A caring and loving god?

liamw

FishFood wrote: »

Just curious about the 'omniscience' description provided which I think PDN likened to a 'chess move' where the player/GOD isn't aware of the actual move but is aware of all the possible outcomes after the move?

If we have free will and God knows every possible 'move', what's the point in saying there's a plan? God can sit there and know every possible move but it makes no difference at all becuase we have our free will.

Can God intervene in your opinion PDN?

Zaynzma

PDN wrote: »

The idea that everything that happens is the will of God is more of an Islamic concept than a Christian one. Most Christians (with the exception of Calvinists) believe that many things occur which are contrary to the will of God.

The whole idea of saying that someone's death is God's will is IMHO the same sort of unthinking folk-religionish nonsense as when people say that a dead baby has become an angel.

Everything that happens is the will of God in the sense that He allows it to happen. God allows things to occur which are displeasing to Him - it is in this sense that I (as a Muslim) understand 'God's will'. He doesn't want me to commit acts which are displeasing to Him or against His law. He wants me to avoid them. But it is His will that I have the choice, so in that sense no-one can act contrary to God's will.

Saying that anything which occurs is contrary to the will of God implies helplessness on His part, but perhaps that's not the way you meant it?

PDN

liamw wrote: »

If we have free will and God knows every possible 'move', what's the point in saying there's a plan? God can sit there and know every possible move but it makes no difference at all becuase we have our free will.

Can God intervene in your opinion PDN?

Yes, certainly God can intervene. That is the whole point of answered prayer. Also God can, as a sovereign God, intervene whenever He wishes in the affairs of men. But, and this is a very important 'but', I believe that there is a point beyond which God's intervention would be such that the concept of free will becomes meaningless.

It might help to think of the concepts of free will and divine intervention as a horizontal line. On the very left of the axis you have absolute unfettered free will. This would allow us to do whatever we want, but pretty well reduces God to an impotent bystander - the 'god' of deism. On the very right of the axis you have a situation where God intervenes to wrap us in cotton wool every time it looks like we might fall or bump our precious little heads.

Either extreme would, to those of us who value the concept of freedom, be unsatisfactory. With pure unrestrained freedom, there would be nothing to stop every society becoming a Rwanda. In that case most people have very little free will because they become the slaves of a few tyrants. However, with an all-pervasive intervention then our freedom becomes an illusion.

Therefore most theists would believe that the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes. The problem is, how do we balance the benefits of possessing a free will against the painful consequences that come from the exercise of that free will (this is similar to the arguments about how far one can go in fighting terrorism without infringing the very human rights you are trying to protect). This problem is explored quite thoughtfully by Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. My own position is that there must be an optimum point on the line, known of course only to God, where the greatest possible combination of free will and divine intervention exists. So God's intervention, depending on the results of our freely made decisions, maintains that equilibrium and, in the phrase much maligned in Voltaire's Candide, produces a "best possible world".

Soul Winner

PDN wrote: »

Yes, certainly God can intervene. That is the whole point of answered prayer. Also God can, as a sovereign God, intervene whenever He wishes in the affairs of men. But, and this is a very important 'but', I believe that there is a point beyond which God's intervention would be such that the concept of free will becomes meaningless.

It might help to think of the concepts of free will and divine intervention as a horizontal line. On the very left of the axis you have absolute unfettered free will. This would allow us to do whatever we want, but pretty well reduces God to an impotent bystander - the 'god' of deism. On the very right of the axis you have a situation where God intervenes to wrap us in cotton wool every time it looks like we might fall or bump our precious little heads.

Either extreme would, to those of us who value the concept of freedom, be unsatisfactory. With pure unrestrained freedom, there would be nothing to stop every society becoming a Rwanda. In that case most people have very little free will because they become the slaves of a few tyrants. However, with an all-pervasive intervention then our freedom becomes an illusion.

Therefore most theists would believe that the truth lies somewhere in between the two extremes. The problem is, how do we balance the benefits of possessing a free will against the painful consequences that come from the exercise of that free will (this is similar to the arguments about how far one can go in fighting terrorism without infringing the very human rights you are trying to protect). This problem is explored quite thoughtfully by Fyodor Dostoevsky in The Brothers Karamazov. My own position is that there must be an optimum point on the line, known of course only to God, where the greatest possible combination of free will and divine intervention exists. So God's intervention, depending on the results of our freely made decisions, maintains that equilibrium and, in the phrase much maligned in Voltaire's Candide, produces a "best possible world".

