Theology III

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by sisterandcousinandaunt

approach to language a lot of places, but it's preeeety funny on a Tolkien board. The word "goblin" went through the full-on tesseract during JRRT's interaction with it. He didn't wait for consensus, even with himself.

Quiet you. Tolkien doesn't count.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Next thing you know, I'll be the root of all that is evil.

While I agree with GW on the hippo, I think putting religion and consensus in the same light is an oxymoron.

And thus, by saying something sufficiently vague, you've managed to make sense, without actually doing so in the context of the discussion. I was not talking about consensus on religious doctrine, but on consensus of the meaning of the word 'Christian'.

Plus, I'm with Humpty Dumpty on this one:

Humpty Dumpty is a great example of distortion of convention in communication, and one that actually comes up often in the topic. I oppose you both.

If you believe God took on human flesh, He clearly was able to accept limitations in service of His ends, whatever they may be. Why not suppose He accepted limits on His foreknowledge, or His power?

Because limitation is inherent to human nature, and thus it naturally comes with it; it is however alien to divine nature, which is why the divine must assume a lesser nature in order to be limited.

I agree with sis here, in that I disagree with this statement. I think God made the universe, gave it certain parameters, and then let it go and said, "Surprise me!" But as a Chris Rice song says, "Love has the final move." GTG!

Hang on, Ri; are you saying that God does not have foreknowledge of what will come to pass?

[Lief Erikson]

Brownjenkins, I have been pretty impressed by how you have been able to see the logical conclusions positions here seem to lead to. Just to let you know. It makes this debate rather refreshing for me, and more interesting .

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
If knowing our children fully makes us bored of them, or knowing them very well makes them more boring to us, we're the ones who are boring.


Not if it's about the journey as opposed to about the destination.

By destination, we're talking about the people themselves and everything that makes them up and is them. I absolutely reject the idea that it must be about the journey, rather than about the destination, or who we really are, and I'll explain why.

Your statement implies that we can't love people for who they are. If deep love only exists because of the journey, which also means because of ignorance, then love is pretty sad and pathetic, and the implication is that people are worthless. For if they're only worthwhile, or lovable in a deep way, before what we are is known, and after we are known, we're boring or not lovable in a deep way, then we're worthless in our true selves. If our true selves are boring (or only lovable in a shallow way) and deep love only comes because of the journey, or because of ignorance, then we're not worth loving.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I'm not talking about complete randomization here, just an element of randomization. Maybe he wanted to take humans a step further than the other animals he created by giving them the ability to act in random ways so that he could then see if he could shape them as they developed.

So you're suggesting he just made people this way for the fun of facing a good, hard challenge? That still doesn't imply the least bit of caring.

Also, how big is this element of randomization that we're talking about? To the extent that it exists, God has no control, and, I repeat, neither do we. In whatever randomized decision we make, to exactly the extent that it is randomized, we have no control over the outcome. This "free will" is not freedom at all, but bondage to chance to exactly the extent that our choices are chance, for to the extent that our choices are chance, they do not come from us.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

As I mentioned before, a big part of love is co-dependence and mutual appreciation, and that can only truely develop between minds which must discover in order to understand one another. It's the difference between loving a story you wrote and loving your mother or father.

Parents can love children fully without depending on them in a physical way. But I think that the Church can give to God in a spiritual way, in praise, worship, prayer and other means. The child also gives to the parent in a spiritual way. And mutual appreciation can certainly exist between God and the Church. If discovery were necessary, then people don't have worth, and ignorance makes worth, which makes us worthless.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
You also are trying to assume a God with limited knowledge and power. That's fine for you to do, of course, but it isn't Christianity, so it doesn't affect me and what I will believe, though I may still discuss it with you just for the sake of the intellectual pursuit .



Limits which he himself set in order to develop something greater than he had ever developed before.

While I may be limiting god's knowledge (though I'd frame it as god setting limits about what he wishes to be able know about some of his creations), you are limiting his power by implying that he can not create a being which can act in even the smallest way free from god's influence.

If that's an argument against God's omniscience, then it's an argument that he should be able to not be himself. I don't think I'm fully understanding what you're saying here, though.

If our decisions come from our personalities, they are predestined. If our decisions aren't predestined, they don't come from our personalities but must have been left to random chance. Which makes us worthless. This isn't to say that God's power is limited. You simply can't have it both ways because they are logically inconsistent.

Sure God can create a creature whose fate he doesn't select, or whose fate he partially doesn't select. The first is a random creature, and the second is a partially random creature. For if God doesn't choose, he's leaving it to chance. That's fine, but logically, it must still leave us in a lurch, for we're then enslaved by something other than ourselves, unable to make all of our own decisions, for some of those decisions are randomized. And the non-random ones that are predestined are the ones that come from our personalities, from who we really are. Which I'd say means they really are our own, even if they also come from God.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Selected randomly by you. I'm not saying that a decision presents itself and a twelve-sided die rolls in your head. I'm saying that, while all sorts of factors enter into the decision-making process (biology, experience, etc.), the final flip of the switch can go either way. Those other factors may greatly favor one course of action, but there is a random factor that can sometimes overrule all that "predestination".

Well, as I said before, to exactly the extent that it's randomization, we are left powerless to make decisions that come from us. Which is a limit on Free Will, not the source of it.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Read this article if you get the chance (it's short ).

I'll probably read it soon.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Brownjenkins, I have been pretty impressed by how you have been able to see the logical conclusions positions here seem to lead to. Just to let you know. It makes this debate rather refreshing for me, and more interesting .

Only because I've always seen the universe as deterministic, but in a natural sense and without any diety behind it (i.e. evolution, everything being determined by cause and effect). That said, I'm willing to entertain the idea that there may also be random factors at work, which would explain why people sometimes do act terribly out of character from time to time.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

By destination, we're talking about the people themselves and everything that makes them up and is them. I absolutely reject the idea that it must be about the journey, rather than about the destination, or who we really are, and I'll explain why.

