(July 11, 2015 at 5:37 pm)Neimenovic Wrote:(July 10, 2015 at 9:12 am)Just Yesterday Randy Carson Wrote: If God were to make a more overt gesture of His existence, He would interfere with our free will.
It's just that simple.
Quote:However, my position (if anyone should ask) is that God HAS revealed Himself dramatically to some people AND they still had free will and the ability to choose how they would respond. Moses could have seen the burning bush, and run the other way. Mary could have said, "No."
You're a fucking liar.
I'm not sure how you conclude that I'm a liar from this. I think that if God WERE to go BIG on the revelation thing, it would be coercive in the sense that we really wouldn't have any choice but to go along with the program. For this reason, God has revealed himself in some dramatic ways to some people so that they would know that they WERE dealing with God, but without denying them the right to say no. Most obviously, since He is God, He would be in a position to only approach people that He knew would respond positively. Like Mary, for example. I doubt she was chosen purely at random, do you?
Jonah resisted God at first, but in the end, he accepted God's will. Did God violate Jonah's free will? Or did God simply know that Jonah needed more "nudging"? This is a big subject...one I am not really qualified to dwell on. But it seems to me that God knows whose hearts are ultimately open to Him and whose are permanently hardened by their own decisions and will.
