How Much Do You Know About Christianity?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
341

[quote]Oleena wrote:
John S. wrote:
Oleena wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:

Wow- thanks for going there.

And please understand that this is stated within the context of my beliefs . . . . Therein lies the secret of the answer I posited for Oleena’s question - which she has studiously ignored.

At no point have I seen you contradict anything that I’ve said. I’ve seen you say that you don’t feel that I understood what you wrote, but as far as I can see, nothing that you’ve wrote has been an answer to the question I proposed. I already stated that the concept of free will is irrevelent to my question because god already knew which was his creation would decide with the free will he gave it.

I am making one assumption here that is no clearly backed up in the Bible, and only one. That assumption is that god had a choice in making the universe. BEFORE he created anyone, before he created sin, before he created free will, he knew that what he was creating would result in 1000s upon 1000s burning in hell for eternity. Whether or not his creation has free will is not important because he already knew what they would decide before he brought them into existance, and apparently he had a choice about whether or not to bring them into existance. I am not talking about the moment after the first human decided to sin or what god did after that.

What do you have to say about the original choice he made to bring all of humanity into existance knowing BEFORE HE DID IT that he was going to destroy it several times and burn 1000s upon 1000s for eternity in hell.

You have a very screwed up idea of what free will is. God knows what will happen with each choice we make but it is up to us to choose. With the exception of the few times he intervened in the bible he has stayed out of it and let us run our own lives.

Is God omniscient (as in all-knowing; as in he knew what each of us were going to do with our free will before we came into existance)?

Omniscient also means that God knew what we would decide to do with our free wills BEFORE he created us. What does it matter if he backed off after he created us? He still had the choice of whether or not to create us (otherwise he would not be omnipotent) and the knowledge of which direction we would decide to go with the free will he gave us (otherwise he would not be omniscient).
[/quote]

This site has a slightly different view on it then what I do but it should do fine in helping you figure it out.

342

[quote]Oleena wrote:
John S. wrote:
Oleena wrote:
One last question for everyone:

So far have you seen anyone answer any of my questions with an answer that can’t be summed up into “I don’t know and I can’t question god”? (just wondering if I missed something)

I already answered one of your questions. If you are really interested please take some time to look through the other 5000 threads before creating another one asking the same questions.

You did not answer my question. You stated that I had a messed up idea of what free will is, and I reinterated that free will is not even revelant to or a part of my question unless we are talking about whether or not god had free will.

It seems to be very hard for all of the god-fearing people answering my questions to imagine that there was a time before humanity even existed during which god had a choice about whether or not to create humanity, and AT THAT TIME GOD ALREADY KNEW HOW IT WOULD TURN OUT IF HE DID BECAUSE HE IS OMNISCIENT. At that point it was not in human hands to decide which way humans would go because THERE WERE NO HUMANS.

All you addressed was the time after god created humans. I am asking you to address HIS DECISION TO CREATE HUMANS IN THE FIRST PLACE.

[/quote]

He created human to please himself, If you actually took time to read the bible you would understand that. We are made in his image, The ability to acknowledge and love him is ours alone. He creates because he wanted to create, The question you are asking me is like me asking you why did human evolution turn out the way it did? You know it happened but there are some things that are just above your understanding. You can figure out bits and pieces but in the end you rely on faith.

I would give this book a read http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?event=AFF&p=1011693&item_no=1650X

343

…if this is true, then the matter of free-will must be revisited:

If God created mankind to please himself, and he gave us free-will, then he must’ve known that we’d make decisions that would not please him. This is illogical. So, how would you reconcile this?

344

[quote]ephrem wrote:
John S. wrote:He created human to please himself, If you actually took time to read the bible you would understand that.

…if this is true, then the matter of free-will must be revisited:

If God created mankind to please himself, and he gave us free-will, then he must’ve known that we’d make decisions that would not please him. This is illogical. So, how would you reconcile this?[/quote]

No it’s not illogical. Would it please him if he made us into robots who had no choice but to love and worship him? Of course not. Only love that is freely chosen is meaningful.

345

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
ephrem wrote:
John S. wrote:He created human to please himself, If you actually took time to read the bible you would understand that.

…if this is true, then the matter of free-will must be revisited:

If God created mankind to please himself, and he gave us free-will, then he must’ve known that we’d make decisions that would not please him. This is illogical. So, how would you reconcile this?

No it’s not illogical. Would it please him if he made us into robots who had no choice but to love and worship him? Of course not. Only love that is freely chosen is meaningful. [/quote]

…okay. A couple of questions:

  1. Why would God want to be loved?
  2. If heaven is our ultimate goal where we spend eternity loving and worshipping Him, how is that different from being mindless drones? What purpose does our earthly lives have, suffering free-will and all, if the prize is that what he didn’t want in the first place?
346

Ephrem, as you prolly know, imagining what is meant by heaven has been the pre-occupation of poets, painters, philosophers for eons. C.S. Lewis approaches it hundreds of times, each of them interesting. If you are truly interested in this question, I wholeheartedly recommend reading everything he’s written. Here’s one such attempt chosen more or less at random:

Let us picture a woman thrown into a dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows up seeing nothing but the dungeon walls, the straw on the floor, and a little patch of the sky seen through the grating, which is too high up to show anything except sky.

