(March 27, 2019 at 5:59 pm)tackattack Wrote:(March 27, 2019 at 4:38 pm)Gae Bolga Wrote:Jesus demonstrated that He knew God's will, didn't want it (had a choice) temporarily but complied with it anyway. If Christians have an issue with that they can take it up with the authors.
Going back to your tasteless example. You might never envision a scenario where you would choose to skullfuck anything. But choices can be made for you, even over your dead body. the actuality is that there is a kid and there is a peter and the 2 can be made to come together, with or without your volition. I notice you're intentionally not saying that you'd "never choose to skullfuck a child." you're just claiming it could never manifest, when there are lots of scenarios where it could be.
I will agree that you don't need will to have sin. Sin is an external. You do need will to commit sin because commit is an action that requires volition or movement. You can act on that external, taking the responsibility from the "Yes there is sin out there" to the "I committed a sin" through volition.
With response to helping the OP, stop letting other people's fears become your fears, and deal with the now.
Ok, I'll elaborate why I think free will is indicative of the ability to sin and why sin is indicative of free will.
If, assuming that God exists and He created Evil and
A. the definition of sin is to act against God's will
B. the definition of free will is independent volition
Then
C. You cannot have B without a choice.
If
1. the nature of God is good and everything else is evil
Then creating evil allowed choice, thus allowing free will.
You can only have free will without sin only if you believe sin, as defined doesn't exist, which I believe you said was your stance. Please fill me in on your definitions of free will and how it is independent of choice.
(March 27, 2019 at 5:07 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: It seems as though God could have simplified all this mess by creating only those people he knew would never, of their own free will, commit a sinful act.Then there would be no free will, thus a planet of robots. See above.
Boru
@fredd bear I understand you accept that God gave us free will because you don't accept the premise.
will (free or not) isn't illusory, it's a fundmental part of the construct. We are not all just blank slates receiving sensory input. Mainly because slates can't cogitate, it takes an information harvester, a force of will, an attention director to narrow our input to something usable an real for us.
As I . said, it's another of those unfalsifiable claims. I'm afraid we will need to agree to differ.