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Free will question

ddoyle00 said:
I never got a good respose to this question, mainly because it kept being answered by prepubescent youngsters vainly showing the benefits of an emotional arguement. So I will post it again. I have heard poeple claim their christian god is all-knowing and that they have free will at the same time.
Now imagine your life as a dvd (ignore the special features).

1.god.........................................the director
2.shot and fimed the movie............which is your life
3.sent the movie to BlockBuster......sent your spirit to Earth
4. for people to enjoy....................for you to live your life.

Now, with the movie analogy still in mind, think about the last movie you watched. What were you able to do? Fast-forward...yes. Rewind.....yes. Change the beginning..no. Change what happens in the middle.....no.
Alter the ending......no. No matter how you watched the movie (lived your life), you were not able to alter the ending. Since people say god is all-knowing, he knows what you are have done, what you are doing and most importantly, what you will do. Do you really think you can juke left or right fast enough to catch god off-balance? Like god is gonna say, "Damn, that guy got right past me, I didnt see that coming!". Come on. If you admit god is all knowing, then he knew you would be reading this right now and he knows exactly how you will respond. Free will? I think not.

I see the free will part as like a Role Playing Game; like Knights of the Old Republic (for XBOX). There is a basic storyline, but you still can choose to be good, evil, neutral. You can also choose who your friends and allies are. You also get to choose how you respond to other people (characters). It's kinda like D&D. But God does know what we're doing. There are so many outcomes that you couldn't count them all, 'cept God. It's really up to us what path we follow. It's just that God will guide us along the way; if we let Him.
 
Well if god wasnt the first cause, then what caused god? Since most people believe god was the beginning of all existence, then he is the cause for everything in existence. Thats why I said Alpha and Omega.

Even if god lives outside our concept of time, we still must follow its rules. We still live our lives according to the concept of time. Who knows if god keeps his own brand of time? Maybe 10,000 years our time is only 1 year to him. I dont know. Whatever our lives seem to him, if you claim he is all-knowing, no matter what concept of time you use, he knows our future.
 
You can choose a life of crime here on earth also but you will pay the price if you get caught. It is still your choice. Your freewill


for many christians, the fact that I don't accept Jesus as my saviour is enough to deny me entrance into heaven. Is that a path of crime? What if I were to believe in the tenets of another religion. I wouldn't necessarily be committing a crime. For many christians, that would mean that I'd go to hell. Is that really free-will?
 
DDoyle00:

The problem is that your metaphor doesn’t hold up. A movie is something that is already done. The film is an object and the director is a personification of God. You want to address the concepts of “free will” and “all-knowing God”. The concept of free will is a human concept and when discussed on the material plane is pretty shallow:

I can get up or I can sit down.
I can kiss you or I can shoot you.
I can accept Jesus or I can reject Jesus.

See, I have a free will.

It is easy, simplistic and silly.

It is the concept of God that creates the confusion – this almost maniacal need and irrational insistence to personify God. That is not the teachings of Moses or the teachings of Jesus (since you are talking about ‘Christians” here). That is why I use the example of “gravity”. We have free will. We can take the elevator down from the 20th floor and we will have the consequences of that, or we can walk out the window of the 20th floor and we will have the consequences of that. The choice is ours. The consequences are predetermined. ‘Gravity” has no intellect to “know” the consequences. Gravity is exists on a different plane, in a different realm than intellect. That is the God of Moses and the God of Abraham that Jesus spoke of – a God that exists outside the realm of our understanding. It doesn’t make for good argument, but it is accurate in interpretation. Framing God within the boundaries of the human concept of omniscience and the human concept of intellect is to limit the illimitable. So, yes, we have a free will. And yes, the consequences of our thoughts and actions are predetermined by spiritual laws (similar to gravity) and no; God does not “know” these things because God does not “know” like a human being “knows”.
 
nkgupta80 said:
for many christians, the fact that I don't accept Jesus as my saviour is enough to deny me entrance into heaven. Is that a path of crime? What if I were to believe in the tenets of another religion. I wouldn't necessarily be committing a crime. For many christians, that would mean that I'd go to hell. Is that really free-will?

