The Freewill argument rears it's ugly head. (Thought you might get a kick out of this discussion)
Posted on: September 5, 2007 - 9:16am
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The Freewill argument rears it's ugly head. (Thought you might get a kick out of this discussion)
This is a little discussion I'm involved in on the sight of a friend of mine who is a Pastor in the Emergent Church:
Yesterday at 8:27pm, Mo-Mo Bear wrote:
The point at which you admit that God does not exist or (as the deists believe) may as well not exist for all the help he gives man in this world. If you believe God exists and is the intelligent creator of all and acutely involved in the affairs of man as an omnipotent, omniscient, omni-benevolent entity, then there is no point where man becomes responsible. That's another reason why I don't buy it. The existence of such an entity would make freewill an illusion which isn't a reason to deny his existence. If freewill is an illusion and everything is predetermined by the creator than that's the way it is whether that's an appealing concept or not. But if everything is predetermined by God and you were to look at the world he created, you could definitely not call God good by any moral standard that would make sense to man. I know the next question is "How does the existence of an omipotent, omniscient, eternal creator being make freewill an illusion?" and though I've answered this hundreds of times before and the answer seems obvious, I'll tackle it again. For an omniscient creator past, present, and future would look exactly the same likewise for an eternal being existing outside of space and time. God is presented as being all-knowing and eternal which in itself means that everything that you will ever do or ever think about doing he knows before he ever creates you. The fact that he creates you knowing every choice you are ever going to make makes freewill an illusion. If I know whether you are going to pick Pepsi or Coke because I created you then I created you to make those choices because I could have created a different sort of person. No amount of squirming or intellectual sleight of hand can get you out of that dilemma. You can't have an omniscient creator and one who is baffled by freewill. It is frankly difficult to have a highly intelligent creator and one who is baffled by freewill. We are largely determined by our nature (which God creates if you are a believer) and our environments which God also creates or at the least has intimate knowledge of. Guessing how someone will turn out and the choices they will make given intimate knowledge of both of those factors would be child's play for a supreme intellect and unneccessary for an omniscient being who would be like a psychic with a 100% accuracy rate. The two concepts are antithetical. So, as I've said numerous times in the past, God must have created Hitler knowing he would kill eight million jews because for an all-knowing all-powerful being he would have known what he would do before he ever created him and therefore had the opportunity to create him with a different nature or in a different environment that would not have lent him to become such a monster. He created Jeffery Dahmer knowing he would eat people. He created Idi Amin, Stalin, Mussolini, and every monster back as far as humans have walked the earth nowhing full well the outcome. He created George Bush knowing he would start a religious war. In fact God would have to have known that these people evolve and what they would do from the time the first one-celled animal floated in the primal ooze. That's what omniscience is. And if you want to believe in Genesis then he created Adam and Eve knowing they would eat of the apple. And that one is even more telling because if he didn't know Adam and Eve would eat the apple than he is neither all-knowing nor terribly intelligent at all. It's an inescapable dichotomy. | ||||
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Logged"Religion is an insult to human dignity. With or without it, you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, it takes religion."
- Steven Weinberg, Nobel Prize-winning physicist
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I'll be curious to hear what the pastor replies.
Well done!
When he replies, ask him if there was any possibility, any imaginable chance, any possible world where Peter would refuse to deny Christ before the cock crowed even though Christ said he would indeed deny him so.
Götter sind für Arten, die sich selbst verraten -- in den Glauben flüchten um sich hinzurichten. Menschen brauchen Götter um sich zu verletzen, um sich zu vernichten -- das sind wir.
If they did, they would have to admit they falsely led people.
No reply. I can't say I was really expecting one.
Pastors will admit to nothing unless exposed.
In that case, you have completely and absolutely pwned your friend, the pastor, and have been declared the winner!
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