If God gives us free will, what is the point of God?

[oldcelt]

To sit there as the great judge over all HE created and foresaw? Essentially that is the view of many doctrines. Seems like an abuse of creative power to me. HE created it all knowing the outcome (omniscience), and still judges things for being precisely what HE knew they would be.
As a Deist, I reject this viewpoint in its entirety. Better a blind watchmaker than a capricious overseer. As always, IMHO.

John

 

[tonyrey]

To sit there as the great judge over all HE created and foresaw? Essentially that is the view of many doctrines. Seems like an abuse of creative power to me. HE created it all knowing the outcome (omniscience), and still judges things for being precisely what HE knew they would be.
As a Deist, I reject this viewpoint in its entirety. Better a blind watchmaker than a capricious overseer. As always, IMHO.
John

There is nothing capricious about the Creator of the gift of life. It is Chance that is capricious. No reasonable deist would worship a completely blind watchmaker - which in practice amounts to being an atheist. The very fact that you are reasoning implies that reason is an element of reality…

 

[Randy_Carson]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

This is poorly worded. Sure, there are people who do things which are commonly considered “good”, and Christians have no monopoly on this. However, the real question is, “What basis do we have for calling any behavior “good” apart from an objective standard?”

Numerous attempts by atheists at explaining this (ie, what is best for the majority, etc.) have proven unsatisfactory.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

It would be silly for anyone to say something like that; clearly, we are not robots simply following His programming. If that WERE the case why bother not just with free will but with all creation?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

This is vague. Perhaps you could give a more concrete example of how you’re envisioning God intervening in a way that prevents our exercise of free will.

Thanks.

 

[BobCatholic]

Think of it this way.

Imagine you are God.

You create a man. He has no free will. He has no choice. He says “I love you.”

Does it mean anything to you?

Of course not. It is meaningless. There was no choice.

Back to the drawing board.

You create a man. He has free will. He has a choice. He says “I love you.”

Does it mean anything to you?

Yes. Now it has meaning.

 

[Neoplatonist]

I see several commentators offering the common approach to this by comparing God to parents or friends or spouses - in which of course it is better to be freely loved than would be true of, say, robots who were programmed to love us.

Take Hell out of the equation, then. Leave two choices: you can love me and have a more wonderful life, or you can stay with the life you have. A metaphysics in which “you will suffer agony and pain and desolation for a thousand years if you do not agree to marry me” is not a spouse, that’s stalker talk.

 

[rinnie]

Some people say He is the moral compass for humanity, and yet there are still people who have Christian values who do not believe in God.

Others say that everything we do is in God’s plan, but if so, why bother with free will?

If God gives us free will, then intervenes, He is preventing free will. Therefore God would be contradicting Himself, which we all know He’s never do. So if He is real, why did He give us free will?

Simple, it is in God’s plan that we all love and follow him. But he loves us enough to give us the free will to choose him or reject him.

Everything we do is not according to Gods plan. Sin is not in the plan of God.

So the simple answer to your question is this. God give you the free will to follow him and love him, or choose to reject him and follow yourself.

 

[HereticAmI]

I see several commentators offering the common approach to this by comparing God to parents or friends or spouses - in which of course it is better to be freely loved than would be true of, say, robots who were programmed to love us.

Take Hell out of the equation, then. Leave two choices: you can love me and have a more wonderful life, or you can stay with the life you have. A metaphysics in which “you will suffer agony and pain and desolation for a thousand years if you do not agree to marry me” is not a spouse, that’s stalker talk.

Re your, “you will suffer agony and pain and desolation”, I’m already there now, though to most human observers here on planet earth, my life would seem to be quite okay. The problem with all of the hell talk is that the view depends on just who is doing the viewing. For what I mean, do you think that Ted Bundy thought that he was living in his own personal hell? Most likely not. However, when viewed from a whole other perspective, Bundy was living a sad, pathetic, miserable existence. That is what I imagine the afterlife will be. Ted will be in one of a gazillion multiverses, serial murdering to his hearts content, and he’ll be happy. On the other hand, all those humans with God, as it were, will look upon Bundy and his afterlife just the same as here on earth, sad, pathetic and miserable. In short, hell. In other words, God is pretty much going to give you what you want. One may think that the gift is all well and good, but when viewed from the eyes of Deity, there’ll be that one long plume of smoke rising high into the sky.

 

[oldcelt]

There is nothing capricious about the Creator of the gift of life. It is Chance that is capricious. No reasonable deist would worship a completely blind watchmaker - which in practice amounts to being an atheist. The very fact that you are reasoning implies that reason is an element of reality…

Deists do not worship…the creator is in no need of our worship. Add to that the fact that most modern Deists believe that we are a consequence of creation, not a special, individual creation and you can see why we have no system for worship. I, daily thank the creator for initiating creation, a creation that gave me a chance for much joy…unplanned as I was in any cosmic sense.
Have a Merry Christmas season, Tony.

 

[tonyrey]

There is nothing capricious about the Creator of the gift of life. It is Chance that is capricious. No reasonable deist would worship a completely blind watchmaker - which in practice amounts to being an atheist. The very fact that you are reasoning implies that reason is an element of reality…

Giving thanks is not far removed from worship. It implies God is responsible for our existence. If He doesn’t know what He is doing and isn’t aware that we exist there’s no point in expressing our gratitude

Have a Merry Christmas season, Tony.

You too, John!