it occur to God, it seems, to go back in time to the Garden and start all over from scratch. He instead sends a flood to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.
Ever done something you regret as God obviously did and said to yourself: “If I had (or could) to do it all over again, I would do this or that differently.” Well, this is as much wishful thinking for us as it would be for God.

I- Giving prophets the future proves God is not limited to the present/now. It’s all a learning process for us, and it would be unfortunate for us to mess the lesson gleaned from Noah’s time. Discipline and judgment are part of the lesson. God made no mistake – we did, and His feelings were justified.

— I think He could change the past as a “sign” if it didn’t change anything He needed to remain the same (and didn’t result in a paradox). That He hasn’t done so in our awareness doesn’t mean He never will or can’t.

I- To add to this… This would mean the past, present, and future are normally fixed, but God can unfix them as an exception (miracle) (see signs thread). That they are exceptionally mixed and normally fixed at the same time (prophecy and fulfillment) is also miracle. It also points to the need for them to be normally fixed… otherwise we would not recognize the miracle of mixedness or unfixedness (we wouldn’t be able to recognize much of anything… learning would probably be impossible). The problem now is to recognize the miracle in the fixedness… it is indeed a miracle, albeit a standard one. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to articulate something that’s been blending flavors for months.

O- I cannot prove a negative, of course, but likewise cannot prove what is not recorded in history or in Scripture. Both remain founded on speculation. yet, in my own opinion, until proven otherwise, it is a limitation in God, if we go only by what has been recorded alone…this includes the prophecy of revelation that takes us to the end of history. So if that history is set in stone, I don’t think that it matters anymore whether at one point He could have gone back in time, now the question could well be that since he has prognosticated His own actions into the future, could he change His mind and alter that future, and if He cannot alter the future, can He alter His own mind?

I- Creation is a sort of alteration in itself, and He is distinct from His creation, like we are distinct from our thoughts. We think or refuse to think our thoughts, like our body digests or refuses to digest its food. Unlike food, thoughts are not things you can hold, but real physical impressions felt in the brain. All of creation is like a thought of God. He could have refused to “think” His creation (or the future, in direct reply to you), but that refusal would have only happened if He were not Love. And, no, He cannot change His mind (much scripture puts this forth) – that would be a sign of weakness, not a strength, if He could change His nature (Love). But, changing a little piece of the past or future, if it doesn’t break a promise, is not the same as refusing to “think” the whole of creation.

— You brought up an interesting point. Only if He is involved (predestination, rather than determinism) can we be truly free (and that is the case).
O- I think that your argument rests on definitions that are very particular about what is “determinism”. Leibnitz took necessity to consist of two kinds: One, ex hypothesis, the other an absolute necessity.

I- I had read a little bit about Leibniz in Geisler’s Intro. to Philo., and your reference to him motivated me to read the section dedicated to him in Russell’s history of western philo. – very interesting. From what you’ve said here, both forms of determinism eliminate free will and are incorrect.

O- In the later, he found the abolition of freewill while in the previous he would found what may be considered our freewill. I don’t know if this is what you mean. But, that said, whether the necessity of an action rest on logic or in God, they seem pretty much the same if one considers certain other attributes that are admitted of God, for example, Perfection and Omnisense.

I- An action is determined by the agent who wills it… not by nature, not by God (except in exceptional cases, like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, which will from now on be denoted by a *).

O- By hypothesis, our actions are determined by God’s omnipotence, but that does not make the contrary action impossible, or inconceivable, for God could have desired otherwise and the action as well been the opposite, so it is not absolutely necessary and thus neither determined.

I- You can only be referring to God’s free will here, not ours. Since God does not make our choices for us*, ‘by hypothesis’ is moot. This may explain why you go on and on about how our choices are not free if they are determined by God. With that I would agree – I just don’t agree that our choices are determined by God. They are self-determined.

O- Now what do we mean by “free”? Well, if our action depends on something outside of ourselves, we are not free but compelled.

I- Your position seems to be that a free act is impossible, so why do you bother to define “free”? Secondly, your definition is vague. A lot of our choices depend on external factors… like “I’ll turn right if the light is red, but if it’s green, I’ll drive straight.” If I turn right ‘cause the light was red, it doesn’t mean my choice was compelled by the red light (or lack of green light).

O- If what we do is caused by us, from within, then it is a free action. A man who murders ten people because a person was holding a gun to his head and treathened to shoot him if he didn’t, is excused because he was determined to do it. It was an action that did not originate in himself, he did not want it, but someone else wanted it and forced him into it. That is determination. When a man kills then people and it is discovered that he is insane, again, like before, even though the action came from within, he could not want it, choose it, it could not have been otherwise, even if it involved no logical contradiction, it did involve a biological limitation, determination, that compelled the man and prevented him to make a choice. He was compelled. he was determined.

I- Both the first man and the second man were not compelled and still had a choice. The first man could have taken the bullet, and the second man could have asked God for help. I’ve been insane, and therefore reject the insanity defense – there is always a choice. Just because an option is difficult (sacrificing self to save others) doesn’t rule it out as an option. Now, if someone put their finger over the unwilling man’s trigger finger (or over the trigger finger of the insane man, who is asking God for help) and squeezed the trigger… then it was against the man’s will.

O- My point is that determination need not mean the logical impossibility for an action’s opposite, only the lack of a choice.

I- I grow tired of definitions rather quickly. Others would say choice is only apparent and our behavior is compelled, even when we find the consequences favorable. Did you read the original post?

O- Now let’s consider your point away from Leibnitz.

You don’t seem to do that in what follows. Rather, you seem to criticize Leibniz. I don’t hold his views. Did you read the original post?

O- What God has predestined, what God has Chosen, trumps whatever choice we may have, and if that is the case then our choices are determined by His Choice which is sovereign. A man is compelled by God’s choice. A man is enslaved by God’s Choice. A man in fact, according to Paul, can claim as much freedom as a piece of pottery can claim freedom in being at all.
So not only is “predestination” equal to “determinism”, but no one can claim to be free, or else God would be enslaved.

I- Or else God would be enslaved? Later on you agree that “When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power.” That God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*. The existence of our ability to choose, but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.

— Back to Omar. It isn’t actual interaction when it is just in our mind
O- I do not lift the mind off from this world. What happens in the world gives rise to what happens in the mind and so what is in the mind preceedes and also is preceeded by what goes on in the world, so that the mind is a process of interaction between the mind and reality.

I- I meant that our concepts exist inside our skull, as impressions felt in the brain, rather than outside our skull. I meant that in God’s thinking the universe from beginning to end, His interaction is real, whereas our planning stays inside our skull and is limited to the present… our thoughts about the past are subject to error, and our guesses about the future are just guesses. Nevermind, it isn’t crucial to the discussion.

— whereas when God interacts, it is actual. You could argue that the evil going on right now is a means to that perfect end, but that would fail to acknowledge that every moment is an end in itself. There is something on the tip of my reason but I cannot right now articulate it.
O- I will wait. But let me just offer this: Maybe there is a perfect end, a perfect Heaven right, which could justify what we have to endure in this world. Now take away what the Bible itself calls a “prize” and a “reward” (implying that all else is a mere means to this end) and instead raised every moment to an end in itself; how would each momemnt of senseless death and pain be justified? That is, if the death of 50 or even 5 million was an end in itself, a goal carried by means of gas chambers and firing squads, how would you justify even a second of this creation? If such attrocities are actual ends, then God is wicked.

I- Okay, here it is. Each moment or all combined moments – in the end, evil happened, did it not? The evil is not the end, love is the end in every moment, and it is WE who neglect to choose it, thereby trampling the gift. We should shoulder responsibility for our evil when we ask God if He is evil for allowing our evil, and learn from His example on the cross (paying the price for our evil with His own suffering) when we ask God if He is evil for allowing suffering we didn’t cause – and draw near to the Father in our suffering, which is only temporary. I do not blame God for the pain caused me by others, and I do not blame God for the pain I have caused others. I thank God for lifting me out of my suffering and using it to strengthen me, and I ask His forgiveness for the suffering I’ve caused. None of it was His fault, and it was not a means to the end of Love… it was an obstacle to it. A temporary obstacle… an obstacle He has removed if we just accept His love. This is a fire that must spread. Thank you again for the opportunity to articulate this. I pray it does not fall on deaf ears.

— His saving grace is not irresistible. You are putting forth extreme Calvinism. His will is resistible, as evidenced in Pharaoh’s and Nebuchadnezzar’s rebellion.
O- Ahem! Pharaoh’s rebellion? How did Pharaoh subdue God’s will under his own?..Yes, it is calvisnim but only partly. I also have in mind Luther’s “Bondage of the Will”.

I- Not following God’s will is not the same thing as subduing God’s will under our own. I have heard of Luther’s “Bondage of the Will” but I haven’t read it.

— That He took their free will away is not what Calvinists are referring to when they say His grace is irresistible – they are referring to God saving us despite our resistance.
O- I am not going to speak for the calvinists, but I could agree with saying that His grace is irresistible and that God saves us despite our will- you call this resistance but there is no resisting the irresistible-

I- Defining God’s will as irresistible begs the question of whether or not His will is irresistible.

O- that is absurd. What Paul spoke of is that certain pottery has noble purposes and other haves ignoble purposes, but who decides these purpose is the Potter who made them and not in the pottery themselves. Those who are saved are saved by God’s purpose that they should be saved and those that are not save, the vast majority, were made for the distinct purpose of their destruction. People go to Heaven or hell because of His choice, not their own.

I- Remember the point of the negative crap the pot goes through is to bring it to repentance. Read my last reply on that. Of course we do not save ourselves, and it is God’s grace that saves us… but that salvation is conditioned upon our acceptance (faith). God will not save those who refuse Him, and He won’t send to hell those who never had the chance to accept Him. He is perfectly good and loving. Your position (the extreme Calvinist’s position) is not scriptural (Eph 2:8-9; Luke 7:30; Acts 7:51; Matt 7:21, 12:50, 23:37; John 7:17; 1 John 2:17; 1 Thess 4:3).

— God cannot do that. Love must be chosen.
O- Very well. What about Esau? God already hated him, according to Paul, while still within the womb of his mother. Before he had done good or evil, before he had chosen to love or to hate God. What benefit did Esau gain from his own freewill? Nothing.

In this case, hate actually meant rejected, as in “did not choose”. He didn’t inherit the promises his brother inherited. What did he gain from free will? Well… freedom is pretty good in itself.

O- Those that love God were predestined by God to love Him,

I- Only in the sense that He sustains the future in which they freely choose to love Him.

O- just as the Potter made those pots for noble purposes; what could be nobler than to love the Potter? That love comes from Grace, not from the wisdom of man, and that Grace is given by His Mercy and not by our earning it, or chosing it.

I- Choosing is not earning, but accepting, the free gift of grace, which is irresistible only on the willing (indeed)!

O- We do not simply choose to love.

I- Agape love, the highest form of love, is impossible if it is not chosen.

O- Love is funny that way. We love when we have no reason to love and even when we have reasons to hate…Love is stronger than us, stronger than our judgment and we either love or not love in spite of our reason. When we do believe that we have chosen that which we love, we are rationalizing the love which was already there. It had nothing to do with reason, but now we add reasons to it, after the fact, and make what came by itself, as if it was a product of our own device. Reason is too fickle to be the origin of true love…

I- Although I wonder how you came up with this theory if love defies reason, and I think not all people leap blindly into love, I think I mostly agree. Our need for God’s love was put there by Him (perfectly rational, perfectly loving) and cannot be erased by reason, but we have many reasons to get that need met, many reasons to enjoy His love, many reasons to share it with others, and many reasons to choose His love over loving false gods.

— No – He can (and has, as seen above) squash (or confirm) our free will when necessary.
O- Who sets the standard of necessity? God?

I- Yes.

— When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power.
O- You’re right, it does not because we do not have a “free” anything in being allowed some slack in our leash.

I- As I said earlier, that God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*. The existence of our ability to choose, but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.

— Yup. However, a new character is created when we are reborn. Can’t just follow the old script (and by that I do not mean the “one script” of below).
O- Problem: The “new” is actually just part of the old

I- I had that delusion once (is that Leibniz’ or yours?) – that every soul contains within itself all its information, past, present, future. With it came the delusion that communication between humans happens when God makes minds think in conversation. We don’t actually exchange information in the real world… I say something and God communicates it in your brain… then you say something and God communicates it in my brain (the delusional explanation for learning as well). Pretty silly, huh? It’s funny in retrospect, anyway.

O- because the rebirth was predestined, that is, it was all within the same old pot, designed to have just such rebirth. Some might say that re-birth implies a “new” pot, but then we are back to the same movie script where each pot performs only what it is…by their fruits you shall know them.

I- We cannot bear good fruit (of the Spirit) apart from the vine. We cannot become grafted into the vine against our will.

O- Now the pot might be ignorant of what is it’s true design and purpose but the potter always knew. In being reborn, perhaps the pot recognizes the true design and purpose but that does not change what the director had scripted because he had always known the design and purpose of the pot he cast for the “noble” role.

I- We are all made in God’s image—only those who choose His love will fully realize that.

— keeping in mind our creative efforts are part of that one and only script.
O- This “creativity” is german mysticism at it’s best, but where do you find that in the meaning of “predestination”? It is not creativity that is crucial but obedience…

I- I know nothing of German mysticism (they prob’ly stole it from Jews or Christians), and anything apart from God and what He has communicated about Himself and how He wants us to relate with Him is more like temporary destruction, rather than eternal creation. Eternal creation is only possible when we align our will with His (obey), allowing His image to be brought out in us. His creative interaction was part of the plan, just like ours.

