Theological Opinions , PART II

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Lief: if "Only the unselfish will deserve God's reward," as you say, doesn't that require free will, and not predestiny? Because "deserving" implies that one had a choice; an ability to do otherwise.

In general, this argument sounds like an attempt to have your cake and eat it too, to say that we are allowed to "act within our personality" and yet both that personality and every single action of ours is dictated by God.

What's the alternative to God creating our personalities? That with Free Will, we decide for ourselves who we will be in life? That's self-creating our personalities.

If we self-create our own personalities, then what's the "we" that does the self-creating? And where does it come from?

And if you say genetics, environment and family create our personalities without God also creating them, and that after these forces fashion our personalities, we act according to who we are, then our choices are being predestined by humans and nature (though they don't know what they've produced), for we'll act according to the personality they've given us.

We don't have freedom from God, but freedom from God is not necessary for real freedom to exist. We have the freedom to be what God made us to be; we have the freedom to be ourselves and do whatever we choose to do in life.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Take a specific choice - someone comes to me, hands me a gun, and tells me to shoot him in the head. Do I do it or not? If I am to bear the responsibility for this choice, I have to HAVE a choice; if God has already determined that I will not do it, how can I be said to deserve anything for my refusal to violate his commandments, and conversely, if God has already determined that I will, how can I deserve punishment for violating his commandments? The specific trouble I find is your insistence that God does everything (omnipotence) not that he knows everything (omniscience). I for instance knew how you were going to respond to my comments, despite not having any control over you, because I've argued with you before. How much more must God know how we will act, knowing us perfectly? This does not demand predestiny, only predictability.

You did not create me or the world. God created me and the world, knowing what my choices would be. Hence the responsibility for my choices is his, and because he knew what they would be and created the universe, world and me in the way he did even with that foreknowledge, my choices are his choices.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

But your scheme seems to require actual predestiny, with the attribution of responsibility for all acts to God. That's why I addressed the issue of omnipotence. If God has determined that our free will is the first priority, I feel it avoids the problem of why God would cause us to sin, and then blame us for it. Because I feel that's still the gaping problem with your argument - God creates us as we are, and then micromanages our actions, but STILL blames us for actions we take; and not only that, but even those that are necessary for a greater good (as you claim all actions are, taken on God's level) are given punishments for being evil on our own scale. Thus we are punished for actions we "had to" take in two different senses - both "forced to" and "for the greater good." That seems to me to be the essence of injustice.

Spanking a child, taken by itself, without any explanations or results looked at, is an evil act. It's just abuse. But if the spanking is done for a reason and with good result, it is no longer evil at all. In this way, none of God's actions are evil. We are simply walking into a room and witnessing a spanking taking place without hearing the explanations or seeing the results yet. And we are making a judgment on the parent, God, without knowing any of this. So we can drop the "evil for the greater good" aspect, for God does no evil. Only God's created creatures do evil.

Humans do evil with evil intent and evil result. As far as they have any control over what they are doing, evil is all that comes of their actions. Hence they are not responsible for the good God brings from their choices, but only for the evil they planned and accomplished, as it is all they intended and achieved. From them, it is evil. From God, it is good.

And as for being forced to do things, we are not forced. It would be the height of absurdity if a character in a book I was writing complained to me, from the book, "why don't you allow me to give that character a present?" I would reply, "don't be silly. Give the character a present." I write the story and the characters' personalities, and I determine their actions, but I don't make them behave in ways that are out of character. So that character who addressed me could easily go and give the other character a present. I wasn't stopping him, because God is a good author and only a poor writer interferes with his characters' personalities and makes them behave in ways that are out of character.

God doesn't force people to do anything. He predestines that they do exactly what they want to do, according to their own choices that come from their personalities, who they are. They are individuals with equal freedom to God. God has no more freedom than they do. God can only act according to his personality, and in that sense, his "free will" is limited in that he cannot behave in any way other than according to who he is. And his actions must and always will come from his personality. Just as our actions will come from our personalities. We and he have the freedom to be ourselves- no more, no less, and God's power over us does not deprive us of that freedom in any way.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Take the fate of Moses - if God ordered him to talk to the rock instead of striking it, then MADE HIM strike it, then punished him for doing that instead of talking to it... where is the justice? God makes the rules, makes the violation, and then metes out punishment for a violation he orchestrated.

