(July 22, 2014 at 1:38 pm)FatAndFaithless Wrote: One of the big questions that I like to ask about heaven is: is there free will in heaven? Because one of the most common things I hear theists say is that God doesn't directly and indisputably reveal himself to every individual because he doesn't want to break their free will by forcing belief in and worship of himself upon them. However in heaven one would assume that the existence and character of God would be indisputable and directly present to everyone, so they lose the ability to disbelieve. It seems like heaven would be full of robots.
Exactly. As much as Christians will fap to free will to solve theodicy, the standard notion of heaven tends to completely unravel that. They're left with three options:
1) No free will in heaven. Then why is it so important for 80 years on Earth if we live for infinity years in heaven without it?
2) Free will in heaven, but we just always choose to be good. Then why are we able to be bad here on earth?
3) God needs to test us before we can be rewarded with heaven. Why? It is either arbitrary or a system to which a non-omnipotent god is bound.
As soon as they admit to an (eternal!) existence where free will is no longer important, their whole world view surrounding the problem of evil falls apart. I've never gotten a good answer to that. The best I get is apologists trying to run a wide enough circle long enough hoping that I don't notice when they come back to where they started. It's a lot of bouncing back and forth between "God is great and all powerful", "God can't see the future and needs to test us", "God is just and needs to punish wickedness", and "God needs to know who really loves him. Do you want to be a robot?".