— To say there is no need for participation is to suggest we participate by doing nothing,
O- Our roles were predestined by the Potter…

I- The Potter who knew how we would/will freely choose.

---- and that’s only possible when we create with God,
O- …obey God. A soldier obeys orders, not create orders along with his general…

I- Giving us free will was making us all generals. The greatest generals among us align our will with God’s.

— rather than hopelessly against Him (resistance isn’t impossible… just counteractive and temporary). Romans 8:28. To say that there is no “part” or “apart” is to say that God sees evil as a wanted part of the script. That makes no sense in the light of Him saving us.
O- God’s ways are not our ways.

I- A rolling stone gathers no moss.

O- But Paul simply points to the omnipotency of God.

I- The point is God’s mercy; repentance.

O- What shall the creature, whatever his purpose be, say to it’s creator? Sure, the pot design for destruction for the glory of the potter might object that such a design is unfair, or ask why it was created at all to begin with. (I- no you don’t) But Does the pot has a right to lament? Does it have a right to demand anything when it owes everything?

I- Remember how Job dealt with His agony, and how God responded? If God gave us His Son, what will He hold back from us? We do not need to demand—we need only ask—and it shall be given.

O- Evil is a point of view. From ours, the particular event is evil, but in God’s larger perspective maybe it is not. Of course this leaves us in the dark as far as knowing what is indeed evil, for we lack His perspective on matters, but that is why we live by faith.

I- Evil intentions are always evil from God’s perspective. If an event outside our intentional influence is perceived as evil by us, it is God’s perspective that determines whether or not it is really evil, regardless our imperfect perspective. That means evil is NOT a matter of perspective; God’s perspective is perfectly good, loving, just, etcetera, and so is the deciding perspective on whether an event is truly evil. He has not left us in the dark – His law is written on our hearts and in His Word. That means we have the ability to recognize and therefore avoid evil, though God has the last word on whether or not it was truly evil. Living by authentic faith means trusting Him (and only Him) in our hearts, and trusting His Word (and only His).

O- Last of all, remember that nowehere does it say that everyone will be saved…

I- That’s right. Though He wills that all be saved (1 Tim 2:4)—that will can be rejected in favor of hell (eternal separation from God). The only condition is repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

This is so long, I hope it comes out without a bunch of errors…

[omar]

Well, you’ve outdone yourself. Very long post. Let me try to answer it in kind…

I- Giving prophets the future proves God is not limited to the present/now.
O- No. Many humans claim that they can see the future (fortune tellers) and other humans use given theories to predict the future, so the future is not that big of a mistery, and is foreseeable, while the past cannot be changed. God, like ourselves is limited to the present/now and future. The past is beyond His reach, apparently.

— God made no mistake – we did, and His feelings were justified.
O- How did we make a mistake? Did we create ourselves?

I- Creation is a sort of alteration in itself, and He is distinct from His creation, like we are distinct from our thoughts.
O- I must have missed something here…ever heard of “I think, therefore I am”. The “I” is dependant upon thought, upon reflection. Sure something (the brain) does give rise to it and continues to exist even if the “I” is unawares of it. But that said, when athrophication compromises our brain, and our thoughts become jumbled, our memories lost, the “I” is also lost. We are our thoughts, our memories, at least what survives enough to become essential to what we consider our selves.

— We think or refuse to think our thoughts
O- No. We think period. Refusing to think is a thought in itself as it involves a choice.

— like our body digests or refuses to digest its food.
O- Thoughts are not like food because the organ that digest food is irrational, or to put it in another way, the stomach is not chosing to digest or not digest. It secretes liquids that can break down certain foods or not, but this process does not require the approbation of the stomach lining.

— And, no, He cannot change His mind (much scripture puts this forth) – that would be a sign of weakness, not a strength, if He could change His nature (Love).
O- Oh is that so?
The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.(Genesis)

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.(Jonah)
In Genesis God grieved over having created man on earth. When you grieve the day you did something, that is regret and that is a change of mind because at the time you did it you did not grieve. In our case we cannot see the future, thus we are hoping for one outcome and grieve when we get another. In God’s case that is not what happened but what did happened was a change of heart which makes God wish for the destruction and not the creation of man.
In Jonah we have the same scenario but in reverse. God has decreed that he will destroy Nineveh in 40 days, dispatches His prophet and odly enough, the people listen to the augur and repent, making God, out of compassion, change His mind about the destruction of the city.
My point is that Love and Compassion (Mercy) are found in God and therefore God can and does change His mind, His heart. If God could not change His mind then that compromises our freewill, God’s justice and Mercy. We are left with the story Paul tells us of a Potter, all omnipotent and all-knowing who crafts souls, like pots, some for destruction others for decoration, each pot predestined for these ends and in itself powerless to resist the will of the Potter. There is no praise or blame then (would you ask your red flower vase why it isn’t, or why doesn’t it choose to be white?), nor are love and mercy attributes that could be given to God (for he has made what he has made according to His mind, which cannot be changed, and so needs no mercy, which might turn an ignoble vase into a noble one)…but you do get to keep His omnipotense…

I- An action is determined by the agent who wills it… not by nature, not by God (except in exceptional cases, like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, which will from now on be denoted by a *).
O- But read Romans again. Everyone is a Pharaoh. Even if God limits Himself then our will is still determined by His will, by His choice. It is what He makes it to be.

I- You can only be referring to God’s free will here, not ours. Since God does not make our choices for us*, ‘by hypothesis’ is moot. This may explain why you go on and on about how our choices are not free if they are determined by God. With that I would agree – I just don’t agree that our choices are determined by God. They are self-determined.
O- All right. God is omniscent. he can and has seen all that will happen to you. The future is already present in His Mind. Now this mind is perfect and cannot be changed, so you tell me. Well, if that is the case then neither can your actions actually be free to change, for they could change that future He has already foreseen, and this is impossible, correct? Thus, from a subjective standpoint the choices you make seem free, but they are determined by the actions of God. You do not see the future, you do not know it so you make choices with the perception, the illusion, that you are imposing your will upon the circumstances around you, over God’s Creation, over God’s will. This is impossible and thus in reality you were determined by the Mind of God to do this or that on this date this time and it could never have been different or God is not God.

I- Your position seems to be that a free act is impossible, so why do you bother to define “free”?
O- before I tell you what is or isn’t possible I must clarify what exactly I have in my mind. Otherwise there would be misunderstandings…

— Secondly, your definition is vague. A lot of our choices depend on external factors… like “I’ll turn right if the light is red, but if it’s green, I’ll drive straight.” If I turn right ‘cause the light was red, it doesn’t mean my choice was compelled by the red light (or lack of green light).
O- But the light is not God. I could run a red light, or I could refuse to drive on green. Not only is the opposite possible, but within my ability. But I cannot choose to fly because it is outside of my ability. God is like the force of gravity. What I am saying is that a choice to be a choice has to lie within my capacity, within my ability, else it is not a choice and I cannot be praised or blamed. We are praised for following the rules and punished if we run a red light because it is within our power not to follow the rules. God is different because God is omnipotent and has predetermined, predestined what I shall do, according to Paul. If I run the light, it might seem as if I had chosen to do so, but from God’s perspective, He always knew that it would be so. If God decides to do a miracle within His Creation, that Creations still remains determined and subject to His will, which is how a miracle is possible. If God withdraws Himself from our minds and let us operate freely, that freedom is still a part of the determined conditions set by God so it is no real freedom, just as a robot given a program to act seemingly freely, is still following a program.

I- I’ve been insane, and therefore reject the insanity defense – there is always a choice.
O- What was your diagnosis? There are some drugs for depression that come with a warning of an increased risk of suicide in teenagers who take the drug. Was their suicide then a choice? or were they unduced to suicide by the drug they were taking? If there is always a choice why put the warning label?

— Now, if someone put their finger over the unwilling man’s trigger finger (or over the trigger finger of the insane man, who is asking God for help) and squeezed the trigger… then it was against the man’s will.
O- You do have a point in that you could comit suicide rather than murder. It was a bad example for a valid point. See what you think about the psychotropic drug example above.

I- Or else God would be enslaved? Later on you agree that “When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power.”
O- Yes, because we are not free by a self-withdrawl of God.

— That God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*.
O- We operate within that same timeline that God has determined and so are determined ourselves…

— The existence of our ability to choose
O- Appearance of a choice…

—, but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.
O- Where are you free? God has created the illusion of a choice by His withdrawl, but that does not include withdrawl from his entire creation and a free choice would indeed alter creation and as this cannot happen, our action must fall within God’s plan and thus is determined along with all else in Creation. You have not shown me where and when we are free, only when we get the impression that we are free.

I- Okay, here it is. Each moment or all combined moments – in the end, evil happened, did it not? The evil is not the end, love is the end in every moment, and it is WE who neglect to choose it, thereby trampling the gift.
O- You place too much on the shoulders of men. All evil is not dependent on a man’s choice. A child is born deformed. Whose choice was it? An earthquake destroys a church during Sunday mass, killing God’s own while they were praying. Is this too due to their choice? Natural causes are not the choice of men…

— I do not blame God for the pain caused me by others, and I do not blame God for the pain I have caused others.
O- Then God for you is not Omnipotent.

— I thank God for lifting me out of my suffering and using it to strengthen me, and I ask His forgiveness for the suffering I’ve caused. None of it was His fault, and it was not a means to the end of Love… it was an obstacle to it. A temporary obstacle… an obstacle He has removed if we just accept His love. This is a fire that must spread. Thank you again for the opportunity to articulate this. I pray it does not fall on deaf ears.
O- I must tell you that I applaud your attitude. I encourage such morality. I do see it in conflict with scripture, but I like what you say. I am not trying to argue that you should not try to do as you say, I agree, but I am saying that sometimes scripture goes against what is most noble in life. I am not a christian, not a believer in the “holiness” of scripture, I don’t agree with Paul, heck I don’t agree with many other writers within the Bible and if God is who they describe Him as then I see no reason for worship. I applaud your attitude but it is not compatible with the Pauline version of God.

I- Not following God’s will is not the same thing as subduing God’s will under our own. I have heard of Luther’s “Bondage of the Will” but I haven’t read it.
O- It is a good book. Is God’s Will resistible or irresistible? If it is perfect and irresistible then what God wills will have to be followed by what is weaker than God. If God wills that I should believe in Him it would be impossible, due to God’s perfection, for me to resist, or not to follow His will that I will believe. If I could choose not to follow His decree then I would be stronger, my will would be stronger for it can resist what God has willed, what God has wanted.

I- Defining God’s will as irresistible begs the question of whether or not His will is irresistible.
O- It must be irresistible by definition, according to Perfection.

I- Remember the point of the negative crap the pot goes through is to bring it to repentance. Read my last reply on that. Of course we do not save ourselves, and it is God’s grace that saves us… but that salvation is conditioned upon our acceptance (faith).
O- “Conditioned”? Do you mean that God’s will is contingent on our will? God sits in wait of the pot to decide whether it will be noble or ignoble? The pots have no saying on the one who molds them and it is the Potter’s choice and not the pottery’s that determines what shall happen to the pots. As Paul demonstrated, in his mind, Jacob was loved and Esau hated before they had done a thing…in the very womb of their mother. Are you going to say that the selection of one baby over another has anything to do with the acceptance of God’s offer on the baby’s part?

— In this case, hate actually meant rejected, as in “did not choose”. He didn’t inherit the promises his brother inherited. What did he gain from free will? Well… freedom is pretty good in itself.
O- You can dance around it but it does not change the immorality of the passage. Freedom is not the end but the means, so it is not good in itself but in relation to what future end can become possible through it.

I- Only in the sense that He sustains the future in which they freely choose to love Him.
O- A future that cannot be changed and so your own children’s future is already determined by God and cannot be changed or chosen to be differently.

I- Choosing is not earning, but accepting, the free gift of grace, which is irresistible only on the willing (indeed)!
O- I was using Paul’s terminology. If I accept God then I earned the benefits that come from my acceptance of God. I should be praised for my choice which did not depend, if a free choice, God’s mercy.

I- Although I wonder how you came up with this theory if love defies reason, and I think not all people leap blindly into love, I think I mostly agree. Our need for God’s love was put there by Him (perfectly rational, perfectly loving) and cannot be erased by reason, but we have many reasons to get that need met, many reasons to enjoy His love, many reasons to share it with others, and many reasons to choose His love over loving false gods.
O- But listen to what you said:“put there by Him”. That is all I am saying. paul is saying mostly the same stuff and science might just prove him right, to my chagrin, that indeed piety is a biological need, an instinct, that we are born with it or not. Steven Pinker wrote a book about the language instinct. Imagine if faith was also an instinct? It would explain that just as we have different languages we also have different faiths, but all require that inate language instinct just as religions need that fath-instinct. But…here is the bad part. Some have it…a few really have it, while the great majority lacks such a faith and instead pay lip service out of fear or out of self-preservation, self-interest etc. Very few are those who believe in God in spite of reason, in spite of all objections, who love him as He is, not as we wish Him to be, who love Him for His sake and not our own, not for what we could gain, for what He could give or not give, but simply for His own sake.