If the Christian God exist and he is the one True God then he makes the rules. If You break his rules then you pay the price. You have the freewill to obey or disobey but you also have to face the consequences of whatever decsion you make
 
ddoyle00 said:
Well if god wasnt the first cause, then what caused god? Since most people believe god was the beginning of all existence, then he is the cause for everything in existence. Thats why I said Alpha and Omega.

Even if god lives outside our concept of time, we still must follow its rules. We still live our lives according to the concept of time. Who knows if god keeps his own brand of time? Maybe 10,000 years our time is only 1 year to him. I dont know. Whatever our lives seem to him, if you claim he is all-knowing, no matter what concept of time you use, he knows our future.

Who said God was not the first casue? He is the first casue in the sense that he created everything.
Knowing our future does not mean he casues our future.
 
dreamaccount2000 said:
If the Christian God exist and he is the one True God then he makes the rules. If You break his rules then you pay the price. You have the freewill to obey or disobey but you also have to face the consequences of whatever decsion you make
Unless you explain your understanding or definition of the “Christian God”, your statement does not have much meaning. What are ‘his rules’ and what is ‘the price’ and ‘the consequences’? Without addressing these ideas, especially the concept of ‘the Christian God’, what you say is of no help.
 
Howard Beale said:
Unless you explain your understanding or definition of the “Christian God”, your statement does not have much meaning. What are ‘his rules’ and what is ‘the price’ and ‘the consequences’? Without addressing these ideas, especially the concept of ‘the Christian God’, what you say is of no help.

Its pretty much lined out in the bible. Does not matter a whole lot what I say about it. If he exist then it is his rules
 
dreamaccount2000 said:
Its pretty much lined out in the bible. Does not matter a whole lot what I say about it. If he exist then it is his rules
People keep saying "the bible" as though it is a single book with a set of rules established at one time, instead of a random collection of thoughts and stories collected over several thousands of years by several dozens of writers.
We are obviously free to choose our actions, and also free to get punished or rewarded accordingly. That is clear throughout the Bible.
 
dreamaccount2000 said:
Its pretty much lined out in the bible. Does not matter a whole lot what I say about it. If he exist then it is his rules
If it is so clear in the Bible, why are there so many sects of both Christianity and Judaism? Your response is a copout because anyone can just say, OK, there are no consequences, read this passage of the Bible or read that one. You based your concept on a “Christian God” and then say “it doesn’t matter what I say about it...” I guess your right.
 
Howard Beale said:
If it is so clear in the Bible, why are there so many sects of both Christianity and Judaism? Your response is a copout because anyone can just say, OK, there are no consequences, read this passage of the Bible or read that one. You based your concept on a “Christian God” and then say “it doesn’t matter what I say about it...” I guess your right.

Dont guess I understand your question. My arguement is simply this, God does not cause you to make the choices you make. He sets the rules and you can choose to obey or disobey. (Freewill)
 
dreamaccount2000 said:
Dont guess I understand your question. My arguement is simply this, God does not cause you to make the choices you make. He sets the rules and you can choose to obey or disobey. (Freewill)
I must have misread. I understand and actually agree. I actually agree with this statement.
 
dreamaccount2000 said:
Who said God was not the first casue? He is the first casue in the sense that he created everything.
Knowing our future does not mean he casues our future.


Dream.....since you said god knows our future, how are we possibly free to change what he already knows is going to happen?

Your god can be the first cause, but that would make our lives the effect of himself coming into existence. You can call god a rock thrown into a pond and our lives are the ripples caused by that rock. Do the ripples have any control over themselves?
 
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ddoyle00 said:
Dream.....since you said god knows our future, how are we possibly free to change what he already knows is going to happen?

Again, he simply knows it, He does not casue it. You think you would make diffrent choices if it were not for his knowledge? His knowledge does not affect your choices they are your own.
 
Lets go with what we agree on.

1.God was the causation for the universe.
2.The universe and everything in it are the effects of the causation.
3.God knows our future.