Your statement implies that we can't love people for who they are. If deep love only exists because of the journey, which also means because of ignorance, then love is pretty sad and pathetic, and the implication is that people are worthless. For if they're only worthwhile, or lovable in a deep way, before what we are is known, and after we are known, we're boring or not lovable in a deep way, then we're worthless in our true selves. If our true selves are boring (or only lovable in a shallow way) and deep love only comes because of the journey, or because of ignorance, then we're not worth loving.

I don't agree with this at all. I learn more about my children every day I spend with them, and it deepens my love. Love grows from turning ignorance into understanding. The journey is the process, and it's just as much learning about yourself as it is learning about others. It's the relationship you love, not some ideal of what that person is. And it can only grow, because total understanding can never be reached.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

So you're suggesting he just made people this way for the fun of facing a good, hard challenge? That still doesn't imply the least bit of caring.

Why do parents choose to have children and care for them when they can't possibly know how they will turn out? It's the desire to build and shape another human being that drives parental love. If we had the ability to make clones that would mature and behave exactly as we expected, my guess is that their would be very little love for these creations.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Also, how big is this element of randomization that we're talking about? To the extent that it exists, God has no control, and, I repeat, neither do we. In whatever randomized decision we make, to exactly the extent that it is randomized, we have no control over the outcome. This "free will" is not freedom at all, but bondage to chance to exactly the extent that our choices are chance, for to the extent that our choices are chance, they do not come from us.

The key is that god is willing to give up some control to create more interesting life forms.

Of course, one could take it further and say that god implants the same ability to choose that he has. You do think that at least god's choices come from him, correct?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

If discovery were necessary, then people don't have worth, and ignorance makes worth, which makes us worthless.

This doesn't even make sense.

Discovery is what makes people "worthy" to one another.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

If our decisions come from our personalities, they are predestined. If our decisions aren't predestined, they don't come from our personalities but must have been left to random chance. Which makes us worthless. This isn't to say that God's power is limited. You simply can't have it both ways because they are logically inconsistent.

If you feel that god himself is predestined, which you seem to be implying, then his power is limited.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

Sure God can create a creature whose fate he doesn't select, or whose fate he partially doesn't select. The first is a random creature, and the second is a partially random creature. For if God doesn't choose, he's leaving it to chance. That's fine, but logically, it must still leave us in a lurch, for we're then enslaved by something other than ourselves, unable to make all of our own decisions, for some of those decisions are randomized. And the non-random ones that are predestined are the ones that come from our personalities, from who we really are. Which I'd say means they really are our own, even if they also come from God.

If god doesn't choose, he's leaving it to the beings he created. He can and will try to shape them, but he doesn't have complete control over the outcome. Once again, it's like having children, you do what you can but eventually must leave them to their own devices and hope for the best.

From randomness, order can develop, especially when people work together, which seems to be what humanity is all about. Shaping the randomness into a greater order.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Only because I've always seen the universe as deterministic, but in a natural sense and without any diety behind it (i.e. evolution, everything being determined by cause and effect). That said, I'm willing to entertain the idea that there may also be random factors at work, which would explain why people sometimes do act terribly out of character from time to time.

I don't think they do behave out of character. It's just that we don't know their characters perfectly, or all the other factors that go into determining their behavior in any given instance.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I don't agree with this at all. I learn more about my children every day I spend with them, and it deepens my love. Love grows from turning ignorance into understanding. The journey is the process, and it's just as much learning about yourself as it is learning about others. It's the relationship you love, not some ideal of what that person is. And it can only grow, because total understanding can never be reached.

You love the relationship because you love the person. You wouldn't love the relationship if you didn't love the person. So it comes down to understanding the person and thus loving him or her for who he or she is, and love is not centered on the vehicle that leads to understanding, but rather is based upon the understanding that is led to. We love the vehicle, or relationship, because it connects us with the other person and we love the person. Not because it's a really nice, fancy vehicle.

I hope you'll see that it's understanding that creates love, and relationships and learning can deepen the understanding, which is why love is deepened, but they also don't have to deepen the understanding. We can love people based on what we do understand of them and can enjoy and seek their company because of what we understand, which is what we love.

And of course, like you say, we can also learn about ourselves through relationships.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Why do parents choose to have children and care for them when they can't possibly know how they will turn out? It's the desire to build and shape another human being that drives parental love. If we had the ability to make clones that would mature and behave exactly as we expected, my guess is that their would be very little love for these creations.

The clones would have to be very, very simple creatures if we were to actually be able to predict their every action. We can't even predict ourselves, so we couldn't possibly predict a real clone. For us to be able to predict these clones, they would have to be subhuman. In which case a lesser love isn't illogical.

I don't think that humans have enough maturity to be able to appropriately handle complete understanding of one another. Perhaps in some future post-resurrection period (I don't know what God plans), but not before.

But what understanding we have of one another produces our different emotional reactions to one another. Learning is simply the process by which that understanding is created, and it is not learning that is loved, but the people we learn about that are loved for what we have come to understand about them.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The key is that god is willing to give up some control to create more interesting life forms.

BJ, this doesn't respond to what I said. What I said is that to exactly the extent that our decisions are randomized, we have no more control over them than God does. So this cannot be a source of Free Will. That was my point, and your response doesn't refute it.

Suppose God did give up some control to make more interesting life forms. That doesn't mean we're free. So you didn't respond to my point.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Of course, one could take it further and say that god implants the same ability to choose that he has. You do think that at least god's choices come from him, correct?

Predestined by his personality and nature just as ours are predestined by ours. He's free to be who he is, and we're free to be who we are. Our natures and personalities predestine our behavior in both cases.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

This doesn't even make sense.

Discovery is what makes people "worthy" to one another.

Discovery is what leads people to understanding which is actually what makes people "worthy" to one another.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If you feel that god himself is predestined, which you seem to be implying, then his power is limited.

And it is. His power is limited by his own personality. He cannot transform himself into Satan. He is free to be himself and act in accord with his own personality. He is limited by his own personality. Which means he has no choice but to be himself. We Christians worship an unchanging God.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If god doesn't choose, he's leaving it to the beings he created.

