Why not?
The point is that God would have known that Adam/Eve would* freely *choose to obey. In other words, there is a possible world where Adam/Eve freely chose to obey instead of disobey God - why didn’t God create that world?
Better clarity of the absolute negative aspects of abortion while many aspects of indentured servitude and bond slaves gave many very poor people a second chance in turning from lives of crime to good citizens. The gray area of growing civilized treatment of people gave hope that it could be an evil institution turned to good. That was before the new world opened up new torturous and demeaning forms of slavery There is no such hope for abortion.
Heaven has a few bodily persons, but is largely a spiritual place. Our Resurrection comes at the End of time just as the New Heaven and Earth are also brought about. I think the two must go together.
Maybe there is no possible world where everyone choose good over evil - every time.
Might as well ask the alternate question.
What if the “robot” argument fails to convince us? What if, to us, the robot argument is a cop-out, a ridiculous attempt at trying to make sense of something that is crystal clear: God wants his company to be hard earned, he loves to throw a couple of hurdles here and there for his good pleasure. It’s best to not be as robots and have hell as a possibility, if only Heaven existed as an eternal destination, this life would be soooo boring, couldn’t stand it…
We’re not talking about “the power of the greatest commandments” whatever those may be.
I don’t know, you tell me. Better yet, simply tell me how we can distinguish correct answers to those questions from incorrect answers. I suspect your current criteria for correctness is simply “does Eric Hyom like the answer?”
A copy of himself.
God himself has no purpose. Purpose involves unactualized potentials, and God has no potentials. Perhaps you mean reason. I claim we don’t need to know the reason, just whether or not there is one in the first place.
For them to become gods.
Then I will tell you that the reason you don’t understand the meaning is because they all assume the wrong models about reality and what exists. You don’t actually know what “greater” means but you’re throwing it around left and right as though it has some sort of obvious interpretation.
I would urge you to reflect on this statement - “reflect” being the key word here.
It’s as though they think every decision always has exactly one right choice and one wrong choice. Instead I claim there are a variety of good and bad choices involved, so even if we eliminated all the wrong choices, we would still have several good options to free-will-chose between.
God putting us to the test for his own sake suddenly becomes : God so loved the world that he didn’t want us to just be happy, content and living harmoniously with everyone in a famine-free, sickness-free, hatred-free idyllic world. Any old playwright knows that happiness is boring, you need to throw in drama, heartbreak etc. The “robot argument” is simply a new spin on things. The true spirit of God is made manifest in the Job story: destroy someone to see if he really loves you.
I agree…the spin doctors try to clean things up, but the basic story is too horrid.
Or to let him find out how much he really does love you.
No, I would not agree with that. God could not create a universe in which Adam and Eve had a choice and at the same time guarantee that they would choose His will. By definition, giving someone a choice means giving up control of that that decision.
By taking on our sin and paying our price, and as He, Love, grows within us, Christ allows us to participate in eternal life with God.
(Answering the question, “What is the greatest thing God could create?”)
I thought about touching upon this in my response above but chose instead to focus on the specific question I was asked. However, you raise a good point – while God created a universe in which we had the freedom not to choose His path, He also created pathways for redemption once we realized our mistake. The pain of this universe plays a direct role in that redemption, both in terms of the pain Christ bore for our sake and, I think, in helping to remind us of our need for God. Could we dread the loss of Heaven and the fires of Hell if we knew neither loss nor fire?
Actually, this is inaccurate.. . .
Well, actually four people at first created sinless. Adam, Eve, Mary, Jesus.
So two of the four sinned and brought all the rest of us down with them. The other two strove to bring us up again to righteousness.
I think that is the best of all possible worlds, where you have offensive and defensive teams against the devil and his works. The defensive team (Adam and Eve) failed to hold the line and the devil scored; the offensive team (The Catholic Church) is struggling to score and win, but the game is never over until it’s over.
“Cruel” may not be an accurate description of God, partial and indifferent would probably be better terms. I could never understand why David, after having been given so much in the way of talents, glory, women, and messing up the way he did, why God let him live with the woman with whom this whole fiasco started. I also remember the talent parable where the poor fellow with but one talent is scolded and is sent to God’s friendly eternal torture chamber.Or to let him find out how much he really does love you.
Some believers are a good deal more than fair weather believers.
I would repeat what I have said elsewhere. The main thrust of the non-believers in this forum is to argue that our God is a cruel God. But because they don’t understand why evil should exist, it doesn’t follow that evil has no place in the divine plan of Creation. The problem of evil in no way challenges the very existence of the Deity. The best that can be made of that argument about evil is that God is cruel. But that does not wash either, because there are way too many people happy to be alive and living virtuous lives. How does the existence of a cruel God explain so much virtue and joy in the world? Wouldn’t a truly savage God make everyone as miserable as possible?
