RE: Is there free will in heaven?
November 10, 2011 at 12:37 am
(This post was last modified: November 10, 2011 at 12:39 am by toro.)
I'm stepping into this discussion late, and while I've read about a third of it, if I'm reiterating existant points, let me know please.
The issue I have with free-will in heaven is this would seem to make the concept of heaven either non-sensical or pointless.
Let us assume first that heaven and hell exist (topic of discussion). Let us also assume that when people go to hell, they remain there for eternity. Here, eternity literally means forever, or infinity in time.
so...
1. If people have free-will in heaven, then people can act as they wish and do as they wish.
1.a. If they can interact with others, this means potentially people can sin against others if they desire.
1.b. If they can't interact with others, then they can sin against made-up people if they desire.
1.c. While a person may be able to want to do something bad, they are not allowed to.
2. If there is free will, this allows the possibility to act against God.
2.a. When a person acts against God's will, they are sent to hell for eternity.
2.b. When a person acts against God's will, they can apologize and remain in heaven.
3. There is no free-will in heaven.
This presents several odd results.
1.a
In the case of 2.a, this means a person may hurt another, then be sent to hell for eternity. Given that the afterlife continues for eternity, the possibile opportunities for sin grow with time and the probability that an individual will go to hell approaches 100%. This results, as time gows to infinity, in all individuals going to hell. This makes life and heaven little more than a temporary break from the punishment God will to enact on everyone. Furthermore, there is little difference as time goes to infinity in going to heaven and not going to heaven as the relative time spent not being punished goes to zero. It would therefore then also seem that God wants everyone to go to hell.
In the case of 2.b, this means people remain with other people after doing them harm. This gives heaven little conceptual difference from Earth in that it allows continual violence between people. However, battles may continue with people constantly doing harm but feeling no pain.
1.b
In the case of 2.a, this is the same as above. A person may break the laws of God, only with imaginiary people.
In the case of 2.b, this would seem to mean that the rules God asks people to abide by are meaningless. They are not based on morality, but are simply arbitrary guidelines he doesn't care about and it is alright to break them later, just not now. This would also indicate that heaven is little more than a giant video game, and we don't actually interact with our loved ones.
1.c
In this case, free-will is rather meaningless and heaven is little more than sitting around thinking to oneself.
3.
In this case, heaven consists of not being the individuals we are and simply being forced to do what God wants us to do. This sort of seems to defeat the purpose of going through existence in the first place.
As a humourous but somewhat serious side-note. 1.a/2.a actually would seem to explain why God doesn't bother to show himself to anyone. They all end up going to hell anyway.
Thoughts?
The issue I have with free-will in heaven is this would seem to make the concept of heaven either non-sensical or pointless.
Let us assume first that heaven and hell exist (topic of discussion). Let us also assume that when people go to hell, they remain there for eternity. Here, eternity literally means forever, or infinity in time.
so...
1. If people have free-will in heaven, then people can act as they wish and do as they wish.
1.a. If they can interact with others, this means potentially people can sin against others if they desire.
1.b. If they can't interact with others, then they can sin against made-up people if they desire.
1.c. While a person may be able to want to do something bad, they are not allowed to.
2. If there is free will, this allows the possibility to act against God.
2.a. When a person acts against God's will, they are sent to hell for eternity.
2.b. When a person acts against God's will, they can apologize and remain in heaven.
3. There is no free-will in heaven.
This presents several odd results.
1.a
In the case of 2.a, this means a person may hurt another, then be sent to hell for eternity. Given that the afterlife continues for eternity, the possibile opportunities for sin grow with time and the probability that an individual will go to hell approaches 100%. This results, as time gows to infinity, in all individuals going to hell. This makes life and heaven little more than a temporary break from the punishment God will to enact on everyone. Furthermore, there is little difference as time goes to infinity in going to heaven and not going to heaven as the relative time spent not being punished goes to zero. It would therefore then also seem that God wants everyone to go to hell.
In the case of 2.b, this means people remain with other people after doing them harm. This gives heaven little conceptual difference from Earth in that it allows continual violence between people. However, battles may continue with people constantly doing harm but feeling no pain.
1.b
In the case of 2.a, this is the same as above. A person may break the laws of God, only with imaginiary people.
In the case of 2.b, this would seem to mean that the rules God asks people to abide by are meaningless. They are not based on morality, but are simply arbitrary guidelines he doesn't care about and it is alright to break them later, just not now. This would also indicate that heaven is little more than a giant video game, and we don't actually interact with our loved ones.
1.c
In this case, free-will is rather meaningless and heaven is little more than sitting around thinking to oneself.
3.
In this case, heaven consists of not being the individuals we are and simply being forced to do what God wants us to do. This sort of seems to defeat the purpose of going through existence in the first place.
As a humourous but somewhat serious side-note. 1.a/2.a actually would seem to explain why God doesn't bother to show himself to anyone. They all end up going to hell anyway.
Thoughts?