Where's the force in "making" someone do exactly what they wanted to do, chose to do, and did themselves? God's will is done in the person's action, but so is thet person's will. Hence there is no abuse of the person's will. The fact that the person's personality from which that will comes has been determined by God is only natural- it has to come from somewhere, and God, omniscient Love, is a pretty reliable source for it to come from.

Brute force would only have been used if God had made Moses do as God commanded, because it was in Moses' character to refuse to do what God commanded at that time.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Why not just skip the whole action and punish to start with?

That would be evil, for there is no justice in it. The justice is in judging people for the wrong actions that they commit. If God willed for the person to commit the action, and willed for the person to will for that action to be committed, there is still a problem in the personality that justly should be judged. God put it there, but he does right by putting it there because of the eventual good result, but once the fault in the personality is there and creates wrong, it should be judged because it is wrong.

Do you think that a sinner shouldn't be judged if he or she is taught to sin by someone else, and then sins? No, I think you think the person should still be judged because he chose to accept the wrong teaching and act according to it. In the same way, sins that come to a man, which God plans will come and enter the man, only enter him because of his choices that he makes according to who he is and according to his personality. It's not like God forces the entry of sins in any illogical fashion. Man does his own will, and God does his own will, but man sins and God does not, because man purposefully commits evil while God does no evil, but commits the same actions with good motives and results. From God, the actions are not evil, but from man, with man's planning evil and accomplishing only evil as far as he is responsible for the results of his actions, these actions are evil.

So man and God both are responsible, for as different entities who have equal freedom, they both committed the same actions according to who they are. But man created evil and God good, so although both are responsible, only man is guilty.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Why do we need this life if the next is determined and acted out for us with no hope, as brownjenkins has pointed out, of redemptive growth?

You're interpreting what I'm saying incorrectly, as though we were puppets in God's hands, things without wills of their own, personalities, life, or the freedom to do what we want. The fact that God plans us doesn't impose upon us. If he didn't plan us, we would be meaningless, the results of random chance, since any action God did not choose, he must necessarily have left to random chance. The only way to escape the problem of God's foreknowledge is to say he left how we would turn out to random chance, rather than selecting an Earth and universe, a way of creating, in which everyone "freely" chose him.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

God makes the rules, makes the violation, and then metes out punishment for a violation he orchestrated. Why not just skip the whole action and punish to start with?

They call that "Original Sin", and some of us are WAY over it, by now.

[Count Comfect]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

They call that "Original Sin", and some of us are WAY over it, by now.

Oh, but in Christian theology, you aren't damned for original sin if you embrace Christ - it isn't quite as mechanical as Lief's conception here (because you still have a way out).

Lief:

The alternative is not to God creating our personalities, but to God micromanaging each act we take. I agree to the first, but I remain convinced that a personality can have facets that make multiple reactions to the same stimuli possible.

We have the freedom to be what God made us to be; we have the freedom to be ourselves and do whatever we choose to do in life.

That is incompatible with your overall argument, because you also argue that God is our author and God does our deeds equally with us.

He predestines that they do exactly what they want to do, according to their own choices that come from their personalities, who they are.

But if that destiny is destined before the choice is made, it becomes simply writing a good book, one in which the characters have verisimilitude. It ceases to be a real world, because even if the choice seems in accordance with the person's personality, the choice predates the chooser; we no longer actually have a choice. In a world of free will, one always has the ultimate will to go against the grain - in a world of predestiny, everything is already set before you act. It is no more than an illusion of freedom.

I wasn't stopping him, because God is a good author and only a poor writer interferes with his characters' personalities and makes them behave in ways that are out of character.

