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Robert_Sock
Guest
Help! I’m perplexed again. Is it a paradox that God wanted to create our world?
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davidv
Guest
Why do you think it is a paradox? Is there something evil about wanting?
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Robert_Sock
Guest
God wants seems a contradiction to me. Again, how can a perfect God experience want?
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Robert_Sock
Guest
Does it make sense to say that God willed something He did not necessarily want? To want something suggests changeability in God.
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davidv
Guest
If God is perfect, how could He will what He does not want? What is it about wanting that suggests some lack?
Why does it suggest this?
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Robert_Sock
Guest
It must be based on a changeable desire.
God WILLed.
He willed simply because he willed. God is sovereign.
All that stuff, about willing=wanting=changeability is all in your head. God is sovereign. What he wills, goes.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
Yes, and who placed it there? Do you care to explain how a being can have a will and still be 100% unchangeable.
God’s very existence proves it.
God wills and his will is immutable, just like God.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
Sounds oxymoron to equate ‘will’ to a being who is immutable.
Then you can take your problem up with God, who has revealed through his Word that he both wills and is immutable.
Why this is even an issue is beyond me. From what I can see, it is you who are trying to define will as incompatible with immutability, then trying to fit God into that mold you invented, when in reality, there is no reason why an immutable will cannot coexist with an immutable being, much less a sovereign, almighty One.
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Robert_Sock
Guest
I can see what you’re trying to say here, especially if saying that God is immutable LOVE, but I still cannot see where one’s will can be maintained without ‘changeability’ and ‘want.’ To seek one’s will implies an action.
You are thinking of human will, which is fluid. God isn’t human.
God is not mere immutable love, he is immutable whatever he is, and that includes his sovereign will. Just as with the rest of God, the Divine Will is unchangeable. Nothing in God and of God changes, ever, including his will.
Why do you think will must somehow imply a need for change or even want? God has an unchangeable, sovereign will, and that is enough.
Again you’re inventing premises that have no basis in logic or theology. This is fallacious, which leads to you making fallacious arguments.
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Isca
Guest
I’d say that we can’t apply human thought processes, questions of logic or anything else of that nature to God. 
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spiderweb
Guest
It seems to me that you are equating God’s desire based on human desire or experience. I desire food, then that desire is fulfilled when I eat. Then I desire entertainment, and that desire is fulfilled by watching a movie or something.
God’s desire is to love and to be loved, and this desire is already fulfilled within himself Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Yet this desire does not change, he continues to love and to be loved. There is no change. Thus there is never a time when God lacked anything. Our world, including us, cannot and could not fulfill the all perfect, infinitely loving God’s desire for love. He does not need us to fulfill something which is lacking. Rather the Father wills to extend his love to us so that we may participate in the love that he already has with the Son, through the Holy Spirit. As such he wills that we become “partakers of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4). He wills us to participate in his already perfect love. Our not participating in that, would not affect his already perfect love.
It is not a desire that will be fulfilled in the future, but it is a desire that is always fulfilled within himself. Thus, no changeability.
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SuS33
Guest
The only thing that God wants is to LOVE US. If we allow him to do so, he will do great works in us.
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davidv
Guest
Why?
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Robert_Sock
Guest
Maybe I’m anthropomorphic, but one’s will must have a motivating factor attached to it, which I assume must be changeable.
Catholic scholars insists that our faith be based on faith and reason, and the reasoning from within me suggests that will involves a want that usually gets acted upon one way or another.
The reasoning within you, unfortunately is wrong. I throw the argument back at you: WHY must it be changeable?
God needs no motivating factor, and even if he did, it doesn’t have to be changeable.
And in God’s case, it’s a false assumption because God is SOVEREIGN. His is an absolute, perfect, divine case of BECAUSE I SAY SO.
The problem with your erroneous reasoning is even assuming premises that aren’t even proven.
“Will involves a want.” Says who? the only one making this assertion is you, and you have nothing to base this on. You’ve conjured this out of thin air, and we’re supposed to accept this as fact?
“One’s (in this case, God’s) will must have a motivating factor behind it.” Again, says who? You’re inventing this as a prerequisite for God’s will as if God needs any motivation whatsoever. God is an Unmoved, so motivation is purely nonsense where God is concerned. What IS dogmatically defined, though, is that God is Sovereign.
And even if motivation were a factor, you claim that it MUST be changeable. Says who? This is something you again pulled out of thin air, with no basis whatsoever. Change implies the passage of time, but God is an ever-present Now, which renders change impossible.
Unproven premises make for poor arguments. You say you use reason, but you start off with a classic logical fallacy.
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