Will Humans Have Freewill in Heaven?

[The Inquisition]

I could have easily shown him love by just LOVING him. I don't need to exercise a warrant of suffering just to show my love. And I can sure think of a better system that I could put in place to where mercy would not need to be shown. Showing the nature of mercy does not justify suffering in the slightest of means. And if it does, I would want nothing to do with that epistemology. 

So the dilemma still stands and cannot cohesively be negated regardless of the mental gymnastics and hoops theists try to jump through.

This is Christianity's greatest failure, there's no reason for hell. The myth writers could have simply said consciousness terminated at death, but the hell thing had to be put in there, the writers of the myth had to attempt to control people in a completely non-falsifiable way so they issued the greatest imaginable threat without any tangible proof -hell. Instead of choosing an ascendant path to appeal to people positively, they chose the low road.

It worked, the myth writers certainly understood how to control people. They created one of the most sadistic imaginings possible while lowering Christianity to a simple Pavlov's dog experiment writ large across humanity.

[Drich]

So you believe in 'free will' because others do, even when the bible says our will is not our own? That we are slaves to sin.. Why? Is everything you believe based on popular thought? Do you not independently verify anything? If enough people were fanatical about the earth being flat, would you believe it? Would you ever believe it was ok to kill a baby if you simply reidentified it with a latin word instead of an English one?

Again look it up the concept of free will. If you do you will see it is a greek philosophy concept and not a biblical one (meaning 2000 year old concept rather than a 5 to 7thousand year old concept.) Not to mention No where in the bible is free will ever mentioned.

At best well meaning people take this greek philosophy and mislabel aspects of the bible and call it 'free will'. For instance the singular choice Adam and Eve had in the garden.

Is having only the one choice (eat the forbidden fruit or not) follow any definition of 'free will?' Giving a person only one choice is pushing them down a predestined path. That is the oppsite of free will. again if you look at the definition of free will having only one choice does not follow our understanding of the word.

To have free will means to make choices outside of any predestined path. and only being given one choice means in the garden they did not have free will.
Adam and Eve simply had been given the freedom to make a single choice. This same choice is given to each of us on an indivisual bases to make. That one choice is to follow God or not. One free choice is not free will. slaves were often given many choices to make on their own, but it does not make their will their own either. Here we only have one.

So now you might ask why do bad thing happen in this life? For the same reason the doctrine of 'free will' states without the 'free will'. Because Adam eve and their offspring were all cast outside the garden where they were made to live a 'fallen' life, away from God's direct grace and His protection, because of their sin. Sin has consenquences, and being separated from God because of sin, means being separated from His glory and all He offers.

Before there was anything called philosophy, religious accounts of man's fate explored the degree of human freedom permitted by superhuman gods. Creation myths often end in adventures of the first humans clearly making choices and being held responsible. But a strong fatalism is present in those tales that foretell the future, based on the idea that the gods have foreknowledge of future events. The myth-makers rarely challenge the implausible view that the gods' foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom. This was an early form of the idea that causal determinism and logical necessity are compatible with free will. 

Sure greek philosophers may have actually teased out the concepts but those concepts were in place well before. The bible and other holy books don't have to actually mention the words free will. 

To have free will means to make choices outside of any predestined path.

 

I don't agree with free will. If we have anything, I think it is illusory at best. It sounds like you may come to the same conclusions but just under a different context.

The bible may not have to mention the words free will inorder for people to create doctrine and worship God as if they did indeed have free will. Clearly. The problem though is in Biblically described Christianity we are all described as slaves, and as we have hashed out many many times now. A slave's will is not his own. He is not Free. His will is bound to that of His Master. the question Christianity originally posited is not one of whether or not we have 'free will' but who do you serve/Who is your master. God or Sin.

"Free will" was introduced as a scape goat to answer the hard questions. However the problem is it conflicts with who we all are in relation to God, and it creates inconsistancies in scripture. however if we learn to speak where the bible speaks and remain silent where the bible is silent then those inconsistancies go away.

[Godscreated]

GC,

You have concluded that we will not have freewill in Heaven.  Despite what you find doubtful, I have heard Christians who are far more knowledgeable about the Bible than you say that your god allowed sin to enter the world because he wanted us to have freewill and freewill means the possibility of sin. They used the worded freewill specifically. This is  what I've heard and rad them say. Where in the Bible they got this doctrine, I do not know. My point is that this doctrine precludes the possibility of freewill in Heaven if Heaven will be a place where there is no sin. My argument is valid for those who hold this view. Since you do not then it is you who are irrelevant in this thread.