An author BY DEFINITION interferes with his character's personalities and stops them from doing things, because the author not only creates every bit of them but also defines their actions without their input. Which, if God predestines the world before we act, is equivalent to your conception here. But don't tell me I don't stop my characters from giving each other presents; each time I choose to not have them do so, I'm stopping them, because they have no choice but to do what I tell them.

God's will is done in the person's action, but so is that person's will.

But the person is still solely punished for an act he or she was not solely responsible for. And the decision was already made - the will was added after the choice.

If God willed for the person to commit the action, and willed for the person to will for that action to be committed, there is still a problem in the personality that justly should be judged. God put it there, but he does right by putting it there because of the eventual good result, but once the fault in the personality is there and creates wrong, it should be judged because it is wrong.

Not if God created the personality too. Now God is punishing a created personality for expressing itself through predetermined deeds. Why not skip the middleman?

Do you think that a sinner shouldn't be judged if he or she is taught to sin by someone else, and then sins? No, I think you think the person should still be judged because he chose to accept the wrong teaching and act according to it. In the same way, sins that come to a man, which God plans will come and enter the man, only enter him because of his choices that he makes according to who he is and according to his personality.

Of course a sinner should be judged despite being taught to sin - but God isn't teaching in your conception, God is responsible for the actual act as well. Mankind does not choose to accept God's determination of their actions - that is a precondition. The sins that come to a man come not "only" because of his own choice, because God determines that they will happen.

You're interpreting what I'm saying incorrectly, as though we were puppets in God's hands, things without wills of their own, personalities, life, or the freedom to do what we want. The fact that God plans us doesn't impose upon us. If he didn't plan us, we would be meaningless, the results of random chance, since any action God did not choose, he must necessarily have left to random chance.

Lief, if what we do is predetermined, according to predetermined personalities, yes, we DON'T have freedom to do what we want. And the chance/God binary is false; God can leave things to us, whom he knows far better than random chance, without it becoming "random." Like a good boss delegates to his subordinates without micromanaging - it isn't "random" what will result, but he didn't specifically determine it either.

I feel that you are ripping out the element of true choice in a religion based on choosing salvation. If Man does not have the ability at any moment, regardless of the past, to say "I accept Jesus Christ as my savior," what becomes of the Paul's cry "Be ye therefore followers of God" (Eph 5:1)? What becomes of the exhortations to change your ways, if whether you will change is already a known quantity, weighed and (possibly) found wanting?

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I was saying that man makes exactly what decisions he wants, freely acting in accord with his personality and who he is. God doesn't force him to behave in unnatural ways, but instead planned out his personality, nature and choices beforehand. So the human is completely himself and completely God's at the same time.

If you are acting in accord with your personality, but that very personality was determined and designed by someone else, you are not acting freely. I'm sorry Lief, but you are just arguing semantics.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I know you're not talking to me here, but I'd like to respond anyway, as you're misunderstanding me. God controls our personalities as well as the big moral decisions we make. He controls every single thing we do or think, and every single thing that happens in the universe. Yet simultaneously, even as he controls everything that occurs, he doesn't make us behave in any way that is out of character, and we maintain our personalities and identities and act in exactly whatever ways we want to behave, in accord with those personalities.

If god created our personalities, than what we "want" is what he created us to want. There is no freedom. Just the perception of freedom from our point of view.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

God also is responsible for sin, but when he plans that evil will be done, he does not sin, because his motives and the results of his actions are only good. The people who committed those actions had evil motives, though,

But god created them with those evil motives. The people did not develop them themselves.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

and the results of their actions, as far as they controlled and planned them, were evil.

But they were not "controlled and planned" by them in any real sense. People just perceive to be able to control and plan them when, in reality, god created those personalities.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

God takes those actions the final steps though, and brings good from them. Thus, actions that from humans are motivated by evil and result in evil (as far as humans control and intend them)

Which is not at all, because god creates their personalities.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

are good from God. So humans and God alike are responsible for having committed the actions, but humans are the only ones who did evil, for the motives of God's actions were good and his final results will be very good, whereas humans' motives and the final results of their actions, as far as they controlled and planned them, were evil and produced evil.