I see a logical problem with this. If our personalities, genetics, environment, souls, if all that we are does not come together to make every decision based upon what we are, and if instead all those aspects of who we are are merely influences on a choice that is actually random, then it's not us that making our own choices. He isn't "leaving it to the beings he created." Randomization does not mean Free Will. It means God doesn't decide and we also don't decide. That is not a source of freedom, but rather, if it existed, it would be a source of slavery for us.

To the extent that we are able to be ourselves and make our own decisions based on who we are, we are free. Randomization deprives us of the ability to make choices based on who we are, to whatever extent the randomization exists.

[Nurvingiel]

Welcome to the Moot Tuinor! It's awesome to welcome another person to the discussion. You'll find that adding a lot of paragraph breaks to your posts will make them easier to read: see, for example, Lief Erikson and Brownjenkins's excellent posts.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Because nuns have not been ordained, for the same reasons that monks cannot say the Mass, unless they are also priests. Traditional Christian (not just Catholic) theology states that Christ instituted the sacrament/sacramental of Holy Orders, in order to allow the Last Supper to continue to be celebrated through the ages; not just any one can celebrate the sacrament, but only an ordained minister, according to Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Nestorian, and Catholic doctrine, not to mention many Lutherans and the Anglican Communion. Nuns and monks live a consecrated life, but they are consecrated for this purpose; rather, their consecration is ordered towards the end of a communal life of poverty, prayer, and obedience.

BTW, nuns are not peculiar to the Catholic Church. The Orthodox have them as well, as do the Anglicans and some Lutherans; I understand that there is also a Presbyterian monastic community out there somewhere. Basically, any community which has any deep sense of continuity with the Christian church of ages past will have monastics.

Cool. I didn't realise that there were Anglican nuns. (And I'm Anglican! )

Anyway, I was specifically asking about why Catholic nuns can't become ordained so that they may practice a Catholic mass. My mom went to Catholic school as a kid and had some very fine teachers who were nuns, one of whom she keeps in touch with to this day. But why are these wonderful women not allowed to be ordained?

Because if they were allowed, I'm sure some nuns would persue this, and we would see them practicing Mass.

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

That's kind of inverted; you're saying 'Not all Christians believe Jesus was the Son of God; some sects don't even believe that he was divine', which implies that the latter idea is more rare. However, a number of people believe Jesus was the Son of God without believing that he was divine. Belief in his divinity is superadded to believe in him as son of God. But anyway, the general consensus is that the word 'Christian' applies to those who consider him to have been the son of God, at the very least. Any attempt to say otherwise is nothing other than an attempt to subvert words to a different meaning than that which is usually given them, which is an assault on language, the basis of human communication.

I agree with you Gwai. We Christians aren't anal, but there are a few things you have to believe in order to be a Christian. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God is one of those things. We don't say how you have to believe this, and belief can take many forms, but in some way you do have to believe this.

I like how there's two discussions going on at once in here. I hope we don't tread on each other.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

You love the relationship because you love the person. You wouldn't love the relationship if you didn't love the person. So it comes down to understanding the person and thus loving him or her for who he or she is, and love is not centered on the vehicle that leads to understanding, but rather is based upon the understanding that is led to. We love the vehicle, or relationship, because it connects us with the other person and we love the person. Not because it's a really nice, fancy vehicle.

I disagree. I think love is all about the dynamic between two people, which is a mixture of both likes and dislikes. I don't always like everything I learn about another person I love.

If love was just truely a sum of how "loveable" someone is once understood, as opposed to the process of developing a relationship, I'd love a lot fewer people.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

The clones would have to be very, very simple creatures if we were to actually be able to predict their every action. We can't even predict ourselves, so we couldn't possibly predict a real clone. For us to be able to predict these clones, they would have to be subhuman. In which case a lesser love isn't illogical.

What do you think god sees as different between an animal like an elephant or a lizard and a human being, or are they any different from his point of view?

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

BJ, this doesn't respond to what I said. What I said is that to exactly the extent that our decisions are randomized, we have no more control over them than God does. So this cannot be a source of Free Will. That was my point, and your response doesn't refute it.

Suppose God did give up some control to make more interesting life forms. That doesn't mean we're free. So you didn't respond to my point.

Free will doesn't necessitate concious control by anyone. All it means is that in any given situation multiple choices are able to be taken with no prior determinent as to which choice will be taken. Outside influences may influence the choice, but they do not determine it, as in making it 100% certain.

We don't have control over them, and neither does god, thus they are truely "free".

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

(God choices are) Predestined by his personality and nature just as ours are predestined by ours. He's free to be who he is, and we're free to be who we are. Our natures and personalities predestine our behavior in both cases.

And it is. His power is limited by his own personality. He cannot transform himself into Satan. He is free to be himself and act in accord with his own personality. He is limited by his own personality. Which means he has no choice but to be himself. We Christians worship an unchanging God.

If one is "free to act in accord with his own personality", yet that personality itself is predestined, there is no "free" at all.

It goes back to my ice cream example, you can choose chocolate or vanilla, but you are predestined to like chocolate, and you choose chocolate. How can you possibly call that free???

By your definition, the christian god is no different than us. His actions are completely determined by whatever created him, or by "nature", if you want to just say he came into being on his own or always existed. There is no free agent in the universe.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I see a logical problem with this. If our personalities, genetics, environment, souls, if all that we are does not come together to make every decision based upon what we are, and if instead all those aspects of who we are are merely influences on a choice that is actually random, then it's not us that making our own choices. He isn't "leaving it to the beings he created." Randomization does not mean Free Will. It means God doesn't decide and we also don't decide. That is not a source of freedom, but rather, if it existed, it would be a source of slavery for us.

It can't be slavery if there is no "slaver". Randomness is simply a non-concious mover of reality that effects us and god as well. In your example, all reality, including god, is a slave to reality, a predetermined reality that this god is doomed to completely see and understand.

