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Vico
Guest
That is not a fact. God predestines in and through our free will choices because God is all-knowing and all-powerful knowing what we will do because he knows all things.
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tony12356
Guest
That is a contradiction. God destines a curtain action in and through our ability to make curtain actions.
So x chooses what y does and allows y to choose.
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Vico
Guest
No because it is not determined by a positive act of the will of God what that choice will be, but the free will choice is known by God.
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tony12356
Guest
My argument is that God chooses what we do, since he created everything in the universe while knowing what results will play out when making those things. Since I exist within the universe, then I can’t have free will.
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IWantGod
Guest
There is nothing in the fact of God timelessly knowing what you are going to do that determines the fact that you are going to do it. If you were not going to do it, how would God have knowledge of it? God only has knowledge of it because you did it and God’s timeless perspective relative to the universe allows him to see it. The fact that you cannot change God’s knowledge simply means that it was you that determined your choice and therefore God’s knowledge of it can’t change…
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Vera_Ljuba
Guest
If that is true, then God’s knowledge is contingent upon our actions. And since God is “simple”, therefore God is contingent. No matter how you twist it, you have a nice, fat contradiction on your hand. Either God knows what you will do, because you do it, and then God is contingent, or you do it because God knows it, and then you have no free will.
This nifty little contradiction cannot be resolved. God is exactly as logically incoherent as a married bachelor and therefore he cannot exist.And this happens to be one of those logical problems mentioned in #5 that the believers try (but fail) to explain away.
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IWantGod
Guest
Gods knowledge is not contingent in an ontological sense because God’s being actualizes and sustains the effects of all secondary causes. And thus it is impossible for God not to know. God knows because of his being in relation to those causes. In otherwords God knows himself perfectly, and that is why he knows you because you are contingently present in his being…
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Vera_Ljuba
Guest
Read your own text, highlighted in red. You said that our actions are primary, and God’s knowledge is secondary.
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IWantGod
Guest
I apoligise if i lead you into confusion. But it was not my intention to imply that human actions are ontologically primary and God’s knowledge is secondary. That’s an error on my part.
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Vera_Ljuba
Guest
No need to apologize. So you now consider God’s knowledge as primary, and our actions secondary. That means that we are simply puppets, who play out God’s knowledge. No more “free will”.
And that is problem for you. Either our actions are primary, and God knows what we do because we do it, or God’s knowledge is primary, and then we are only puppets playing out his knowledge. (There are two more possibilities, but I will not get there, unless you want it.)
Now, just for the fun of it, here is another argument that God’s knowledge is contingent. God’s knowledge is contingent upon the “fact” that he keeps it secret, that he does not reveal it to us. Because if he would reveal what he knows about the future, we could simply do the opposite of the “revealed” knowledge, thereby invalidate it.
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IWantGod
Guest
I explained my position in post 47.
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upant
Guest
the simple answer is that a “true” moral value can’t be globally defined so therefore it can’t exist.
what is a moral value? what is right and what is wrong? what is truth? is the way you define morals the same as the slave holder in another part of the world?
i think the other side of the question needs to be demonstrated. prove how a “true” moral value can exist without a God that is globally acceptable.
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Vico
Guest
Not the Catholic teaching, where man is a secondary cause. Through the providence of God there are necessary causes for some effects which come to be of necessity, and contingent causes for other things that come to be contingently.
meltzerboy
New member
You may have something there. At the same time, however, the ‘true’ moral values you speak of also depend to an extent on which G-d (or gods) you believe in as well as the interpretation of the will of the G-d you believe in even if you believe in the same G-d as another person.
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tony12356
Guest
Yes, but how does god solve this problem?
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tony12356
Guest
Ok. That still isn’t a solution to the argument.
meltzerboy
New member
It is only through our interpretation of G-d’s will that theists believe the “problem” may be solved. That interpretation varies somewhat from one religion to another.
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tony12356
Guest
I think you’re missing the point. My question is how can god provide a true moral value.
meltzerboy
New member
Do you mean literally? In that case, through the Scriptures, through oral tradition, through the Magisterium of the Church, through the Written and Oral Law, and so on.
For theists, there is faith that G-d, in whichever form or manifestation one believes, is the epitome and essence of morality and so whatever He commands is, by definition, a true moral value. Judaism, however, steps outside the Euthyphro dilemma: does G-d command morality because it is good or is it good because G-d commands it? It tends toward the latter; but the question itself is irrelevant according to Jewish thought.
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Vico
Guest
It one theological argument which is actually logical. There are others such as the Calvinist which seems to be circular. Since there is disagreement the best one can hope for is to learn many lines of argument.
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