I am baffled, please explain

[tonyrey]

It is unrealistic to expect good to come from every

It would be more to the point, Brad, if you specify how many disasters have to be averted before you give credit for the value of the vast majority of lives on this planet. Do you have any percentage in mind?

 

[tonyrey]

I second your frustration…but we are certainly not the first to experience it.

Please explain the precise range of God’s activity.

 

[tonyrey]

*“Atrocities can be prevented when we will to do what is good and act on that goodness” **is ***

I have answered it but you obviously don’t understand it!

 

[tonyrey]

                  **Pallas Athene**                  
             1) The "fall", whatever it might have  been exactly was not unavoidable. God could have created a world, where  everyone freely and willingly would have been without sin: the  "prototype" is the Virgin Mary. There is no logical reason that her  disposition could not have been "propagated" into all human beings.

                             She alone gave birth to our Redeemer. Her suffering at the foot of the Cross was enough to make her the co-Redemptrix.

1. Of course, this is the inferior solution. The optimal solution would have been to “bypass” this vale of tears, and create everyone directly into heaven. In this case everyone would share the eternal life, as God - allegedly - wishes.

Bypassing this world would have prevented you from rejecting belief in God - a source of great satisfaction!

1. In either case there would be no need for a “redeemer”. The concept of “redeemer” is obviously a leftover from the pagan religions, where the cruel and vile gods had to be appeased by giving up (sacrifice) the “cream of the crop”. For a rational and benevolent God such sacrifice is not necessary. Just like a human father does not demand that his wayward child would break his favorite toy and offer the debris as a “sacrifice” for his “sin”, a benevolent God could simply forgive the trespasses, and also mete out a commensurate punishment - with the intention to teach a valuable lesson.

Forgiveness doesn’t require any effort on the part of those who are forgiven nor does it make amends from their crimes and the needless suffering they have caused. Injustice would reign supreme if everyone were prevented from choosing what to believe, how to live and who to love.** Our freedom is more important than anything else**.

But of course in the solution #1, with using the Virgin Mary as the prototype there would be no sin at all. And in the solution #2 everyone would be sharing the eternal “love”, so there could be no trespasses either.

To share has no merit if eternal love is not reciprocated - and that implies the power to choose to do so.

This is a very short synopsis of what I think about Genesis. My simple approach is this: if someone has a goal in mind, which is very important for him, who has all the available tools to actualize that goal, an that goal is the best solution for all involved, then why not do it? Why chose an inferior approach which is NOT in the best interest of everyone. Simply: “why did God choose the current, highly inferior solution, when there were other options”? Of course this question is pertinent only for you, and not me.

“simplistic” and “simplistically” are more appropriate descriptions of a suggestion which implies privileged insight into the nature of the optimal solution for the entire human race on the part of an individual with limited insight and knowledge of reality. Poor Nietzsche thought the Will to Power was the optimal solution yet wept when he saw a horse being whipped and finished up in an asylum. :dts: That reveals his true beliefs. It is not **what **we claim but **how **we live that is the best test of our philosophy.

 

[Aloysium]

So we have an EN where every frame of existence is there to be seen. It is unchanging, immutable. In fact, by it’s very definition it is…eternal (the clue is in the name). But now you suggest that God decides to change it. To make some ‘corrections’.

I guess we have to stop calling it the Eternal Now from here on in. If God can change it, can make some corrections, it isn’t eternal any more.

it feels like there is little point to writing this other than loving to contemplate these mysteries.
But, in the hope that someone reads this, here goes again.

I understand you as meaning a Divine Now as opposed to our individual now which is eternal/outside of time.
That clarified, what we have, is not so much an “EN” but God Himself, a transcendent Being who brings all creation, everyplace and every time into existence.
There is a totality of creation, His vision of which we will share at the end of time, at which point it will be fixed.
But, He is the eternal Now, in a similar fashion to your being this point in time.
You can think of yourself as having been and being always “here and now”, watching time pass by; each moment with its past, present and future.
He “contains” all these living moments.
Their very existence is who He is.
In each moment He is with us as loving Father.
He changes everything here and now, where He always is.
Because we have free will and are on a journey to our eternal home, the past is fixed and the future consists of possibilities.
That is the reality of each moment, each moment of which He is the Centre.
It is all done here and now and for God, it is all Here and Now.
You can stop reading or continue; in this moment you effect a change.
God is with you witnessing your choice as He brings this moment into existence.
God “changes” creation in time as He creates each moment in response to our actions, from outside of time.
The Totality, who He is, remains unchangeable eternal Life and Creator.