The difference, if we put in the randomness factor, is a reason for beings to care about another. It makes existence, to an all-knowing being like god, worth experiencing because he cannot know the exact outcome.

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

To the extent that we are able to be ourselves and make our own decisions based on who we are, we are free.

Give me an example of one of these "free decisions" you keep claiming we have. Everything else you say points to "who we are" being predestined by an external force thus, we are only free to do exactly what we were created to do, which is not freedom by any definition of the word.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

I agree with you Gwai. We Christians aren't anal,

I could argue that.

Originally Posted by Nurvingiel

but there are a few things you have to believe in order to be a Christian. Believing that Jesus is the Son of God is one of those things. We don't say how you have to believe this, and belief can take many forms, but in some way you do have to believe this.

I always assumed that the foundation of christianity was to follow the teachings of Jesus, no matter whether he was the son of god, a prophet of god, or god incarnate. But, I've been wrong before.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I disagree. I think love is all about the dynamic between two people, which is a mixture of both likes and dislikes. I don't always like everything I learn about another person I love.

Yes, but you don't love them for those negative qualities unless they're the kind of negative qualities that are endearing, in which case they aren't really negative, or at least not to you.

But when there are things in the beloved's character that you really wish weren't there, you don't love them for those things. You suffer those things because you love the person, but you don't love because of those things. And when you have an acquaintance who seems to you to have a large preponderance of negative qualities in his character, or sometimes even a few negative qualities, you dislike the person.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If love was just truely a sum of how "loveable" someone is once understood, as opposed to the process of developing a relationship, I'd love a lot fewer people.

I don't personally believe it .

Sometimes what we learn is pretty ugly and we don't like it. If it was the learning process that creates love, then learning the horrible things would create love. They don't, however. Instead, when we learn things that we like, that creates love in the long term. If it was learning that creates love rather than the understanding that learning leads to, then we'd love no matter what we learn.

I think that this proves that love comes from understanding the other person, rather than from learning. For love comes only depending on what we learn, which means it is not the learning itself but the understanding that learning leads to that creates our emotional reactions to people.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

What do you think god sees as different between an animal like an elephant or a lizard and a human being, or are they any different from his point of view?

We are made in God's image. The animals are not. Being made in God's image can involve many spiritual qualities that other Christians here have already listed. Imagination, reason, things like that which we have on a far, far more advanced level than any of the animals. It may involve physical qualities too. But being made in God's image very likely goes beyond that small list of things I've mentioned. Other Christians know more about it than I, and even they probably don't know all there is.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
BJ, this doesn't respond to what I said. What I said is that to exactly the extent that our decisions are randomized, we have no more control over them than God does. So this cannot be a source of Free Will. That was my point, and your response doesn't refute it.

Suppose God did give up some control to make more interesting life forms. That doesn't mean we're free. So you didn't respond to my point.


Free will doesn't necessitate concious control by anyone. All it means is that in any given situation multiple choices are able to be taken with no prior determinent as to which choice will be taken. Outside influences may influence the choice, but they do not determine it, as in making it 100% certain.

We don't have control over them, and neither does god, thus they are truely "free".

Lol! Sorry, I can't help but laugh at this logical conclusion. I agree with you that that's the logical conclusion of the Free Will philosophy, but I don't think you'll find many people at all who find this kind of idea of Free Will in the least appealing. Most people think of Free Will as us making our own decisions, but now we've broken it down and found that it means no one makes our decisions. God doesn't make them, but neither do we. So we are helpless in our own decision-making. The whole point of the Free Will philosophy is that it's supposed to bring us freedom to make our own decisions, but this definition of "Free Will" denies that we can make our own decisions, and says that every decision that we do actually make is also predestined.

I agree with you that this is completely logical, but it defeats the whole point of the Free Will argument. It also does some crucial damage to monotheists who try to use this to place responsibility for actions on man rather than God. For though God is absolved of the responsibility for the outcome, so is man.

People want to believe in Free Will because they want to believe that they control their own lives and destinies, that they choose how they will end up. This definition of Free Will that we have come down to, very logically, defeats the whole point of the belief. For we still don't make our decisions in the end, which means we aren't free but rather are slaves to this "Free Will" that randomly chooses how we will behave in all decisions left to it, weighted though the dice may be by predestined factors.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

If one is "free to act in accord with his own personality", yet that personality itself is predestined, there is no "free" at all.

It goes back to my ice cream example, you can choose chocolate or vanilla, but you are predestined to like chocolate, and you choose chocolate. How can you possibly call that free???

By your definition, the christian god is no different than us. His actions are completely determined by whatever created him, or by "nature", if you want to just say he came into being on his own or always existed. There is no free agent in the universe.

No free agent by your definition of freedom, which just means randomization. And randomization means we have no more say in our decisions than God does. If that randomization is applied to God, as he must also have "Free Will," then he also has no say in his own decisions. So no one decides anything. No one is responsible for anything. That is not freedom to make decisions of one's own, that's for sure. "There lies the rub."

I think that a definition of freedom that means that no one makes any decisions, for their fates are randomized, is not a description of freedom at all. I expect that most Free Will advocates will argue that the whole point of the philosophy is that they make the decisions, but now we're forced to abandon that idea and instead say that decisions are made randomly. Which may fit nicely with Quantum Mechanics, but not with most people's ideas of freedom.

I'll get on to defending my definition of freedom soon.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Quote:
Originally Posted by Lief Erikson
I see a logical problem with this. If our personalities, genetics, environment, souls, if all that we are does not come together to make every decision based upon what we are, and if instead all those aspects of who we are are merely influences on a choice that is actually random, then it's not us that making our own choices. He isn't "leaving it to the beings he created." Randomization does not mean Free Will. It means God doesn't decide and we also don't decide. That is not a source of freedom, but rather, if it existed, it would be a source of slavery for us.


It can't be slavery if there is no "slaver". Randomness is simply a non-concious mover of reality that effects us and god as well.

