(May 1, 2012 at 11:14 pm)Godschild Wrote:
tegh Wrote:I'm really not sure what you are. But if you say you're not calvinist, I'll assume you're not.
I was never calvinist, and the view that I was originally attacking isn't calvinist. If you think it's calvinist, I think that's only because ultimately, free will isn't at all compatible with theism. But many theists think it is, so to avoid getting into debate about libertarianism verses determinism, I thought it would be fun (perhaps I'm a masochist) to poke at some problems I noticed within Christian libertarian (not at all related to the political libertarian) views on witnessing and the destiny of the human beings.
I believe that free will is essential to Christianity, as essential as God's love is, and I do not think I need to elaborate on His love. If we are not free agents, and I believe God allows us to be, then God's love has no meaning for salvation. If we are not free agents, then why the sacrifice of Christ, God shows His love to us through this. In Christ's own words, "what greater love hath a man than to lay down his life for another". Your position was that God had to strike a balance between the saved and lost, and ultimately God saved those He chose and sent to hell those He did not choose, this is predestination, a determination before the cause. What would qualify this as predetermination, God's foreknowledge, He would have known the ones He would choose and in that choosing leave man completely out of any decision.
Quote:I'm Southern Baptist and believe all will be given a chance at salvation
tegh Wrote:And I assumed that they would in the view I'm critiquing.
Quote:God will and can use those He desires because of His foreknowledge, Judas and Pharaoh are two examples.
tegh Wrote:Foreknowledge is precisely the the attribute of God that poses the greatest problem to libertarianism. If God is perfect, all-knowing, and has complete foreknowledge, then everything that he knows will come to pass, must come to pass, otherwise he isn't perfect, all-knowing, and all-foreknowing.
Foreknowledge is not predetermination. Just because God has foreknowledge of all history, and that history will come to pass, doesn't pose a problem for free will. The individuals in that history are free to make their decision as they see fit. Notice decision is in the singular, one decision that all are free to make, salvation. Outside of salvation it's ultimately up to God, through His will.
tegh Wrote:Libertarians use middle knowledge which I have assumed in my original posts to get around this problem. I don't think this solves the problem, but I'll just play along. In middle knowledge, it is thought that God imagined all logically possible worlds he could create with free beings. In all worlds, it is inevitable that evil would exist because for some reason, free beings always would start trouble. If it were possible to create a world in which all free beings would never freely do evil, he would have created that one, and we would be having a great time right now in some utopian paradise instead bickering about hell, evil, predestination and killing each other, etc. But that world isn't possible, so he created the next best thing which is the world were in now. Also supposedly, this world has an "optimum" number of free beings going to heaven and going to hell (as there is no possible world in which every free being would go to heaven and none to hell). Now, I really can't see how this solves the problem because ultimately God created the world after he "pictured" it in his mind among the various options. He could have just chose not to create the world. It seems to me that God is still ultimately to blame for the existence of evil and suffering in the world because he started the chain reaction that led up to it all. After viewing all the possible worlds, and seeing that evil happens in all of them, he should have said "Well, I'll be damned. Guess I can't make a universe after all. I guess I'll just watch TV instead." I would prefer non-existence as opposed to hell if given the choice. So if my criticisms sound similar to problems posed by deterministic views, it's not because I'm assuming Calvinism, it's because alternatives seem to boil down to determinism eventually.
I have no problem with God determining history, He tells us that He has chosen the leaders of the nations, God determined when in history to send Christ into the world, He determined that the Jewish nation would be torn apart and scattered all over the world, so as not to interfere with Christianity. Through His will, God determined how much control He would assert over evil, why, so that everyone would have a free choice about their eternal destination. You see, all the determining God does, is in the interest of our free will of deciding to accept Christ or not, and through that decision receive the grace that brings forgiveness.
Quote:God is love, and there is no way I can believe that God would predestine anyone to eternal punishment.
tegh Wrote:You may believe that if you wish, but it's ultimately God who made the universe and he knew what would happen.
Again knowing, determining and whatever has nothing to do with us choosing God or not choosing God, simple really.
God loves those who believe and those who do not and the same goes for me, you have no choice in this matter. That puts the matter of total free will to rest.