Excellent. May I just add: Reinhold Neighbour the great Neo Orthodox Theologian of the last century said that in every act of man there is a measure of freedom. The freedom to do or not to do said act. Sometimes other wills impose themselves on our wills in order to force us to act in a certain way which is why I believe that with Satan at the helm in the running of this world, it is much easier to doubt than it is believe. This view is diametrically opposed to Martin Luther's, he held the view that there is no such thing as free will at all due to the sheer power of these other forces, the world the flesh and the devil as they are commonly called. But yeah, really well put PDN, I really like your horizontal line illustration. You could say that we do in fact live in the best possible world. On balance there's not too much freedom and not too little freedom.

FishFood

Thanks for the clarification there on the omniscience PDN.

If some christians believe things can and do occur that are contrary to the 'will of God' would that then imply that God is fallible? As in not all knowing/powerful. Or maybe I misunderstood you there.

PDN

FishFood wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification there on the omniscience PDN.

If some christians believe things can and do occur that are contrary to the 'will of God' would that then imply that God is fallible? As in not all knowing/powerful. Or maybe I misunderstood you there.

No, being all powerful (omnipotent) does not mean that God can do that which is logically self-contradictory. He could not, for example, create a square circle, nor could He create a rock that was too heavy for himself to lift it. Nor could he tell a lie while remaining absolutely truthful.

Most of us would see that creating a creature with genuine free will is logically incompatible with always ensuring that His will is carried out. If the creature can only choose that which is consistent with God's will, then the freedom is a scripted illusion.

So, God is omnipotent in that He has the power to do anything He wants to do, but in creating a creature with free will He has, quite voluntarily, chosen to limit to some degree the amount of control He exercises over the world.

liamw

Thanks for the explanatory post PDN. However, I'm not sure I understand how you can still have free will once you leave the far left of the scale. I'm not sure how you can have partial free will.

If God can answer prayers then someones free will is getting violated? Suppose I prayed for Person X not to shoot my son. Person X was going to shoot my son, but God intervened and stopped him. Hasn't Person X lost his free will there? And what is the experience like for him, does he just change his mind?

PDN

liamw wrote: »

Thanks for the explanatory post PDN. However, I'm not sure I understand how you can still have free will once you leave the far left of the scale. I'm not sure how you can have partial free will.

If God can answer prayers then someones free will is getting violated? Suppose I prayed for Person X not to shoot my son. Person X was going to shoot my son, but God intervened and stopped him. Hasn't Person X lost his free will there? And what is the experience like for him, does he just change his mind?

Free will is never unfettered or unrestrained. For example, you and I both lack the free will to fly to the moon. So all free will, for anyone who is not omnipotent, is in some sense 'partial'. However, it would be a horrible and insane leap of logic to assume that any restraint on our free will therefore means that we have no free will at all.

Fanny Cradock

FishFood wrote: »

Thanks for the clarification there on the omniscience PDN.

If some christians believe things can and do occur that are contrary to the 'will of God' would that then imply that God is fallible? As in not all knowing/powerful. Or maybe I misunderstood you there.

No, I don't believe it does. Perhaps you are confusing fallibility with God permitting something contrary to his will? (PDN explained it well in his post, perhaps another read is in order to clarify it.) Christianity teaches that each of us will be judged for our sins, which is a way of saying we will have to answer for the stuff we do that is contrary to God's will.

liamw

PDN wrote: »

Free will is never unfettered or unrestrained. For example, you and I both lack the free will to fly to the moon. So all free will, for anyone who is not omnipotent, is in some sense 'partial'. However, it would be a horrible and insane leap of logic to assume that any restraint on our free will therefore means that we have no free will at all.

No, we lack the ability to fly to the moon. You are talking about physical restrictions there, I'm talking about freedom to make choices.

Person X is free to kill my son. It's his choice. Now suddenly, becuase you prayed, Person X decides not to kill my son. What the hell happened after the prayer...

PDN

liamw wrote: »

No, we lack the ability to fly to the moon. You are talking about physical restrictions there, I'm talking about freedom to make choices.

Person X is free to kill my son. It's his choice. Now suddenly, becuase you prayed, Person X decides not to kill my son. What the hell happened after the prayer...

You seem to be wanting to limit the different ways in which God can work. For example:

Scenario A:
Person X is about to kill your son. I pray. The gun jams. There is no violation of free will since no sensible definition of free will demands that a gun most work every time we pull a trigger.

Scenario B:
Person X is about to kill your son. I pray. God prompts a woman who is watching to cry out. The woman's voice reminds Person X of his own mother, who had high hopes of him, and so he decides not to kill your son. Again, there has been no violation of his free will.