I- Yes.
O- Then our will is not “free”.

I- As I said earlier, that God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*.
O- But if our so called choices are conditioned or limited by His will, by His design, then our will is conditioned, limited, determined by what God has already willed and thus cannot be free. I am not saying that God makes our choices but that choices are only apparent, subjective, seem so to us from our perspective, but are not choices in an objective manner, from God’s perspective, from what is the case. From His perspective there are no choices but His.

— The existence of our ability to choose, but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.
O- I already answered to this above.

I- We are all made in God’s image
O- Paul disagrees (see Romans)

I- I know nothing of German mysticism (they prob’ly stole it from Jews or Christians), and anything apart from God and what He has communicated about Himself and how He wants us to relate with Him is more like temporary destruction, rather than eternal creation. Eternal creation is only possible when we align our will with His (obey), allowing His image to be brought out in us. His creative interaction was part of the plan, just like ours.
O- It takes no creativity to obey. You’re not being creative because you followed the rule of Law to the letter. You obey the one who was creative but that creativity does not become yours by your submission to it.

I- The Potter who knew how we would/will freely choose.
O- He knew because it could not be otherwise…or else what He knew He would have only guessed. But as you say, He knew, just as 2+2=4. This equation cannot choose to be anything else other than what it is, just as we could not choose, lest God ceases to know. Since God knew, our action is determined and could not have been otherwise. God made His pots and programmed each exactly to His will and thus these pots do this or that according to that design he has imparted to the pot and not because the pot itself came up and decided, that is, chose to do X instead of Y. It was always destined to “choose” what in fact God was the one who had already chosen.

I- Giving us free will was making us all generals. The greatest generals among us align our will with God’s.
O- No. Ask Esau. One was chosen general over another by His choice without anything to do with what came from Jacob’s or Esau’s will, free or otherwise. Their actions had nothing to do in God’s selection. He shall save whomever it pleases Him to save. Some were chosen as generals but this was not due to the actions of the soldiers, their free creativity, their freewill, but were predestined, were made, by the Potter for noble purposes over other, not because they aligned or not their will to God’s but before they were even born God’s election was complete and irresistible.

I- The point is God’s mercy; repentance.
O- Generated by His, not our, Grace…

I- Remember how Job dealt with His agony, and how God responded? If God gave us His Son, what will He hold back from us? We do not need to demand—we need only ask—and it shall be given.
O- Those who ask are His elected people. They come to God because God has drawn them. Faith is by Grace, so that no man may boast of it. His grace is His mercy, but those given His grace were predestined to receive it. His mercy was shown to Jacob in the womb before he even had a chance to ask for it.

I- Evil intentions are always evil from God’s perspective.
O- I was talking of our perspective, not God’s. Our definition of evil, what we perceive as evil, cannot be by necessity evil because our perspective is limited and the inherent, or ultimate value of any event, that determines whether it is good or evil, may lie outside our perspective.

— If an event outside our intentional influence is perceived as evil by us, it is God’s perspective that determines whether or not it is really evil, regardless our imperfect perspective.
O- Exactly. Evil is a point of view. The one that matters is God’s. When something strikes us as evil, like how the President of Iran strikes Bush as evil, that does not mean that he is right, but he is reporting on a point of view.

— That means evil is NOT a matter of perspective; God’s perspective is perfectly good, loving, just, etcetera, and so is the deciding perspective on whether an event is truly evil.
O- Exactly. So, since God is ex hypothesis good and not evil, everything that happens, in the end, is good or serves a purposes towards reaching a good. We can’t see but God has. So earthquakes, deformities, disease, genocide, hunger, drought, hurricanes, etc, etc, all are good and not evil.

— I- That’s right. Though He wills that all be saved (1 Tim 2:4)—that will can be rejected in favor of hell (eternal separation from God). The only condition is repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
O- Not “rejected”, for He does not will that “all” be saved, only those whom he has elected for noble purposes. Those pots brought with patience for their own destruction cannot be saved by anything or anybody. They are predestined for destruction.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

@omar

Well, you’ve outdone yourself. Very long post. Let me try to answer it in kind…

I- Giving prophets the future proves God is not limited to the present/now.
O- No. Many humans claim that they can see the future (fortune tellers) and other humans use given theories to predict the future, so the future is not that big of a mistery, and is foreseeable, while the past cannot be changed. God, like ourselves is limited to the present/now and future. The past is beyond His reach, apparently.

— God made no mistake – we did, and His feelings were justified.
O- How did we make a mistake? Did we create ourselves?

I- Creation is a sort of alteration in itself, and He is distinct from His creation, like we are distinct from our thoughts.
O- I must have missed something here…ever heard of “I think, therefore I am”. The “I” is dependant upon thought, upon reflection. Sure something (the brain) does give rise to it and continues to exist even if the “I” is unawares of it. But that said, when athrophication compromises our brain, and our thoughts become jumbled, our memories lost, the “I” is also lost. We are our thoughts, our memories, at least what survives enough to become essential to what we consider our selves.

— We think or refuse to think our thoughts
O- No. We think period. Refusing to think is a thought in itself as it involves a choice.

— like our body digests or refuses to digest its food.
O- Thoughts are not like food because the organ that digest food is irrational, or to put it in another way, the stomach is not chosing to digest or not digest. It secretes liquids that can break down certain foods or not, but this process does not require the approbation of the stomach lining.

— And, no, He cannot change His mind (much scripture puts this forth) – that would be a sign of weakness, not a strength, if He could change His nature (Love).
O- Oh is that so?
The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.(Genesis)

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.(Jonah)
In Genesis God grieved over having created man on earth. When you grieve the day you did something, that is regret and that is a change of mind because at the time you did it you did not grieve. In our case we cannot see the future, thus we are hoping for one outcome and grieve when we get another. In God’s case that is not what happened but what did happened was a change of heart which makes God wish for the destruction and not the creation of man.
In Jonah we have the same scenario but in reverse. God has decreed that he will destroy Nineveh in 40 days, dispatches His prophet and odly enough, the people listen to the augur and repent, making God, out of compassion, change His mind about the destruction of the city.
My point is that Love and Compassion (Mercy) are found in God and therefore God can and does change His mind, His heart. If God could not change His mind then that compromises our freewill, God’s justice and Mercy. We are left with the story Paul tells us of a Potter, all omnipotent and all-knowing who crafts souls, like pots, some for destruction others for decoration, each pot predestined for these ends and in itself powerless to resist the will of the Potter. There is no praise or blame then (would you ask your red flower vase why it isn’t, or why doesn’t it choose to be white?), nor are love and mercy attributes that could be given to God (for he has made what he has made according to His mind, which cannot be changed, and so needs no mercy, which might turn an ignoble vase into a noble one)…but you do get to keep His omnipotense…

I- An action is determined by the agent who wills it… not by nature, not by God (except in exceptional cases, like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, which will from now on be denoted by a *).
O- But read Romans again. Everyone is a Pharaoh. Even if God limits Himself then our will is still determined by His will, by His choice. It is what He makes it to be.

I- You can only be referring to God’s free will here, not ours. Since God does not make our choices for us*, ‘by hypothesis’ is moot. This may explain why you go on and on about how our choices are not free if they are determined by God. With that I would agree – I just don’t agree that our choices are determined by God. They are self-determined.
O- All right. God is omniscent. he can and has seen all that will happen to you. The future is already present in His Mind. Now this mind is perfect and cannot be changed, so you tell me. Well, if that is the case then neither can your actions actually be free to change, for they could change that future He has already foreseen, and this is impossible, correct? Thus, from a subjective standpoint the choices you make seem free, but they are determined by the actions of God. You do not see the future, you do not know it so you make choices with the perception, the illusion, that you are imposing your will upon the circumstances around you, over God’s Creation, over God’s will. This is impossible and thus in reality you were determined by the Mind of God to do this or that on this date this time and it could never have been different or God is not God.

I- Your position seems to be that a free act is impossible, so why do you bother to define “free”?
O- before I tell you what is or isn’t possible I must clarify what exactly I have in my mind. Otherwise there would be misunderstandings…

— Secondly, your definition is vague. A lot of our choices depend on external factors… like “I’ll turn right if the light is red, but if it’s green, I’ll drive straight.” If I turn right ‘cause the light was red, it doesn’t mean my choice was compelled by the red light (or lack of green light).
O- But the light is not God. I could run a red light, or I could refuse to drive on green. Not only is the opposite possible, but within my ability. But I cannot choose to fly because it is outside of my ability. God is like the force of gravity. What I am saying is that a choice to be a choice has to lie within my capacity, within my ability, else it is not a choice and I cannot be praised or blamed. We are praised for following the rules and punished if we run a red light because it is within our power not to follow the rules. God is different because God is omnipotent and has predetermined, predestined what I shall do, according to Paul. If I run the light, it might seem as if I had chosen to do so, but from God’s perspective, He always knew that it would be so. If God decides to do a miracle within His Creation, that Creations still remains determined and subject to His will, which is how a miracle is possible. If God withdraws Himself from our minds and let us operate freely, that freedom is still a part of the determined conditions set by God so it is no real freedom, just as a robot given a program to act seemingly freely, is still following a program.

I- I’ve been insane, and therefore reject the insanity defense – there is always a choice.
O- What was your diagnosis? There are some drugs for depression that come with a warning of an increased risk of suicide in teenagers who take the drug. Was their suicide then a choice? or were they unduced to suicide by the drug they were taking? If there is always a choice why put the warning label?

— Now, if someone put their finger over the unwilling man’s trigger finger (or over the trigger finger of the insane man, who is asking God for help) and squeezed the trigger… then it was against the man’s will.
O- You do have a point in that you could comit suicide rather than murder. It was a bad example for a valid point. See what you think about the psychotropic drug example above.

I- Or else God would be enslaved? Later on you agree that “When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power.”
O- Yes, because we are not free by a self-withdrawl of God.

— That God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*.
O- We operate within that same timeline that God has determined and so are determined ourselves…

— The existence of our ability to choose
O- Appearance of a choice…
—, but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.
O- Where are you free? God has created the illusion of a choice by His withdrawl, but that does not include withdrawl from his entire creation and a free choice would indeed alter creation and as this cannot happen, our action must fall within God’s plan and thus is determined along with all else in Creation. You have not shown me where and when we are free, only when we get the impression that we are free.

I- Okay, here it is. Each moment or all combined moments – in the end, evil happened, did it not? The evil is not the end, love is the end in every moment, and it is WE who neglect to choose it, thereby trampling the gift.
O- You place too much on the shoulders of men. All evil is not dependent on a man’s choice. A child is born deformed. Whose choice was it? An earthquake destroys a church during Sunday mass, killing God’s own while they were praying. Is this too due to their choice? Natural causes are not the choice of men…

— I do not blame God for the pain caused me by others, and I do not blame God for the pain I have caused others.
O- Then God for you is not Omnipotent.

— I thank God for lifting me out of my suffering and using it to strengthen me, and I ask His forgiveness for the suffering I’ve caused. None of it was His fault, and it was not a means to the end of Love… it was an obstacle to it. A temporary obstacle… an obstacle He has removed if we just accept His love. This is a fire that must spread. Thank you again for the opportunity to articulate this. I pray it does not fall on deaf ears.
O- I must tell you that I applaud your attitude. I encourage such morality. I do see it in conflict with scripture, but I like what you say. I am not trying to argue that you should not try to do as you say, I agree, but I am saying that sometimes scripture goes against what is most noble in life. I am not a christian, not a believer in the “holiness” of scripture, I don’t agree with Paul, heck I don’t agree with many other writers within the Bible and if God is who they describe Him as then I see no reason for worship. I applaud your attitude but it is not compatible with the Pauline version of God.

I- Not following God’s will is not the same thing as subduing God’s will under our own. I have heard of Luther’s “Bondage of the Will” but I haven’t read it.
O- It is a good book. Is God’s Will resistible or irresistible? If it is perfect and irresistible then what God wills will have to be followed by what is weaker than God. If God wills that I should believe in Him it would be impossible, due to God’s perfection, for me to resist, or not to follow His will that I will believe. If I could choose not to follow His decree then I would be stronger, my will would be stronger for it can resist what God has willed, what God has wanted.
I- Defining God’s will as irresistible begs the question of whether or not His will is irresistible.
O- It must be irresistible by definition, according to Perfection.

I- Remember the point of the negative crap the pot goes through is to bring it to repentance. Read my last reply on that. Of course we do not save ourselves, and it is God’s grace that saves us… but that salvation is conditioned upon our acceptance (faith).
O- “Conditioned”? Do you mean that God’s will is contingent on our will? God sits in wait of the pot to decide whether it will be noble or ignoble? The pots have no saying on the one who molds them and it is the Potter’s choice and not the pottery’s that determines what shall happen to the pots. As Paul demonstrated, in his mind, Jacob was loved and Esau hated before they had done a thing…in the very womb of their mother. Are you going to say that the selection of one baby over another has anything to do with the acceptance of God’s offer on the baby’s part?

— In this case, hate actually meant rejected, as in “did not choose”. He didn’t inherit the promises his brother inherited. What did he gain from free will? Well… freedom is pretty good in itself.
O- You can dance around it but it does not change the immorality of the passage. Freedom is not the end but the means, so it is not good in itself but in relation to what future end can become possible through it.
I- Only in the sense that He sustains the future in which they freely choose to love Him.
O- A future that cannot be changed and so your own children’s future is already determined by God and cannot be changed or chosen to be differently.