You talk about the human's "motives", but aren't those very motives, like everything else, created by god?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Humans, on the other hand, as their motives and the results of their actions were evil as far as the humans controlled and planned those events, are guilty.

But ultimately, human action is dictated by god. They have no "control" if god creates the personalities in the first place.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The audience is God's created creatures. Angels, humans, perhaps animals, and whatever other spirits, creatures or entities of other forms exist and which we don't know exist. Humans will gain from the evil that we encountered and were saved from.

Beings that have no independent control are not an audience. Would you consider Harry, Ron and Hermione part of Rowling's "audience"?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

That isn't quite the same point to evil as God has. God seeks to develop the good characters, which is one objective of most authors in including evil in their stories, though not their primary objective. It is the primary objective for God, though, for he wants an eternal relationship with his creatures, and hence he has a rather different objective in his writing than the rest of us do.

God, in your explanation, isn't "developing" anything at all. He creates good personalities and evil personalities and watches them do exactly what he expects them to do. There is no "developing".

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Of course you're right that in the final analysis, God writes it all. However, humans still get to act freely according to their personalities in the circumstances they're in, and can change their circumstances through their wills, whatever their will may happen to be, and it will also be God's. One thing that no character should be able to complain of to the author in a good book is, "I wanted to do this one thing, but you intervened, messed with my character and prevented me doing what I would naturally do." Good authors create characters who behave in exactly the ways that are natural for them to behave in. Poor writers tamper with the personalities of their characters in unrealistic ways.

The only reason you can talk about what is "natural" and "unnatural" or "realistic" and "unrealistic" is because the author is not also writing your story. Whatever Rowling chooses to write about Harry, Ron and Hermione is perfectly "natural" from their point of view because Rowling created them.

It may or may not be natural from your point of view only because Rowling did not create, and thus does not control, your personality.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Characters do have some control over what happens around them and over what choices they make, but God has complete control. Their control and God's control don't contradict one another- that's my point.

They do contradict one another. If someone has complete control, by definition of the word complete, no one else has any control. The best you can give them is the perception of control if they do not completely see or understand the being that has complete control.

The concept is so basic, I feel silly even having to explain it.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I define free will differently than you do, because I think the definition you are arguing for (without believing in it), and which I have commonly heard from other people, makes no sense.

What you are doing is calling a lack of free will, "free will". I could argue to the end of my days that black is really white, but no one is going to believe me.

Let me ask you a question: do you think god has free will in the common definition of the term (i.e. he can do whatever he wants with no outside control)?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

No, it is not. It's true that from our perspectives we have freedom, and God doesn't control us in a forceful way. But the definition of free will that I'm using is "that we have the freedom to be ourselves." God's will doesn't keep us from being ourselves, so it can't be called slavery.

But what we call "ourselves" is what god made us, correct? So all you are saying is that we have the freedom to be what god designed us to be, which isn't really freedom at all by most people's definition.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Yes. 1 John 3:20 says, "God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything." Hebrews 4:13 says, "Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."

To know and see all does not necessarily imply that one can also see the future. The above might just refer to seeing the present.

Also, why would we have to "give account" to one who "knows everything"?

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Lief:

The alternative is not to God creating our personalities, but to God micromanaging each act we take. I agree to the first, but I remain convinced that a personality can have facets that make multiple reactions to the same stimuli possible.

You'll choose the one most in tune with who you are. With your genetics, environment, socialization which includes moral upbringing. Your level of fatigue or wakefulness also will be a factor, stress or happiness, etc. will also be factors. But all of those things are tied to who you are. In the end, you'll choose the option that is most like the you in your present circumstances.

If you have multiple options at any given time and choose between them, without your personality determining what you'll choose, then you're a random program, for who or what does choose between the options (and how does it choose- on what basis does it choose?) if your personality, environment, condition and socialization simply leave multiple options before you and don't also choose between them. Stripping away all those facets of who you are, what's left to make the choice? And if you're going to say the soul, what is the soul's choice but random selection if it doesn't choose between the options before you the one most in tune with your personality? If the personality, environment, socialization and condition all just produce a limited set of options, what's left to make the choice between the options? What is this Free Will, really, but a random program?