Scenario C:
Person X is about to kill your son. I pray. God prompts a woman who is watching to cry out. The woman uses her free will to ignore God's prompting. Your son dies and my prayer goes unanswered.

Scenario
Person X is about to kill your son. I pray. God prompts a woman who is watching to cry out. The woman's voice reminds Person X of his own mother, who had high hopes of him, but he still chooses to kill your son. Your son dies and my prayer goes unanswered.

There are a whole host of other possibilities that could play out, all of which allow for both God's intervention and for our free will.

Fanny Cradock

liamw wrote: »

No, we lack the ability to fly to the moon. You are talking about physical restrictions there, I'm talking about freedom to make choices.

Person X is free to kill my son. It's his choice. Now suddenly, becuase you prayed, Person X decides not to kill my son. What the hell happened after the prayer...

You must not have heard about events in 1969.

By your logic I would have to assume that you operate under the assumption that anyone who influenced your actions (be they God or your friend) is in some way removing your freedom to choose.

FishFood

Again thanks for clarifying your position.

If then as you say above it comes down to it being in the middle of free will and divine intervention roughly. How then is it decided in each circumstance when it is worthy or right?

Like in the example above where someone is about to shoot my son and either intervention happens or a prayer goes unanswered etc, I am fairly sure you would accept that there are circumstances where miracles do happen and people are saved but also circumstances where good people are not. How does God determine which prayer to answer?

Is it too simplistic to liken it to say myself being a bystander in a situation and having the means to save someones life and choosing to do it in one instance but not choosing to do it in another for whatever reason. I guess the point I am trying to make is, I personally would like to think that I would always choose to at least attempt to save a life, especially if it were my child and if I had the ability

Is it not therefore difficult to accept the idea of a caring God who is powerful and knowledgable (be it all or partially) and has the capability and the desire to save but then does not? Or at least does not in every circumstance. I know that is fairly broad and simplistic but hopefully you know what I mean.

liamw

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

You must not have heard about events in 1969.

By your logic I would have to assume that you operate under the assumption that anyone who influenced your actions (be they God or your friend) is in some way removing your freedom to choose.

Now that we've asserted that God can in fact intervene, I guess I'm trying to figure out what methodology he uses to do it. How does he make that gun jam? Does he shift the atomic particles in the trigger mechanism?

How does he 'tell' that woman to shout or influence her? What is her experience?

PDN

FishFood wrote: »

Again thanks for clarifying your position.

If then as you say above it comes down to it being in the middle of free will and divine intervention roughly. How then is it decided in each circumstance when it is worthy or right?

Like in the example above where someone is about to shoot my son and either intervention happens or a prayer goes unanswered etc, I am fairly sure you would accept that there are circumstances where miracles do happen and people are saved but also circumstances where good people are not. How does God determine which prayer to answer?

Is it too simplistic to liken it to say myself being a bystander in a situation and having the means to save someones life and choosing to do it in one instance but not choosing to do it in another for whatever reason. I guess the point I am trying to make is, I personally would like to think that I would always choose to at least attempt to save a life, especially if it were my child and if I had the ability

Is it not therefore difficult to accept the idea of a caring God who is powerful and knowledgable (be it all or partially) and has the capability and the desire to save but then does not? Or at least does not in every circumstance. I know that is fairly broad and simplistic but hopefully you know what I mean.

I think that the answer does, to a great extent, depend upon our free will. Of course, we don't actually know how often God intervenes to prevent stuff happening. It could be much more than we think.

There's got to be a line drawn somewhere, otherwise God would intervene in every situation and free will would cease to exist (all the way to the left of our horizontal line).

Now, if God responds in response to a prayer, that is obviously a different kettle of fish to his responding unasked. The answer to prayer is, in itself, a response to the person who is praying exercising their free will.

You and I like to think we would do everything we could to save a child's life. But what if you were a police officer, and the only way you could save a child's life was to get a piece of information from a suspect? You might do some pretty sneaky stuff like lying to them, tricking them, or making them afraid. But what if the only way to save the child was to physically torture the suspect? Even if you justify that by stressing the value of the child's life, how many times can you do this? How long before you have the wrong suspect and torture an innocent person? Sooner or later you have tortured so many people that your actions become a greater evil than the death of a child!