Nor is it dishonest for me to put my will above the will of a god who doesn't exist. There is no justice or love in a god who would punish people who have no freewill. For you to say that god can do what the fuck he wants with his fucking creation and who the fuck are we to question his fucking will is just fucking masochistic.

You really find it necessary to use such language, it shows your lack of confidence in your own argument. Like I said, freewill, man doesn't have, choice we do. Freewill is never mentioned nor implied in the Bible, so why not make the argument on freewill existing for man, this would be a relevant argument.  The only real choice we have is in choosing Christ, as I said after that God will use people to further His ultimate will, it's His creation and thus His will upon it is dominant. I'm not saying that God doesn't allow us to make many decisions for ourselves, He does, this is quite apparent.
Also, I said that most Christians use the word freewill in place of choice far to often and I'm as guilty of this as the next, I'm going to try and change this, though habit takes time to change.
If we had real freewill we would be able to over ride God's ultimate will and that want happen, His plan is set and that's the way it will be, period.

GC

[tonechaser77]

Before there was anything called philosophy, religious accounts of man's fate explored the degree of human freedom permitted by superhuman gods. Creation myths often end in adventures of the first humans clearly making choices and being held responsible. But a strong fatalism is present in those tales that foretell the future, based on the idea that the gods have foreknowledge of future events. The myth-makers rarely challenge the implausible view that the gods' foreknowledge is compatible with human freedom. This was an early form of the idea that causal determinism and logical necessity are compatible with free will. 

Sure greek philosophers may have actually teased out the concepts but those concepts were in place well before. The bible and other holy books don't have to actually mention the words free will. 

 

I don't agree with free will. If we have anything, I think it is illusory at best. It sounds like you may come to the same conclusions but just under a different context.

The bible may not have to mention the words free will inorder for people to create doctrine and worship God as if they did indeed have free will. Clearly. The problem though is in Biblically described Christianity we are all described as slaves, and as we have hashed out many many times now. A slave's will is not his own. He is not Free. His will is bound to that of His Master. the question Christianity originally posited is not one of whether or not we have 'free will' but who do you serve/Who is your master. God or Sin.

"Free will" was introduced as a scape goat to answer the hard questions. However the problem is it conflicts with who we all are in relation to God, and it creates inconsistancies in scripture. however if we learn to speak where the bible speaks and remain silent where the bible is silent then those inconsistancies go away.

If you are using slavery as imagery for not having any will of your own AND agreeing that this is the correct way to view your relationship with god does this make you in agreement of slavery now? If this is the best design of imagery a god could come up with then that doesn’t say much about god. 

Paraphrased argument: “Either you are a slave to sin or a slave to me and if you are a slave to me it actually brings you much freedom even though my definition of freedom is not to have any mind of your own.”

This sounds more like antiquated views of pro-slavery being squeezed into a false metaphor to fit certain ideas of how god worked not vice versa.
The fact that you support this ideal must mean you still support slavery today. So the cognitive dissonance lies in your court. If you say you don’t agree with slavery today, what mental gymnastics do you perform to not agree to neo-slavery but agree to being a slave to god?

In reality, we don’t know there is a god and there certainly doesn’t appear to be any justifiable evidence. (We don’t have to go through all that because I’m aware of all the apologetics that are constantly waved around). Nevertheless, a deterministic view of the universe and every action causing a reaction down to the very decision of our next thought / action, seems much more logical. Free will seems to be an illusion within this.

[Rhondazvous]

If I remember correctly, Augustine addressed the issue of free will in heaven, so all they would have to be is well-read.

By the way, if you want to read religious craziness from someone who was relatively intelligent for a religious nut, Augustine is a good choice.  Of course, he was still a religious nut, and much of his writing is tedious.  Very tedious.  But he is much more intelligent than the Christians one typically finds on internet forums.  Much, much more intelligent.

If you want a suggestion for a start, let me know.  If you want to know what kind of jerk he was, you can read his Confessions, but make sure you get an unabridged version, as he has an interesting discussion of time that is often edited out of abridged versions.  But if you wanted an introduction to his views, probably you should go with The Enchiridion on Faith, Hope, and Love.  Both of those books are much shorter than his City of God, and they are more than tedious enough.  I doubt you will have the stomach for anything longer than those short books, and you may not have the stomach for them.

