Simple question about god-human relations

[Lord Thesaurian]

It is circular, stated in either fashion: “God is all knowing and all powerful therefore man has no real free will because God is all knowing and all powerful.” “Man has no free will because God is all knowing and all powerful therefore man has no free will.”

Circular reasoning (Latin: circulus in probando, "circle in proving";[1] also known as circular logic) is a logical fallacy in which the reasoner begins with what they are trying to end with.[2]

The Bible is clear about the authority against which one must test spiritual musings. Paul says:

14 But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them;
15 And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
16 All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
17 That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

Man has free will based upon exegesis and analysis of the Biblical text.

[Himster]

Denying free will is certainly a logical consequence of predestination, but it’s not Biblical.

For there to be free-will in mankind then the definition of God needs to be changed.
Which is more likely: Your interpretation of a God inspired (man-made) book. Or the a priori essential characteristics of a creator deity?

If the Bible is literally God-breathed (2 Timothy 3:16), then it is the reference point for these kinds of questions from a Christian perspective. While there are many Christians who subscribe to predestination, the Bible itself doesn’t confirm such premises. The equivalence between foreknowledge and predetermination is circular in nature; ie God is all knowing and all powerful therefore man has no real free will because God is all knowing and all powerful. The causal relationship simply isn’t there though. That’s the point.

I would say that God himself is circular, so it is unsurprising that discussions about him will always eventually be reduced to that condition.
The fact remains that a timeless, all knowing, all powerful being cannot exist within the same metaphysics that allows for free-will outside of himself, as all things are within his knowledge and power: the things that he "permits" and the things that he causes are equivalently the result of his choices.

Again, man’s proven ability to directly obey or disobey the will of an omnipresent and omniscient God, and furthermore, to accept or reject his plan of salvation (the entire premise of the great controversy) is evidence of man’s free will. One can only turn to the Bible for instruction/explanation. The premise is reiterated throughout Scripture:

All things are necessarily part of the will of an all powerful, all knowing, timeless being: both obedience and disobedience, acceptance and rejection. How could it be otherwise?
He knew the ultimate fate of every grain of sand, every blade of grass, every mote of dust suspended in the rays of distant stars from before the moment of creation. He willed it all. Even the disobedience of a fruit-eating-nudist was known to him before creation and he willed the universe into creation anyway. He had the power/knowledge to change it and he CHOSE not to. He chose according to his will, nobody else's.

[Lord Thesaurian]

For there to be free-will in mankind then the definition of God needs to be changed.
Which is more likely: Your interpretation of a God inspired (man-made) book. Or the a priori essential characteristics of a creator deity?



I would say that God himself is circular, so it is unsurprising that discussions about him will always eventually be reduced to that condition.
The fact remains that a timeless, all knowing, all powerful being cannot exist within the same metaphysics that allows for free-will outside of himself, as all things are within his knowledge and power: the things that he "permits" and the things that he causes are equivalently the result of his choices.



All things are necessarily part of the will of an all powerful, all knowing, timeless being: both obedience and disobedience, acceptance and rejection. How could it be otherwise?
He knew the ultimate fate of every grain of sand, every blade of grass, every mote of dust suspended in the rays of distant stars from before the moment of creation. He willed it all. Even the disobedience of a fruit-eating-nudist was known to him before creation and he willed the universe into creation anyway. He had the power/knowledge to change it and he CHOSE not to. He chose according to his will, nobody else's.

God’s decision to give/allow man free will doesn’t therefore mean God chose man’s choices for man, regardless of God’s foreknowledge of those choices and unexercised ability to alter them. Nor does his decision to give/allow man free will contradict his omniscience and omnipotence.

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged: and by the fear of the LORD men depart from evil.

When a man's ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.

A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps.

We know from the Bible all things work for the good of those who love and seek after God, whom he knows and loves as his children, directed according to the plan of salvation; indeed he so loved the whole world and all humanity that he sacrificed his own son so that whoever believes in him will not suffer the death of condemnation but have eternal life. At the same time, each one of us chooses our own individual actions, to sin or not, to obey or not, just as Adam and Eve did. God knows the consequences of our actions, just as he warned Adam and Eve they would surely die if they disobeyed him. The choice, though, was theirs to make. The consequences are what they must be in accordance with God’s perfect plan. The Bible is clear.

8 And they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God amongst the trees of the garden.
9 And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?
10 And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.
11 And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?
12 And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.
13 And the Lord God said unto the woman, What is this that thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.
14 And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this,.........

God specifically asks (rhetorically I suppose, as a father might ask a child with cookie crumbs all over his face) if Adam and Eve disobeyed his command, which they did by their own choice. Therefore, as a consequence of their actions, they were condemned by those actions.

13 There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

[Kyriakos]

It is circular, stated in either fashion: “God is all knowing and all powerful therefore man has no real free will because God is all knowing and all powerful.” “Man has no free will because God is all knowing and all powerful therefore man has no free will.”

No it is not. The argument was "if A then B". You for some reason wrote it as "if A then B because A".