I will agree with all this for the sake of arguement. My problem is this:

You have said that god knows out future. Fine. You have said that we are free to live our lives the way we want to. Ok, fine. I lead a pretty unchristian life, so Im pretty sure god doesnt have control over me in that respect. My problem comes in when we die. You said god knows how we will act, but he wont interfere. He also knows our future and thats when free will is destroyed. He knows how we will die, when we will die and whether or not we were good enough to join his country club. So I agree we are in control of our lives, but he still knows how we are going to act and he knows in advance where we are going to go when we die. Thats free will with an evil twist.
 
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ddoyle00 said:
Lets go with what we agree on.

1.God was the causation for the universe.
2.The universe and everything in it are the effects of the causation.
3.God knows our future.

I will agree with all this for the sake of arguement. My problem is this:

You have said that god knows out future. Fine. You have said that we are free to live our lives the way we want to. Ok, fine. I lead a pretty unchristian life, so Im pretty sure god doesnt have control over me in that respect. My problem comes in when we die. You said god knows how we will act, but he wont interfere. He also knows our future and thats when free will is destroyed. He knows how we will die, when we will die and whether or not we were good enough to join his country club. So I agree we are in control of our lives, but he still knows how we are going to act and he knows in advance where we are going to go when we die. Thats free will with an evil twist.

I understand where you are coming from. I have struggled with the same questions for a very long time. It is true that God is the first casue of everything. He set everything in motion. He did know your choices before you were ever born. He knows the future but yet he did not casue them in the sense that he made the choices for us.
This is how it works in my limited understanding.
God knew what my freewill choices were before he ever created me. They were and are my free choices. In a way, by creating me, God set those choices in stone.. Its like they are my choices but by creating me he confirmed them.
His knowledge of my choices in no way affected them.
I hope that is a little more clear. It is hard to grasp and hard to explain.
 
That sounds like a Choose Your Own Adventure book I used to read. You read a few pages and then you had a choiced of what you wanted to do. Some where good choices and others not so good. The book was interesting until I had read it so many times that I used every possible choice in the book. Is that what you are saying? That we are born with a limited amount of choices?

"God set those choices in stone.. "
"Its like they are my choices but by creating me he confirmed them."
"He did know your choices before you were ever born"

That sounds exactly like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.
 
DDoyle00:
1.God was the causation for the universe.
2.The universe and everything in it are the effects of the causation.
3.God knows our future.

The issue is with number 3. As long as we continue to discuss God as if God were created in the image and likeness of man, there will be problems. God isn't the Wizard of Oz or Thor or Zues. God is not human. If God does not have intellect in the human sense, then the issue of "knowing" becomes irrelavent.
 
ddoyle00 said:
That sounds like a Choose Your Own Adventure book I used to read. You read a few pages and then you had a choiced of what you wanted to do. Some where good choices and others not so good. The book was interesting until I had read it so many times that I used every possible choice in the book. Is that what you are saying? That we are born with a limited amount of choices?

"God set those choices in stone.. "
"Its like they are my choices but by creating me he confirmed them."
"He did know your choices before you were ever born"

That sounds exactly like a Choose Your Own Adventure book.

Choose your own adventure? Who is choosing?
 
I thought we already went over this point, Howard. We as humans do not have any other choice but to describe god in human terms. If you say we cant use human terms to describe god, then whats the point of the bible since it was written by humans using human words? If we cant describe god with human terms, then we cant call god loving or caring or merciful because those are human terms.
Saying gods "intellect" is beyong reckoning as a way to prove free-will is a cop-out. You may call it an act of faith. But all you are doing is saying that you dont know.
Besides, whether or not he "knows" is the whole point. Spin it any way you like, but the fact remians that if god knows our future in any sense of the word, we dont have free will.
 
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DDoyle00:

I thought we already went over this point, Howard. We as humans do not have any other choice but to describe god in human terms.
So much for freedom of choice and free will, I guess. We have “no other choice”? I think that we do.

If you say we cant use human terms to describe god, then whats the point of the bible since it was written by humans using human words?
It is one thing to describe God using human terms, it is another thing to imbue God with human characteristics.

If we cant describe god with human terms, then we cant call god loving or caring or merciful because those are human terms.
We can call God whatever we want. Loving, spiteful, vengeful, merciful, whatever. I am saying that insisting that God has human attributes gets in the way of grasping even the most shallow idea of what might actually be.

