Could the world have been radically different and would it have been better?

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I’ve wondered about this question for a while and whenever I come up with replies they’re always kind of unsatisfactory if I have to share them with somebody else. Today was such a day and I realized I don’t have a good reply. In case somebody asks me this, here’s the dilemma and I hope somebody treated it already.

So God is all-powerful. Two problems arise when trying to wrap my mind around that + some things to do with what I’ll vaguely term the laws of logic.

Example of one of the “laws” of logic:

Premise:

A=B
B=C

Conclusion

A=C

Now two problems arise for me; a simpler less relevant one and a more complicated and important one.

The more complicated one goes something as follows:

God created these rules, right? I mean God could’ve willed it for A=B and B=C to mean that C does not equal A. It doesn’t make sense in our world but it could’ve made sense right? So could have a world without freedom made sense? Could have a world without evil make sense? Could have a world without the possibility of sin made sense? It currently doesn’t because of how freedom and other stuff works… but could it have worked differently and wouldn’t that have been better since it would’ve led to people not being separated from God? This leads to the following issue; anything a person can envision and some things which a person can’t God could’ve/ has created. So if we could’ve envisioned a perfect world… then why isn’t it like that? I know the answer is there somehow and that God’s obviously right; I just don’t know what the answer is and why.

The second problem is simpler and it isn’t really a problem as much as a question;

Can God do something paradoxical?

Many thanks. I bet Aquinas or somebody treated this somewhere somehow.
 
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Ioana said:
God created these rules, right?
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Nope, man created these rules so we could create some order and understanding of what we observed and thought.

The Bible certainly doesn’t have any revelations showing God said
  • If A=B
  • and B=C
  • Then A=C
 
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Yes but the world functions by these rules. It didn’t have to.
 
I think that when God created us in his own image - that means that we have free will. And, I believe, that if he omitted the free will part so that we would all have no choice but to lead an ideal life - we would be lesser beings.

Not to compare you with God, but imagine that you are a great inventor. You invent robots that can play a symphony. You build robots that can each play an instrument - and they learn to play together perfectly and beautifully. But from the point of view of a robot, that robot can play the violin or viola or cello, etc. A friend of yours suggests that your symphony would be better if you built each robot with the ability to choose its own instrument - or to not play at all. So you create some kind of Artificial Intelligence so make the robot self-aware. You want to take your robots on a world tour - so you need to make sure that you have enough of them to play each instrument. But their reward is going on this tour with you - so if they choose to not learn an instrument - or too many play violin - then only the best will accompany you.

So which the robots would you rather be? The first would automatically have gone on the tour with you - but would have had not choice in the matter - the latter would have the chance to go with you, but only if each chose a route that satisfied you. And, as the inventor, I think you would be more satisfied knowing that the robots that accompanied you - chose to.

I don’t think you can take the free will out of the picture and still maintain a meaningful relationship. But the downside of free will is that some will choose to reject God.
 
Ioana said:
Yes but the world functions by these rules. It didn’t have to.
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No, you missed my point. The rules are our best effort to describe the world, we created the rules.

Example, we have created many ‘rules’ that are still useful but are in fact wrong. Gravity doesn’t exactly follow the basic formulas you learned in Physics.

I expect most rules and theories we create are wrong, but serve a purpose for a time.
 
Yes, I totally agree and get the analogy.

But this only works because freedom is meaningful. It didn’t have to be if you get what I mean.
 
Ioana said:
But this only works because freedom is meaningful. It didn’t have to be if you get what I mean.
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No, free will had to be meaningful. Without it, there would be no possibility of being able to love God. And that’s what He wanted. So, a world without free will, despite anything else it might have, would be definition be worse than any other possibility out there.

(BTW, your “laws of logic” aren’t laws of logic. They’re one property of mathematics – that is, the ‘transitive property of equality’. If you’re talking about the general form (the “if… then”) of the argument, but not what’s being asserted, then you’re talking logic, but only in generalities. 😉 )
 
But what I mean is couldn’t God have made it possible to love Him without freedom?
 
That’s self refuting, because the definition of love is a voluntary gift of oneself for the benefit of another. An involuntary gift of oneself isn’t love by definition. For the same reason you can’t draw a square circle.

I wonder if you mean to question whether an all-powerful God can create a contradiction, which is a somewhat larger,well known philosophical argument that makes for some interesting exercises. The short answer is no, and that it doesn’t detract from His all-powerful nature.

God cannot contradict his nature and still be God as we define God. If God were able to create a rock so big He couldn’t lift it, His nature would conflict with Himself and He couldn’t be God, which is an all-powerful being. Were God able to kill himself, he wouldn’t be God, which is a necessary eternal being.

If God didn’t create us with the freedom to not love, we wouldn’t be able to love.
 
But it didn’t have to be this way; love didn’t have to be a voluntary gift. I’m curious about why God can’t create a contradiction.

Why does your last statement have to be so?
 
Ioana said:
Can God do something paradoxical?

Many thanks. I bet Aquinas or somebody treated this somewhere somehow.
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Well I think because god loves everyone he let’s us have our own world where everything makes sense. We just have to be good and use everything we are given well to get into heaven, right? I think that make this all make sense.
 
Ioana said:
But what I mean is couldn’t God have made it possible to love Him without freedom?
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I say ‘no’. Without freedom, there cannot be love. Without the freedom to choose to love, what you get is servitude, or toadyism, or pretense.

Freedom is what makes love ‘love’. 🤷‍♂️
 
Ioana said:
But it didn’t have to be this way; love didn’t have to be a voluntary gift. I’m curious about why God can’t create a contradiction.

Why does your last statement have to be so?
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Love does have to be a voluntary gift because that’s what we define love to be. Your question doesn’t make any more sense than asking why a square can’t have three sides.

It is true that God had the capability of making us like the animals of the land and sea, without the capacity for free will. But we can see that if he did that, we wouldn’t be capable of doing any of the things that require a free will to accomplish. We wouldn’t have any more of a capacity to love than a chicken or a donkey does.
 
Well we could’ve had all the things that make love good without the need for the “hard” stuff without making it weird if the basic tenants on how the world operates were different I guess.
 
Basically the thing is:

I can conceive of a better world. Person X can conceive of a better world. God is all powerful. God could’ve created that perfect world right? If yes then why not? If no then that just wouldn’t sound right.
 
Ioana said:
I can conceive of a better world. Person X can conceive of a better world.
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It all comes down to what it means to be a “better world”. At best, it comes down to a difference of opinion between you and God. At worst, it becomes “I know better than God.”
 
Not quite sure what you mean. “Clearly I don’t”… what?

In any case, what I’m getting at is that, although the world that you or Person X conceives of might seem better (in terms of this aspect or that aspect), it’s (IMHO) not actually better, at least in terms of how well it fits God’s plan.
 
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