(May 18, 2017 at 10:18 am)SteveII Wrote: 1. Free will does not logically mean evil--just the potential. I believe that being in the actual presence of God makes any possible choice of evil impossible because of the situation not because of a logical impossibility.. I don't know though--just a theory developed to answer the question.
2. God is very much responsible for allowing us to choose (because without that ability, we cannot love anything--including him). Adam was punished, yes, but the real question was it worth creating him (including knowledge of his eventual fall and punishment)? I think it is clear that God would say yes to that. Adam would say yes to that (I certainly am glad of it personally). To flip it around, would you say it would have been better to be created without free will--which would include no ability to love? What would be the point?
3. I don't think that's the case. When you don't take it/discuss it piecemeal, the basic doctrines fit together without much trouble.
1. How could the angels have rebelled if it were impossible to sin in god’s presence? Are you defining free will as something other than being able to make a choice? If we can’t make a choice in heaven, then by your own argument, we won’t be able to love.
2. If I have a child and offer that child certain freedoms, they would be according to what I feel he can handle at a given age. I wouldn’t give a three year old the same freedoms as an eighteen year old and then punish him severely when he chooses to do what I told him not to do. I’ve taken children through the terrible twos and teenage rebellion. I’ve never thought that deliberate disobedience on their part justified cruel and unusual punishment on my part.
3. Actually, the doctrines only seem logical when taken piece meal. It’s when I put them all together that they fall apart.
The god who allows children to be raped out of respect for the free will choice of the rapist, but punishes gay men for engaging in mutually consensual sex couldn't possibly be responsible for an intelligently designed universe.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.
I may defend your right to free speech, but i won't help you pass out flyers.
Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.
--Voltaire
Nietzsche isn't dead. How do I know he lives? He lives in my mind.