[marienbad]

Originally Posted by ISAW

where ? In what message?


How? Unless you maintain that any intervention = removal of free will?



But you cant say humans remove free will through intervention all the time and then say
God is totally different based on the assertion that God removes free will through intervention. That IS a contradiction!


People may send themselves to hell through their own choice.

Put it this way say god creates the law of gravity.
If you jump off a cliff is it God sending you to the rocks below or did you chose to jump?

Thank you very much ISAW , that is exactly what I am trying to say-

The choice and the consequence are part of the same mechanism/transaction/sequence/whatever .

''people send themselves to hell through their own choice'' and you hit those rocks through your own choice- exactly

And you are an addict through your own choice- so how is prayer for the removal of that addiction valid if it is valid ? Or the prayer to resist beating your wife ?

[PDN]

Originally Posted by marienbad

.

If you find my contribution muddled, illogical, badly worded , fine - no problem , you are not obliged to answer .

I will answer any question you like , but only when you stop including insult and invective in every post - until then- no .

Insult & invective? Pot. Kettle. Black.

How exactly is an interventionist God contradictory to the notion of free will? (Please note, saying "God is different" is not actually an answer to the question).

[PDN]

Originally Posted by Penn

But why is there a Hell to begin with? Why is there a place for those who reject his offering of salvation to essentially burn forever in a lake of fire etc.? Why not just have it where if you reject his salvation etc, you just die. You die forever?

Accept offer of salvation: Live forever in Heaven
Reject offer of salvation: When you die, you die forever. You cease to be.

Do you want to discuss why there is a hell? Or do you want to discuss a particular interpretation of what hell is like?

I understand hell as being eternal separation from God's presence. If someone freely rejects the option to spend eternity with God, then they are choosing to spend eternity separated from God. So your question is really why are human souls eternal? Yes?

[Penn]

Originally Posted by PDN

Do you want to discuss why there is a hell? Or do you want to discuss a particular interpretation of what hell is like?

I understand hell as being eternal separation from God's presence. If someone freely rejects the option to spend eternity with God, then they are choosing to spend eternity separated from God. So your question is really why are human souls eternal? Yes?

Not really, though I suppose it is somewhat along the same lines.

My point is, if someone held a gun to my head and said "Give me your wallet or I'll shoot you", I have free will. But there is a punishment which will be inflicted on me by the other person if I don't choose what they want me to choose. God gives us free will to accept his salvation, but there is a clear punishment there, which seeing as how he created everything including souls (as with the increasing population, he must be creating new souls all the time), he created the punishment. Why create a punishment?

The concept of hell is a gun to your head. If the mugger said "Give me your wallet" and had no gun, I could use free will to choose whether or not to give him the wallet. If he has a gun to my head, it changes the choice. Do I give him my wallet, or do I let him shoot me in the head?

Do I accept Gods salvation, or do I suffer and burn in eternal hell? It's not a fair choice. I have free will to choose, but the choices are uneven.

[Benny_Cake]

Originally Posted by Penn

Not really, though I suppose it is somewhat along the same lines.

My point is, if someone held a gun to my head and said "Give me your wallet or I'll shoot you", I have free will. But there is a punishment which will be inflicted on me by the other person if I don't choose what they want me to choose. God gives us free will to accept his salvation, but there is a clear punishment there, which seeing as how he created everything including souls (as with the increasing population, he must be creating new souls all the time), he created the punishment. Why create a punishment?

The concept of hell is a gun to your head. If the mugger said "Give me your wallet" and had no gun, I could use free will to choose whether or not to give him the wallet. If he has a gun to my head, it changes the choice. Do I give him my wallet, or do I let him shoot me in the head?

Do I accept Gods salvation, or do I suffer and burn in eternal hell? It's not a fair choice. I have free will to choose, but the choices are uneven.

There are a number of denominations and individuals who over the centuries have considered eternal punishment to mean nonexistence, ie; the soul ceases to exist. While it's a minority view, it's a persistent one.

An alternative analogy might involve a person who is hanging onto a cliff by their fingernails. Someone comes along and offers you a hand to clamber up - you have the choice of whether to accept that help others not, knowing that it was your own fault for falling off the edge. Obviously it might seem like it's unfair because you have no choice but then life is rarely fair! That would be something along the lines of the standard evangelical response - I say this as someone who has grave doubts about the notion of eternal torment. I find it hard to believe that God would ever give up waiting for someone to come home, but most Christians would probably disagree.

