free will ?

[mario]

Religion says we have free will. God doesn't want to force us into believing in him and we can be as bad as we want to be. But during the old testament, god showed up in person many times. He inflicted one curse after another on those egyptians who wouldn't let moses and his people go. He sent pillars of fire down to slow the egyptians from catching up to moses in the desert. And lastly he parted the dead sea for all to see. If that isn't forcing himself on us I don't know what is.

Did judas have free will? Or did he just HAD to deceive jesus 3 times like jesus foretold before his crucificion?

And what good is free will if we get punished in the end (hell) for using it? That's like telling your girlfriend "you have free will...you can walk out that door and never come back, I won't stop you...BUT!!!...if you do I will hunt you down and kill you". That's what god is basically saying to us if we don't believe in him. Hell awaits us if we don't do what he says. Does that sound very "free" to you?

Finally, will the antichrist have free will? Can he change his mind and decide to become a christian? Or is it all sewn up like revelations tells us. The script is already written. Sit back and enjoy the movie. But don't hiss at the bad guys. They're just playing their parts.

 

[alain]

If Jesus foretold something, it was sure to happen, therefore the poor guy had no choice but to do it

 

[everneo]

and that just tells that Judas was a confirmed abuser of freewill at that time.

 

[tablariddim]

Just to clarify matters, for what it's worth, it was Peter that Jesus predicted would deny him 3 times before the cock crowed, not Judas.

 

[okinrus]

While we have free will, Jesus said that any one who sins is a slave to sin. Surely, then, Satan and the antichrist are slaves to sin. Also, a God outside of time--not all Christians believe this--may predict free will decisions

 

[Q25]

Religion says we have free will.

we have free will only if omnipotent god doesnt exist.
if god is allmighty=controls all,and all knowing,how could we have free will?
this site explains it nicely
www.geocities.com/inquisitive79/

God doesn't want to force us into believing in him and we can be as bad as we want to be.

Ive never heard any God saying anything like that!
have you?

btw how does believing in god make people behave better?even if they do bad shit,ie steal,cheat,kill,etc they can always accept Jebus in the end,repent and be saved anyway!

so what does god do?nothing!

 

[okinrus]

Omnipotence, Q25, does not necessarily mean that God knows the future nor forces everyone, but only that God <em>could</em> know the future. It's most definitions of omnipresence that directly implies that God knows the future. But there are plenty of Christians, and theist, who do not believe in a omnipresence God. Nevertheless, the belief only means that God is outside of time. He can look into the future and see the decisions that you will make through your free will. Surely atheism, then, must deny free will altogether; it denies the human soul; it says that you are made only out of atoms, the cumulative effect: your personality. To the theist, however, believing in God is his existence. To not believe in God would be to believe in his own nonexistence.

 

[alain]

"While we have free will, Jesus said that any one who sins is a slave to sin. Surely, then, Satan and the antichrist are slaves to sin. Also, a God outside of time--not all Christians believe this--may predict free will decisions" good point, but if he told people what foretellings he made, that would change their decisions, eradicating free will

 

[Medicine*Woman]

To the theist, however, believing in God is his existence. To not believe in God would be to believe in his own nonexistence.
*************
M*W: Interesting concept, okinrus. How is what you just said any different than what I have said about the One Spirit of God residing in all of humanity? I'd like to rephrase your first statement to read, "To the theist, however, believing in God IS THE ONLY PURPOSE for his existence."

Secondly, if one does not believe in God as their creator, the purpose of one's existence must be in question.

The bottom line is that we were created to be the vessel for the One Spirit of God (call it the holy spirit if you will). This Spirit dwells within the physical body of all humanity, and it will evolve humanity forward toward perfection--toward godliness.

 

[Q25]

Omnipotence, Q25, does not necessarily mean that God knows the future nor forces everyone, but only that God <em>could</em> know the future.

omnipotence=allmighty!....is God allmighty or not?

if god doesnt know the future he is not all knowing
if god doesnt control everything he is not all mighty

btw why would you pray to someone who is not all mighty,and doesnt control all?
and if god controls all,you have no free will.!

It's most definitions of omnipresence that directly implies that God knows the future.

omnipresent=he is everywhere and at the same time=logical imposibility dont you think?
unless hes an invisible spirit like some believe,but then how would this spirit/god affect physical universe?

Nevertheless, the belief only means that God is outside of time.

ouside of time is a meaningless statement,...unless you'd care to explain.