[Himster]

God’s decision to give/allow man free will doesn’t therefore mean God chose man’s choices for man,

It does. Those that he chooses to alter with visitations or miracles, he quite clearly chooses. Equally those actions which he chooses to not change are equally chosen by him.
What is more, due to his timelessness, he established the world knowing exactly the "choices" of each individual. He willed the universe at creation with each choice already made in effect, set in stone and already finished. The sum total of which he declared to be "good".

regardless of God’s foreknowledge of those choices and unexercised ability to alter them. Nor does his decision to give/allow man free will contradict his omniscience and omnipotence.

Of course it does, you keep leaving out timelessness. If timelessness is possible (as is an essential component of God's character), then for God all choices are made, there is no more time in which choices can be made. All choices made are known to God and He chooses to call the total sum "good".

God specifically asks (rhetorically I suppose, as a father might ask a child with cookie crumbs all over his face) if Adam and Eve disobeyed his command, which they did by their own choice. Therefore, as a consequence of their actions, they were condemned by those actions.

God chose to make the world a specific way. God chose to make the world in which Adam disobeyed. As God is timeless, all actions were already completed at the moment of creation. A single complete whole. He made it, he chose it. You cannot choose that which is already chosen. You cannot have free-will in a world that is already finished and all your deeds are set in stone.

[Lord Thesaurian]

It does. Those that he chooses to alter with visitations or miracles, he quite clearly chooses. Equally those actions which he chooses to not change are equally chosen by him.
What is more, due to his timelessness, he established the world knowing exactly the "choices" of each individual. He willed the universe at creation with each choice already made in effect, set in stone and already finished. The sum total of which he declared to be "good".

Of course it does, you keep leaving out timelessness. If timelessness is possible (as is an essential component of God's character), then for God all choices are made, there is no more time in which choices can be made. All choices made are known to God and He chooses to call the total sum "good".

God chose to make the world a specific way. God chose to make the world in which Adam disobeyed. As God is timeless, all actions were already completed at the moment of creation. A single complete whole. He made it, he chose it. You cannot choose that which is already chosen. You cannot have free-will in a world that is already finished and all your deeds are set in stone.

You’re directly disagreeing with what the Bible says; there’s nothing I can do about that as it indicates to me your premises aren’t Biblically falsifiable. I object to the idea I’ve left something out; I’m just not operating from the same a priori assumptions you are. One can always reverse engineer and assume things about what Is implied by Biblical themes in order to find the contradictions you’ve already decided are there. I’m merely indicating what the text says.

No it is not. The argument was "if A then B". You for some reason wrote it as "if A then B because A".

You haven’t demonstrated that God’s omnipotence makes man’s free will impossible, you’ve assumed this is the case based on assumptions about how one component relates to the other in circular fashion. I can only refer you to the Bible. The “if A then Bs” offered by scripture are clear. If you disobey God, you will surely die. If you love and seek after God, you will be saved from death through the grace of Jesus Christ.

[Kyriakos]

Legio, I was afraid something like this would happen. At any rate, the point is that you cannot use the bible itself as proof of the bible being true. "If A then B" is just logic, formal logic or otherwise. The bible is just another system to be examined, not a source of logic.
To put it another way, which means the same: the bible is not the source of what words mean.

Edit: It is also bad for me cause it isn't cool to be just approaching something theoretically, when the other side is invested in it. Maybe the thread was a very bad idea. Like I said, it's not my style to be posting against religiousness, so perhaps this isn't a good thread.

[Lord Thesaurian]

If you’re referencing some other religious text such as the Koran, Talmud or Hindu Vedas, perhaps they will have different answers for you. The framing of the OP and the thread appeared to be Christian, a context I specified from my first post. If you’re discussing “god-human relations” from a Christian perspective, the Bible is the authority. Nothing personal to do with it. Absent that authority, you can make up anything you want and adjust the premises to fit any conclusion.

[conon394]

It's not as though the early Christians were the first people to contemplate the "fallen" state of the world. The ancient Greeks certainly spent quite a lot of thought on it as well. It seems like something that would have been obvious and deeply troubling in antiquity - how can the human condition be ornamented by such beauty, joy, and grace at the same time as it is accompanied by suffering, decay, and death? The early Church fathers (principally Augustine) were able to marry these ideas with Biblical scripture in the formulation that the fallen state of the world can only be remedied by the miracle of Christ's redemption of Man. So yes everyone is doomed by original sin and the fallen state of the world, yet the sacrifice of Christ makes the sublime available to all as well. Or so they preached. And if it sounds contradictory (it is), it's intended to be contradictory in the sort of revelatory way that appeals to a religious-minded person.

Although I would say the early christian fathers rather deftly and with sophism picked up some Greek ideals of a fallen state. But for example if we want to go full Pandora the author of Prometheus bound does not see a past the same way as Hesiod with his ages. Nor the Atomists either essentially laying out an evolutionary progression from an animal state. Lacking a canonical unified hierarchical religion to hand down the word of god and massive gaps in what later people opted to copy/save its not so easy to say what the Greeks believed.