[philologos]

Penn: It would look like that from a perspective that we think that God's judgement is unfair or unjust. Actually, if we look at it honestly, we've all done wrong and we all deserve to be punished for it. We've all despised God in our daily lives, we've all shown that we have really hated Him. Yet, God still sent His Son, King Jesus into the world to rescue us while we still hated Him (Romans 5). Jesus presents the Parable of the Tenants which shows us God's faithfulness in bringing the truth to us.

Originally Posted by Mark 12:1-12

And he began to speak to them in parables. “A man planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a pit for the winepress and built a tower, and leased it to tenants and went into another country. When the season came, he sent a servant to the tenants to get from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. And they took him and beat him and sent him away empty-handed. Again he sent to them another servant, and they struck him on the head and treated him shamefully. And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ But those tenants said to one another, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ And they took him and killed him and threw him out of the vineyard. What will the owner of the vineyard do? He will come and destroy the tenants and give the vineyard to others. Have you not read this Scripture:

“‘The stone that the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone;
this was the Lord's doing,
and it is marvelous in our eyes’?”
And they were seeking to arrest him but feared the people, for they perceived that he had told the parable against them. So they left him and went away.

And still, people spit in the face of that. People are without excuse as far as I can tell (Romans 1:20). God has shown time and time again how much He loves us, and most clearly showed this to us as he was hung on the cross on our behalf though He was blameless.

I know that God's word is more true than the words of mere men, that's why I stand on them, and that's why I'm willing to take whatever the world throws at me and the Gospel. The Gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Pinning the blame on God is a result of not looking honestly at ourselves and how we've treated God. The simple question is this, are we going to come and live for King Jesus, or are we going to run from Him?

[Penn]

Originally Posted by philologos

Penn: It would look like that from a perspective that we think that God's judgement is unfair or unjust. Actually, if we look at it honestly, we've all done wrong and we all deserve to be punished for it. We've all despised God in our daily lives, we've all shown that we have really hated Him.

And that sounds fair and just to you? If we've all "done wrong and deserve to be punished" just for not worshipping God enough, again, that's on God, not us. God is the one who decided that people should be punished for that. God is the one who decided that that is wrong.

I ask again, why is there a punishment? Okay, if you worship God and accept his salvation, you are rewarded. But why did he create a punishment (Hell) for those who reject his salvation? Why not just have... no reward?

Currently (as I see it, and bearing in mind that God is the one who decides what is right or wrong):
Accept salvation - Eternal happiness in Heaven
Reject salvation - Eternal suffering in Hell

What an actual everloving God would do (again, as I see it):
Accept salvation - Eternal happiness in Heaven
Reject salvation - When you die, you die. Your soul dies, but there is no suffering. Your soul is not rewarded with eternal happiness, but you aren't eternally punished either

[Virgil°]

Originally Posted by Benny_Cake

An alternative analogy might involve a person who is hanging onto a cliff by their fingernails. Someone comes along and offers you a hand to clamber up - you have the choice of whether to accept that help others not, knowing that it was your own fault for falling off the edge. Obviously it might seem like it's unfair because you have no choice but then life is rarely fair!

Except for the analogy to work the person offering you a hand to clamber up is the one who threw you off the cliff in the first place. How is it my fault for falling off if I was designed like a lemming to fall off?

[PDN]

Originally Posted by Virgil°

Except for the analogy to work the person offering you a hand to clamber up is the one who threw you off the cliff in the first place. How is it my fault for falling off if I was designed like a lemming to fall off?

You weren't designed to fall. You were designed to live in righteousness. You chose otherwise.

[PDN]

Originally Posted by Penn

And that sounds fair and just to you? If we've all "done wrong and deserve to be punished" just for not worshipping God enough

I'm not sure where you're getting the material for your strawman here. We deserve to be punished for being selfish, for lying, for cheating and all the other sins we choose to commit - not for "not worshipping God enough".

I ask again, why is there a punishment? Okay, if you worship God and accept his salvation, you are rewarded. But why did he create a punishment (Hell) for those who reject his salvation? Why not just have... no reward?

First off, salvation is not a reward. It is an undeserved unmerited gift.

Secondly, if rejecting salvation meany annihilation then you know fine well that you, or others of your faith, would be on here complaining about that too. "That's not fair! Just because I reject God why should my immortal soul be taken away from me? Wah!"

You have an eternal soul. You get to choose whether that immortal soul spends eternity with God or without God. Sounds more than fair to me.

[Penn]

Originally Posted by PDN

I'm not sure where you're getting the material for your strawman here. We deserve to be punished for being selfish, for lying, for cheating and all the other sins we choose to commit - not for "not worshipping God enough".

