I'm going to quote myself again:
As for the last quote, you just showed an example. While free-will brings about a greater good, sometimes, it doesn't and brings the opposite. Yet free-will seems to be a greater good when the goal is character building.
(July 20, 2012 at 11:25 pm)MysticKnight Wrote:(July 20, 2012 at 11:17 pm)Ryantology Wrote: We could have been made so that we innately have all the character we need.
Perhaps (and seemingly to me), this is impossible. We can be created as saints/angel like, but we couldn't have gone through the struggle, and earned value from struggle, and built character in this sense.
I don't think the value that comes out of free-will, and character building, can come out by being automatically given this characteristic.
We can see for example, in Islam, Angels are hardly given that much value, and it's said the human is of much better value if he is righteous. Angels are like robots, don't struggle against the choice of evil, while humans do. We have to struggle against our greed to be charitable, we have to learn to forgive those whom do wrong to us while spite is the natural feelings.
I think giving the value of character building is impossible. It must be earned and striven for.
(July 21, 2012 at 2:38 pm)MysticKnight Wrote: Also perhaps another premise is that for God to create a world which some suffering would bring about a greater good, some suffering would not. Therefore the first premise I purposed in this thread may not be true. It maybe true, it may not be. Perhaps there is delicate balance here we can't articulate.
As for the last quote, you just showed an example. While free-will brings about a greater good, sometimes, it doesn't and brings the opposite. Yet free-will seems to be a greater good when the goal is character building.