This unfortunate woman was an artist, and when they imprisoned her she managed to bring with her a drawing pad and a box of pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance, she is constantly teaching her son about that outer world which he has never seen. She does it largely by drawing him pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what fields, rivers, mountains, cities, and waves on a beach are like. He is a dutiful boy and he does his best to believe her when she tells him that that outer world is far more interesting and glorious than anything in the dungeon. At times he succeeds. On the whole he gets on tolerably well until, one day, he says something that gives his mother pause. For a minute or two they are at cross-purposes.

Finally it dawns on her that he has, all these years, lived under a misconception. “But,” she gasps, “you didn’t think that the real world was full of lines drawn in lead pencil?” “What?” says the boy. “No pencil marks there?” And instantly his whole notion of the outer world becomes a blank. For the lines, by which alone he was imagining it, have now been denied of it. He has no idea of that which will exclude and dispense with the lines, that of which the lines were merely a transposition–the waving treetops, the light dancing on the weir, the coloured three-dimensional realities which are not enclosed in lines but define their own shapes at every moment with a delicacy and multiplicity which no drawing could ever achieve. The child will get the idea that the real world is somehow less visible than his mother’s pictures. In reality it lacks lines because it is incomparably more visible.

So with us. “We know not what we shall be” [1 John 3:2]; but we may be sure we shall be more, not less, than we were on earth.

Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like pencilled lines on flat paper. If they vanish in the risen life, they will vanish only as pencil lines vanish from the real landscape, not as candle flame that is put out but as a candle flame which becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the blind, thrown open the shutters, and let in the blaze of the risen sun.

~ C.S. Lewis

347

[quote]katzenjammer wrote:
Ephrem, as you prolly know, imagining what is meant by heaven has been the pre-occupation of poets, painters, philosophers for eons. C.S. Lewis approaches it hundreds of times, each of them interesting. If you are truly interested in this question, I wholeheartedly recommend reading everything he’s written. Here’s one such attempt chosen more or less at random:

Let us picture a woman thrown into a dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows up seeing nothing but the dungeon walls, the straw on the floor, and a little patch of the sky seen through the grating, which is too high up to show anything except sky.

This unfortunate woman was an artist, and when they imprisoned her she managed to bring with her a drawing pad and a box of pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance, she is constantly teaching her son about that outer world which he has never seen. She does it largely by drawing him pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what fields, rivers, mountains, cities, and waves on a beach are like. He is a dutiful boy and he does his best to believe her when she tells him that that outer world is far more interesting and glorious than anything in the dungeon. At times he succeeds. On the whole he gets on tolerably well until, one day, he says something that gives his mother pause. For a minute or two they are at cross-purposes.

Finally it dawns on her that he has, all these years, lived under a misconception. “But,” she gasps, “you didn’t think that the real world was full of lines drawn in lead pencil?” “What?” says the boy. “No pencil marks there?” And instantly his whole notion of the outer world becomes a blank. For the lines, by which alone he was imagining it, have now been denied of it. He has no idea of that which will exclude and dispense with the lines, that of which the lines were merely a transposition–the waving treetops, the light dancing on the weir, the coloured three-dimensional realities which are not enclosed in lines but define their own shapes at every moment with a delicacy and multiplicity which no drawing could ever achieve. The child will get the idea that the real world is somehow less visible than his mother’s pictures. In reality it lacks lines because it is incomparably more visible.

So with us. “We know not what we shall be” [1 John 3:2]; but we may be sure we shall be more, not less, than we were on earth.

Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like pencilled lines on flat paper. If they vanish in the risen life, they will vanish only as pencil lines vanish from the real landscape, not as candle flame that is put out but as a candle flame which becomes invisible because someone has pulled up the blind, thrown open the shutters, and let in the blaze of the risen sun.

~ C.S. Lewis[/quote]

…that sounds like Allegory of the cave - Wikipedia but i’ll leave my questions to someone who actually dares to answer them…

348

The Bible says God created all things for His own glory. Adam and Even had free will in an unrestricted sense. After falling into sin, things changed drastically and this affected us as God deals with mankind on the basis of representation. In Adam, all died; in Christ, all shall be made alive.

In Adam, our wills are free in the sense that there is no external coercion forcing us to do what we do. Our wills, however, are bent toward those things which are displeasing to God (Luther called this the “bondage of the will”). When God saves a sinner, He does so by His power and for His glory and in order to magnify His mercy. When God damns a sinner, He does so to magnify His justice (Romans 9). We may not like this arrangement, but nowhere that I have found in the Bible does God ask us whether we like it or not.