I- Choosing is not earning, but accepting, the free gift of grace, which is irresistible only on the willing (indeed)!
O- I was using Paul’s terminology. If I accept God then I earned the benefits that come from my acceptance of God. I should be praised for my choice which did not depend, if a free choice, God’s mercy.

I- Although I wonder how you came up with this theory if love defies reason, and I think not all people leap blindly into love, I think I mostly agree. Our need for God’s love was put there by Him (perfectly rational, perfectly loving) and cannot be erased by reason, but we have many reasons to get that need met, many reasons to enjoy His love, many reasons to share it with others, and many reasons to choose His love over loving false gods.
O- But listen to what you said:“put there by Him”. That is all I am saying. paul is saying mostly the same stuff and science might just prove him right, to my chagrin, that indeed piety is a biological need, an instinct, that we are born with it or not. Steven Pinker wrote a book about the language instinct. Imagine if faith was also an instinct? It would explain that just as we have different languages we also have different faiths, but all require that inate language instinct just as religions need that fath-instinct. But…here is the bad part. Some have it…a few really have it, while the great majority lacks such a faith and instead pay lip service out of fear or out of self-preservation, self-interest etc. Very few are those who believe in God in spite of reason, in spite of all objections, who love him as He is, not as we wish Him to be, who love Him for His sake and not our own, not for what we could gain, for what He could give or not give, but simply for His own sake.

I- Yes.
O- Then our will is not “free”.

I- As I said earlier, that God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*.
O- But if our so called choices are conditioned or limited by His will, by His design, then our will is conditioned, limited, determined by what God has already willed and thus cannot be free. I am not saying that God makes our choices but that choices are only apparent, subjective, seem so to us from our perspective, but are not choices in an objective manner, from God’s perspective, from what is the case. From His perspective there are no choices but His.

— The existence of our ability to choose, but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.
O- I already answered to this above.

I- We are all made in God’s image
O- Paul disagrees (see Romans)

I- I know nothing of German mysticism (they prob’ly stole it from Jews or Christians), and anything apart from God and what He has communicated about Himself and how He wants us to relate with Him is more like temporary destruction, rather than eternal creation. Eternal creation is only possible when we align our will with His (obey), allowing His image to be brought out in us. His creative interaction was part of the plan, just like ours.
O- It takes no creativity to obey. You’re not being creative because you followed the rule of Law to the letter. You obey the one who was creative but that creativity does not become yours by your submission to it.

I- The Potter who knew how we would/will freely choose.
O- He knew because it could not be otherwise…or else what He knew He would have only guessed. But as you say, He knew, just as 2+2=4. This equation cannot choose to be anything else other than what it is, just as we could not choose, lest God ceases to know. Since God knew, our action is determined and could not have been otherwise. God made His pots and programmed each exactly to His will and thus these pots do this or that according to that design he has imparted to the pot and not because the pot itself came up and decided, that is, chose to do X instead of Y. It was always destined to “choose” what in fact God was the one who had already chosen.

I- Giving us free will was making us all generals. The greatest generals among us align our will with God’s.
O- No. Ask Esau. One was chosen general over another by His choice without anything to do with what came from Jacob’s or Esau’s will, free or otherwise. Their actions had nothing to do in God’s selection. He shall save whomever it pleases Him to save. Some were chosen as generals but this was not due to the actions of the soldiers, their free creativity, their freewill, but were predestined, were made, by the Potter for noble purposes over other, not because they aligned or not their will to God’s but before they were even born God’s election was complete and irresistible.

I- The point is God’s mercy; repentance.
O- Generated by His, not our, Grace…

I- Remember how Job dealt with His agony, and how God responded? If God gave us His Son, what will He hold back from us? We do not need to demand—we need only ask—and it shall be given.
O- Those who ask are His elected people. They come to God because God has drawn them. Faith is by Grace, so that no man may boast of it. His grace is His mercy, but those given His grace were predestined to receive it. His mercy was shown to Jacob in the womb before he even had a chance to ask for it.

I- Evil intentions are always evil from God’s perspective.
O- I was talking of our perspective, not God’s. Our definition of evil, what we perceive as evil, cannot be by necessity evil because our perspective is limited and the inherent, or ultimate value of any event, that determines whether it is good or evil, may lie outside our perspective.

— If an event outside our intentional influence is perceived as evil by us, it is God’s perspective that determines whether or not it is really evil, regardless our imperfect perspective.
O- Exactly. Evil is a point of view. The one that matters is God’s. When something strikes us as evil, like how the President of Iran strikes Bush as evil, that does not mean that he is right, but he is reporting on a point of view.

— That means evil is NOT a matter of perspective; God’s perspective is perfectly good, loving, just, etcetera, and so is the deciding perspective on whether an event is truly evil.
O- Exactly. So, since God is ex hypothesis good and not evil, everything that happens, in the end, is good or serves a purposes towards reaching a good. We can’t see but God has. So earthquakes, deformities, disease, genocide, hunger, drought, hurricanes, etc, etc, all are good and not evil.

— I- That’s right. Though He wills that all be saved (1 Tim 2:4)—that will can be rejected in favor of hell (eternal separation from God). The only condition is repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
O- Not “rejected”, for He does not will that “all” be saved, only those whom he has elected for noble purposes. Those pots brought with patience for their own destruction cannot be saved by anything or anybody. They are predestined for destruction.

Omar, I got out my highlighter pens because I was noticing some conflicting ideas.

Orange: how you actually seem to think things are. Some of what you say that is labeled orange might more appropriately be labeled blue, but it is hard to tell.
Blue: your interpretation of what Paul and Luther say on this issue – you seem to demand my interpretation conform to it, and almost seem to adopt this interpretation as your own (but it conflicts with orange).
Pink (this could also double as orange): what you say about free will – sometimes you speak as if we possess it, sometimes you speak as if we don’t. The confusion may be due to the same reason there is confusion in whether some comments labeled orange should actually be labeled blue.

I’m going to actually reply in a new reply, and perhaps refer back to this one. It may not be right away, but I’ll work on it.

[omar]

Hello Ichtus:

— Omar, I got out my highlighter pens because I was noticing some conflicting ideas.

Orange: how you actually seem to think things are. Some of what you say that is labeled orange might more appropriately be labeled blue, but it is hard to tell.
Blue: your interpretation of what Paul and Luther say on this issue – you seem to demand my interpretation conform to it, and almost seem to adopt this interpretation as your own (but it conflicts with orange).
Pink (this could also double as orange): what you say about free will – sometimes you speak as if we possess it, sometimes you speak as if we don’t. The confusion may be due to the same reason there is confusion in whether some comments labeled orange should actually be labeled blue.

I’m going to actually reply in a new reply, and perhaps refer back to this one. It may not be right away, but I’ll work on it
O- Can’t wait for that reply, but please take your time. I do that sometimes when I read books by great philosophers. I am not worthy of such meticulous attention but thank you.
There might be contradictions here and there. A profound thought carries it’s other imbeded within. But other times the contradictions, or conflicts, are only apparent. I approach the matter in this way:
1- I don’t say I am a “christian”, but I do understand the Christian theory of God. That is, it has certain dogmas which define it as a religion. Many of these dogmas are Paul’s, though not all. Freewill is one of the themes central to his thought.
2- That said, one can see why he believed as he did because his conclusion was predicated and made necessary by his accepted premises. Logically one cannot faul Paul. Given the criteria by which he has defined God, our freewill is left as nothing but an illusion. I am not saying that this is exactly so, but that would require a different conception of God. Even so, our freewill cannot be absolutely “free” if not because of theological consideration then because of materialistic ones. I approve of the belief of freewill though even in spite of all arguments brought against…but that is my belief and there are enough reasons why one should doubt it.
3- The Bible is an aggregate of different writers, different cultures and perspectives within a class society. As such, I hold, that different views find equal defense within the Bible. I could play Erasmus as easily as Luther, so when you find conflict in my views that is actually intended, in some instances, because I was trying to represent the conflict within scripture. And even when scripture is in harmony, for both rest on opinion and imagination, there is still the conflict created by the reality outside the Book.

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

Omar, I apologize for the delay in responding.

I could play Erasmus as easily as Luther, so when you find conflict in my views that is actually intended, in some instances, because I was trying to represent the conflict within scripture.

I am allergic to the word “play” in this context. If you are not committed to a view, please say that up front.

I am not worthy of such meticulous attention but thank you.

God died for you… see yourself through His eyes. I appreciate the obstacle course of your replies.

I- Giving prophets the future proves God is not limited to the present/now.
O- No. Many humans claim that they can see the future (fortune tellers) and other humans use given theories to predict the future, so the future is not that big of a mystery, and is foreseeable, while the past cannot be changed.
II- Anybody can claim to see the future, or have ‘visions’ that feel futuristic, or guess at (predict) how the future will go. The weather forecaster ain’t always right, so such predictions are not a genuine ‘seeing’. Fortune tellers could have demons whispering in their ears… demons that help bring about the future they ‘predict’ – such predictions are not a genuine ‘telling’ either.

O- God, like ourselves is limited to the present/now and future. The past is beyond His reach, apparently.
II- Any genuine future-seeing is only possible because God allows it, which proves He is not limited to the present/now or future. Since the present is the future’s past, the fact that He can bring future and present together is equivalent to bringing future and past together, which means the past is not, apparently, beyond His reach. I would like to point out right here and now (which keeps moving!) (or does it?) that God is not limited to the past, present, or future… nor is it impossible for Him to interact within them.

I- God made no mistake – we did, and His feelings were justified.
O- How did we make a mistake? Did we create ourselves?
II- It is a mistake to trample the gift of your existence by calling it a mistake. Rather than trampling the gift as a mistake, you can embrace your existence as a gift. There is much you have left unexplored… much only He can show you.

I- Creation is a sort of alteration in itself, and He is distinct from His creation, like we are distinct from our thoughts.
O- I must have missed something here…ever heard of “I think, therefore I am”. The “I” is dependant upon thought, upon reflection. Sure something (the brain) does give rise to it and continues to exist even if the “I” is unawares of it. But that said, when athrophication compromises our brain, and our thoughts become jumbled, our memories lost, the “I” is also lost. We are our thoughts, our memories, at least what survives enough to become essential to what we consider our selves.
II- Not everything that exists, thinks… but everything that thinks, exists. Thoughts are things that exist, which don’t think (that’s what’s goin’ on when you’re dreaming… thoughts which don’t think) (until you become progressively more lucid, and start thinking your thoughts again). I think my thoughts, but I don’t “exist” as my thoughts. My thoughts are as much “me” as are my arms and legs. I can refuse to think the thought “I want to eat that entire bag of chips” – or I can choose to dwell upon it. Nip the chips thought in the bud, and I will be less likely to eat that bag of chips. If it hangs around, it is merely a phantom itch. Dwell upon that thought, and I will be more likely to eat that bag of chips. The thinking, the dwelling, is not itself the thought. I am the thinking, the dwelling. The thought is not me. What I choose to think and dwell upon will condition what thoughts are more likely to occur to me in the future – but I will still have the choice to refuse or dwell upon those thoughts. The “I” remains even after our thoughts become jumbled, memories lost – because we are still thinking, we are still dwelling, and we still have the power to refuse a thought. That’s one thing I got really good at when I went nuts – how to refuse a thought. The floodgates opened… it was sink or swim. I was sinking until He taught me how to swim. Refusing thoughts is half the battle. The other half is seeking thoughts that are edifying to replace the thoughts you now refuse. Supernature abhors a vacuum, too. I seek the Word.

I- We think or refuse to think our thoughts
O- No. We think period. Refusing to think is a thought in itself as it involves a choice.
II- Refusing to think a thought is a better way to put that. Here’s how to do it. Make the sound of a car screeching to a stop. Now make that sound in your head, without actually making any sound outside your head. Make that sound when you’re thinking a thought you don’t want to think, look somewhere else (not sure why/how that works), and replace it with a thought which edifies. Have a list of edifying thoughts memorized, and this’ll be much easier.

I- like our body digests or refuses to digest its food.
O- Thoughts are not like food because the organ that digest food is irrational, or to put it in another way, the stomach is not choosing to digest or not digest. It secretes liquids that can break down certain foods or not, but this process does not require the approbation of the stomach lining.
II- The way the stomach rejects food is that it vomits it up and out. The way the will rejects thoughts is that it makes a screeching car sound, looks somewhere else, and replaces the old thought with one that edifies. :^)

I- And, no, He cannot change His mind (much scripture puts this forth) – that would be a sign of weakness, not a strength, if He could change His nature (Love).
O- [ mentioned the Lord being grieved that He made man, as well as not bringing about the threatened destruction of Nineveh ] …If God could not change His mind then that compromises our freewill, God’s justice and Mercy.
II- If God had actually changed His mind about the existence of man (and we should feel the way He feels about sin, btw), we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing it…. and a threat is not a promise (not acting on a threat does not equate to a change of mind). Good thing Nineveh repented rather than figuring they had no choice and giving it up as hopeless. Good thing God is compassionate when we wilfully choose to repent.