In the same way, there is a limit to how much God can intervene unasked without making the concept of free will pretty meaningless. If he saves every child, then free will is effectively gone. Without free will the value of the child diminishes because it is no longer fully human, as we recognise humanity, but an android programmed to obey God.

wolfsbane

Zaynzma wrote: »

Everything that happens is the will of God in the sense that He allows it to happen. God allows things to occur which are displeasing to Him - it is in this sense that I (as a Muslim) understand 'God's will'. He doesn't want me to commit acts which are displeasing to Him or against His law. He wants me to avoid them. But it is His will that I have the choice, so in that sense no-one can act contrary to God's will.

Saying that anything which occurs is contrary to the will of God implies helplessness on His part, but perhaps that's not the way you meant it?

If I may butt in:
Yes, I agree, God allows things to happen which displease Him as such - He allows the murderer to kill, the thief to steal, activities which fill Him with anger. Sometimes He allows them, sometimes He prevents them, according to His plan. The murderer and the thief remain responsible for their crimes. God is working all things to His ultimate good end.

As to free-will, sometimes He prevents us exercising it for evil by outward hindrances; sometimes He moves directly on our wills, causing or preventing them from willing what our hearts desire. If we would naturally think to do evil in a situation but God wants us not to do this action, He puts it in our minds to dismiss the idea. Or He causes the evil man to exercise his free-will to accomplish His purpose. Example from the Bible:
1 Chronicles5:26So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He carried the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into captivity. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan to this day.

mardybumbum

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Hoefully you understand a little better now.

I dont think I'll ever understand religion. :pac:
It makes for an interesting topic of discussion at least.

Fanny Cradock wrote: »

Anyway, the second part of your post requires a bit of clarification. If you are saying that God is nature - tree, rocks wind and whatever else - then you are slipping into pantheism and rapidly moving away from orthodox Christianity. However, if you intend to use your words as metaphor that serves to promote wonder at God's creation, and yet hold that God is transcendent, then it's probably an orthodox - if not confusing - way of thinking about God. In other words, a Christian can be spiritually inspired by the beauty of nature, for example, but it shouldn't be confused with God.

My point was related to the video I posted earlier.
The vicar was most certainly describing the einsteinian god, and not the god of the bible.
It just seemed to me like he was trying to have his cake and eat it.





Also, the question of whether god died on the cross or not arose earlier on in this thread.
This was due to my lack of understanding of the trinity, which I hope someone can clear up for me.
Jesus is the son of god. Yet Jesus is god also.
And to confuse us all even more the holy spirit has been thrown in for a bit of fun.

Jaden

wolfsbane wrote: »

If I may butt in:
Yes, I agree, God allows things to happen which displease Him as such - He allows the murderer to kill, the thief to steal, activities which fill Him with anger. Sometimes He allows them, sometimes He prevents them, according to His plan. The murderer and the thief remain responsible for their crimes. God is working all things to His ultimate good end.

As to free-will, sometimes He prevents us exercising it for evil by outward hindrances; sometimes He moves directly on our wills, causing or preventing them from willing what our hearts desire. If we would naturally think to do evil in a situation but God wants us not to do this action, He puts it in our minds to dismiss the idea. Or He causes the evil man to exercise his free-will to accomplish His purpose. Example from the Bible:
1 Chronicles5:26So the God of Israel stirred up the spirit of Pul king of Assyria, that is, Tiglath-Pileser king of Assyria. He carried the Reubenites, the Gadites, and the half-tribe of Manasseh into captivity. He took them to Halah, Habor, Hara, and the river of Gozan to this day.

I have always had trouble reconciling the notion of God's plan with the notion of free will in humans.

If God is all powerful and all knowing, (Luke 12:7) then every action that you have preformed and ever will perform is known to God. Each action is part of his divine plan. If the outcome of all things is already determined, how can this be the case if we have true free will? Furthermore, how can we be judged, if we are simply products of our own enviornment?

My fate is already known to God, so I will either be rewarded or punished for all eternity based on actions that I have not yet partaken in. The result is already known (by God). How can this be considered free will? I may appear to be excercising autonomy in decision making, but if the parameters governing each decision are all determined by the divine, am I reall free to choose my fate?

Just wondering.

PDN

Jaden wrote: »

I have always had trouble reconciling the notion of God's plan with the notion of free will in humans.

If God is all powerful and all knowing, (Luke 12:7) then every action that you have preformed and ever will perform is known to God. Each action is part of his divine plan. If the outcome of all things is already determined, how can this be the case if we have true free will? Furthermore, how can we be judged, if we are simply products of our own enviornment?

My fate is already known to God, so I will either be rewarded or punished for all eternity based on actions that I have not yet partaken in. The result is already known (by God). How can this be considered free will? I may appear to be excercising autonomy in decision making, but if the parameters governing each decision are all determined by the divine, am I reall free to choose my fate?

