(May 30, 2017 at 10:42 pm)LadyForCamus Wrote: I'm interested in getting the Christian perspective on my thoughts below. I've posed them within threads before, but have yet to come across a counter POV. (I'm sure I'll get plenty here. [emoji41])
If God knew inherently from the "moment" he decided to create humanity that we could never possibly satisfy his ideal, and went ahead with his creation anyway, then he:
1. failed to fulfill his ideal, and therefore isn't omnipotent.
2. is wholly responsible for the failure.
How could we, as the flawed creation, possibly bear any of the responsibility for our shortcomings? If I leave my 2-year-old alone in front of plate-full of cookies with instructions not to touch, and he eats one, is it just of me to punish him afterward? I knew ahead of time the inherent "nature" of my toddler does not allow for that degree of impulse control. I have set him up to fail. Is it reasonable to hold him responsible for his disobedience?
On the other hand, if there was ever a "time" when God envisioned a particular outcome for humanity, but things unfolded differently than he originally intended, then he's not omniscient.
My understanding of the Christian narrative is that free will was always part of God's plan for humanity. So, God purposefully rigged humans with a wild card, and then blamed us when the wild card played out exactly as he knew it would? And further, he manipulated us into believing it was our fault we failed to live up to his expectations, when in fact, it could have gone no other way. He set up a thinly veiled "test" of righteousness that he knew full well Adam and Eve couldn't pass, and then used the result to lay life-long blame, guilt, and shame onto all of humanity.
From where I sit, these actions not only call god's supposed Omni-attributes into question, they do not seem to me the actions and decisions of what most would reasonably consider a "just being". Thoughts?
I sum it up like this:
If God knew exactly what we would do with our "free will" given any initial conditions and then actualized the initial conditions of his choosing, then he is the cause of all good and all bad.
If God created sentient beings not knowing what they would "freely choose" to do, then he is quite reckless and the blame still lies with him.
As a disclaimer, I find the notion of "free will" to be fundamentally nonsensical.
Jesus is like Pinocchio. He's the bastard son of a carpenter. And a liar. And he wishes he was real.