 

[Bradski]

It would be more to the point, Brad, if you specify how many disasters have to be averted before you give credit for the value of the vast majority of lives on this planet. Do you have any percentage in mind?

Apologies, but my atheist hat goes on at this point.

God doesn’t doom anyone to an early death in a plummeting aircraft. Neither does He save the odd passenger from a fiery death when one does drop out of the sky.

I am pointing out the nonsensical position that some people take in believing that he steps in for the good moments in life and then ignore His responsibility for the bad ones.

Please explain the precise range of God’s activity.

This is exactly what we are trying to determine what Christians believe. I haven’t had to point this out for some time, apart from mentioning it in passing above, but I don’t believe God has any range of activities at all.

Those who believe in God appear to have a range of views and descriptions for what they believe God to be. Therein lies the problem. You asking me what I think of God is hardly going to shed any light on the problem.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I apologise, Lily. Your post **is **impeccable. Mea culpa.

Thank you, tonyrey. I thought she was a “she,” but wasn’t sure, I admit.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

Here your analogy becomes incorrect. A cat is not a rational, MORAL being. The cat has no mental capacity to understand. Humans (mostly) are able to understand explanations, but children are NOT rational beings, and NOT moral beings - because they do not know right from wrong, good from evil. And that is the gist of the story of Genesis. Not knowing good from evil makes the couple morally innocent. The usual rebuttal is that they were told not to do it, and they should have known that disobedience is “evil” is another logical nonsense. However, it is interesting that the main “theme” of Christianity is NOT “love”, it is “obedience”!

For a child we must make seemingly “cruel” decisions, and the child does not understand the reason. But adults are not children, they could understand a prohibition, if only some explanation would be forthcoming. But it never does.

PA, do you not see the weakness of your argument here? You said I could not compare myself to my cat, and by the way, I wasn’t, I was contrasting; however, you are comparing what an eternal omniscient Deity sees with what a mortal, limited knowledge human sees. Just as my cat is not a human and can’t be tied to the human view of things, God is not a human and cannot be tied to the human view of things.

And most biblical scholars believe there was no actual “tree,” no “candy on the table.” The great sin of Adam and Eve was in trying to be gods themselves, trying to subject God to their will, not following his.

If you want to ask why God allows evil into the world, you have to go back further than Adam and Eve’s sin and ask why God allowed Lucifer and his group of fallen angels to roam free in Paradise. He could have destroyed Lucifer or at least kept him confined to hell.

I don’t like to see people get cancer, get hurt, suffer, etc., but yes, we DO have to go along with the plan God chose for us because it is the only plan there is, and we have no power to change it. Some of us learn acceptance, some can’t, for some reason.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . (eternity) . . .

This might better get the point across:

Genesis 16

Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. But she had an Egyptian slave named Hagar; so she said to Abram, “The Lord has kept me from having children. Go, sleep with my slave; perhaps I can build a family through her.”
Abram agreed to what Sarai said. So after Abram had been living in Canaan ten years, Sarai his wife took her Egyptian slave Hagar and gave her to her husband to be his wife. He slept with Hagar, and she conceived.
When she knew she was pregnant, she began to despise her mistress. Then Sarai said to Abram, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering. I put my slave in your arms, and now that she knows she is pregnant, she despises me. May the Lord judge between you and me.”
“Your slave is in your hands,” Abram said. “Do with her whatever you think best.” Then Sarai mistreated Hagar; so she fled from her.