Just wondering.

Maybe you should read the whole thread? There's little point in answering the same questions over and over again.

Jaden

I have read it (in fact, have had to re-read bits a few times), but the answer isn't apparent to me yet, nor may ever be. Assistance on the query may not be forthcoming simply because I have not articulated my point (or understood a previous answer) correctly.

If we view the Universe as an experiment by God (who exists outside the experiment), then it is fair to say that by modern Christian definition God knows all possible outcomes of the experiment aswell as the actual outcome. We don't decide anything, it has already been decided for us.

The script has already been written, we are just actors. Is this true? If not, why not? Am I looking at this arseways?

PDN

Jaden wrote: »

I have read it (in fact, have had to re-read bits a few times), but the answer isn't apparent to me yet, nor may ever be. Assistance on the query may not be forthcoming simply because I have not articulated my point (or understood a previous answer) correctly.

If we view the Universe as an experiment by God (who exists outside the experiment), then it is fair to say that by modern Christian definition God knows all possible outcomes of the experiment aswell as the actual outcome. We don't decide anything, it has already been decided for us.

The script has already been written, we are just actors. Is this true? If not, why not? Am I looking at this arseways?

First of all, many Christians do not believe that God knows the actual outcome of the future - only that He knows all the possible outcomes (like a computer that can see every possible move, and the possible consequences of each move, in a game of chess).

Other Christians believe that God does know the choices that we will make - but that his knowledge is contingent upon our freely made choices, not vice versa. This has been discussed in previous threads and a number of non-Christian posters have claimed that a contradiction exists, but were unable to demonstrate that contradiction to anyone's satisfaction except their own. That led to them getting frustrated, breaches of the Charter ensued, and threads tended to descend into nastiness. If you want to start a new thread on that then feel free to do so - but I think if we go down that route in this thread then it will drag us totally off topic.

FishFood

I think that the answer does, to a great extent, depend upon our free will. Of course, we don't actually know how often God intervenes to prevent stuff happening. It could be much more than we think.

There's got to be a line drawn somewhere, otherwise God would intervene in every situation and free will would cease to exist (all the way to the left of our horizontal line).

Now, if God responds in response to a prayer, that is obviously a different kettle of fish to his responding unasked. The answer to prayer is, in itself, a response to the person who is praying exercising their free will.

You and I like to think we would do everything we could to save a child's life. But what if you were a police officer, and the only way you could save a child's life was to get a piece of information from a suspect? You might do some pretty sneaky stuff like lying to them, tricking them, or making them afraid. But what if the only way to save the child was to physically torture the suspect? Even if you justify that by stressing the value of the child's life, how many times can you do this? How long before you have the wrong suspect and torture an innocent person? Sooner or later you have tortured so many people that your actions become a greater evil than the death of a child!

In the same way, there is a limit to how much God can intervene unasked without making the concept of free will pretty meaningless. If he saves every child, then free will is effectively gone. Without free will the value of the child diminishes because it is no longer fully human, as we recognise humanity, but an android programmed to obey God.

Good points there. The only thing I would suggest is that maybe intervention after the act might not be completely overiding a person's free will. To use the example of me choosing to shoot someone, my free will allows me to shoot the person and God would not stop that, but does it automatically mean that God could not save the person after that fact through whatever means. Then my free will, as in the choice to shoot, is still in place but it did not achieve the result I intended.

I would not expect it in every negative situation though, perhaps only in situations where a person's life is at stake.

wolfsbane

Jaden said:

I have always had trouble reconciling the notion of God's plan with the notion of free will in humans.

It is not all revealed, but much can be found in the Bible.

If God is all powerful and all knowing, (Luke 12:7) then every action that you have preformed and ever will perform is known to God.

Correct.

Each action is part of his divine plan.

Correct.

If the outcome of all things is already determined, how can this be the case if we have true free will?

It is determined in the sense of what will and will not be permitted to happen. But that does not mean God makes you sin - He may allow you to sin, or prevent you from doing so.

Furthermore, how can we be judged, if we are simply products of our own enviornment?

We are not. Our enviroment informs/pressurises us, but our natures determine what we do with that information/pressure. We do as we are.

My fate is already known to God, so I will either be rewarded or punished for all eternity based on actions that I have not yet partaken in. The result is already known (by God). How can this be considered free will?

Because you will do it. You are not judged on what you might do, only on what you actually do.

I may appear to be excercising autonomy in decision making, but if the parameters governing each decision are all determined by the divine, am I reall free to choose my fate?

The parameters are determined by our natures. God restrains or permits us to act accordingly.