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

That is incompatible with your overall argument, because you also argue that God is our author and God does our deeds equally with us.

But if that destiny is destined before the choice is made, it becomes simply writing a good book, one in which the characters have verisimilitude. It ceases to be a real world, because even if the choice seems in accordance with the person's personality, the choice predates the chooser; we no longer actually have a choice. In a world of free will, one always has the ultimate will to go against the grain - in a world of predestiny, everything is already set before you act. It is no more than an illusion of freedom.

An author BY DEFINITION interferes with his character's personalities and stops them from doing things, because the author not only creates every bit of them but also defines their actions without their input.

That is just not true at all. There's a difference between writing, or creating, a personality, and interfering with it.

Let's say that Frodo suddenly started acting like Aragorn at the foot of Mount Doom. That would be interfering with his personality, because he's no longer acting like himself, making choices that he would naturally want to make from his personality and from his own will. The author is intervening to make him do things he wouldn't want to do, which is interference and slavery. If Frodo continues to act like exactly who he is, however, then he's not enslaved or interfered with, even though Tolkien is writing the book.

The author doesn't "stop them from doing things" either, for that implies the character (from his or her personality) wanting to do something but being prevented by the author changing the person's personality from what it would naturally be so that he doesn't want to do that thing. Poor writers do do that sometimes, but not good ones. Good ones write their characters behaving in ways that are in character all the time.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Which, if God predestines the world before we act, is equivalent to your conception here. But don't tell me I don't stop my characters from giving each other presents; each time I choose to not have them do so, I'm stopping them, because they have no choice but to do what I tell them.

Sure they'll do as you tell them, but you're not "stopping" them. If it was in their character to do this thing, you'd write that they do it. Your control, therefore, doesn't deprive them of personhood. They do just what you want and just what they want simultaneously, without interference from the author or the author forcing them around. The author writes every event, but the characters all choose every event based on who they are, just as real people do in the world today, and if God is controlling the process, that doesn't stop the people doing exactly what they want. Their only limits are their own personalities (and sin, which is a different issue), for they'll act according to their personalities and who they are.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

But the person is still solely punished for an act he or she was not solely responsible for. And the decision was already made - the will was added after the choice.

God's part of the decision came before, and the person's decision came after, but that doesn't prevent it being the person's decision as well as God's.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

Not if God created the personality too. Now God is punishing a created personality for expressing itself through predetermined deeds. Why not skip the middleman?

Of course a sinner should be judged despite being taught to sin - but God isn't teaching in your conception, God is responsible for the actual act as well. Mankind does not choose to accept God's determination of their actions - that is a precondition. The sins that come to a man come not "only" because of his own choice, because God determines that they will happen.

I guess I responded to that above. Man makes choices freely, according to his personality and who he is, and God does not interfere with his personality. God planned his personality and enacted it, but that is not interference, for it doesn't change who the person would naturally be. The person is himself, just as someone who has "Free Will" is himself and does what he wants.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

And the chance/God binary is false; God can leave things to us, whom he knows far better than random chance, without it becoming "random." Like a good boss delegates to his subordinates without micromanaging - it isn't "random" what will result, but he didn't specifically determine it either.

But what is the "us" he'd be leaving this choice to? If our responses don't come from our personalities, then there is no "us." There's just random selection from the set of options our personalities present us. It's all dice-work. Leaving the choice to an "us" that isn't our personalities, environment, socialization, etc. is leaving us to random chance.

Originally Posted by Count Comfect

I feel that you are ripping out the element of true choice in a religion based on choosing salvation. If Man does not have the ability at any moment, regardless of the past, to say "I accept Jesus Christ as my savior," what becomes of the Paul's cry "Be ye therefore followers of God" (Eph 5:1)? What becomes of the exhortations to change your ways, if whether you will change is already a known quantity, weighed and (possibly) found wanting?