The angel of the Lord found Hagar near a spring in the desert; it was the spring that is beside the road to Shur. And he said, “Hagar, slave of Sarai, where have you come from, and where are you going?”
“I’m running away from my mistress Sarai,” she answered.
Then the angel of the Lord told her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her.” The angel added, “I will increase your descendants so much that they will be too numerous to count.”
The angel of the Lord also said to her:
“You are now pregnant
and you will give birth to a son.
You shall name him Ishmael,
for the Lord has heard of your misery.
He will be a wild donkey of a man;
his hand will be against everyone
and everyone’s hand against him,
and he will live in hostility
toward all his brothers.”
She gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: “You are the God who sees me,” for she said, “I have now seen the One who sees me.” That is why the well was called Beer Lahai Roi; it is still there, between Kadesh and Bered.

Genesis 21

8 The child grew and was weaned, and on the day Isaac was weaned Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah saw that the son whom Hagar the Egyptian had borne to Abraham was mocking, and she said to Abraham, “Get rid of that slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.”

The matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son. But God said to him, “Do not be so distressed about the boy and your slave woman. Listen to whatever Sarah tells you, because it is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned. I will make the son of the slave into a nation also, because he is your offspring.”
Early the next morning Abraham took some food and a skin of water and gave them to Hagar. He set them on her shoulders and then sent her off with the boy. She went on her way and wandered in the Desert of Beersheba.

When the water in the skin was gone, she put the boy under one of the bushes. Then she went off and sat down about a bowshot away, for she thought, “I cannot watch the boy die.” And as she sat there, she began to sob.
God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation.”
Then God opened her eyes and she saw a well of water. So she went and filled the skin with water and gave the boy a drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became an archer. While he was living in the Desert of Paran, his mother got a wife for him from Egypt.

God being Love, perfect relationally within Himself and with respect to His creation, is known through our relationship with Him.
Here in the story of Hagar and Ishmael, the nature of God and His relationship with us is revealed, thereby enabling a deeper dialogue between ourselves and our Creator.
Although their existence is now history (a spiritual and social context within which we understand our world), we can imagine ourselves as Hagar, in her suffering, her hopes and fears. We rejoice in God’s intervention in time, from beyond time, so that His will that we flourish and come to know Him, be done.

 

[Pallas_Athene]

Yeah, but you’re still not getting my argument. Peter explained it well: the conjunction of ‘God gives free will’ and ‘humans exercise free will’ means that God cannot impose purely non-sinful behavior without removing the ‘free will’ part. In other words, as you already pointed out, logical impossibility makes an argument invalid; your argument fails precisely because it’s logically impossible.

That PP did not understand is no surprise. That you did not understand is a surprise.

Did God give free will to Mary?
Did she exercise her free will?
Was she deliberately created to exercise her free will in a “good” fashion?
Is God able to create someone “randomly”, and not deliberately?
Is God able to create OTHERS according to the Mary-prototype?

My answers according to MY understanding of the Catholic teaching:
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
Yes.

What are your answers?

You cannot get around the fact that everything God did was deliberate and with full knowledge of the outcome. If he created Mary with free will, and Mary acted “properly” while utilizing her free will, then there is no contradiction between deliberately creating everyone who will act freely and correctly.

Of course your analysis is even worse. Free will does not NEED to entail to be able to choose between “good” and “evil” options, it is sufficient to be able to choose between two good options, or between good and neutral options or between two neutral options.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . My answers according to MY understanding of the Catholic teaching:
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
No.
Yes.

What are your answers?

:twocents:

1. Yes
2. Yes
3. No
4. Difficult to answer - What is deliberate is that you will fit into His plan, you choose the role - good or bad.
5. There is no point. We are all unique and individual, deserving of paradise. There is more likelihood of ending up in hell for those of us granted such graces when we fall.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

I suppose one practical reason God did not create others like the Virgin Mary was because the human race would then come to an end. Mary dedicated herself to God and to her Son. She remained forever virgin. If everyone did that, the earth would be empty of humans in a generation.

Also, he did create sinless humans, Adam and Eve. It was their choice to distance themselves from God, not his.