Surely atheism, then, must deny free will altogether; it denies the human soul;

atheism is simply non belief in supernatural and god's of any kind.

if theres no gods that control everything then and only then you can have free will!

this site explains all about it
www.atheists.org

 

[Q25]

"While we have free will, Jesus said that any one who sins is a slave to sin.

and the bibleGod also says"beware for I am a jealous God"
isn't jealousy a sin?

so God is a sinner too!

gotta love those bible contradictions

www.skepticsannotatedbible.com

 

[okinrus]

While we have free will, Jesus said that any one who sins is a slave to sin. Surely, then, Satan and the antichrist are slaves to sin. Also, a God outside of time--not all Christians believe this--may predict free will decisions" good point, but if he told people what foretellings he made, that would change their decisions, eradicating free will

No, if God is outside of time, then he would become within time as soon as he did something(like telling someone about the future) he did not know he would do.

omnipotence=allmighty!....is God allmighty or not?

God is omnipotent, though there are debates of what this word means. To most people, it means that God can do any well-defined action.

if god doesnt know the future he is not all knowing

Well, no. This depends alot on what the biblical authors meant by all-knowing. It seems unlikely that each place the word is used in the hebrew bible it meant the Greek definition developed many years later.

if god doesnt control everything he is not all mighty

I don't like the word "control." God can remain in complete control, yet still allow free will over his creatures. An example would be Job where God allows Satan to do attack Job.

btw why would you pray to someone who is not all mighty,and doesnt control all?
and if god controls all,you have no free will.!

First, it's unnecessary to have reason to pray. Most people pray in order to find a reason.

ouside of time is a meaningless statement,...unless you'd care to explain.

I like the way C.S Lewis describes it. My personal belief is that although God is outside of time, I don't know what God knows. It's possible that what we call the present is only the progression of God's knowledge, that God created time in order to progress his knowledge of our free will. "Almost certainly God is not in time. His life does not consist of moments following one another. If a million people are praying to him at ten-thirty tonight, He need not listen to them all in that one little snippet which we call ten-thirty. Ten-thirty--and every other moment from the beginning of time--is always Present for Him..." The final statement Lewis made was "This idea[God out of time] has helped me a good deal. If it does not help you, leave it alone. It is a "Christian idea" in the sense that great and wise Christians have held it and there is nothing in it contrary to Christianity. But it is not in the Bible or any of the creeds. You can be a perfectly good Christian without accepting it, or indeed without thinking of the matter at all."

 

[rainbow__princess_4]

you've just pointed out another reason why christianity isnt the answer, all hail euthanasianism

 

[mario]

Hmmmm, god existing outside of time, looking "down" (I guess) on the past, present and future. He gave us free will but he can see what we'll be doing years from now. If free will really means the ability to be free at any given moment then how can he say what we will do or say before we even do or say it? Free will should not have the ability to be predictable. That's like predicting randomness. If you can predict randomness then it can't be random. Randomness can change at any moment. So if god says that this person is going to do this or that sometime in the future because of his free will then that person should have the ability to change his mind just before fullfilling that prophecy if he so choosed. Otherwise he is not completely free. Therefore it would be impossible for god to see our future choices. And like someone said at the beginning of this thread, if god told us what we will be doing with our free will years from now then we could purposely choose to counteract our choices when that time comes... thereby negating god's prophecy.

 

[okinrus]

Mario, I've studied this for a long time in the bible and elsewhere, and I found no contradiction in believing that God does not know the entire future as long as he knows all possible futures within man's free choice. For example, God could know every choice that you will make, the consequence of every choice, but not know the choice that you would make freely until you make it. In that case, God's prophetic powers are merely by limiting the number of choices.

The problem, however, is that any free choice that we make are necessarily external from God's knowledge. By that assumption, then, God's knowledge of the choice that we would make would not matter in determing the "freeness" of the action. God would not only know the choice but also know that it was freely chosen.

 

[Medicine*Woman]

Mario, I've studied this for a long time in the bible and elsewhere, and I found no contradiction in believing that God does not know the entire future as long as he knows all possible futures within man's free choice. For example, God could know every choice that you will make, the consequence of every choice, but not know the choice that you would make freely until you make it. In that case, God's prophetic powers are merely by limiting the number of choices.