Irrelevant that it is unconscious. It is unconscious, but it still enslaves us in that it doesn't allow us to make any decisions. The only decisions one could say come from us are those that are predestined, for they are determined by who we are and not by random chance. Randomization is an unconscious slaver, for it still has the same effects as slavery, and those involve preventing our making our own decisions.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

In your example, all reality, including god, is a slave to reality, a predetermined reality that this god is doomed to completely see and understand.

This "doom" is the doom for him to be himself and do exactly what he wants to do, just as we do. Even though it's all predestined and can only come out in one way, and he knows it, it'll come out in the way God wants and in the ways we want, so that's not much of a doom. It's just the doom that we must be ourselves. Which is what most people want from freedom anyway.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

The difference, if we put in the randomness factor, is a reason for beings to care about another. It makes existence, to an all-knowing being like god, worth experiencing because he cannot know the exact outcome.

I think of that as a finite perspective, revelling in what we have while not being capable of comprehending the joy of the infinite and omniscient. You know my view on this. My view is that the omniscient enjoys what is far better than we do, not in spite of his greater knowledge of it but rather because of his greater knowledge of it and his greater heart.

I think that randomization gives people a reason not to care about one another, rather than to care about one another, for why should we care what happens to someone whose choices are all just those of a weighted dice?

Far more valuable is a person whose choices come from who he or she is, even if each of the person's choices is the only possible choice for that person. Even if choices aren't really choices but really are a certain and predestined path, these choices are made based upon who we are and they are valuable because they come from us, are what we want and show who we are. They are our expression of ourselves in the world. They show who we are, and often, having been made, improve upon our personalities.

For instance, if one of us works up his courage and speaks out boldly about something he believes in, that "choice," though really it is a pre-determined action, may very well improve upon his character by giving him greater boldness in the future. So they don't merely reveal us- by becoming part of our past experience, they become some of the influences that form us.

But that's what I view "choices" to be- the expressions of who we are in the world. And that is still valuable, because we have life, depth and are "fearfully and wonderfully made," and we are also predestined.

And when one person speaks to another, such as when God speaks to mankind, that also is an influence on mankind's experience that may create action, depending upon the personalities of those the influence touches upon, among other factors. So choice becomes an expression but also a force that can influence others. The fact that all is predetermined shouldn't stop us making decisions because of thinking it's meaningless, because everything is predestined by our own wills and personalities! Predestination is the result of our being ourselves. We can live life well if we want to, or live life badly if we want to. We can do whatever we want, for whatever we want is what was predestined. We are free to be ourselves, or bound to be ourselves, whichever way you want to look at it. But if we were able to be something other than ourselves, we become meaningless. By predestination, we will be ourselves and be what God intended us to be simultaneously, and he will also be himself.

Predestination is not a curse or a bondage, except in the sense that it binds us to be ourselves. The fact that we have only one option before us all the time and that the others are illusory doesn't matter, for the option we choose is the one that comes from us and it is right that we should always be ourselves. You point to the source of that desire for "chocolate ice cream," and you are right that the source of that desire is our personality and that personality was chosen by God. So yes, everything is controlled by God. But that doesn't make us without value. In fact, we have the same freedom as God to be ourselves (freedom from randomization, which to me looks like it would be a curse, if it was real) and the same bondage to be ourselves, which is not bondage at all, for behaving in any way other than that which comes from ourselves makes us other than ourselves, which loses us all meaning.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

Give me an example of one of these "free decisions" you keep claiming we have. Everything else you say points to "who we are" being predestined by an external force thus, we are only free to do exactly what we were created to do, which is not freedom by any definition of the word.

By the number 1 definition the World English Dictionary uses, freedom is defined as:

A state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses, without being subject to any, or to any undue, restraints or restrictions.

God does not restrain or restrict people through predestination, except in the sense of their being restricted to be themselves, but this definition assumes that that is not a restriction as it says freedom is "a state in which somebody is able to act and live as he or she chooses." Predestination allows that and does not restrict that.

So according to this definition, predestination and free will are not mutually exclusive but can both exist simultaneously.

We are free to do exactly what we were created to do, but we are also free to do exactly what we want, as, as you say, we will choose exactly what God created us to choose and also what we want. And the only restriction and restraint is that of us having to be ourselves.

I agree that we aren't free by your definition of freedom, by the definition of freedom used by those who advocate Free Will. I think that we have successfully seen by now, though, that that is not real freedom, at least not in the sense of the word that it is used by Free Will advocates, which involves us being able to make our own decisions.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I always assumed that the foundation of christianity was to follow the teachings of Jesus, no matter whether he was the son of god, a prophet of god, or god incarnate. But, I've been wrong before.

This is one of those times .

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

I could argue that.



I always assumed that the foundation of christianity was to follow the teachings of Jesus, no matter whether he was the son of god, a prophet of god, or god incarnate. But, I've been wrong before.

Muslims believe in following the teaching of Jesus as a prophet of God. You wouldn't consider them Christian, would you?

EDIT: Nurv, Catholics and Orthodox believe that the priesthood is limited to men. There are a few reasons given for this. One is that Christ only ordained men, that is, the disciples, at the Last Supper. Another is that we believe that the priest acts in the person of Christ, and is in a more profound way a vessel through whom Christ works; we believe that in acting sacramentally, the priest acts as Christ to the extent that we even call him alter Christus, the other Christ. This, coupled with the fact that we believe with the rest of traditional Christianity that there is a substantial difference between men and women, means that for us, a representative of Christ in such a perfected way as the priesthood or the episcopacy is limited to men.

[sisterandcousinandaunt]

You don't understand love.

Love and understanding aren't related, except as one may or may not increase the other.

Love and understanding, as sparks of the original fire that is God, are each original and independent. You may love someone without understanding them, and you may understand them without loving them. The first is both more useful and more fun. The second may be more common.

Love and liking aren't the same, either.

If you love someone, you absolutely love them for their negative qualities, as well as their positive ones. You love a child entire with their faults, just the way you'd love them entire with 6 toes, or a broken arm. They don't have to meet an arbitrary standard of perfection, because love recognises the perfection inherent in them. Because love is about wholeness, not your judgement of them a bit at a time.