 

[Peter_Plato]

You cannot get around the fact that everything God did was deliberate and with full knowledge of the outcome. If he created Mary with free will, and Mary acted “properly” while utilizing her free will, then there is no contradiction between deliberately creating everyone who will act freely and correctly.

There is no “contradiction.” The issue is that you are claiming that Mary “properly” acting depended completely on God with no attribution to Mary’s free will. If she had free will, ultimately her assent with regards to acting “properly” had to depend upon her choice, which is why the angel asked for her fiat. That is Catholic doctrine, by the way. If God had simply determined beforehand what she would do, that would not have required assent from Mary, just assumed by the angel.

Mary’s acting properly was a free will act on her part, it wasn’t completely dependent upon God.

Look at it another way. If original sin is the case, then in order to redeem sinners, God would not need assent, he could just “fix” the issue unilaterally. Why doesn’t he? If he could do it and doesn’t for some, but does for others, that would be arbitrary and capricious. The reason he doesn’t is because he cannot. It is in the nature of free agents to exist with the capacity to assent freely to what they choose to do. Grace has the power to rehabilitate even the most hardened sinner. Why doesn’t it? Precisely because agency is respected. Grace can solve every problem but only if every sinner gives their fiat, as Mary did.

Your analysis is simply mistaken.

 

[Gorgias]

That PP did not understand is no surprise. That you did not understand is a surprise.

I completely understand what you’re saying. I’m just saying that you’re mistaken and your logic is in error, that’s all.

Did God give free will to Mary?
Did she exercise her free will?
Was she deliberately created to exercise her free will in a “good” fashion?

This does not prove your case, however, and you keep failing to see that. Your assertion is that it is possible that an entire world, throughout all its existence and in all its humans, may have free will and exercise it perfectly in all cases and situations. You cannot prove that this case is viable by demonstrating one person who does this.

What you’re saying is akin to asserting that it’s possible for all 30 MLB teams to have perfect 162-0 seasons, and then ‘proving’ that by demonstrating that the Pirates won one game last night. It just doesn’t prove what you think it does.

You cannot get around the fact that everything God did was deliberate and with full knowledge of the outcome. If he created Mary with free will, and Mary acted “properly” while utilizing her free will, then there is no contradiction between deliberately creating everyone who will act freely and correctly.

God did not make Mary “act freely and correctly.” She cooperated with the singular grace He gave her. If He “deliberately created everyone” so that they would always act correctly, then they wouldn’t “act freely”. If He “deliberately created everyone” so that they would always act freely, then He could not make them “act correctly.” From the fact that Mary led a sinless life, it does not follow that everyone will do the same. Adam and Eve proved that fact convincingly.

Of course your analysis is even worse. Free will does not NEED to entail to be able to choose between “good” and “evil” options, it is sufficient to be able to choose between two good options, or between good and neutral options or between two neutral options.

Immaterial to our discussion. We’re not talking about the free will decisions between morally good and/or morally neutral actions. You’re explicitly talking about free will in the context of choosing not to sin.

 

[Lily_Bernans]

You cannot get around the fact that everything God did was deliberate and with full knowledge of the outcome.

And, in that sentence, you, yourself have given the answer to this whole dilemma, or what you see as a dilemma. Everything God did and does is deliberate, with full knowledge of its outcome.

We woefully lack full knowledge of an incident’s outcome. We are not omniscient. We cannot judge something “good” or “bad” without knowing its ultimate outcome, and we will not know that until Christ’s Second Coming when it was promised that “all would be made clear.”

 

[Lily_Bernans]

This does not prove your case, however, and you keep failing to see that. Your assertion is that it is possible that an entire world, throughout all its existence and in all its humans, may have free will and exercise it perfectly in all cases and situations. You cannot prove that this case is viable by demonstrating one person who does this.

She has not even proven that the above scenario would be the best thing for humans and human life. Sure, it would eliminate disease and death, etc., but is their elimination best for humankind? We can’t really answer that question because of our limited knowledge. We do not know how the “end of time” is going to play out.

 

[PumpkinCookie]

Since our dialogue seems to be producing frustration instead of truth, I’d like to take a different approach. This is not an argument, but a poem and drama of sorts. I hope it illustrates this issue in a more visceral way, which may allow us to have a better discussion.