O- We are left with the story Paul tells us of a Potter, all omnipotent and all-knowing who crafts souls, like pots, some for destruction others for decoration, each pot predestined for these ends and in itself powerless to resist the will of the Potter. There is no praise or blame then (would you ask your red flower vase why it isn’t, or why doesn’t it choose to be white?), nor are love and mercy attributes that could be given to God (for he has made what he has made according to His mind, which cannot be changed, and so needs no mercy, which might turn an ignoble vase into a noble one)…but you do get to keep His omnipotence
II- As I mentioned in a previous reply, you are referring to Romans 9:11-23. You interpret that passage from an extreme Calvinist viewpoint, and I do not. Zondervan NASB note on (22-23) – “An illustration of the principle stated in v. 21. The emphasis is on God’s mercy, not His wrath. (22) No one can call God to account for what He does. But He does not exercise His freedom of choice arbitrarily, and He shows great patience even toward the objects of His wrath. In light of 2:4, the purpose of such patience is to bring about repentance.” Just because God knows everything does not mean we have no choice… His knowledge includes and sustains our choice. I said this in the original post, in different words.

I- An action is determined by the agent who wills it… not by nature, not by God (except in exceptional cases, like Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar, which will from now on be denoted by a *).
O- But read Romans again. Everyone is a Pharaoh. Even if God limits Himself then our will is still determined by His will, by His choice. It is what He makes it to be.
II- That isn’t what Romans is saying. Not everyone is a Pharaoh, because some freely obey God rather than forfeiting their free will as did Pharaoh. It is not “limiting Himself” for God to allow free will.

I- You can only be referring to God’s free will here, not ours. Since God does not make our choices for us*, ‘by hypothesis’ is moot. This may explain why you go on and on about how our choices are not free if they are determined by God. With that I would agree – I just don’t agree that our choices are determined by God. They are self-determined.
O- All right. God is omniscient. he can and has seen all that will happen to you. The future is already present in His Mind. Now this mind is perfect and cannot be changed, so you tell me. Well, if that is the case then neither can your actions actually be free to change, for they could change that future He has already foreseen, and this is impossible, correct?
II- He created that future with us, from beyond time, just like the producer/director made the movie with the actors before it was finalized onto the DVD in your machine. It is impossible to change the movie, but there was choice involved in its making. We cannot change the future we have already wilfully co-made, from God’s perspective.

O-Thus, from a subjective standpoint the choices you make seem free, but they are determined by the actions of God. You do not see the future, you do not know it so you make choices with the perception, the illusion, that you are imposing your will upon the circumstances around you, over God’s Creation, over God’s will. This is impossible and thus in reality you were determined by the Mind of God to do this or that on this date this time and it could never have been different or God is not God.
II- We are not imposing our will over God’s will, but at the allowance of His will.

O- But the light is not God. I could run a red light, or I could refuse to drive on green. Not only is the opposite possible, but within my ability. But I cannot choose to fly because it is outside of my ability. … What I am saying is that a choice to be a choice has to lie within my capacity, within my ability, else it is not a choice and I cannot be praised or blamed.
II- I agree.

O- We are praised for following the rules and punished if we run a red light because it is within our power not to follow the rules.
II- Because we have free will, because God has allowed it.

O- God is different because God is omnipotent and has predetermined, predestined what I shall do, according to Paul. If I run the light, it might seem as if I had chosen to do so, but from God’s perspective, He always knew that it would be so. If God decides to do a miracle within His Creation, that Creations still remains determined and subject to His will, which is how a miracle is possible. If God withdraws Himself from our minds and let us operate freely, that freedom is still a part of the determined conditions set by God so it is no real freedom, just as a robot given a program to act seemingly freely, is still following a program.
II- You chose to run the light, and God always knew that it would be so. You are presenting two types of determinism: God controlling our minds… and being as determined as the rest of the universe. The more we align our will with God’s, the less our behaviour is determined as a result of our bodies being part of the physical universe.

I- I’ve been insane, and therefore reject the insanity defence – there is always a choice.
O- What was your diagnosis? There are some drugs for depression that come with a warning of an increased risk of suicide in teenagers who take the drug. Was their suicide then a choice? or were they induced to suicide by the drug they were taking? If there is always a choice why put the warning label?
II- I never saw a therapist in order to receive a proper diagnosis. I saw a doctor at the request of my father after the worst of it was over, but he based his conclusion on a single interview with me (I lied to keep from losing my kids). I was, however, quite mad. More importantly – it seems unwise to me (to put it mildly) to hand a depressed kid a bottle of pills with “increased risk of suicide” written on the outside. Please tell me that never happens. Whether or not the message influences (but not causes) their choice – it is in fact a choice… how free it was is another matter, and points to the fact that there is a range of freedom. What they need is to be set free, and only God can do that. See my thread “Madness as spiritual suffering.”

I- Now, if someone put their finger over the unwilling man’s trigger finger (or over the trigger finger of the insane man, who is asking God for help) and squeezed the trigger… then it was against the man’s will.
O- You do have a point in that you could commit suicide rather than murder. It was a bad example for a valid point.
II- That isn’t suicide unless the focus is on killing self, rather than on saving others. Your point was not valid.

I- Or else God would be enslaved? Later on you agree that “When He chooses not to squash our free will does not constitute a loss of power.”
O- Yes, because we are not free by a self-withdrawal of God.
II- Only because that would be Hell.

I- That God has predestined everything past, present, and future does not equate to His making our choices for us*.
O- We operate within that same timeline that God has determined and so are determined ourselves…
II- Except for the fact that we help create the timeline.

I- but not the choices we make*, depends on His giving it to us, yes. This does not violate free will.
O- Where are you free? God has created the illusion of a choice by His withdrawal, but that does not include withdrawal from his entire creation and a free choice would indeed alter creation and as this cannot happen, our action must fall within God’s plan and thus is determined along with all else in Creation. You have not shown me where and when we are free, only when we get the impression that we are free.
II- I replied above.

I- Okay, here it is. Each moment or all combined moments – in the end, evil happened, did it not? The evil is not the end, love is the end in every moment, and it is WE who neglect to choose it, thereby trampling the gift.
O- You place too much on the shoulders of men.
II- I don’t place anything. The responsibility on man’s shoulders is too much to bear, agreed, which is why Jesus died in our place.

O- All evil is not dependent on a man’s choice. A child is born deformed. Whose choice was it? An earthquake destroys a church during Sunday mass, killing God’s own while they were praying. Is this too due to their choice? Natural causes are not the choice of men…
II- When discussing responsibility, the evil referred to is moral evil, not natural causes.

I- I do not blame God for the pain caused me by others, and I do not blame God for the pain I have caused others.
O- Then God for you is not Omnipotent.
II- Yes He is, and man is responsible.

O- I am saying that sometimes scripture goes against what is most noble in life. … I don’t agree with Paul. … I applaud your attitude but it is not compatible with the Pauline version of God. …if God is who they describe Him as then I see no reason for worship.
II- If they described God as you (and extreme Calvinists) understand them to describe Him, I would agree with you. However…. you (and extreme Calvinists) misinterpret Scripture, including Paul.

I- Not following God’s will is not the same thing as subduing God’s will under our own. I have heard of Luther’s “Bondage of the Will” but I haven’t read it.
O- It is a good book. Is God’s Will resistible or irresistible? If it is perfect and irresistible then what God wills will have to be followed by what is weaker than God. If God wills that I should believe in Him it would be impossible, due to God’s perfection, for me to resist, or not to follow His will that I will believe. If I could choose not to follow His decree then I would be stronger, my will would be stronger for it can resist what God has willed, what God has wanted.
II- God’s will sustains the timeline, but is not itself the timeline. We helped create the timeline (we did not help create God’s will), even when our choices did not conform to His will (broke the law of love). Such choices are allowed by His will, rather than overpowering His will. God’s will is in that way resistible by the unwilling.

I- Defining God’s will as irresistible begs the question of whether or not His will is irresistible.
O- It must be irresistible by definition, according to Perfection.
II- Perfection is Love. Love is impossible without choice/freedom. It must therefore be resistible by definition.

I- Remember the point of the negative crap the pot goes through is to bring it to repentance. Read my last reply on that. Of course we do not save ourselves, and it is God’s grace that saves us… but that salvation is conditioned upon our acceptance (faith).
O- “Conditioned”? Do you mean that God’s will is contingent on our will? God sits in wait of the pot to decide whether it will be noble or ignoble? The pots have no saying on the one who molds them and it is the Potter’s choice and not the pottery’s that determines what shall happen to the pots. As Paul demonstrated, in his mind, Jacob was loved and Esau hated before they had done a thing…in the very womb of their mother. Are you going to say that the selection of one baby over another has anything to do with the acceptance of God’s offer on the baby’s part?
II- God doesn’t have to wait. He is the alpha and the omega – He’s already there. God wills to save all who will that He save them – His will comes first, and makes our will possible. “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated” is equivalent to “Jacob I chose, but Esau I rejected,” (Zondervan NASB). The point of Romans 9:11-23 is that we are not saved by works, or by physical descent, but by God’s promise of mercy, available to all who put their faith in Christ – including Gentiles.

I- Choosing is not earning, but accepting, the free gift of grace, which is irresistible only on the willing (indeed)!
O- I was using Paul’s terminology. If I accept God then I earned the benefits that come from my acceptance of God. I should be praised for my choice which did not depend, if a free choice, God’s mercy.
II- He draws you, persuasively, not coercively, to such a choice, which… if ever you should make such a choice… will cause you to look back on your words and have a good laugh-cry over your former self.

I- Although I wonder how you came up with this theory if love defies reason, and I think not all people leap blindly into love, I think I mostly agree. Our need for God’s love was put there by Him (perfectly rational, perfectly loving) and cannot be erased by reason, but we have many reasons to get that need met, many reasons to enjoy His love, many reasons to share it with others, and many reasons to choose His love over loving false gods.
O- But listen to what you said: “put there by Him”. That is all I am saying.
II- Our need for God’s love was put there, but we can freely ignore that need. It does not violate our free will. See my thread on Natural Empathy and Supernatural Love.

O- paul is saying mostly the same stuff
II-- No, he isn’t.

O- and science might just prove him right, to my chagrin, that indeed piety is a biological need, an instinct, that we are born with it or not.
II- Where’d Paul say this? If true, it wouldn’t mean it violates our free will. See my thread on Natural Empathy and Supernatural Love.

O- Steven Pinker wrote a book about the language instinct. Imagine if faith was also an instinct? It would explain that just as we have different languages we also have different faiths, but all require that innate language instinct just as religions need that faith-instinct.
II- Hmmm. Let’s treat this as a hypothesis and see where it leads. We might feel the need to communicate with eachother. We might feel the need to communicate with God. Religion might be language we use to communicate with God, and with eachother about and with God. And that triangulation thing Dunamis mentioned a million years ago… maybe that’s where God comes in and says, “Yeah, I read you guys loud and clear, but you’re going to stop sacrificing your children, or I’m going to stop listening and have to completely put you out of their and your misery.”

O- But…here is the bad part. Some have it…a few really have it, while the great majority lacks such a faith and instead pay lip service out of fear or out of self-preservation, self-interest etc. Very few are those who believe in God in spite of reason, in spite of all objections, who love him as He is, not as we wish Him to be, who love Him for His sake and not our own, not for what we could gain, for what He could give or not give, but simply for His own sake.
II- You yourself said earlier that if God is as you interpret Paul to be describing Him, He is not worthy of worship. Faith is not necessarily in spite of reason. God takes us where we are at (remember that it only takes a mustard-seed’s worth of faith)… and because He loves us, He doesn’t leave us that way! :0) It is impossible to love God “for His own sake” without recognizing that God desires to lavish His love upon us. The disciples try to stop Jesus from cleaning their feet… from dying on the cross… so on and so forth… because it took a while for this to sink in.

I- We are all made in God’s image
O- Paul disagrees (see Romans)
II- We are made in God’s image, but sin stains the image. When we draw near to Christ, we “become conformed to the image of His Son” (Romans 8:29).

I- I know nothing of German mysticism (they prob’ly stole it from Jews or Christians), and anything apart from God and what He has communicated about Himself and how He wants us to relate with Him is more like temporary destruction, rather than eternal creation. Eternal creation is only possible when we align our will with His (obey), allowing His image to be brought out in us. His creative interaction was part of the plan, just like ours.
O- It takes no creativity to obey. You’re not being creative because you followed the rule of Law to the letter. You obey the one who was creative but that creativity does not become yours by your submission to it.
II- Hm. You’re talking about legalism and I’m not. I’m talking about relationship. I guess this also depends what you mean by creating. It seems to me that if the eternal (Love) is not in view… then one is just building sandcastles for the tide. If God gives us something and says “go create” and steps back… but we seek His will all the way to the end of the project… then it to me seems like we both/all created it… and I’m cool with that… and I thank God for it.

I- The Potter who knew how we would/will freely choose.
O- He knew because it could not be otherwise…or else what He knew He would have only guessed. But as you say, He knew, just as 2+2=4. This equation cannot choose to be anything else other than what it is, just as we could not choose, lest God ceases to know. Since God knew, our action is determined and could not have been otherwise. God made His pots and programmed each exactly to His will and thus these pots do this or that according to that design he has imparted to the pot and not because the pot itself came up and decided, that is, chose to do X instead of Y. It was always destined to “choose” what in fact God was the one who had already chosen.
II- You say “what in fact God was the one who had already chosen” when earlier you say “I am not saying that God makes our choices”. God doesn’t make our choices for us*. You say “we could not choose, lest God ceases to know”. That’s wrong. That we choose does not mean God doesn’t know. He knows what we will choose.