I was more so following the 'accepting God's salvation' line rather than 'not worshipping God enough', but fair enough, that comment was probably too flippant. However, three of the commandments are about worshipping God, so not worshipping God is a sin. Even if you committed no other sins throughout your whole life, those are still sins and could see you sent to Hell, no?

As for "We deserve to be punished for being selfish, for lying, for cheating and all the other sins we choose to commit"... this is part of the reason I dislike religion. Why does religion make you feel so bad about yourself? You're the second person on this page to say that we deserve to be punished. Again, if we are born with sin, born to sin, or simply have the ability to sin at all, that's on God. He created us. He made us. He created the entire universe and every eternal soul... yet he can't fix that problem?

Probably be accused of building another strawman here, but what the hey:
You get married, your wife gives birth, the baby has some genetic defect. Do you blame the child? You created it. Your genetics led to that defect. You were the creator of that child. Does the child deserve to be punished for that? The child has free will, yet the genetic defect means it sometimes does things it shouldn't do. Does the child deserve to be punished? Does the child deserve to be made to feel bad about things it didn't choose to be born with? The child knows you love them, but that you also punish them for something they were made with.

It's the exact same thing. God created us. We are God's children. We are born with sin. We are punished for sin. Sinning, is in our nature and as you said, we deserve to be punished for it. Yet, we got that sin from God. He created us with sin in our nature. And he punishes us for it. Everlasting... eternal... punishment... for something he gave us. We are made to feel bad (like I said, two of you have said "We deserve to be punished") for something God created us with.

We deserve to be punished? No. God deserves to be punished.

Originally Posted by PDN

You have an eternal soul. You get to choose whether that immortal soul spends eternity with God or without God. Sounds more than fair to me.

Again, Hell is a loaded gun to your head. Fair choice, live or die. I could easily choose either option. But the choices are not equally balanced. "Do as I say or suffer for eternity". That a fair choice?

God is the one who chooses what is right or wrong. So he gives us free will to decide what to do, but if we don't do things as he said we do, we suffer for eternity in Hell. That's not a fair choice.

[PDN]

Originally Posted by Penn

Again, Hell is a loaded gun to your head. Fair choice, live or die. I could easily choose either option. But the choices are not equally balanced. "Do as I say or suffer for eternity". That a fair choice?

God is the one who chooses what is right or wrong. So he gives us free will to decide what to do, but if we don't do things as he said we do, we suffer for eternity in Hell. That's not a fair choice.

I think you're confusing two separate issues here. Free will is one issue. Your subjective opinion about what is fair is another.

The existence of free will is not contingent on all choices being equally balanced. That would only be possible in a morally neutral universe. In fact it is difficult to conceive of any kind of universe with meaning where all choices were equally balanced in terms of their consequences.

You have the free will whether to commit suicide or not. Obviously the consequences of committing suicide are vastly different to those of not committing suicide - but that does not render your free will any less free, does it?

In the same way you can choose whether to accept God's salvation or not. The fact that rejection of that salvation carries consequences in no way removes your free will. And, sadly, the proof is there for all to see in that people do, of their own free will, choose to reject salvation.

As for "We deserve to be punished for being selfish, for lying, for cheating and all the other sins we choose to commit"... this is part of the reason I dislike religion. Why does religion make you feel so bad about yourself?

Actually not all religion does so. At the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century there was a strong move towards a liberal form of 'Christianity' that taught that hhuman nature was basically good, that all we needed was better education and social conditions, and that if we all learned to practice Christian morals then heaven would arrive on earth and we'd all skip around playing with bunny rabbits and reciting uplifting poetry to each other.

That kind of theology was pretty well skewered in the trenches of Flanders between 1914 and 1918 - and then was finished off for good in the ovens of Dachau.

Acknowledging our sinfulness is simply being realistic about human nature. And even today, when I look at what is happening in the Congo, I think it is the appropriate response.

[nickcave]

Originally Posted by PDN

We deserve to be punished for being selfish, for lying, for cheating and all the other sins we choose to commit - not for "not worshipping God enough".

Well in the broader sense of 'worshipping God', we do. I assume we're not talking about 'hours spent in prayer' so much as 'following God's way' - and that that's what's meant by 'worshipping God enough' - it's about commitment to God.

Moreover, my understanding is that we are not punished for being selfish, lying and cheating, but rather for being unrepentant in doing so, right? So it is about commitment to God.

First off, salvation is not a reward. It is an undeserved unmerited gift.

A gift in exchange for...? Some do not get this gift - there are criteria to fulfill. That's a reward, regardless or whatever desire to deprecate humanity you might have.