Just to be clear, I am not particularly recommending that you read those books.  If you want something actually good, you will want to read something from a different author.  If you want good books that deal with religion, I suggest David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion or his Natural History of Religion.  The first deals with philosophical arguments regarding the existence of god and related matters, and the second is a history or prehistory of the development of religion.  David Hume was both a philosopher and historian.  His History of England was once very popular, though of course it does not cover anything that has happened in the past couple of hundred years; he died in 1776.

I just downloaded two of Augustine's books in audiobook format. The City of God and Confessions Books I-XIII. I guess that's the unabridged version since they also have a version that only goes to Book X.

Oh damn. I see Drippy and GC in here back to back. What have I started? Oh well, let me go back up here and see what they're talking about. This is going to get interesting.

[Rhondazvous]

Nor have you ever gone off the grid.

If you had you know that every aspect of your current lifestyle binds you to a very narrow way of living. That's not to say you don't like living addicted to something nor does it mean you may want or give up your current life style. That's not makes you a slave. What makes you a slave is that you can with out loosing all that you are now.

A truly free man is not bound by consenquence, nor fear of loosing what he cherishes.

I feel for you, man. I really do.

I think I'll stop teasing Drich. Maybe.

[rado84]

There's no free will in heaven nor in hell. "Good guys go to heaven, bad guys go to hell. Period." and that's it! You can't choose where you wanna go, so that's not free will at all. Someone else is choosing for you - again. If there are no pretty boys in heaven, then that's no heaven at all, it's a torture! So keep your heaven and I'm going to hell after the pretty boys!  

If heaven and hell did actually exist, that is.

[Rhondazvous]

This is Christianity's greatest failure, there's no reason for hell. The myth writers could have simply said consciousness terminated at death, but the hell thing had to be put in there, the writers of the myth had to attempt to control people in a completely non-falsifiable way so they issued the greatest imaginable threat without any tangible proof -hell. Instead of choosing an ascendant path to appeal to people positively, they chose the low road.

It worked, the myth writers certainly understood how to control people. They created one of the most sadistic imaginings possible while lowering Christianity to a simple Pavlov's dog experiment writ large across humanity.

Fear is a strong motivator. But where would Christianity be without hell? There'd be nothing for Jesus to save me from so I wouldn't need him and I wouldn't need to give ten % of my income to the preacher.

[Rhondazvous]

The bible may not have to mention the words free will inorder for people to create doctrine and worship God as if they did indeed have free will. Clearly. The problem though is in Biblically described Christianity we are all described as slaves, and as we have hashed out many many times now. A slave's will is not his own. He is not Free. His will is bound to that of His Master. the question Christianity originally posited is not one of whether or not we have 'free will' but who do you serve/Who is your master. God or Sin.

"Free will" was introduced as a scape goat to answer the hard questions. However the problem is it conflicts with who we all are in relation to God, and it creates inconsistancies in scripture. however if we learn to speak where the bible speaks and remain silent where the bible is silent then those inconsistancies go away.

John 8:31-32
"To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples.
Then you will know the truth and the truth will make you free."

Jesus and Paul seem to have a difference of opinion here. Don't know whose slave you are Drich, since if you're following Jesus, the man said you will be free.

[Rhondazvous]

You really find it necessary to use such language, it shows your lack of confidence in your own argument. Like I said, freewill, man doesn't have, choice we do. Freewill is never mentioned nor implied in the Bible, so why not make the argument on freewill existing for man, this would be a relevant argument.  The only real choice we have is in choosing Christ, as I said after that God will use people to further His ultimate will, it's His creation and thus His will upon it is dominant. I'm not saying that God doesn't allow us to make many decisions for ourselves, He does, this is quite apparent.
Also, I said that most Christians use the word freewill in place of choice far to often and I'm as guilty of this as the next, I'm going to try and change this, though habit takes time to change.
If we had real freewill we would be able to over ride God's ultimate will and that want happen, His plan is set and that's the way it will be, period.

GC

1 Corinthians 12:3
No one can say "Jesus is Lord" except in the Holy Spirit.

So, no GC, we don't have freewill to do that according to Paul. But as I told Drich, Jesus has something else to say.

I just proved Paul wrong by saying "Jesus is Lord." If I can only do that in the Holy Spirit then how can I, in the same breath, say "Fuck Jesus?"