I- Giving us free will was making us all generals. The greatest generals among us align our will with God’s.
O- No. Ask Esau. One was chosen general over another by His choice without anything to do with what came from Jacob’s or Esau’s will, free or otherwise. Their actions had nothing to do in God’s selection. He shall save whomever it pleases Him to save. Some were chosen as generals but this was not due to the actions of the soldiers, their free creativity, their freewill, but were predestined, were made, by the Potter for noble purposes over other, not because they aligned or not their will to God’s but before they were even born God’s election was complete and irresistible.
II- Both Jacob and Esau and every other human with free will is a general. I explained the Scripture above.

I- Remember how Job dealt with His agony, and how God responded? If God gave us His Son, what will He hold back from us? We do not need to demand—we need only ask—and it shall be given.
O- Those who ask are His elected people. They come to God because God has drawn them. Faith is by Grace, so that no man may boast of it. His grace is His mercy, but those given His grace were predestined to receive it. His mercy was shown to Jacob in the womb before he even had a chance to ask for it.
II- If those who ask are His elected people… then one sure way to find out if you are of the elect is to ask. :0) That we are predestined to receive grace does not mean we were predetermined to have faith. God knew we would have faith, He persuaded us toward it… but He did not force that faith upon us.

I- Evil intentions are always evil from God’s perspective.
O- I was talking of our perspective, not God’s. Our definition of evil, what we perceive as evil, cannot be by necessity evil because our perspective is limited and the inherent, or ultimate value of any event, that determines whether it is good or evil, may lie outside our perspective.
II- “inherent” is not perspectival language. “ultimate value” is not perspectival. If we align our perspective with God’s, it will help us more clearly distinguish between good and evil. It’s like wearing prescription glasses.

I- If an event outside our intentional influence is perceived as evil by us, it is God’s perspective that determines whether or not it is really evil, regardless our imperfect perspective.
O- Exactly. Evil is a point of view. The one that matters is God’s. When something strikes us as evil, like how the President of Iran strikes Bush as evil, that does not mean that he is right, but he is reporting on a point of view.
II- To say evil is a point of view is to say everyone’s opinion of evil (not just God’s) is correct. Since God’s is the only perspective that is entirely correct, evil is not a point of view. See also my thread on essentialism.

I- That means evil is NOT a matter of perspective; God’s perspective is perfectly good, loving, just, etcetera, and so is the deciding perspective on whether an event is truly evil.
O- Exactly. So, since God is ex hypothesis good and not evil, everything that happens, in the end, is good or serves a purposes towards reaching a good. We can’t see but God has. So earthquakes, deformities, disease, genocide, hunger, drought, hurricanes, etc, etc, all are good and not evil.
II- When discussing responsibility, the evil referred to is moral evil, not natural causes. Natural causes and moral evil can both be obstacles to the end of Love in every moment, but God can help us turn it around to spiritual growth.

I- That’s right. Though He wills that all be saved (1 Tim 2:4)—that will can be rejected in favor of hell (eternal separation from God). The only condition is repentance (2 Peter 3:9).
O- Not “rejected”, for He does not will that “all” be saved, only those whom he has elected for noble purposes. Those pots brought with patience for their own destruction cannot be saved by anything or anybody. They are predestined for destruction.
II- No. The destruction you are referring to, mentioned by Paul, is a destruction leading to repentance…. wilful acceptance… noble purposes (explained above). God does not deny anyone who seeks Him, and He does not force His love upon anyone who rejects it.

Again, I apologize for the delay in responding.

[omar]

— Omar, I apologize for the delay in responding.
O- It’s the size of the post that needs an apology…

— II- Anybody can claim to see the future, or have ‘visions’ that feel futuristic, or guess at (predict) how the future will go. The weather forecaster ain’t always right, so such predictions are not a genuine ‘seeing’. Fortune tellers could have demons whispering in their ears… demons that help bring about the future they ‘predict’ – such predictions are not a genuine ‘telling’ either.
O- You bring an interesting obstacle then to all claims of revelation. Maybe the Apocalypse is but the musings of a demon whispered in the ear of John. When someone else makes the prediction then it is a demon, but when it is one of yours then it is an angel or God Himself?

— II- Any genuine future-seeing is only possible because God allows it, which proves He is not limited to the present/now or future.
O- I am not limited to the Present, to the now, just as God is not, but neither God nor man can go back in time and change the Past…God is omnipotent to change the present, the future but not the past.

— Since the present is the future’s past, the fact that He can bring future and present together is equivalent to bringing future and past together, which means the past is not, apparently, beyond His reach.
O- That is sophistry. In fact, if that is the criteria, then I too can claim that the past is not beyond my power because the present is the future’s past.

— Thoughts are things that exist
O- “Things”? You can’t be serious. It is a quality, a predicate to a thing, not a thing on it’s own that occupies space and time continium. When I am having a thought that is an emergent quality from the state of mind.

— I think my thoughts, but I don’t “exist” as my thoughts. My thoughts are as much “me” as are my arms and legs.
O- Thoughts do not come from your arms or legs, if anything think of them as emanating from the chemical reactions in the brain. If you lose an arm you do not lose yourself, but if you lose your brain you do lose yourself. So in that regard you’re pretty much your brain.

— I can refuse to think the thought “I want to eat that entire bag of chips” – or I can choose to dwell upon it.
O- To even get to refuse the thought mentioned it must still be mentioned/thought. Dwelling or not is a matter of duration only.

— The thinking, the dwelling, is not itself the thought.
O- The brain that dwells, that thinks is thinking…the “thought” is not an independent “thing” that co-exist with these other “things”, equally occupying space and time. The thought is not capable of action, of “ing” because it is not a “thing” but the action of a thing, the predicate of a thing. What? Should “run” also be a “thing”? Thought is what a brain is capable of. Run, is what legs are capable of. Legs and brains are things…not the actions they do, and if they are ever refered to as “doing that thing” it is because of laziness in expression which disipates upon further reflection.

— The thought is not me. … The “I” remains even after our thoughts become jumbled, memories lost – because we are still thinking, we are still dwelling, and we still have the power to refuse a thought.
O- “You” are your thoughts. Identity is not a thing. I have said that the mind is a state of the brain, but what the states recall are thoughts…that is the currency used by the mind. “You” are not a thing that is fixed. I change over the years, but still refer to “I” because something recurs in my thoughts, that sense of identity, that living memory that connects for “I” the past and the present and projects into a future…but these are all thoughts and these retain some fixidity, relative thought it is, because the brain itself changes only slightly from day to day. Therefore my sense of self is strongest the smaller the space of time in memory and challenged the greater the time a memory has to unite. I can tell you very well where “Omar” was this morning, but I would be harder pressed to give an account on his whereabouts ten years ago. Now, I have other memories of that time that connect me in time, but these are ambiguous and very much suceptible to reconstruction by the imagination so that the thought of me is corrupted aned the “I”, the true “I” is lost and replaced by an illusion of “I”. We are getting deep here.
I will add only this…a person may suffer a traumatic injury to their brain that they forget their name, or their friends, sometimes even remain a vegetable little better than a new born, others devoid of short term memory, so I seriously doubt that:“The “I” remains even after our thoughts become jumbled, memories lost –”. We may be “still thinking”, but new thoughts belonging to a new “me”, “still dwelling”, over new thoughts that have occured to a new “Me”, and we may “still have the power to refuse a thought” because refusal means NOTHING to identity, to the “I”. The I is the memory still retained in time and without that we are just an ecclectic mix of identities.

— Refusing to think a thought is a better way to put that.
O- Refusing to think a thought still means that you are thinking that thought you wish to refuse.

— If God had actually changed His mind about the existence of man (and we should feel the way He feels about sin, btw), we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing it…
O- You and I are here, but an entire Planet worth of life was destroyed, so God created, then changed His mind and wanted to destroy it all and then changed His mind again and decided to keep alive a few. We’re here discussing these matters because God, as Yahweh, was pretty flexible in His decisions at that time.

— and a threat is not a promise
O- What is the difference in your mind, since I see none? A threat is a promise of violence…

— (not acting on a threat does not equate to a change of mind).
O- That is a torture tactic then. You don’t kill them but that don’t mean you still don’t intend to kill them…eventually…when you get to it…

— Good thing Nineveh repented rather than figuring they had no choice and giving it up as hopeless. Good thing God is compassionate when we wilfully choose to repent.
O- Good thing? Why? God has only delayed the inevitable…as you said, He has not changed His mind…Jonah simply misunderstood that the time was changed for His acting on that threat…He never changed His mind…

— “An illustration of the principle stated in v. 21. The emphasis is on God’s mercy, not His wrath. (22) No one can call God to account for what He does. But He does not exercise His freedom of choice arbitrarily, and He shows great patience even toward the objects of His wrath. In light of 2:4, the purpose of such patience is to bring about repentance.”
O- The illustration is to distinguish His mercy as free, totally free, from his creation’s actions and that indeed it is Him that saves or condemns irrespectively of the creature’s actions. Yes God is quoted as saying:
"“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”
But also:
“18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and [b]he hardens whom he wants to harden.”
You got to remember Paul’s idea of a “Remnant”:
"27Isaiah cries out concerning Israel:
“Though the number of the Israelites be like the sand by the sea,
only the remnant will be saved.”
And this remnant is saved not by what they have chosen but by God’s election:
"4And what was God’s answer to him? “I have reserved for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal.”[b] 5So too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. 6And if by grace, then it is no longer by works; if it were, grace would no longer be grace.[c]
7What then? What Israel sought so earnestly it did not obtain, but the elect did. The others were hardened

— That isn’t what Romans is saying. Not everyone is a Pharaoh, because some freely obey God rather than forfeiting their free will as did Pharaoh. It is not “limiting Himself” for God to allow free will.
O- If they did indeed “freely” obey God then it would be a credit to themselves and not a credit to His Mercy, to His Grace. If we are capable to choose then the Law should still be followed, but Paul demonstrates the the will is a slave to sin:
Romans 7:"14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[c] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

As Luther presented Paul’s case, the Will, what in you makes a choice, is like a donkey (seriously)that is saddled, enslaved, either by the law of sin (Satan)or by the law of God (Jesus), never by your own law, free in your own light. You’re determined one way or the other. You say that God gave us freewill that we may love him freely, but the truth of the matter is that it is a love that is coerced because of the treath of hell, of punishment and wrath upon those that rebel against the object of their so-called freedom. Suppose I have a feeling of love for a beautiful woman…I wouldn’t want to rape her, that is, compel her love which can only be given, but instead I want her to feel free to give me her love freely…yet, can she do this if I promise her Cadillacts, diamonds and who knows what? Will she then love me for whom I am or for what I could give? And if I instead mentioned that I will punish her if she choses not to love me, then her love is not entirely free, but coerced. She might say she loves me but it might be that not love but fear drove her into my arms.

— He created that future with us, from beyond time, just like the producer/director made the movie with the actors before it was finalized onto the DVD in your machine.
O- Excuse me but are you saying that we were there along with God and His Word? But never mind. I already told you that the script being perfect requires only one take and thus is fixed, not free, not chosen, but dictated by it’s own perfection. The vision of the director is complete in the case of God, His Creativity so perfect that no other creativity is needed or ALLOWED.

— It is impossible to change the movie, but there was choice involved in its making. We cannot change the future we have already wilfully co-made, from God’s perspective.
O- You’re using a metaphor I already showed as deficient. There was no choice. Choice is a variable, a gap in knowledge, a mystery, and cannot co-exist with God’s attributes…no matter how good that would feel. There is no choice for the born slave.

— We are not imposing our will over God’s will, but at the allowance of His will.
O- The allowance is still a leash, making your choice contingent, dependent, determined upon what God’s Will, not yours, allows. The robot is determined to make “choices” and It’s “choices” are conditioned by the program. If your argument was for material freewill, then it would be easier; but you want divine-free will, which the believer cannot have…

— Because we have free will, because God has allowed it.
O- If we have freewill then why can’t Paul do what he wants to do? Why can’t Paul choose to do what he knows in his mind is the right thing to do?

— You chose to run the light, and God always knew that it would be so. You are presenting two types of determinism: God controlling our minds… and being as determined as the rest of the universe.
O- I am presenting determinism period, because freedom is yet to be found in all of this tread. Laplace speculated that:
“We may regard the present state of the universe as the effect of its past and the cause of its future. An intellect which at a certain moment would know all forces that set nature in motion, and all positions of all items of which nature is composed, if this intellect were also vast enough to submit these data to analysis, it would embrace in a single formula the movements of the greatest bodies of the universe and those of the tiniest atom; for such an intellect nothing would be uncertain and the future just like the past would be present before its eyes.”

This is another way to say:“God’s omnipotence”. God, as the Creator, knows all the information, all the cause, perfectly, thus he also knows all possible effects and these stand as if they already happened. There is no mystery left for God by reason of His own Nature. I am not saying that God controls our minds, but that he knows our minds and that our minds, like Creation at large, follows causality, not caprise and thus, since God knows the state of our mind’s and the universe is regulated by His wisdom, by His laws, then from any single instance He already knows our past and our future. We don’t know these things thus we cannot predict even what we will do when the situation emerges. From the perspective of God…maybe even Satan’s…He knows what we will do already because we are regulated limited, enslaved, by the mechanisms of His Perfect Clock.