The problem, however, is that any free choice that we make are necessarily external from God's knowledge. By that assumption, then, God's knowledge of the choice that we would make would not matter in determing the "freeness" of the action. God would not only know the choice but also know that it was freely chosen.
*************
M*W: I realize you were responding to Mario, but when I read your post, it made me think about the omniscience of our creator. If God is a pure positive spirit, which is what I believe, and not a physical being per se, God's knowledge would reside in the cumulative consciousness of humanity. We are the body of God. God's spirit dwells within humanity. So, I think the One Spirit of God could be all-knowing, but I believe it's humanity that acquires knowledge. The spirit moves us to acquire knowledge, but the One Spirit of God may not make intellectual decisions for us. The spirit motivates the body and the mind.

 

[mario]

Okinrus, I can see that maybe if god was a passive observer, something like a psychic that can see into the future. But god is more than a passive observer...he created us and gave us our sinfull nature (original sin). So ultimately he knows how we'll act. But to make a prediction of such certainty like when jesus told peter (and all along I thought it was judas...my mistake) that he would deceive him not once, not twice but three times before the cock crows and peter couldn't do anything about it... then peter was really really stuck in his ways and jesus knew it. A predictable personailty I guess. BUT!... how come jesus knew that it was going to be exactly THREE times??? This scenerio must have already played out in the future. And what if peter suddenly had a change of heart and stood up to the romans and showed real courage and did not deceive jesus on the third time? Could he have done this if he really really tried?

For god to write in revelations about specific events and people it still bugs me that free will still can't change these things. If free will brings these predictions about then it could also change them too. Free will has many options. But if god sees only one outcome of free will then it already seems to be set. The antichrist has no choice but to cause trouble. His free will will lead him down that path of destruction. But doesn't he have other options? If someone tries to convince the antichrist to be good is it possible for his free will to change? God says no. Something just irks me about that. Like if god would tell you that tomorrow your free will will make you decide to have cake for dessert. Do you think your free will will have the power to change your mind and have pudding instead if you wanted to? God doesn't think so.

 

[okinrus]

Okinrus, I can see that maybe if god was a passive observer, something like a psychic that can see into the future. But god is more than a passive observer...he created us and gave us our sinfull nature (original sin).

God did not give us a "sinful nature." Original sin merely the absence of God's grace.

So ultimately he knows how we'll act. But to make a prediction of such certainty like when jesus told peter (and all along I thought it was judas...my mistake) that he would deceive him not once, not twice but three times before the cock crows and peter couldn't do anything about it... then peter was really really stuck in his ways and jesus knew it.

The actions that Peter made before Jesus predicted that Peter would deny him precipitated Peter's denial. Yes, Jesus knew that Peter would not be able to break out of his fear without Him. Yet at the same time the didatic lesson to be learned was greater than any harm that would come from Peter's denial.

A predictable personailty I guess. BUT!... how come jesus knew that it was going to be exactly THREE times??? This scenerio must have already played out in the future.

Well, since any one who sins is a slave to sin, Jesus knew that Peter would deny him. But he also knew that Peter would not find forgiveness for his prior mistakes without sinning.

And what if peter suddenly had a change of heart and stood up to the romans and showed real courage and did not deceive jesus on the third time? Could he have done this if he really really tried?

No, not unless if Jesus allowed him to. Someone cannot change their heart without God.

For god to write in revelations about specific events and people it still bugs me that free will still can't change these things. If free will brings these predictions about then it could also change them too.

Most people that I've talked to believe that the demons blasphemed the holy Spirit, their sin is unforgivable, and they are completely and irrevocably slaves to sin. It's, therefore, not difficult to know that they will follow evil.

The antichrist has no choice but to cause trouble. His free will lead him down that path of destruction.

It's difficult to know exactly what John meant by the anti-christ. It seems to be some sort of assumption of Evil into human flesh.

If someone tries to convince the antichrist to be good is it possible for his free will to change?

No one is good but God. If God decides to not remain within that person, they will not be good but evil.

 

[alain]

"No, not unless if Jesus allowed him to. Someone cannot change their heart without God." So there is no free will.

"No one is good but God. If God decides to not remain within that person, they will not be good but evil." So there is no free will and we have no choice but to be evil (unless God decides that He himself is tired of being evil)

 

[Jenyar]

Free will is simply a lack of self-knowledge - knowledge that God does possess - the absence of a decision not yet made, but not the absence of choice. But once you have decided on an action, carrying it out isn't "free" anymore. You have to limit your freedom to make a living. You don't just have to choose, you have to decide as well. Real freedom would prevent you from taking any course of action, and then there would be nothing for God to know.

Freedom is contained in your actions (inalienable from your person), it doesn't exist as a separate entity. God does; He can limit your choices and still await your decision. It comes down to whether you choose eternal life or death (doesn't seem to be a choice, does it? So, are you still "free"?).