With reference to God’s sovereignty and our free will, I actually think the Bible sets forth man’s responsibility rather than his utter free will. Man in Adam cannot please God (Romans 8:7-8). If we would be saved, we must be born again and this happens by the power of God acting upon sinners.

Some Christians here may object to my limiting the freeness of the will. Consider heaven though, we will not have free will, it will be bound and only able to glorify God.

I realize this does not solve all of the “what about this” or “what about that” questions, but there is only so far the finite can go in fully comprehending the Infinite. This should not be taken to mean that God is incomprehensible; He has revealed Himself in the Bible. However, there are some secret things (Dt 29:29) and our prejudices often times get in the way of understanding plain statements in the Bible.

jpb

349

[quote]ephrem wrote:

…that sounds like Allegory of the cave - Wikipedia but i’ll leave my questions to someone who actually dares to answer them…

[/quote]

Who among us actually DARES to even attempt to answer Ephrems’s extraordinarily profound, indubitably provocative and utterly novel questions?

rolls eyes

350

[quote]Oleena wrote:
One last question for everyone:

So far have you seen anyone answer any of my questions with an answer that can’t be summed up into “I don’t know and I can’t question god”? (just wondering if I missed something)[/quote]

YES - you have missed something-I answered your TWO QUESTION post from yesterday . . .

I answered your original question with obviously too complex of an answer for you to discuss with me - since you keep reposting your own conclusion . . .

but go ahead - keep changing the questions . . .

351

[quote]jpb wrote:(…)Some Christians here may object to my limiting the freeness of the will. Consider heaven though, we will not have free will, it will be bound and only able to glorify God.(…)

jpb[/quote]

…so only on earth we have free-will, so we can choose to believe in God, in order to spend eternity worshipping him? Why? Seriously, why would an all-powerfull entity that exists outside of time and space want this for himself?

352

[quote]Oleena wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:

Wow- thanks for going there.

And please understand that this is stated within the context of my beliefs . . . . Therein lies the secret of the answer I posited for Oleena’s question - which she has studiously ignored.

At no point have I seen you contradict anything that I’ve said. I’ve seen you say that you don’t feel that I understood what you wrote, but as far as I can see, nothing that you’ve wrote has been an answer to the question I proposed. I already stated that the concept of free will is irrevelent to my question because god already knew which way his creation would decide with the free will he gave it.

I am making one assumption here that is not clearly backed up in the Bible, and only one. That assumption is that god had a choice in making the universe. BEFORE he created anyone, before he created sin, before he created free will, he knew that what he was creating would result in 1000s upon 1000s burning in hell for eternity. Whether or not his creation has free will is not important because he already knew what they would decide before he brought them into existance, and apparently he had a choice about whether or not to bring them into existance. I am not talking about the moment after the first human decided to sin or what god did after that.

What do you have to say about the original choice he made to bring all of humanity into existance knowing BEFORE HE DID IT that he was going to destroy it several times and burn 1000s upon 1000s for eternity in hell.

[/quote]

So you would prefer a creation where we did not have free will and where we were simply little machines who did what we were told and all lived monotonous controlled lives ever after? Or would you prefer no creation at all?

Are you trying to say that - if God created mankind knowing he would have to punish 1000’s upon 1000’s for decisions they freely made entirely on their own - he is evil for having created them?

See, you are missing the point about free will - Yes, HE knew some would choose to sin freely of their own will and he designated a punishment for that freely made choice and a blessing for those who did not choose to sin or accepted a substitute sacrifice for their sin - this same reality is borne out throughout creation - if you choose to ingest poison it will kill you, if you choose to jump off of a cliff, you will fall - nature is full of examples that our creator designed a world for us to inhabit that was full of many choices - NONE of which have to be made a certain way - we are free to choose.

Take the multi-verse concept now in favor in quantum physics - every choice gets made and results in parallel worlds . . . life for those who do not choose to rebel against God is intertwined with the lives of those who do - it could not be any other way.

God has not forced a single human being to commit a sin or to rebel against His will. The reality is that EVERYONE could have and the vast majority could still avoid eternal damnation - there was no set outcome - so there can be no evil intent on His part (that is only one area of your question - here comes the main)

All you are doing is juxtaposing God’s omniscience against his omnipotence - the more classically known version has God making a rock so big he cannot lift it . . . or creating a problem so complex he could not solve it . . .

here is the root of the problem for your question and its true answer . . . OMNIPRESENCE - everywhere at every moment simultaneously

God (as Push was trying to explain) exists in the ever-present now - he is outside of time (“before Moses was I AM”) - there was no BEFORE creation and there is no AFTER creation for God - The moment of creation is the same moment for him as the judgment day - there is no linear chronological progression for God as your question tries to force him into.

