(January 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: I'm not great with words, but I think you've misused the word "tautology." Perhaps you mean that I've used a contradiction of terms? Anyway, I'm using the word mystery in the sense of something that was previously hidden (a mystery) but has now been revealed.
The tautology is that mysterious ways would be mysterious (as in, not understood). Ways that used to be mysterious but are no longer would not be called mysterious ways, because they're not mysterious anymore.
I think referring to things we used to not understand as mysterious ways is misusing the term for another reason. In practice, every time I see that phrase invoked, it is being used to hand wave some unknown. The precise point is that they ways are not known, and are thus, mysterious.
(January 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: Sure, and the context here is our legal debt before God as a result of breaking His law. If He is merciful to us and forgives us our legal debt that is a good action. If He justly punishes us for our lawbreaking, that is good too.
It's still spin. If he is irresponsible to let us out of the punishment we deserve, that is an evil action. If he unnecessarily punishes us for breaking arbitrary laws, that is evil, too. See? The exact same actions can just be spun a different way. The "context" you're describing is merely getting things to conform to how you view them.
(January 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: This is an excellent illustration of the compatibilist fee will we have been talking about. A person makes a choice to kill an unborn child. God chooses to be merciful and redeem that child and thus brings him/her into His presence for all eternity. The action the person did was wrong and he/she is accountable for it. The action God did was good and He is responsible for it. The wills of the two beings involved are compatible.
And this is what I was talking about in my OP. God getting credit for the good and us for the bad. See, if we know that God will always let an unborn child into heaven*, then a person is capable of acting on that knowledge. How would this make the person's actions bad? The person is taking a deliberate action to send someone to heaven.
Your answer also ignores the possibility of more than one person acting toward a particular end. For example: who is dispensing justice in a capital offense: the judge who sentences the criminal, or the executioner? I would argue it's both. If the person knows what action God will execute, they can act on that knowledge and they would both be acting in mercy.
* If God ever sends unborn children to hell, that creates an entirely new set of problems.
(January 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: Now to address the question: is an abortion merciful? Within our context [of mercy] the person choosing to have the abortion isn't the one being merciful (mercy is a result of being forgiven the legal debt to God). Therefore no, an abortion is not merciful. If you want to expand the context of 'mercy' to include 'preventing suffering,' then sure it could be considered merciful. Although that definition is misleading. First, it makes it appear as if a wrong action is right only from the assumption that a life of 'no suffering' is better than a life involving suffering.
Well, given that we consider it bad to cause suffering to others (without good reason) and that people generally attempt to minimize their own suffering, I see no reason to believe that's not the case. Unless you're going to try to come up with some arbitrary definition of "better" to show why suffering just doesn't matter, or why it's actually better, then I think it is absolutely the case.
(January 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: Second, there is the problem of foreknowledge. How do you know it's better for a person to not be born? You can't. Maybe the child who was killed would have developed a renewable energy source that eliminated poverty. Would it not then be more merciful to let the child live [to alleviate the suffering of the impoverished]?
1) Given the way most people describe heaven, it is infinitely better to be there than here. Both in terms of how good heaven is and in terms of time line (you are only here a finite amount of time).
2) Would it not be merciful (good) for God to develop renewable energy and eliminate poverty? Sitting idly by and allowing fixable problems is depraved indifference, at best.
(January 7, 2016 at 4:51 pm)orangebox21 Wrote: The end does not justify the means. The end (a child in heaven) does not justify the means (murder). This is ultimately an abuse of God's mercy. Doing a wrong knowing that God will right it, doesn't make the wrong right.
I don't want to put words in your mouth, but this is the exact argument other Christians have had with me involving whether it was right for God to drown young children in the flood. They're literal answer is "God brought the children to heaven, so it was a net gain".