You don't "suffer their faults." That's abhorrent.

1 Corinthians 13
Love
1If I speak in the tongues[a] of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,[b] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

[Tuinor]

Lief, in response to your question about our having to experience bad to really appreciate good, I have some things to say. I see where you're coming from, but I have a slightly different way of looking at it.

Yes, I believe that humans cannot appreciate good without experiencing evil as they are, but that is simply because we are fallen. Like I said before about God, He knows exactly every choice every human would make in any circumstance, so He chose Adam and Eve, knowing that things would turn out best if the human race started out with them. He knew they would fall, but I believe that before they did so they were perfect. God made them in His image. They were like Him in just about every way, except that they did not have the knowledge of good and evil. That made them innocent.

It's hard to imagine, I'm sure, but just think about it. Remember when Jesus said that our eyes are windows into our souls? And that the person who opens wide their eyes in belief is filled with light? (That's not a direct quote) Well, their innocence opened their eyes to a level we cannot achieve, for none of us are innocent. In that way, their world was filled with pure light. Not a bit of darkness existed for them. That all changed when they fell. They gave up their innocence, thinking that being able to judge right and wrong would make them more like God. It didn't. And now each human is born with that deep sense of right and wrong embedded within them. Some may choose to ignore it, but it's still there.That's why, I believe, we are put through trials to purify us. It shows us the value of good over evil since we now must choose to do one or the other. It will be like this until Jesus returns and by His blood proclaims us innocent. Then, we will finally be innocent again.

By the way, I have a question now for all of you fans of Logic. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that an all-powerfull God need not abide by logic? Just for fun, but post an answer if you come up with a good one.

P.S. Thank you, Nurvingiel, for your welcome. I'm glad to be here. Thank you also for your advice. I appologize for overlooking it earlier. I hope the changes help.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Tuinor

Lief, in response to your question about our having to experience bad to really appreciate good, I have some things to say. I see where you're coming from, but I have a slightly different way of looking at it.
Yes, I believe that humans cannot appreciate good without experiencing evil as they are, but that is simply because we are fallen. Like I said before about God, He knows exactly every choice every human would make in any circumstance, so He chose Adam and Eve, knowing that things would turn out best if the human race started out with them. He knew they would fall, but I believe that before they did so they were perfect. God made them in His image. They were like Him in just about every way, except that they did not have the knowledge of good and evil. That made them innocent.

I have a couple difficulties, in getting my head around this. First is that if Adam and Eve were perfect at that time, then how could they have made the imperfect choice of disobeying God? People only make imperfect choices because they're imperfect to begin with. My own feeling on this is that Adam and Eve were not sinful at the time God made them, but neither were they complete yet in God. They were only to be made complete when brought to full unity with Christ.

The other difficulty I have with this is that the tree that they were forbidden from was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So if you think about it, they were forbidden the knowledge of good as well as the knowledge of evil. We all only think about the evil part, but the knowledge of good was also a part of the fruit they were forbidden.

In view of that, it seems more likely that they lived in a way that was "very good" because it was simply natural to them. They had never known anything else, so to them it was natural and they enjoyed it, but they didn't enjoy it so much as would someone who had experienced evil and so knew fully how very good it was.

For the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one tree. The knowledge of both good and evil come from the same fruit. Adam and Eve didn't know good, before they ate the fruit. They did good by nature, but they didn't know it as good. So to eat that fruit is to experience sin, but also, having experienced sin, we are enabled to know what good is as well. And that would naturally create greater good within them, if the sin is abolished in Christ and good is all that is left over, yet they have experienced suffering and evil and so know God in new ways. Ways of good. For then they have the knowledge of good and evil still, but the evil within them is abolished in Christ and they will never do evil again. But they still knew it for a time, which means they are forgiven much, and he who is forgiven much loves much. And in this case, they know good as a consequence as well.

[Tuinor]

Originally Posted by Lief Erikson

I have a couple difficulties, in getting my head around this. First is that if Adam and Eve were perfect at that time, then how could they have made the imperfect choice of disobeying God? People only make imperfect choices because they're imperfect to begin with. My own feeling on this is that Adam and Eve were not sinful at the time God made them, but neither were they complete yet in God. They were only to be made complete when brought to full unity with Christ.

The other difficulty I have with this is that the tree that they were forbidden from was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So if you think about it, they were forbidden the knowledge of good as well as the knowledge of evil. We all only think about the evil part, but the knowledge of good was also a part of the fruit they were forbidden.

In view of that, it seems more likely that they lived in a way that was "very good" because it was simply natural to them. They had never known anything else, so to them it was natural and they enjoyed it, but they didn't enjoy it so much as would someone who had experienced evil and so knew fully how very good it was.

For the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is one tree. The knowledge of both good and evil come from the same fruit. Adam and Eve didn't know good, before they ate the fruit. They did good by nature, but they didn't know it as good. So to eat that fruit is to experience sin, but also, having experienced sin, we are enabled to know what good is as well. And that would naturally create greater good within them, if the sin is abolished in Christ and good is all that is left over, yet they have experienced suffering and evil and so know God in new ways. Ways of good. For then they have the knowledge of good and evil still, but the evil within them is abolished in Christ and they will never do evil again. But they still knew it for a time, which means they are forgiven much, and he who is forgiven much loves much. And in this case, they know good as a consequence as well.

I've done a lot of thinking. I mean a lot of thinking. I've come to a new conclusion over this. You should be proud, you've half-way won me over. However, I still don't think entirely the same as you. (We're lucky this way. If we all thought the same way we'd be no fun to talk to) I've come to view Adam and Eve a little differently now. A little more fundamentally. I'd now say, if you asked me, that "yes" there is a need to experience evil to appreciate good. Yet, I now see that Adam and Eve must have had ways of thinking that totally go beyond what we can imagine. I still believe they were perfect. God doesn't make broken things. Why would He? We humans broke ourselves. He came to fix us. (not that kind of "fix") But before we were broken I believe that Adam and Eve lived lives of marvel and wonder and awe at the awesome power of God and Creation in a way we currently cannot. Their innocence made them that way. Their eye's were open wide. They took in everything and it was good. Not so with us. We take in little because our eyes are squinted by our judgement which we got from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. That is why Jesus came; to open our eyes again.