Saying gods "intellect" is beyong reckoning as a way to prove free-will is a cop-out. You may call it an act of faith. But all you are doing is saying that you dont know.
I guess there are those among us who think saying I don’t know is a copout. I see it as an acknowledgement of the truth. There are a lot of things we don’t know. For me it would be refreshing to hear more people acknowledging that.

Besides, whether or not he "knows" is the whole point. Spin it any way you like, but the fact remians that if god knows our future in any sense of the word, we dont have free will.
It is obvious that no one can “know” the mind of God. But if you believe God “knows”, then you have no free will. If you believe God exists outside the realm of intellect and knowledge, you do have a “free will”. Almost everyone believed the world was flat at one time, so they couldn’t sail around it. A few people believed it was round and they did sail around it. As Daniel Boorstin said, "The problem was not ignorance, the problem was the illusion of knowledge."
 
dreamaccount2000 said:
I understand where you are coming from. I have struggled with the same questions for a very long time. It is true that God is the first casue of everything. He set everything in motion. He did know your choices before you were ever born. He knows the future but yet he did not casue them in the sense that he made the choices for us.
This is how it works in my limited understanding.
God knew what my freewill choices were before he ever created me. They were and are my free choices. In a way, by creating me, God set those choices in stone.. Its like they are my choices but by creating me he confirmed them.
His knowledge of my choices in no way affected them.
I hope that is a little more clear. It is hard to grasp and hard to explain.
Somebody has taught you this, and is purposely making the issue complicated. Basically the flaw is assuming that we have free will and that God already knows what we will do. The 2 are polar opposites. God is the creator of all, but does not know what we as individuals will do when tested here on earth. He hopes we live good lives and returns to Him, but does NOT know how we will act or react in all situations. Otherwise, there is no free will, period. God can be all powerful without being all knowing of our individual futures.
I, as a father, have a good idea of what my kids are like and how they will act under certain circumstances, but there is no absolute surety that they will always do the right thing. God is powerful, yes, but magical, no. Any preacher/pastor/priest who puts magic into it is purposely trying to lead us astray.
You cannot shoot them, but spitting on them might be OK.
 
Thats fine..this thread is tired anyway. I cant argue with someone who says god doesnt know what we will do in the future and says god isnt all-knowing.
Thats what I was trying to get at. How completley opposite they are. If someone says that man is responsible for all the good things he does and all the bad things and god has no hand in it whatsoever until the day he/she is judged, that is a compromise I can accept.
What burns me is when ppl. give credit to god for all the good things that they accomplish. For example: winning an award, building a hospital, aceing a test, some ppl. always say they couldnt do it without gods help. I think people need to start taking credit for their accomplishments and be proud of what they have did while alive.
Thats why I am a secular humanist. I put my trust in humanity and I live my life to the fullest because to me, its all I have. Man developed agriculture, science, medicine, everything, not god. I dont need to start ranting again. But this will probably be my last post for this thread.
 
UtahBill said:
Somebody has taught you this, and is purposely making the issue complicated. Basically the flaw is assuming that we have free will and that God already knows what we will do. The 2 are polar opposites. God is the creator of all, but does not know what we as individuals will do when tested here on earth. He hopes we live good lives and returns to Him, but does NOT know how we will act or react in all situations. Otherwise, there is no free will, period. God can be all powerful without being all knowing of our individual futures.
I, as a father, have a good idea of what my kids are like and how they will act under certain circumstances, but there is no absolute surety that they will always do the right thing. God is powerful, yes, but magical, no. Any preacher/pastor/priest who puts magic into it is purposely trying to lead us astray.
You cannot shoot them, but spitting on them might be OK.

So God is not all knowing? And you base this on what?
 
O.K. Since I believe God gave us free will and sits unbias and unjudgmental inside each of us. The ability to send out measurements of right and wrong, good and evil is left to society and us alone. Guide posts and advise come from spiritual sources, not all Christian however that govern the behavior in society.

If free will was gone, there would be no evil measure coming from the center to balance the good, as we could not go against what we deem Godly if all was planned to lead back to God and predestined to be so. Free will allows us as a society to set the limits of good and evil, even then people always push further redefining them.
 
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