Thank you for all the responses. I learned a great deal, but it seems there are many various viewpoints on this forum that are not in agreement. I formulated my own argument using some ideas from the responses. Most of you responded to his points about omnipotence/omniscience, but not many responded about the evil/free will points.
Here are some of the best bits of what i said (I used bits and pieces of some responses, I hope you guys and gals don’t mind):
Insofar as God created material, in a sense, He did usher in “evil.” Evil is the absence of goodness. Is not matter the proper domain of “evil,” then? Because of Adam’s sin, evil was allowed to enter the world. This was by the hand of man, not by the hand of God.
On Free will: you confuse “to know” with “to determine”. If God determines our actions, then perhaps he has an argument. In this case, we are only talking about knowledge of all actions, past, present and future. Since when does knowledge of action equate to “free will is an illusion”? God knows I am going to sin. Does that take away my free will? No. God determines that I am going to sin. Does that take away free will? Yes. Knowing does not equal “determining”.
You make some assumptions that you have no proof for:
- Omniscience takes away free will.
- God outside of time takes away free will.
- An omniscient and extra-temporal God takes away free will.
- An omnipotent being must control everything.
I got a very quick response:
"Thank you for continuing your conversations in a cordial manner. Most christians start making ad hominem attacks by now, get mad and start playing dirty and ignoring points that I have brought up if they can’t come up with a response. I commend you for your effort! Here is the main concern I have with everything related to all branches of discussions going on in these emails. Everything hinges on what you describe your god to be. From my perspective, I need to you to define what your god is. Your definition differs from other Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, etc. By defining your god, we can then be on the same page and come up with a way to determine what kind of evidence can verify if your god exists.
You are asking me to prove that omniscience takes away free will. It is simply a logical contradiction. If a being knows everything about everything, we are not excluding anything. If you define your god as being omniscient in every regard, then this god MUST know everything you are going to do, otherwise this god would not be completely omniscient. If you define your god as not 100% omniscient, then say so. When I use the word “determine”, what I mean is that by claiming there is an omniscient god who knows everything about everything, there must be a way for this god to know everything (both inside and outside of time), which would by default mean that all that is to be has been determined in order for such a god to know that it will be. Does that make sense? Otherwise, if such a god did NOT know the future, it wouldn’t be omniscient.
Your 4th request that I “prove” omnipotent beings control everything is a matter of how you define your god again. If you say that God controls everything, then we can call that omnipotence or whatever you’d like. But it’s in the meaning of the word that you must clarify. Do you mean to say that your god controls everything? If not, I would argue that such a god is less powerful and must have co partner in power. That is another argument in itself and may cross into multi-deisms. If you say your god is all powerful, controls all without exception, then we head into ugly waters. An all knowing, all powerful god who supposedly created the earth and the first humans, would have known they were to cross him very soon after their inception. Then, he would have known that he was going to create man and woman with original sin, impregnant a woman with himself as her child so that he could be born. Once alive, he knew he would kill himself as a sacrifice to himself to save mankind from the sin he originally condemned us to. That whole process seems highly illogical, never mind the fact that an omniscient god would have foreseen all that nonsense.
In short, it is your responsibility to prove that the claims about your god are true. It is your burden of proof. You are the one making these claims and defining your god with powers. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. If you require that extraordinary claims be true unless otherwise DISPROVEN, then you open yourself up to defaulting in believing all sorts of crazy things. Suppose I came to you and said “I saw a pink unicorn flying through my house yesterday.” You would say “prove it!” I might retort, “prove me wrong! and until you can prove me wrong, it is true, for a saw it myself!” According to your criteria that your claims be true unless proven false, you would have to believe I saw said unicorn. The same goes for bigfoot and people who claim to have been abducted by aliens. These are wild and crazy claims that we say requires evidence to be true. We cannot prove these things false, because there is no EVIDENCE for THINGS THAT DO NOT EXIST, there is simply a lack of evidence for these claims. In this case, I argue that GOD is indistinguishable from either chance or nothing. Where is the evidence? Provable, repeatable evidence? "
Thanks for bearing with me. Unless I can glean any more info from this forum, I think I’m going to tell him I bow out of our discussions. Faith is all I need. I believe, Amen.
JW
