Better reasons to quit Christianity

[spockrates]

Love requires a choice, so yes, if we are free to choose, we would have to be free to choose to love, or to not love. If we were not free to choose to not love, we would not be free. I'd say everyone, to one degree, or another, at times chooses not to love. So omniscience, in this case, would only reveal to God that he should create no one, for no one succeeds at loving 100% of the time.

Thanks for the nuanced reply. It is kind of a mystery why a perfect being should create anyone, especially when it involves large amounts of suffering.

Agreed. Suffering has no meaning if it never ends. But if there is an eternity, then the suffering would seem (once there) but a blink of the eye. Reminds me of my sons crying when I took them to to get their first vaccinations. I told them it would sting, but it would be over soon. I didn't like seeing them cry, but I knew the moment of pain would save them a lifetime of pain should they contract the disease against which the vaccine would otherwise protect them. If there is a heaven, then it will be worth it, no matter how severe and prolonged the suffering in time.

There are those who are mistreated who choose to react to their mistreatment by not becoming like those who mistreated them. Victims always have a choice, I think. Suffering even has the potential to make those who suffer more empathetic, and so more apt to love.

Not if they don't survive it.

True. For them I would expect (if there is a God who is both just and loving) that the momentary suffering would be worth it once in eternity.

Please elaborate, as I don't understand.

Sorry. What I'm trying to say is that omniscience is incompatible with free will. Say a Genie granted me perfect knowledge of the future. From that moment I will be incapable of doing anything but what I have already foreseen I will do. The rest of my life will be just going through the motions: I may act surprised, but I won't be. I may appear to change my mind, but it's an illusion, I already know what I'm ultimately going to think.

Yes, that would be true if the omniscient one existed in time and was waiting for the future, but it would not be true is the omniscient one existed outside of time and was already there in the future. God might look at us like one might look at a timeline in an open book. He might already see what we are going to do, but he would not already see what he is going to do, because he would have already done it. God isn't waiting for the future, he is already there.

I think, perhaps we have a different understanding of omnipotence. Omnipotence is not just an unlimited amount of power, it's an unlimited quality (or perfection) of power. God's omnipotence must always be in balance with God's omniscience, so God's omnipotence will never be used to accomplish something that is unwise. God's omnipotence must always be in balance with God's omnibenevolence, so God's omnipotence will never be used to accomplish something that is unloving. The three aspects of God must be in perfect harmony, or God becomes less than perfect. Wisdom, rather than a limit on God's power, is a perfect guiding of God's power. Love, rather a limit on God's power, is a perfect application of God's power.

Sounds sweet. Have you added 'unlimited quality of power' to omnipotence so that omnipotence means 'both unlimited quantity and quality of power' or re-defined omnipotence to 'unlimited quality of power' instead of 'unlimited quantity of power'? Are you defining 'omniscience' as something other than 'knowing everything'?

I don't believe there is such as thing as unlimited quantity of power.

For example, if God had unlimited power (power not limited by his wisdom or love) there would be nothing impossible for him to do. This is not the case, for we read in Hebrews:

...it is impossible for God to lie... .

(Hebrews 6:18)

Since there is something that is impossible for God to do, does this mean he is not all-powerful? No, it means his power is made perfect in wisdom and love.

This might be more persuasive if not of the cognitive acrobatics required to make God consistently truthful. He says to see him is to die but shows himself to people who lived. He tells Adam and Eve that the day they eat the forbidden fruit they will die, but they live for centuries afterwards. He admits to sending prophets lying spirits to deceive the people.

Not if the word die has a different meaning than the one you are attributing to it.

Of course I don't expect a book written by many different people to be very consistent, even about this, but it's a problem for people who take it as the word of God.

Can I take it as written that when you make claims about God, you are deriving them from your understanding of the Christian Bible?

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But here is what I wonder: Does God not lie because he is powerless to lie, or does God not lie because he has the power to lie, but chooses to not lie? If the latter, rather than the former is true, then I'm thinking God truly is all-powerful, but chooses (by reason of wisdom and love) to restrain his power.

I would say the answer depends on whether the version of God you're speaking of has free will.

Actually, it depends on what omnipotent is. I'd say it can be the freedom to choose to do anything, but it cannot possibly be the freedom to do everything. Should I explain my meaning?