It was exactly the point. Read Robert Sheckley’s wonderful short story: “A ticket to Tranai”.
Because he preferred the disobedience. Only an idiot would create something he does NOT want to create. There is no “randomness” in God’s actions. Whatever he created, he created purposefully. And being the ultimate creator, he IS ultimately responsible for all of our actions, even if he is NOT directly responsible for them.
No perhaps. For certain.
I am only talking about one possible creation, where everyone freely loves and obeys God. It is logically possible, therefore God could do it.
It is you, who is proving it every day, in every action. Do you prefer to have a toothache and then having a root canal, or would you prefer a healthy dentition? Do you prefer to be half-starved and then to get a meal? We are biological beings, who try to avoid the negative experiences. Admittedly, there are few people, who intentionally have themselves crucified to “emulate” Christ’s passion, but I bet you are not going to follow them. You are not going to take a hammer, and pound on your other thumb, just because it feels sooo good, when you stop it. So, don’t say that it was “freely” asserted. You provide the supporting evidence, every moment of your life.
Do you actually live according that principle? Don’t you put your arms in front of you, when you stumble? Don’t you brush your teeth to prevent tooth decay?
Ah, so the good people who never WANT to rape someone are actually “robots”. Who would have thunk it?Yes; a race of robots is certainly superior to a race of rational beings endowed with free will. I’m glad you’re not our Creator.
Tonyrey asserted the same. He said that the final outcome of “not creating” and “creating and then killing” is the same, so there is no distinction. The “final” outcome of robbing a bank and working for your money is the same, therefore there is no difference. The final outcome of abstinence and contraception is the same… therefore there is no difference.
There is no such thing as “more logical”. No one can “prove” that free will exists. It is merely a reasonable assumption.
He did. It’s called heaven.
Sure a world where everyone happens to love and obey God is logically possible, but what you are claiming is that such a world is one that God could determine. In other words, you are claiming that God could ordain a world where everyone necessarily loves and obeys God, but does so freely. You have yet to explain how anyone could freely and volitionally carry out something that they must necessarily do. If they do it necessarily, it cannot be done of their own accord, volition or will; it is done because they must do so.
I mean, he should have known better than to manufacture a step ladder where stepping off the ground onto the first rung could result in a fall. He could have created every human encased in an (name removed by moderator)enetrable styrofoam bubble and restricted the speed of movement such that no possible hurt could ever result, but he had other plans for us. And those other plans include the thrill and exhilaration of flight where freedom is the vehicle, faith is the fuel and reason the navigation system.Would you rather have not been created, be nothing and non-existant? Is not having existence and life better than not having existence and life? The point here is that God created us so that we might have eternal happiness and life with Him in heaven. An eternal life that is beyond anything we can conceive or imagine here on earth. This is the offer God presents to every human being and wants every human being to possess someday. Is this not something good? You speak as though non-life is better than life or non-existence is better than heaven.
Did anyone ever assert that everything comes from nothing?
It was your assertion that there is principle of proportionality between the cause and the effect. I simply presented you with an example, that this principle is incorrect. Another one would be to pile up uranium atoms one at a time, and until the critical mass is reached, nothing special happens. When the last atom is added, all of a sudden the pile will blow up. Miniscule change, huge effect. No proportionality.It is significant that all your examples are negative!
Can you get something for nothing in science?
I am aware of that idea. Tell it to your brethren who assert otherwise. Maybe they will believe you.
Apparently, you do not understand the concept of God in classical theism.
In this world, some people choose freely to do “good”, others choose freely to do “bad”. God was aware of these free choices before he created the world. This foreknowledge did not rob the agents of their free will - according to the apologists like you.
A small child is not aware of “love”. He or she just “loves”, without knowing that there is “hate”.
Oh, I understand it just fine, I just see the problems with it.
Not the philosophical understanding. It would be perfectly acceptable to “split” the universe into two parts, a “physical part” and a “non-physical one”.
This had nothing to do with the post you responded to. But I will answer. I would prefer not to have the psychopaths and sociopaths created, not to have the Ebola virus created… the list is endless.