You'll change if it's in accord with your personality, and who you are, to change. It's all predetermined, but God also created living, intelligent, feeling humans, and he wants a personal relationship with them. Predestination doesn't strip us of value. It doesn't deprive us of choice, though our choices come from God as well as from our own wills. God's choosing our choices before we chose them doesn't mean we didn't also choose them based upon who we are. All those appeals in the Bible for people to change come because man must choose to change according to his own personality.

If God just changed us without our having any choice to change that came from our personalities, he'd be interfering with our personalities. When he appeals to us, we can choose to change based upon who we are, just as the Free Will model assumes, and even though God already chose whatever we choose, he didn't "force" our choices. They came completely naturally from God's personality as well as from our different personalities.

This "micromanaging," is not interference. It just means that man does whatever man wants, and God does what he wants in and through those actions at the same time. And it had to come out that way if God is omniscient, for if he foreknew and created in the way he did with his foreknowledge, then he ordained the way that every event would come out. There were, undoubtedly, other options of how the world could come out, but he chose this one. Hence, he is responsible for every act committed if he is all-knowing, and the result is the same as we have with predestination- our choices all coming from ourselves (who we are), and from God and who he is.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If you are acting in accord with your personality, but that very personality was determined and designed by someone else, you are not acting freely. I'm sorry Lief, but you are just arguing semantics.

You're acting freely according to who you are, even if God also created you to be that way. And I don't see how "Free Will" has anything more to offer.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If god created our personalities, than what we "want" is what he created us to want. There is no freedom. Just the perception of freedom from our point of view.

No freedom from God, I agree. But freedom from God is throwing our lot to random chance.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But god created them with those evil motives. The people did not develop them themselves.

Adam and Eve took the fruit and brought evil motives to mankind. They weren't created evil. So God didn't create people with the evil motives, though granted, he created Adam and Eve with incomplete personalities, proven to be incomplete because they chose evil. And he perfects those personalities through Christ's crucifixion and resurrection.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But they were not "controlled and planned" by them in any real sense. People just perceive to be able to control and plan them when, in reality, god created those personalities.

What is this "real sense" to you? God created our personalities, we act according to them of our own natural choice but also simultaneously according to his will. If we had freedom from God, we'd still act according to our personalities in a way predestined by our personalities . We'd still control and plan from our personalities. Wherever our personalities come from, we're still predestined. So what's the big problem with an omniscient and perfectly loving God predestining us? Better to be predestined by Love than by heartless nature.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Which is not at all, because god creates their personalities.

Who else is supposed to create them? Ourselves? What is ourselves, if it doesn't yet have a personality and has to create one?

Environment? How is that superior to God predestining, exactly?

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

You talk about the human's "motives", but aren't those very motives, like everything else, created by god?

Yup. Our personalities come from God, motives and everything else. And our decisions too.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

But ultimately, human action is dictated by god. They have no "control" if god creates the personalities in the first place.

No freedom from God, but that isn't essential to the definition of freedom. They have the freedom to be themselves, and God also has the freedom only to be himself. God's character and behavior are determined by who he is, just as our behavior and characters are predestined by who we are, and though God also predestines our characters and behaviors as Creator, that doesn't limit our freedom. We have equal freedom to God (excluding sin). We are predestined creatures no matter what, predestined by who we are and by our own personalities. If God predestined us to be that way, that doesn't give us any more freedom. So freedom from God doesn't give us any more freedom.

I'll try to respond to the rest of your post later.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

Just who is damned? I want a list.

Adam and Eve are damned, because, although being unable to act differently from their God-given personalities, and placed in the way of certain temptation they're responsible for yielding to it.

All their descendants are damned, too. That's Genesis 3 16-24.

Things continue on like this until the possibility of salvation through Christ Jesus shows up. That leaves people dying between 1 CE and 33 CE theoretically eligible? or no, because "The Sacrifice" isn't complete until the resurrection. But from 33 on, they're definitely on the hook. If you die after 33 CE without being personally saved by Jesus Christ, you're damned.

So, are Roman Catholics, and Eastern church members only damned AFTER the Reformation? Do they get half points for joining the only game in town, Christian Church wise? Or, since they believe in all that Papist Idolatrous stuff they don't make the cut.