— The more we align our will with God’s
O- Alignment is not freedom. The more I align myself to the rule of the despot the more I am His slave

— it seems unwise to me (to put it mildly) to hand a depressed kid a bottle of pills with “increased risk of suicide” written on the outside.
O- It should be inconsequential, if you’re correct and “there is always a choice”…

— Whether or not the message influences (but not causes) their choice
O- When a person is driving “under the influence” he is considered impaired. A woman “under the influence of alcohol” is considered unable to give consent for sexual relations. Influence is control, to control is to enslave and what is enslaved is not free and what is not free does not make choices…

–– it is in fact a choice… how free it was is another matter, and points to the fact that there is a range of freedom.
O- There are no degrees in actual “freedom”. If a choice is contingent on X, then it is determined by X…like alcohol.

— That isn’t suicide unless the focus is on killing self, rather than on saving others.
O- Killing one self, for despise of your self or for the sake of others that might be benefited is still a suicide. A “Suicide” bomber is focused on killing others, not himself, but still commits suicide. But let’s not argue aboout semantics…

— Except for the fact that we help create the timeline.
O- God is One and there is no other Potter next to Him. There is not a humanity worth of Director Chairs at the stage of production. God’s Wisdom, His Word, alone above the Void, dictates and Creates. God is not dependent on us but we on Him. We need help, not God.

— When discussing responsibility, the evil referred to is moral evil, not natural causes.
O- So natural disasters do not strike anyone as an evil? Is evil only what is dependent on man’s actions and not God’s?..But then again, since we are creations, His creations, then our evil is indirectly His evil as well…like a sinister accomplice…that God maybe All in all…

— Yes He is, and man is responsible.
O- If God is omnipotent then man cannot be responsible. The superior never delegates reponsibility, only authority, to what is subordinate to Him.

— If they described God as you (and extreme Calvinists) understand them to describe Him, I would agree with you. However…. you (and extreme Calvinists) misinterpret Scripture, including Paul.
O- Actually, I am more knowledgeable of Luther than I am of Calving, but Calving and Luther are mere consequences of Paul’s doctrines…what Paul hinted at they scream to the four winds…

— God’s will is in that way resistible by the unwilling.
O- A plain absurdity by DEFINITION.

— Perfection is Love. Love is impossible without choice/freedom. It must therefore be resistible by definition.
O- God’s love for Jacob was possible, perfectly so, By His Grace, without any use of freedom or any actual choice made by Jacob, for God’s Love is not contingent upon our choices but upon His Mercy; Thus His Love is irresistible, which makes some clay into pots for noble purposes, regardless of what the clay itself chooses. The clay cannot help but to be molded. It cannot resist the will of the Potter and resist being made into what the Potter wishes to make.

— God doesn’t have to wait. He is the alpha and the omega – He’s already there.
O- And we are not free but determined like a clock…

— God wills to save all who will that He save them – His will comes first, and makes our will possible.
O- “all who will”? All who choose to believe, right?
“29For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.”
16It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy
Ephesians 1:4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love 5he[c] predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— 6to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Ephesians 2:8For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9not by works, so that no one can boast. 10For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

— “Jacob I loved and Esau I hated” is equivalent to “Jacob I chose, but Esau I rejected,” (Zondervan NASB).
O- God elects man, not man elects, or choose God, or to have faith in God. God has the freedom to make a choice, not man…

— The point of Romans 9:11-23 is that we are not saved by works, or by physical descent, but by God’s promise of mercy, available to all who put their faith in Christ – including Gentiles.
O- Yes, but also that even this faith is given, granted By God, predestined, programmed, wired. Faith does not rest on men’s wisdom but on God’s power. He is received not by those who are wise, or make wise desicions, choices, but is chosen by the men whom by God’s grace have been granted His Spirit, predestined before their birth, their creation, to serve as His Remnant.

— He draws you, persuasively, not coercively, to such a choice, which… if ever you should make such a choice… will cause you to look back on your words and have a good laugh-cry over your former self.
O- Drawing me is to determine me, so that my choice is less than entirely “free”; it is now contingent on the drawing power of God, on His influence; my freewill is then compromised…

— Our need for God’s love was put there, but we can freely ignore that need.
O- God’s will is irresistible. If you can resist then you’re clearly not of His elect.

— You yourself said earlier that if God is as you interpret Paul to be describing Him, He is not worthy of worship.
O- Indeed and that is why many Christians are frauds and Jesus is right in saying that only a few shall be saved. I am not a Christian, but I have the understanding to know what I don’t approve rather than the ignorance to approve what I don’t understand or know.

— Faith is not necessarily in spite of reason.
O- See Paul.

— You say “what in fact God was the one who had already chosen” when earlier you say “I am not saying that God makes our choices”.
O- Let me clarify in that God does not make our choices, but our choices are determined by God’s Creation.

— God doesn’t make our choices for us*. You say “we could not choose, lest God ceases to know”. That’s wrong. That we choose does not mean God doesn’t know. He knows what we will choose.
O- Then our choice is not free but determined.

— If those who ask are His elected people… then one sure way to find out if you are of the elect is to ask.
O- Not so fast:
"21"Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ (Matthew 7)

— That we are predestined to receive grace does not mean we were predetermined to have faith. God knew we would have faith, He persuaded us toward it… but He did not force that faith upon us.
O- Persuassion reneders the persuaded determined. We hold the parent responsible for the sin or righteousness of the child, do we not. When a parent persuades his child to become a bad person we hold the parent, not the impressionable child, responsible.

— To say evil is a point of view is to say everyone’s opinion of evil (not just God’s) is correct.
O- No. It is to say that only God knows what is actually Good or Evil infallibly. We are fallible so we mistake one for the other, not always, but we can.

— Since God’s is the only perspective that is entirely correct, evil is not a point of view.
O- I am not saying that God’s perspective is “correct”. It is simply the opinion of the strongest party. Could God be wrong? Whether we judge God’s perspective as “correct” or “wrong” we would be comparing Him to a human standard that He does not share. His ways are not our ways…

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

Thanks for replying, Omar. I apologize for the length of my last post. Here’s a brief review and pruning of the parts of my reply to which you gave no response:

Not everything that exists, thinks… but everything that thinks, exists. [ Thoughts exist, but they ] don’t think (that’s what’s goin’ on when you’re dreaming… thoughts which don’t think) (until you become progressively more lucid, and start thinking your thoughts again) [ by the way, it could be said “thoughts which aren’t thought verbally"… ‘verb’ as opposed to 'noun’… which makes you wonder why the word is ‘verbally’ when there are such phrases as ‘actions speak louder than words’! Perhaps it arose in a time when people meant what they said?]. Nip the chips thought in the bud, and I will be less likely to eat that bag of chips. If it hangs around, it is merely a phantom itch. Dwell upon that thought, and I will be more likely to eat that bag of chips. I am the thinking, the dwelling. What I choose to think and dwell upon will condition what thoughts are more likely to occur to me in the future – but I will still have the choice to refuse or dwell upon those thoughts. That’s one thing I got really good at when I went nuts – how to refuse a thought. The floodgates opened… it was sink or swim. I was sinking until He taught me how to swim. Refusing thoughts is half the battle. The other half is seeking thoughts that are edifying to replace the thoughts you now refuse. Supernature abhors a vacuum, too. I seek the Word. Here’s how to do it. Make the sound of a car screeching to a stop [ of course, any attention-getting sound will do ]. Now make that sound in your head, without actually making any sound outside your head. Make that sound when you’re thinking a thought you don’t want to think, look somewhere else (not sure why/how that works) [ focusing on God is the ultimate goal ], and replace it with a thought which edifies. Have a list of edifying thoughts memorized [ Bible verses and song lyrics work for me… like “whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things,” (Philippians 4:8) ] – and this’ll be much easier. The way the stomach rejects food is that it vomits it up and out. The way the will rejects thoughts is that it makes a screeching car sound, looks somewhere else, and replaces the old thought with one that edifies. :^) Just because God knows everything does not mean we have no choice… His knowledge includes and sustains our choice. The more we align our will with God’s, the less our behaviour is determined as a result of our bodies being part of the physical universe. What they [ depressed, suicidal kids ] need is to be set free, and only God can do that. See my thread “Madness as spiritual suffering.” The responsibility on man’s shoulders is too much to bear, agreed, which is why Jesus died in our place. God does not deny anyone who seeks Him, and He does not force His love upon anyone who rejects it.

I would like to point out right here and now (which keeps moving!) (or does it?) that God is not limited to the past, present, or future… nor is it impossible for Him to interact within them. God’s will sustains the timeline, but is not itself the timeline. We helped create the timeline (we did not help create God’s will), even when our choices did not conform to His will (broke the law of love). Such choices are allowed by His will, rather than overpowering His will. [size=150]It seems to me that if the eternal (Love) is not in view… then one is just building sandcastles for the tide.[/size] If God gives us something and says “go create” and steps back… but we seek His will all the way to the end of the project… then it to me seems like we both/all created it… and I’m cool with that… and I thank God for it.

---

I’ll reply to your response when I get the chance. I made the purple part stand out 'cause I like that line… reminds me of a poem I read once upon a time.

[omar]

Hello Ichtus:

I did respond to your post in it’s entirety. If I did not answer every single paragraph it was because the answers were repetitive…just saying the same thing over and over again. But I’ll entretain them again:

— Not everything that exists, thinks… but everything that thinks, exists.
O- Agreed, but thoughts are not “things”.

— [ Thoughts exist, but they ] don’t think
O- That would be absurd…but they are not things but an action from things. Same way a thought is something that the brain does. The mind, composed of thoughts, is not a thing either. It is an emergent feature of brain chemistry, brain states. Easy experiemt: We have thousand and thousands number of thoughts, yet our mind does not grow in size by the accumulation of them, which it would if thoughts were things. Chemical states of the brains are made of things, chemical compounds and give rise, by their inter-ACTION, to thoughts which is in fact what a mind is. “Mind” is a debated concept and no one can claim to have finally described it perfectly, but if I was asked then I would say that Mind is what the brain does, an act, not a thing. Again I have a body that is a thing, but my body running is not a thing as well but an action of a thing- my body.

— (that’s what’s goin’ on when you’re dreaming… thoughts which don’t think) (until you become progressively more lucid, and start thinking your thoughts again)
O- Again you’re pulling this into very deep waters of speculation…I weary of speaking on such mysteries. What is a dream? Well, in my opinion, a dream is an involuntary activity of brain chemistry. When the organism is awake, conscious, conditions around him guide the firing of receptors in the brain, that is, when I am aware of a phenomenal reality I react according to it. I don’t just think about 2+2=4, but when deciding whether I can pay for a cup of coffee, my brain is led down particular reactions. I adapt with my brain to the conditions experienced by the mind.
When asleep the phenomenal input is severed but the mechanisms of the brain still remain active, only without any guidance or limitation by a challenging “reality” supplied by the mind, therefore the unconscious mind is provided answers it did not want, or given possible answers to questions that still nagged the mind. My own experience has been that my dreams are contingent upon my reasoning abilities. As a child I once dreamt that I was falling from a cliff but right before the great splash that wakes most people up, I, an avid reader of comic book in my youth, transformed myself into the Incredible Hulk, thereby crushing the ground in which I landed. These days my dreams are still too rational, I think, because I dream about arguments and when I dream about events, they are argumentative and 9 times out of 10 also resolved. Sometimes I kid you not, I dream the equvalent of a small film production- that is, my dreams are almost scripted and critiqued, and edited accordingly.

— Nip the chips thought in the bud, and I will be less likely to eat that bag of chips. If it hangs around, it is merely a phantom itch. Dwell upon that thought, and I will be more likely to eat that bag of chips. I am the thinking, the dwelling. What I choose to think and dwell upon will condition what thoughts are more likely to occur to me in the future – but I will still have the choice to refuse or dwell upon those thoughts. That’s one thing I got really good at when I went nuts – how to refuse a thought. The floodgates opened… it was sink or swim. I was sinking until He taught me how to swim. Refusing thoughts is half the battle. The other half is seeking thoughts that are edifying to replace the thoughts you now refuse. Supernature abhors a vacuum, too.
O- I praise your will-power. I agree that some thoughts one rather refuse and that the refusal is more congenial when a replacement is found…one redirects the will through reason. That is not so hard. What I don’t agree with is the bi-cameral mind your theory supposes. One half doing or wanting one thing the other half locked in combat with the other half and the further assumption that one half is stronger than the other. Now be it as it may, this is a theological study and not a scientific one so we have to answer your question through someone’s theology and in that case I chose Paul. Paul told us about his lack of will, his impotence to do what was right and in fact if you can regulate your will and what you do then Jesus offers nothing new and indeed you have the possibility for righteousness on your own. And if your ability to do what is right is predicated, contingent upon the intervention of Christ, or the Holy Spirit, then not thy will but His will, is to be praised or blamed, not your will which is a slave either to your body or to the Spirit, but never free. Your refusal to have a thought was caused by something from outside.

— I seek the Word. Here’s how to do it. Make the sound of a car screeching to a stop [ of course, any attention-getting sound will do ]. Now make that sound in your head, without actually making any sound outside your head. Make that sound when you’re thinking a thought you don’t want to think, look somewhere else (not sure why/how that works) [ focusing on God is the ultimate goal ], and replace it with a thought which edifies. Have a list of edifying thoughts memorized [ Bible verses and song lyrics work for me… like “whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things,” (Philippians 4:8) ] – and this’ll be much easier.
O- Again we have only to question from where this ability comes. If from you then freewill exist and Jesus died for nothing because you could have followed the law of God to save yourself. But if your abilities depend on Grace, then these abilities are determined, caused by an external agent operating within, thus your will is not “free” but contingent on the intervention of Grace and not independent of Grace. Your Will would then be a slave to Grace, not free.