I burn.
Choking, smoke everywhere.
Suffocating stench. Foul grimaces and the silent mourning of those who have no hope are my only accompaniment.
Regret floods my memory. A river of endless pain and torment, swirling round my wracked body without relent. I starve but cannot die. My tongue is parched but there is no water. All is death and yet I cannot cease. A ghastly terror and shrouded mystery is this life which is also death. The worm that dieth not.

Suddenly, a light. An angel of God descends. The demons shriek with horror but gather to the light like insects to a flame. The damned coalesce upon this place in a great sea of endless suffering.

Like a battered beast I bellow out to the angel: “Why?!”
“This is what you have chosen and so richly deserve”
“I had no knowledge of this place, how could I have chosen it?”
“You have rejected the Son of Man.”
“I never knew him, how could I have rejected him?”
“You rejected him by being a sinner. A sinner you have been from your conception.”
“How can this be so? I did not choose my birth!”
“All men are born sinners due to the sins of their first parents.”
“Neither have I chosen my first parents!”
“It matters not, before God you are guilty, because your first parents chose for you.”
“Then how could I have escaped this end?”
“Do not question God! You deserve this, whether you understand it or not!”
“Has God always known I would end up here some day? When I was a little baby, did he know I would someday burn forever?”
“Yes. God knows all.”
“Why did he make me if this is my end? Does he hate me?”
“This torment is God’s love for you. For God, endless torment is love.”
“I wish I had never been born!”
“Impossible, that depends upon the free choice of your parents and has nothing to do with you.”
“Then I wish my parents had never been born, in fact I wish Adam and Eve had never been created! So much evil has resulted from this!”

A thundering chorus of all the damned shout with agreement.

“No, the happiness of the few in heaven justifies the endless torment of the greater part of humanity,” the angel roars back.
“So the ends justify the means?”
“No, you misunderstand. All of you deserve to be here because your first parents chose it for you.”
“Has God always known they would so choose and cause all of us to be tortured for eternity?”
“Yes. God always knows all.”
“But such tremendous evil has resulted, couldn’t he have created obedient first parents?”
“No.”
“But isn’t God omnipotent?”
“Yes, but he can’t do something illogical. Creating obedient first parents would be logically impossible because they wouldn’t have free will. All of you need to have free will so that it is righteous for God to punish you here forever.”
“Why couldn’t our first parents have free will but choose to do what is right?”
“Having free will necessitates that one will choose evil.”
“But how can we call something freedom if it “necessitates” an outcome? It would seem to be rather the opposite: slavery.”
“No, in order to have freewill, we must choose evil.”
“But didn’t the Son of Man’s mother have free will and choose only good?”
“Yes.”
“Well, why couldn’t God have created our first parents to be like the Son of Man’s mother?”
“Because then they wouldn’t have free will.”
“Then how can it be said that Mary had free will?”
“Because she just so happened to choose goodness”
“So why couldn’t our first parents have just so happened to choose goodness?”
“Because if God made them do it, they wouldn’t have free will.”
“Are you saying, that among all the infinite possibilities available in the mind of the Creator, none of the included first parents who just so happened to choose goodness even though they had the intrinsic ability to choose evil?”
“Yes, every single possible human pair would choose to sin, even though they could intrinsically avoid it.”
“But if God knows that every original human pair will always choose sin, isn’t he making sin a necessity just by choosing to create them?”
“No, they had the intrinsic ability to avoid sin, so they can still be blamed.”
“They did not have the choice to be created in the first place though, so shouldn’t God share in the blame somewhat?”
“No, everything God does is by definition right and good. Eternal torment is love, and the creation of those who would cause the Fall is good.”
“Since it is good, God has always wanted this to happen? Has he always known the fall, and has he always seen this hell full to over-brimming with tormented soul? If he chose to create while having this knowledge, didn’t he want it to be this way?”
“No, it was a mistake, God did not want this to happen.”
“How so?”
“God wanted everyone to go to heaven or live in the garden of Eden, but Adam and Eve chose to ruin it.”
"Ruin it? God knew it was unavoidable and created it any way. God and his creatures worked together on the ruin did they not?
“No, it was never God’s intent for the fall to happen.”
“Then why didn’t he stop it?”
“Because he couldn’t.”
“But isn’t he omnipotent?”
“Yes but Adam and Eve had free will, and every other possible human pair would freely choose to sin, without exception. He had to allow their choice.”
“Then it was his will?”
“No, he merely allowed it.”
“If he knew it was unavoidable and chose to allow it anyway, how can it not be his will?”
… … … …