Well no. A miniscule change triggered a huge effect, but the effect came from the potential stored in the entire stockpile of atoms. Huge difference. An inflated balloon popping is not merely the effect of sticking a pin into a rubber balloon. If that were the case, a deflated balloon ought to explode precisely in the way an inflated one does - same cause, same effect. Obviously, they are not the same, just triggered in the same way.
For one, that sentence was supposed to be a rhetorical question. My point was that God chose to create something that He knew would eventually disobey Him at some point. In asking why that would be the case, I was trying to get you to understand that fundamental aspect of God’s nature and His relationship with us. He created us despite knowing that we would screw up. Why? Because despite our screwing up, He still loves us and wants us to be with Him. God loved Adam and Eve enough to decide that, even though they would directly disobey His commands and not ask for forgiveness when they were found out, He still wanted them to exist. He still wanted them to be able to choose to be with Him, perhaps not in the Garden of Eden, but in Heaven after their deaths, and His disappointment in their sin did not outweigh His will to spend eternity with them.
If everyone “freely loves and obeys God”, then everyone has the choice to love Him or not. If one, then, chooses not to ‘love’ or ‘obey’, then that’s an exercise of his personal free will. His choice does not reflect back on God, except inasmuch as God gave him the gift of free will.
Yet, having had a toothache, I learned the importance of good dental hygiene; the toothache taught me a lesson that benefited me in my life. Likewise, having gone without food, I am able to better appreciate the giftedness of having sufficient food on my plate. These are two excellent counter-examples to your assertion: it is, clearly, not the case that a lack of suffering is always and in every case superior to the existence of suffering. Thank you for helping prove my case.
Absolutely we are. Yet, ‘negative experiences’ – in a finite (and/or relatively small scale of) time – can have a positive long-term effect. Do all ‘negative experiences’ have this behavior? That depends on the length and scope of the ‘long-term effect’. However, it’s clear that your rather broadly asserted notion doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.
You’ve just moved the goalposts. The question isn’t whether we seek out negative experiences, as you’ve just attempted to shade the discussion, but whether negative experiences have the capacity to have beneficial long-term outcomes.
I think you completely misunderstand the aphorism: it means that if you ‘freely assert’ something, without providing a supporting argument or evidence, then your ‘freely asserted’ notion may be freely denied.
Here we go – goalposts on the move, again.
If that’s an argument disguised as snark, you’ve exceeded your wildest expectations: it has no characteristics of an argument at all! Congrats!
I haven’t read his assertion, so I cannot comment whether you correctly understand him – or if you misunderstand or are lampooning his comment. However, that doesn’t seem accurate. “Creating and then killing” is not identical to “not creating”. Can you point me to his post, so that I might respond to it?
Fair enough; that’s a reasonable objection. Yet, it completely fails to address my case. At best, it asks me to re-phrase that sentence as “the two cases are indistinguishable, and since the former shows no evidence of free will (as you assert exists there), then you cannot claim it as a logical possibility.”
Are you asserting that free will does not exist, then?
Your statement "As soon as you can provide evidence that there is NO invisible, pink and magical unicorn in my basement you will be in the position to ask for evidence for “nonexistence” can be taken to mean that there is no need for a First Cause. Or perhaps you believe the universe is eternal?
If that is the case is there no limit to the effect an event can cause? Is a fortuitous combination of molecules the ultimate explanation of all the order, purpose and beauty in the universe? Even David Hume conceded that “A purpose, an intention, a design, strikes everywhere even the careless, the most stupid thinker”. Was he careless and stupid?
The term is generally used to refer to the **physical **universe. Only materialists assume it embraces the whole of reality. Since our primary datum and sole certainty is our stream of consciousness it is more reasonable to regard the mind as more fundamental than matter. To reduce everything and everyone to aimless processes is the height of absurdity.
Since God is inscrutable and unknowable, you have no more information about his “internal workings” than I do. We can only make assumptions based upon what we can see. We see no signs of caring or loving (here and now), so that takes care of “because God loved the world so much…”. There is no reason to assume that God “loves” us - at all.
If so, then why didn’t he do just that? He could have created us directly into heaven, and bypass this world. Since he did not do it, the only logical and rational conclusion is that he did NOT want us to be with him.
IOW you don’t believe in heaven? Then I guess you don’t believe in hell either?I am aware of that idea. Tell it to your brethren who assert otherwise. Maybe they will believe you.