— The way the stomach rejects food is that it vomits it up and out. The way the will rejects thoughts is that it makes a screeching car sound, looks somewhere else, and replaces the old thought with one that edifies. :^) Just because God knows everything does not mean we have no choice… His knowledge includes and sustains our choice.
O- Paul would say that His Grace, His mercy, enslaves our choice. Either we follow the law of sin or the law of the Spirit but never are we without a law…or without a cause.

— The more we align our will with God’s, the less our behaviour is determined as a result of our bodies being part of the physical universe.
O- The more you aling your will to Gods the less it is your will and more God’s and the more of a servant, not a freeman, you become. Your will is a servant of God or a freeman. If the first then you have no freewill to speak of and if the second then you free to save yourself through your own actions alone, which is pretty much what freewill means= alone. The reason why many have said that only God has Freewill it is because only He stands alone.

— What they [ depressed, suicidal kids ] need is to be set free, and only God can do that.
O- Free from the law of sin but enslaved to the law of Spirit, so not freed but purchased by a new master.

— God does not deny anyone who seeks Him,
O- yet anyone who does seek Him does so because God draws him to Himself, so not because of a free-choice, but a conditioned-by-God-choice. It is not what we do but what God does that draws us to Him and thus we are determined by God to seek Him…and no one should boast of his faith.

— and He does not force His love upon anyone who rejects it.
O- Neither can the heretic or atheist boast of his rejection as an act from his freewill, an independent choice…God has hardened his heart in that case. Theologically determinism is a fact that cannot be escaped.

— 1) God’s will sustains the timeline, but is not itself the timeline.
O- God’s will determines, not ours.

2. We helped create the timeline (we did not help create God’s will), even when our choices did not conform to His will (broke the law of love).
   O- If it is indeed God’s will which sustains the timeline and not ours and since we did not “help” the development of His will, how then could we “help” develop, “create”, the timeline? What in fact did we freely cause? If our choices did not comform to His will, which sustains the timeline, then how were our choices possible in the timeline? But if our choices indeed failed to comform to His will, then we indeed “help” create the timeline and thus the timeline is contingent, sustained, not just by God alone, but by our will and choices. But if indeed we did not “help” create His will, the question remains whether He helped create our will.

3. Such choices are allowed by His will, rather than overpowering His will.
   O- God deals in absolutes. Thus, if choices are allowed by His will, one might as well say that such choices are conditioned by His will, so that they are not independent of His will, and is limited by what He allows or not, like a slave, not a freeman is limited by a Master or a Law.

4. It seems to me that if the eternal (Love) is not in view… then one is just building sandcastles for the tide. If God gives us something and says “go create” and steps back… but we seek His will all the way to the end of the project… then it to me seems like we both/all created it… and I’m cool with that… and I thank God for it.
   O- I think that people often misconstrue the meaning of determinism as a bad thing. Another way of putting is that the choice is not between freewill versus determinism but between caprise and reason. I believe that one should want to be determined rather than to be a complete free agent. If what determines my choice comes from within my choice is free and what determined my choice comes from outside my choice is determined. Supposing that God is the Highest Good he is also the ultimate reason, that is my choice should ideally be determined by a reason, not mere caprise or free randomness and God, when in sight in my mind, is the best of reasons which then determines my choice. When God is within me, my choice is determined me with the best of reasons in mind— “freewill” is not the question, for that we should not even want, because a true free choice is a random choice without a reason, without a cause. The question then is what brings about, what causes a certain choice…a reason ideally causes a choice. I choose A rather than B because I have a reason that determined my choice. As rational being this is the ideal development of a choice but notice that here we are talking determinism from within. A faulty choice is dictated from outside of me; that is, the choice is not issued from conscious reasons and with the approval of reason, but through irrationality. When asked:"Why did you do that for?', if I cannot say why then my choice was in fact not a choice, nor can I be held accountable. But if I can say why and list my reasons, then that which is highest in me, my reason, issued my desicion and renders me responsible for any praise or blame.
   Back to God. God is the highest reasons, the highest good, the greatest bounty to have. He is the goal and not the means. I am determined by Him coincidentally at the same time that I make a choice for the best reasons, but I am determined from within myself beholding the highest of reasons and conforming naturally my reason to Him. Nowhere am I free, but I am free from outside determination. God determines me only coincidentally because God is reason and reasons are what choices are made of, so that a choice based on good reasons is also a choice based on God who is the Highest Reason.

Hope you enjoy the theology…

[Ichthus77 (Ichthus77 (formerly She™))]

This all feels like I’m doing the ‘self’ thread too early… or that I’ll never get to the ‘self’ thread or at least not any time soon, so this is necessary…

II- Anybody can claim to see the future, or have ‘visions’ that feel futuristic, or guess at (predict) how the future will go. The weather forecaster ain’t always right, so such predictions are not a genuine ‘seeing’. Fortune tellers could have demons whispering in their ears… demons that help bring about the future they ‘predict’ – such predictions are not a genuine ‘telling’ either.
O- You bring an interesting obstacle then to all claims of revelation. Maybe the Apocalypse is but the musings of a demon whispered in the ear of John. When someone else makes the prediction then it is a demon, but when it is one of yours then it is an angel or God Himself?
III – The word “prediction” to me means “guess”. John wasn’t guessing, but receiving and transmitting what he received – it had nothing to do with his abilities at guessing or sensing outside the present (a delusional guess at how the prophet is able to receive past/future is that it is a type of sensing/perceiving of the past/future… as uncontrollable/controllable as the “five senses” – rather than it being something God makes happen, read below). Balaam wasn’t “one of yours” (mine) but God used him as a prophet, so, no, I don’t think that “when someone else makes a prediction (or, more accurately, ‘prophesies’ – which doesn’t always involve ‘future’ – then it is a demon”. The weather man isn’t (necessarily) listening to demons, either. We are told (it is not I who brings this obstacle) to ‘test the spirits’ in order to separate the true from the false prophets/apostles/etcetera. John’s ‘revelation’ has been tested, and it is fascinating to note that there is not a single symbol in it which is not explained in the Old Testament… the prequel of prequels, the foreshadow of all foreshadowing. See my “OT as narrative” thread, and feel free to participate in my project.

II- Any genuine future-seeing is only possible because God allows it, which proves He is not limited to the present/now or future.
O- I am not limited to the Present, to the now, just as God is not
III- How are you not limited to the present/now? Because the present is the future’s past, so you are influencing the past when you influence the present (what you call “sophistry” below)? I agree. But… you can’t influence a ‘past’ outside the ‘present/now’ like God.

II- Since the present is the future’s past, the fact that He can bring future and present together is equivalent to bringing future and past together, which means the past is not, apparently, beyond His reach.
O- That is sophistry. In fact, if that is the criteria, then I too can claim that the past is not beyond my power because the present is the future’s past.
III- Yes, you can, and it would be true – but can you bring two moments together? No, that you cannot do like God. Even if the above delusional guess were true, that wouldn’t be bringing two moments together, it would be reaching (bear with me to the end) outside the present moment (not physically; not violating thermodynamics laws) and sensing moments outside now (now-mind would go to past/future mind, dragging now-mind’s thoughts with it, and think past/future mind’s thoughts there)… or inside now (past/future mind would come to now-mind, dragging past/future-mind’s thoughts with it, to think now-mind’s thoughts). If the former, you would find yourself in an entirely different surrounding (including body), but it would still feel like experiencing “now” (wherever you go, there it is ‘now’). If the latter, you would think thoughts that make no sense to you given the current surrounding (they would only come to make sense when the past/future “comes about”). If both, then past/future mind would come to now-mind to think its thoughts here, as well as now-mind going to past/future mind to think its thoughts there… but it wouldn’t “come about” that “now mind” experiences this reaching “back/forward” until that past/future “comes about” (hinting at a real “now” on the timeline of the universe). What now-mind experiences now would be future-mind reaching back, and what future-mind experiences when the future becomes now would be now-mind reaching forward. Now-mind would experience future-mind’s reaction, so now-mind would be dealing with some mean deja-vu. This would drive now-mind… quite mad… until now-mind figures out what is going on, and thoughts that at first didn’t make any sense, start becoming meaningful. The only thing now-mind is sure of, is that now-mind did not wilfully “reach” forward, so that when it becomes future-mind (no different than now-mind), it knows it is not wilfully “reaching” back. On the one hand you could assume this is a type of sensing like the five senses, and that the past and future already exist in order to be involuntarily sensed. On the other hand, you would have to wonder how this occurs without violating thermodynamics laws, considering we sense within the physical universe, and the physical universe stayed put. So, it is not even a sense the way biology defines it. Eventually you would put together that, in fact, there was never any reaching. No mind ever left any particular past, present or future moment. The thoughts of past/future mind and now-mind (identical to eachother) mixed together, and the mind did not have anything to do (wilfully) with that mixing. So how’d they get mixed without mixing the physical universe, considering thoughts are ‘emergent’ from physical brains? The ‘how’ is actually irrelevant. All that matters is Who (doubling as the Why). Do you see? God makes it happen, and only God can make it stop. But, He wants us to love Him wilfully, so He gives us ways to exercise and experience the limits of our will. Hence, faith. Refuse thoughts you should be refusing, choose thoughts that edify – and since you cannot do this alone – take His hand and because He loves you (beyond the beginning), He will help you.

I may or may not be able to reply to the rest of your replies any time soon.

God bless.

[omar]

Hello Ichtus:

— III – The word “prediction” to me means “guess”.
O- To me it means “prophecy”, but applicable to the profane and divine. Once one needed access to the sacred to discuss rain.

— Balaam wasn’t “one of yours” (mine) but God used him as a prophet, so, no, I don’t think that “when someone else makes a prediction (or, more accurately, ‘prophesies’ – which doesn’t always involve ‘future’ – then it is a demon”.
O- Very well. Was Muhammed a prophet? Did he talk with God’s angels and received God’s revelation?

— III- How are you not limited to the present/now?
O- Because I always reside in the future. An impression at the retinal surface of the eye is not immediately present to the mind. Microseconds pass before what “touched” the eye is finally sense by the self, thus the self is always a microsecond behind and “sees” actually the past event of a couple of microseconds before. The “now” escapes the self. Likewise when “I” will an action, say move my finger, the actual movement of the finger occurs a moments later, not at the same time, but in the future of my will. So I don’t sense the Now, nor do I act in the Now but in the future and sense but the past.

— But… you can’t influence a ‘past’ outside the ‘present/now’ like God.
O- Right, right…here is the problem: You’re defending freewill by defending God’s “influence”…so much for “freewill”. It should be correctly called “Influenced-will”…if your argument is accepted.

–– but can you bring two moments together? No, that you cannot do like God.
O- First of all you’ve not defined what is meant by “bring two moments together”. And if what I said above is true, about the neurology of an action, then I, this body included, do just that which you say cannot be done, because within my body is a personal space/time continum that the mind, like a God, unites for my ego, so that to the ego two separate events seem like one and are felt like one. My will is like a prophet, foretelling what indeed is bound to happen microseconds later.

— Even if the above delusional guess were true, that wouldn’t be bringing two moments together, it would be reaching (bear with me to the end) outside the present moment
O- Let me stop you here. What is the difference between a prophecy from Jonah and a prognostication from the weather man? The weatherman makes a claim about what will happen by the same guess as the prophet. Laws that are immutable rule and dominate the events of the weather so knowing the initial position of things, clouds, air, temperature, and knowing also the actual rules that these factors MUST follow, he makes- not a GUESS-, but a prediction, a pro-gnostication (gnosis=knowledge). Similarly, the prophet has made an assumption. God dominates events and God does not change HIS MIND, so that once I know the initial conditions, factors and His mind, I can make a prediction, a prophecy, which is the same only sacred. If God could waver or change His mind, then prophecy would not be possible because the prophet would say:“In 40 days the city will be destroyed”; God may have meant it as a threat, but the anger of Jonah tells us that Jonah observed it as a prophecy. He did not say:“Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”…unless you put on sackcloth and repent, but that it was to be overturned period. When God had compassion on the city, he made a liar out of Jonah. Now suppose that God is allowed His compassion, would we be able to prophesize? Yes. Because we KNOW that He is compassionate but also Lawful and so what Jonah should have said is that the city will be destroyed unless it repents. The destruction is guaranteed, foreseeable due to His Justice aspect and the known condition of wickedness. Likewise the sparing of the city is also foreseeable, provided they repent because we also take as known God’s compassion. So intelligibility is what secures a prophecy. Take away the assumption, for it is an assumption, that God is compassionate, righteous etc and Jonah cannot make a prophecy. Likewise, if you take intelligibility away from the Natural Science of the weatherman and he also must stay silent. But how do they know? By inference. They know the past and the present and infer from these the future. Of course the argument you’re going to raise is that God reveals himself yet the scientist can claim that nature has revealed itself to his intruments as well.
We have scientists all around whom we can study to see how they make their world intelligible, but we lack prophets. I would like to just once receive a vision from God that I may study it first hand…but I guess that is the very problem. You got to have faith for God to work on you. Similarly, you got to have faith for science to work for you.