Thank you so much for this enlightening discussion. I have not been so compelled to think in years it seems.

P.S. There is one more thing I need to add, it seems. I see how you view Christ, and how you say we are to be made whole in Him. To simply answer your question, I say this: Adam and Eve were whole in Him to begin with. Their sin drove them apart from God. God knew this would happen and had already planned for reuniting humans with Him by way of His son, Jesus. This is how I can believe that Adam and Eve were perfect just as we shall be after God's Judgement. We shall be proclaimed innocent and shall be as we were meant to be.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Tuinor

I've done a lot of thinking. I mean a lot of thinking. I've come to a new conclusion over this. You should be proud, you've half-way won me over. However, I still don't think entirely the same as you. (We're lucky this way. If we all thought the same way we'd be no fun to talk to)

Yes.

Originally Posted by Tuinor

I've come to view Adam and Eve a little differently now. A little more fundamentally. I'd now say, if you asked me, that "yes" there is a need to experience evil to appreciate good. Yet, I now see that Adam and Eve must have had ways of thinking that totally go beyond what we can imagine. I still believe they were perfect. God doesn't make broken things. Why would He? We humans broke ourselves. He came to fix us. (not that kind of "fix")

I agree with you that Adam and Eve weren't created "broken". They weren't broken until the Fall. I think that they can have been imperfect without being broken, though. You can have a computer that works very well, and it may not be the "perfect" computer, but it still works and is wonderful. I think that Adam and Eve were created imperfect, but not broken. If they were broken then they were damaged to begin with, which implies that they were automatically Fallen, and that's not what the Bible says was true of them.

Someone who is imperfect, however, can still make mistakes. That doesn't mean he's bad, but he's just not fully yet where God wants him to be. I think that God also had a good reason to start us out imperfect, and that reason is that, by experiencing pain and evil in this life, we can come to know him in a deeper and fuller way, in his love. We could never have seen the depth of God's love as expressed in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, without our having sinned first. There is much that we learn about God through the troubles of this sinful world. But it is not the end, and our final destination is perfection.

Originally Posted by Tuinor

But before we were broken I believe that Adam and Eve lived lives of marvel and wonder and awe at the awesome power of God and Creation in a way we currently cannot. Their innocence made them that way. Their eye's were open wide. They took in everything and it was good. Not so with us. We take in little because our eyes are squinted by our judgement which we got from the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. That is why Jesus came; to open our eyes again.

I agree with you about all of this, and it is remarkable to think about what their experience must have been like before the fall. I agree that it must have been very different from what we can imagine.

It is even more wonderous, for me, to imagine what our lives with Christ will be like after the resurrection of the dead, in the New Heaven and New Earth! For we will have the knowledge of good and evil in that eternal life, and from that, I think that our experience of God will be deeper and fuller than Adam and Eve's experience was before the Fall.

Originally Posted by Tuinor

Thank you so much for this enlightening discussion. I have not been so compelled to think in years it seems.

Thank-you . I feel very honored.

Originally Posted by Tuinor

P.S. There is one more thing I need to add, it seems. I see how you view Christ, and how you say we are to be made whole in Him. To simply answer your question, I say this: Adam and Eve were whole in Him to begin with. Their sin drove them apart from God. God knew this would happen and had already planned for reuniting humans with Him by way of His son, Jesus. This is how I can believe that Adam and Eve were perfect just as we shall be after God's Judgement. We shall be proclaimed innocent and shall be as we were meant to be.

Hmm. I personally have a different idea of what perfection means, I think. To me, someone who is perfect is going to make perfect decisions, because he is perfect. Christ is perfect, and God is perfect. We cannot have been fully united with Christ because if we were, we would not have sinned in the first place. So I think that God created us glorious and wonderful, in a high place as stewards over the rest of Creation, but he also created us somewhat imperfect to begin with so that we would make the imperfect choice to separate from him, so that we would in the end gain from the deeper experience and knowledge of God that he knew would follow. So he didn't only forsee the Fall- he planned it in order to produce creations that are even more beautiful and wonderful as the final outcome.

[Tuinor]

Lief, I see what you're saying a bit clearer now, and I think I understand what you believe a little better, also. I could be wrong (and tell me if I am)

I think that you believe that God knew what would happen if He made us perfect, which He supposedly did with Satan; so instead of setting us up for a fall like his He utilized imperfection to bring us into a perfection that could only be achieved through submission to Him so that we would realize His goodness and not be rebelious like Satan.

It makes sense, and perhaps that is the way it is. I'll just simply have to keep thinking about it. No need to worry about it, though. I think God hates worrying.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by Tuinor

Lief, I see what you're saying a bit clearer now, and I think I understand what you believe a little better, also. I could be wrong (and tell me if I am)

I think that you believe that God knew what would happen if He made us perfect, which He supposedly did with Satan; so instead of setting us up for a fall like his He utilized imperfection to bring us into a perfection that could only be achieved through submission to Him so that we would realize His goodness and not be rebelious like Satan.

I do indeed think that, as you put it, God "utilized imperfection to bring us into a perfection that could only be achieved through submission to Him so that we would realize His goodness." I do actually think that God set us up for a fall, though. That sounds shocking, I know, but I think that God purposely intended that we fall so that, by experiencing sin and evil, we would come to know him far better than we ever could have without the experience. So even though the fall is horribly painful, it produces good that the Apostle Paul points out is so high above the pain and evil that the two can't even be compared.

Because we have been sinful, we will better appreciate righteousness, and this was God's plan in creating us imperfect, while already knowing that we would fall. So God's plan, in my view, was to use our temporary experience of evil so that we would understand his mercy and come to a new completeness in Christ that could not have existed without the Fall.