I consider Kathy Bates' Oscar win for 'Misery' to be an 'undeserved, unmerited gift', does that make it not a reward?

Secondly, if rejecting salvation meany annihilation then you know fine well that you, or others of your faith, would be on here complaining about that too. "That's not fair! Just because I reject God why should my immortal soul be taken away from me? Wah!"

That's certainly true.

You have an eternal soul. You get to choose whether that immortal soul spends eternity with God or without God. Sounds more than fair to me.

This just restates the problem. I mean, yeah, that sounds great - that's a perfectly even choice. I'll choose without God. I'm kind of a freeloader, you know. Where do I go when I die?

Eternal Damnation?

[PDN]

Originally Posted by nickcave

Well in the broader sense of 'worshipping God', we do. I assume we're not talking about 'hours spent in prayer' so much as 'following God's way' - and that that's what's meant by 'worshipping God enough' - it's about commitment to God.

Moreover, my understanding is that we are not punished for being selfish, lying and cheating, but rather for being unrepentant in doing so, right? So it is about commitment to God.

No, not right. Salvation is a free offer to escape the consequences of your selfishness, lying and cheating. But that does not mean you are punished for not accepting the offer.

Think of it this way. If a murderer is serving a life sentence, and then turns down the offer of a presidential pardon - what is the crime for which they are still in prison? They are still being punished for murder - they didn't suddenly start serving a different sentence for the non-existent crime of rejecting a pardon.

I consider Kathy Bates' Oscar win for 'Misery' to be an 'undeserved, unmerited gift', does that make it not a reward?

I wouldn't dream on commenting on your lack of appreciation for Kathy Bates - nor indeed on your inability to distinguish between an award and a reward.

This just restates the problem. I mean, yeah, that sounds great - that's a perfectly even choice. I'll choose without God. I'm kind of a freeloader, you know. Where do I go when I die?

Eternal Damnation?

You'll get what you chose - an eternity separated from God. I don't think God will need to damn you at all - I think you and your companions will be perfectly capable of managing that all by yourselves.

[Penn]

Originally Posted by PDN

I think you're confusing two separate issues here. Free will is one issue. Your subjective opinion about what is fair is another.

I'm not confusing the two, I'm saying if I have free will, it is only natural that some people would disagree with what God says is right or wrong. God says not worshipping him is a sin (again, first three commandments). I have free will, so I don't see that as being a sin. I could live the most selfless, charitable life in every way possible, but not worship God. But because God decided that not worshipping him was a sin... Helltown for me. And yet, the only reason I could choose not to worship him, is because of the free will he gave me.

Originally Posted by PDN

The existence of free will is not contingent on all choices being equally balanced. That would only be possible in a morally neutral universe. In fact it is difficult to conceive of any kind of universe with meaning where all choices were equally balanced in terms of their consequences.

You have the free will whether to commit suicide or not. Obviously the consequences of committing suicide are vastly different to those of not committing suicide - but that does not render your free will any less free, does it?

In the same way you can choose whether to accept God's salvation or not. The fact that rejection of that salvation carries consequences in no way removes your free will. And, sadly, the proof is there for all to see in that people do, of their own free will, choose to reject salvation.

Okay, suicide. Person can no longer handle their life. They just can't handle it any more, and see suicide as the only way to end their suffering. They've lived life as best, as kindly, as charitable, as selfless as they could, but for whatever reason, they just can't handle it any more and see suicide as their only option. So they kill themselves to end their suffering.

But, suicide is a sin, so they burn in Hell for eternity, with endless suffering.

Again... deserve to be punished? Everloving God?

Originally Posted by PDN

Actually not all religion does so. At the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th Century there was a strong move towards a liberal form of 'Christianity' that taught that hhuman nature was basically good, that all we needed was better education and social conditions, and that if we all learned to practice Christian morals then heaven would arrive on earth and we'd all skip around playing with bunny rabbits and reciting uplifting poetry to each other.

That kind of theology was pretty well skewered in the trenches of Flanders between 1914 and 1918 - and then was finished off for good in the ovens of Dachau.

Acknowledging our sinfulness is simply being realistic about human nature. And even today, when I look at what is happening in the Congo, I think it is the appropriate response.

And again, sinfulness.. that we were born with. Why do we deserve to be punished? Why not some of us deserve to be punished? Why have sin at all? Why include that as standard? If I was building a toaster, I wouldn't build it so it's programmed to burn the bread and to try and recognise and stop before it gets burnt. And if it did burn the bread, I wouldn't smack it with a hammer. It's not the toaster's fault. I created it, I built in that ability.

I'd build it not to burn the bread.