 

[PumpkinCookie]

The angel and I spin round and round, ever deeper into the black pit. It is the most dense dark, the light of the angel is muted. I look upon his countenance and see the goat-like smirk upon his face. He sees the recognition bloom in my eyes. He turns his back, the black wings beating against his weathered, scarred sides as he dives deeper into the abyss.

Awakened by a bird song I realize the nightmare has passed. Into the light of day:

No original sin.
No eternal hell.
Love does not torture.
Omnipotence does not fail.
We each are free to choose the Good.
Read the Torah with new eyes.
Cast away the misery and poison wrongfully injected into it by 4th century pagans.
The true God is worthy of belief!

 

[Gorgias]

I hope it illustrates this issue in a more visceral way, which may allow us to have a better discussion.

I think it does precisely that! In fact, what it demonstrates is that you misunderstand what the Church teaches…!

Regret floods my memory.

We can’t really be sure that souls in hell experience regret, can we? ‘Unrepentant’ is ‘unrepentant’, not ‘repentant and full of regret’, isn’t it? C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce is a wonderful allegory that explores what ‘hell’ may feel like to the damned. I highly recommend that you read it.

“You have rejected the Son of Man.”
“I never knew him, how could I have rejected him?”
"You rejected him by being a sinner.

This, too, is not what the Church teaches. Yes, some Protestant denominations teach that all those who never knew Christ are damned, but the Church doesn’t teach that. Rather, she teaches that those who never knew Christ also may be saved, through their desire to know and follow the Good. So, it is not the case that those who never experience Jesus are automatically condemned by a vengeful and capricious God.

“It matters not, before God you are guilty, because your first parents chose for you.”
“Then how could I have escaped this end?”
“Do not question God! You deserve this, whether you understand it or not!”

Again, not what the Church teaches.

“Why did he make me if this is my end? Does he hate me?”
“This torment is God’s love for you. For God, endless torment is love.”

Sigh. No.

“No, the happiness of the few in heaven justifies the endless torment of the greater part of humanity,” the angel roars back.

:nope:

Your angel is no ‘angel’, but a demon who mischaracterizes God and His revelation to us. Hopefully, no one will be misled by your (well-intentioned, but poorly executed) poem.

"Since it is good, God has always wanted this to happen? Has he always known the fall, and has he always seen this hell full to over-brimming with tormented soul?

We don’t know that hell will be “full to over-brimming.”

If he chose to create while having this knowledge, didn’t he want it to be this way?"
“No, it was a mistake, God did not want this to happen.”

It’s not a mistake, it’s the natural consequences of the free-will decisions of the damned.

“If he knew it was unavoidable and chose to allow it anyway, how can it not be his will?”

It’s God’s will to allow the choice. It’s not God’s will to condemn, but it’s the logical consequence of allowing choice: those who choose God will get God; those who choose ‘not God’ will get ‘not God’.

 

[mamlukman]

God doesn’t doom anyone to an early death in a plummeting aircraft. Neither does He save the odd passenger from a fiery death when one does drop out of the sky.

I am pointing out the nonsensical position that some people take in believing that he steps in for the good moments in life and then ignore His responsibility for the bad ones.

I agree completely…and yet I am a conservative Catholic. Have a look at my review of Bart Ehrman’s (my favorite atheist!) book, “God’s Problem” (about the problem of evil).

smile.amazon.com/gp/cdp/member-reviews/A1AKC2D2FTZ85D?ie=UTF8&display=public&page=2&sort_by=MostRecentReview

You might find it interesting.