Here's a passage from Romans, one of those on which I base this belief. Romans 11:32 says, "For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all."

This is not a villainous act on God's part, but rather a very good one. God planned for mankind to fall, or "bound [them] over to disobedience", because he planned to reveal his mercy to them, a part of his personality that we could not have experienced without having disobeyed. So God planned that we disobey, or bound us over to disobey, for our greater future benefit.

You agreed with me that we come to know goodness because of having experienced sin. This is taking that concept one step further. God has planned that people experience sin so that they would know him in ways that beforehand they could not. This he did out of love for us, because he wanted us to know him better.

By the way, it's worth noting that "all men", in this scripture, does not include those who are going to hell.


As for Satan, I personally think that he was also created imperfect. For just like with Adam and Eve, in my view, if he was created perfect, he could not have fallen, for a perfect creature makes perfect decisions. An imperfect, though not sinful, creature can do wrong. Satan wasn't created sinful, but as he was created imperfect, he was able to sin.

Originally Posted by Tuinor

It makes sense, and perhaps that is the way it is. I'll just simply have to keep thinking about it. No need to worry about it, though. I think God hates worrying.

I think so too. I still definitely waste some time worrying, though .

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Gwaimir Windgem

Muslims believe in following the teaching of Jesus as a prophet of God. You wouldn't consider them Christian, would you?

No. Abrahamic, but that includes Jews and others as well.

[brownjenkins]

Originally Posted by Tuinor

By the way, I have a question now for all of you fans of Logic. Wouldn't it be logical to assume that an all-powerfull God need not abide by logic? Just for fun, but post an answer if you come up with a good one.

It's certainly possible, and may be the ultimate answer to those who believe in the free will of individuals.

What we can see all seems to be cause and effect, in addition to what appears to be randomness at a quantum level, and maybe at higher levels as well. But "randomness" is just a term that humans have created to define something that doesn't seem to be a result of direct, or indirect, cause and effect. Thus, we don't really know what "randomness" is, just what it is not, so it may be a lot more nuanced and significant than we are able to conceive.

Another possibility, to put god back into the picture, is a scenario like the following (simplified for briefness ):

God creates human embryos so that they begin with a whole host of different genes that each effect how we will act emotionally (a selfish one, an empathatic one, etc). At birth, it is possible for any one of these genes to end up as predominant in the final child (though they all have some effect on our personality), but which one ends up dominant is the result of pure random chance at the point of conception. In addition to this, life experience can, and does, alter the balance of these genes, though not completely.

In such a situation, one could still argue that we are not truely responsible for our own morality, since we don't choose which genes become predominant either at birth or through life experience. But it removes monotany of a completely determined universe where we are simply following a script (and god is as well, who is just re-reading a script he wrote, if you believe Lief) by introducing randomness. It gives meaning to our actions, and god's, not because anyone is ultimately responsible, but because the final outcome is not 100% predestined.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

It's certainly possible, and may be the ultimate answer to those who believe in the free will of individuals.

I guess that that is the answer they'd probably have to resort to, if they followed everything to its logical conclusion and still insisted upon holding to this belief.

Don't get me wrong- I'm not saying that God doesn't transcend logic. Maybe he does and maybe he doesn't. I don't claim to know. And this idea would solve the severe logical problems in the Free Will ideology.

But I think that this is the ultimate meagerness, if it's the final come-back from free will in the predestination v. free will debate. It's an admission that the philosophy of free will doesn't make sense, but that maybe God doesn't have to make sense, and therefore it can work anyway. Maybe the world is flat too, and even if our scientific data don't register that, God doesn't have to be reasonable.

Anyone can assert anything by this reasoning, and maybe they're right, but there's no reason for us to think they're right, so it's rather ridiculous to think they are.

Originally Posted by brownjenkins

In such a situation, one could still argue that we are not truely responsible for our own morality, since we don't choose which genes become predominant either at birth or through life experience. But it removes monotany of a completely determined universe where we are simply following a script (and god is as well, who is just re-reading a script he wrote, if you believe Lief) by introducing randomness. It gives meaning to our actions, and god's, not because anyone is ultimately responsible, but because the final outcome is not 100% predestined.

The absence of predestination does not equal the presence of meaning. Rather the reverse, in day to day experience. If someone writing a book chose random letters from the alphabet and threw them together in any which order, there wouldn't be many sales. If a meal were to be just thrown together from random ingredients and dumped in an oven for a random period of time, to us that's not very meaningful or agreeable. In day to day experience, randomization means less meaning, not more, and more predestination, or intentional, purposeful design creates things that to us have value and meaning. The smaller the degree of randomization in our next meal, the more we'll like it (depending on the quality of the chef's recipe and on his good intent, of course).

Randomization also means that if some war hero scales a cliff, attacks an enemy fortress at great risk to his own life, and conquers it through his own heroism, he is not heroic. He did that because the randomization that controls his destiny selected that he do it, weighted though the dice might be.

With predestination, on the other hand, even though it was already ordained that he would choose that course and so it was the only one he could take, he still decided to take that course from his personality, which means it came from his personality as well as from God's personality. It came from him as well as from God. So the hero's personality must be seen to be a very well made and good one. That means that, even though the person didn't make himself valuable, the person is valuable.

Thanks are an expression of our gratefulness to the one who benefitted us. They can enter the one we thank and so benefit him. Expressing gratefulness also can do good things for our own souls. Thus, a helper, as he helped us from his personality, should be thanked for his act, and God also should be thanked for his act through the other person, as he also and equally chose the action from his personality.

Predestination does not mean the absence of meaning. There is only one outcome, but that outcome is that we all, including God, be ourselves, behave in accord with our own natures.

The modern idea of Free Will exists because of the flawed perception that predestination is bondage. In fact, predestination allows us to be ourselves, and being only able to make the one choice that is most in accord with who we are is not called bondage. It's called identity.

I look forward to reading your responses to both this and post 48! If I'm not getting too longwinded . . .