[basics]

conon394,

The earliest Christian father was righteous Abel and so what Greek was ever sooner than him?

[Gromovnik]

conon394,

The earliest Christian father was righteous Abel and so what Greek was ever sooner than him?

And muslims claim that all of those OT characters were muslims. Both claims are simply not true.

[conon394]

conon394,

The earliest Christian father was righteous Abel and so what Greek was ever sooner than him?

Errr only if add the NT and interpret backwards.

Besides you know what meant the term is not obscure.

[Morticia Iunia Bruti]

The I'm-so-righteous-and-enraging-pious-did-everybody-see-?-Abel, which was slain from our ancestor Cain?

[AqD]

Assuming a god exists, what is the point of salvation being gained by humans depending on some action, ethic, work or other part or even the whole of their life? If god is omnipotent and omniscient, it would already be aware of who will be saved and who will not.

I figured it out - There is no contradiction at all.

Why? Because everything is by design and proceeded as intended. The actions some people do to earning salvation are predetermined, just as other people being led astray, or trying to get others back on the path by telling them salvation is possible - eventually those on the list would choose to change their ways and be saved while others would not, out of their free will. The list never changes.

Everyone is right.

[Kyriakos]

I mean, any number of "^" symbols can be overruled by an adequate number of "V" symbols. It just makes the typed formal language include vast swathes of code which lead to no change.

[basics]

And muslims claim that all of those OT characters were muslims. Both claims are simply not true.

Gromovnik,

From what writings do they make such a claim as there were no muslims for some hundreds of years after Jesus' death and resurrection. There is absolutely nothing about Islam in the Old Testament.

conon394,

For someone who believes in history of any sort then it is natural to go back to get the facts right. Why is it any different when it comes to the Bible?

[Gromovnik]

Gromovnik,

From what writings do they make such a claim as there were no muslims for some hundreds of years after Jesus' death and resurrection. There is absolutely nothing about Islam in the Old Testament.

So do you see a problem with those kind of claims?

[conon394]

For someone who believes in history of any sort then it is natural to go back to get the facts right. Why is it any different when it comes to the Bible?

Because the NT's interpretations of OT skew the way you read it. Thus the in quotes seed reference you like so much. Your stained understanding of the plain text of the OT is a result of forcing a link to the NT. That's what I mean backward looking.

Again the same occurs with concordances in post 44 in the other thread. Take say

37 Soldiers would gamble for Messiah's garments. Psalm 22:18 Luke 23:34
Matthew 27:35-36

Psalm 22 read alone is prayer by (traditionally) David talking to god. It is not a particular prophesy about a child of god in the future. Matthew is a weak interjection that seems like a forced attempt to link the two. Really basics do know how well paid roman soldiers were. It strains credulity that they would care about Jesus' cloths. I can imagine them taking a copper or two to let a favored rag picker get the lot of the clothing of the dead but not gambling of his cloths. Now David's I am sure those were quite fine.

[basics]

conon394,

Sorry ny friend but my inclination came from just reading and understanding what was given us to see in Genesis about the " seed " promised by God to come which happened in Jesus Christ being crucified and resurrected. The missing parts in all the prophecies foretold came together on that eventful day. Perhaps you might tell us what concordance you got the figure 37 because I have two Concordances and that figure doesn't ring a bell. Now regarding why Roman soldiers would caste lots over His clothing is quite obvious to any rational thinker. Here was a Victim Who claimed to be the King of the Jews putting value on His clothing for who wouldn't pay something to have such a momento. These soldiers would have been well used to gaining monies from any spoils they took.

[conon394]

conon394,

Sorry ny friend but my inclination came from just reading and understanding what was given us to see in Genesis about the " seed " promised by God to come which happened in Jesus Christ being crucified and resurrected. The missing parts in all the prophecies foretold came together on that eventful day. Perhaps you might tell us what concordance you got the figure 37 because I have two Concordances and that figure doesn't ring a bell. Now regarding why Roman soldiers would caste lots over His clothing is quite obvious to any rational thinker. Here was a Victim Who claimed to be the King of the Jews putting value on His clothing for who wouldn't pay something to have such a momento. These soldiers would have been well used to gaining monies from any spoils they took.

I was meant linked list in post 44 in the other tread from which I quoted. not a actual biblical concordance.

Again you are forcing a singular interpretation of the seed text that only makes sense with the existence of the NT. On its own it is properly progeny/descendants in plural under standing.

Considering no Roman believed the king of the Jews thing and Jesus was just an annoying local nut job/rabble rouser to them I really doubt his closes would be a memento of any import. 2 years later while in Gaul, Marcus check this out its a bit king of the Jews bloody cheap clothes... Appius What? Who?

These soldiers would have been well used to gaining monies from any spoils they took.

The bloody rags of man who lived at best as a poor labor were no spoils. No they in fact did not need to live of spoils(*) you again fail to appreciate how well a career in the Imperial Roman army was in the first century.

* now the potential for rape and sacking houses after a siege or capturing a rich enemy noble that is spoils...