I really need a headcount.

[hectorberlioz]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

So, are Roman Catholics, and Eastern church members only damned AFTER the Reformation? Do they get half points for joining the only game in town, Christian Church wise? Or, since they believe in all that Papist Idolatrous stuff they don't make the cut.

I'm feeling really damned alright...but only because I'm getting my essay back today

[brownjenkins]

I'm surely damned whether I do or I don't at this point.

Of course, since god created my personality in such a way that I do not believe he exists, I can't really blame him for anything or I would be a hypocrit.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by Lief

You've put your finger on one of the problems I have with free will. Free will means that humans decide whether or not they'll be
saved.

By that definition, I deny free will. I think it is a poor definition of free will, though.

A God who predestines his creatures to be with him forever, and is in control of their futures and lives, is one who clearly cares about them intimately. He cares about them enough to ensure that those he has chosen reach him. Which means he is picking the "rat" up out of the cave and bringing it to his bosom, rather than waiting to see which one finds its way out.

I think this is more or less accurate.

That is another problem I have with free will. The emphasis on personal achievement. If we make our own decisions in our lives, choosing our own actions and fates, then while God calls to us and seeks that we come near to him, we always have the option of refusing.

In some way we do have the ability to either accept or reject God's grace.

We act selfishly in seeking salvation - the search for self-preservation is necessarily selfish - and so there is nothing to be proud of in acting in the way God has pointed out for salvation.

But achieving something through our own ability, even if it is something for ourselves, is still something that is liable to be a source of pride. Of course, the blessed wouldn't be prideful, no matter what, so it's irrelevant.

Only the unselfish will deserve God's reward.

That is heresy. Only the damned deserve God's reward.

If you are acting in accord with your personality, but that very personality was determined and designed by someone else, you are not acting freely. I'm sorry Lief, but you are just arguing semantics.

That's just silly. Surely you are not going to argue that we make our own personalities? They are formed through inborn proclivities and inclinations, combined with outside influences. We do not make them.

Originally Posted by sis

Just who is damned? I want a list.

Judas. Either than that, we don't know specifics.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

That's just silly. Surely you are not going to argue that we make our own personalities? They are formed through inborn proclivities and inclinations, combined with outside influences. We do not make them.

I'm not arguing that we make our own personalities. I'm arguing that you can't claim that god has complete control over our actions while, at the same time, claim that we still have some control.

If we have some control, then god's control is not complete. If god's control is complete, then we have no control.

Lief has decided to create a semantic construct where god has complete control over all our actions, but we still have the "freedom to act within our personalities". A freedom that he denies by giving god complete control in the first place, and a freedom you deny by saying personality is a combination of genetics and environment.

[Butterbeer]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Lief has decided to create a semantic construct where god has complete control over all our actions, but we still have the "freedom to act within our personalities". A freedom that he denies by giving god complete control in the first place, and a freedom you deny by saying personality is a combination of genetics and environment.

...did someone mention mirrors?

(sorry Lief! )

best, BB

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief
You've put your finger on one of the problems I have with free will. Free will means that humans decide whether or not they'll be
saved.


By that definition, I deny free will. I think it is a poor definition of free will, though.

I agree. That's why I've argued for a couple different definitions on this thread, a higher and a lower one, and I argue that the current idea of "Free Will" implies that people's fates are controlled by random chance.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote:
That is another problem I have with free will. The emphasis on personal achievement. If we make our own decisions in our lives, choosing our own actions and fates, then while God calls to us and seeks that we come near to him, we always have the option of refusing.


In some way we do have the ability to either accept or reject God's grace.

The scripture says, "many are called, but few are chosen." I think that God puts it in people's hearts to come to him, and then they do. So I deny the personal achievement aspect, as regards salvation.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Quote from Lief:
Only the unselfish will deserve God's reward.


That is heresy. Only the damned deserve God's reward.

Good call. I'll replace my word "deserve" with "receive."

[Earniel]

Nearly at 1000 posts. Closing. The new thread can be found here.