Just like ForLife does not understand free will (and tries to force pre-determinism into it), you do not understand God’s omnipresence and are trying to force linear progression on a timeless being.

You sit and judge a timeless being from your limited perspective and accuse him of being evil for applying the natural consequences upon people for choices they made entirely of their own free will . . . all the while ignoring his nature and ours for a semantic construct.

353

[quote]jpb wrote:
The Bible says God created all things for His own glory. Adam and Even had free will in an unrestricted sense. After falling into sin, things changed drastically and this affected us as God deals with mankind on the basis of representation. In Adam, all died; in Christ, all shall be made alive.

In Adam, our wills are free in the sense that there is no external coercion forcing us to do what we do. Our wills, however, are bent toward those things which are displeasing to God (Luther called this the “bondage of the will”). When God saves a sinner, He does so by His power and for His glory and in order to magnify His mercy. When God damns a sinner, He does so to magnify His justice (Romans 9). We may not like this arrangement, but nowhere that I have found in the Bible does God ask us whether we like it or not.

With reference to God’s sovereignty and our free will, I actually think the Bible sets forth man’s responsibility rather than his utter free will. Man in Adam cannot please God (Romans 8:7-8). If we would be saved, we must be born again and this happens by the power of God acting upon sinners.

Some Christians here may object to my limiting the freeness of the will. Consider heaven though, we will not have free will, it will be bound and only able to glorify God.

I realize this does not solve all of the “what about this” or “what about that” questions, but there is only so far the finite can go in fully comprehending the Infinite. This should not be taken to mean that God is incomprehensible; He has revealed Himself in the Bible. However, there are some secret things (Dt 29:29) and our prejudices often times get in the way of understanding plain statements in the Bible.

jpb
[/quote]

WRONG!! Adam’s sin did not change my nature or my free will - if we are going to discuss this - you should probably start a new thread - because you do not believe in free will, you believe in original sin which negates free will . . .

354

[quote]pookie wrote:
Right, cause who wants a smart, knowledgeable person holding office? If your car breaks down, you like having a great mechanic; if you’re about to undergo surgery, you surely wouldn’t mind being told that your doctor is an elite surgeon.

But for political office? NO! Let’s elect drooling morons to the job.

And then wonder in amazement at how badly the government is performing.
[/quote]

It’s funny how intelligence and education have been ridiculed and even condemned as “intellectualism”. Pastors tell their flock to mindlessly follow their teachings, as if blind obedience (parading as “faith”) is a good thing. In my former church, “intellectuals” were considered to be one of the three greatest enemies of the church (gays and feminists were the other two, in case you’re interested). God forbid that we actually use our minds to discern fact from fiction.

355

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
I make the choices I make because I make the choices I make . . . there is no WHY.
[/quote]

So you seriously believe that your beliefs, your values, your willpower, your intelligence, and your experience have no effect on the choices you make?

A century of psychological research on cognition and decision making says otherwise.

356

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
So I answered both of your questions and I do hold my God to the same high standards he holds for me . . .so, no, there is no FAIL on his part. . . .
[/quote]

If you hold god to the same standards, does that mean you believe he is justified in condemning the majority of his creations to hell? How in any sense is that loving? As Oleena has repeatedly asked, wouldn’t a benevolent god, in his omniscience and omnipotence, choose not to create these people in the first place?

357

[quote]forlife wrote:
IrishSteel wrote:
I make the choices I make because I make the choices I make . . . there is no WHY.

So you seriously believe that your beliefs, your values, your willpower, your intelligence, and your experience have no effect on the choices you make?

A century of psychological research on cognition and decision making says otherwise.[/quote]

LOL - now your are substituting influence for cause . . .

358

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
LOL - now your are substituting influence for cause . . .[/quote]

What is the difference? If a characteristic influences a choice, by definition it partly causes that choice.

359

[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
See, you are missing the point about free will - Yes, HE knew some would choose to sin freely of their own will and he designated a punishment for that freely made choice and a blessing for those who did not choose to sin or accepted a substitute sacrifice for their sin - this same reality is borne out throughout creation - if you choose to ingest poison it will kill you, if you choose to jump off of a cliff, you will fall - nature is full of examples that our creator designed a world for us to inhabit that was full of many choices - NONE of which have to be made a certain way - we are free to choose.[/quote]

But you’re still not answering Oleena’s question. If god KNEW that the majority of his creations would make choices condemning themselves to hell, why wouldn’t benevolence lead god not to create these people in the first place? Is it really compassionate to create people that are going to burn for eternity? Eternity is a very, very, very long time.

360

[quote]forlife wrote:
Eternity is a very, very, very long time.[/quote]

It’s akin to watching Attack of the Clones and never getting to the part where Yoda fights.