If God is perfect

[surritter]

True – love is not an emotion. But neither is it merely an act. To say that love is only an act leads you to falsely say that robots can love. That is an incorrect analysis.

How is it that robots can love when they cannot decide to love? Is love merely checking a box on a checklist??

Yes, I forgot another possibility – that we are given free will but the first parents do not choose to sin. You say that “the ‘chosen path’ did not work. The evil did not decrease.” Correction: The purpose in having Jesus come to redeem us was not to reduce the frequency of evil, but to obliterate the power of evil over us.

You’re missing the point. To create us directly in heaven would not give us the choice to love. (Did you really say that only robots can love??)

 

[R_Daneel]

True – love is not an emotion. But neither is it merely an act. To say that love is only an act leads you to falsely say that robots can love. That is an incorrect analysis.

Yet, this is what have been asserted by Catholics in innumerable threads. If love is an act of will, and there is no emotion involved, then it does not matter why one exhibits this behavior. It does not matter if they choose to do it or not.

How is it that robots can love when they cannot decide to love? Is love merely checking a box on a checklist??

What has choice to do with it? If someone is in need, and I help him, it does not matter whether I chose to do it, or I was preprogrammed to do it, the result is the same. For the one who is being helped there is no difference.

Yes, I forgot another possibility – that we are given free will but the first parents do not choose to sin. You say that “the ‘chosen path’ did not work. The evil did not decrease.” Correction: The purpose in having Jesus come to redeem us was not to reduce the frequency of evil, but to obliterate the power of evil over us.

Evil has no power. Evil is a description of a behavorial pattern.

You’re missing the point. To create us directly in heaven would not give us the choice to love. (Did you really say that only robots can love??)

Who cares about choice? When one experiences the total bliss of God’s love, it is the only thing that matters. And yes, truly and unconditionally only a robot can love, who has no choice in the matter. Bt the way, Catholics also assert that God’s very nature is love, which of course means that God is unable to “not-love”, which is just a semantical way to express that God is a robot.

 

[sancte_joseph]

True – love is not an emotion. But neither is it merely an act. To say that love is only an act leads you to falsely say that robots can love. That is an incorrect analysis.

How is it that robots can love when they cannot decide to love? Is love merely checking a box on a checklist??

Yes, I forgot another possibility – that we are given free will but the first parents do not choose to sin. You say that “the ‘chosen path’ did not work. The evil did not decrease.” Correction: The purpose in having Jesus come to redeem us was not to reduce the frequency of evil, but to obliterate the power of evil over us.

You’re missing the point. To create us directly in heaven would not give us the choice to love. (Did you really say that only robots can love??)

Why did/do we have to choose God…

again i’m just trying to get a complete and thorough answer to the question someone asked me…

 

[sancte_joseph]

God was not bored or lonely. Those feelings are the results of a lack of something, and there is no lack in God.

God created us to share His love. Plain and simple. We’re the ones who messed it up, but He still loves us and draws us to Him through the grace of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.

The question still being… God knew/knows EVERYTHING that will happen and he knew people would be evil and would have to kill us a couple times… i.e. the flood, umm… the two cities… sodom and gomorrah.
and he knows/knew that we right now would be doing all these EVIL things…
now why did he create us?
Did he create us perfectly?
If yes… then the question is… Is free will perfect?
Free will gives us a choice… WHY IS CHOICE GOOD?
WHY DID GOD WANT US TO CHOOSE?!

 

[sancte_joseph]

I think the question implies that the questioner knows what it means to be perfect, but God doesn’t.
Well yes… God forgive me if saying this is wrong… BUT the person who asked me this question is very… arrogant and proud… he thinks he has it all figured out already
Why do we give ourselves room to assume that perfection lies in lining things up in straight little rows, never having a conflict or an untidy moment, never feeling a strong feeling or having to correct anything, never being in a position where anyone can accuse us of anything, never needing to widen the viewpoint in order to see the big picture. Perfection doesn’t mean that every piece of a collage has to make sense, even if it is divorced from the whole.

Perfection lies in unmitigated love. Maybe it is impossible, then, to be truly perfect until one is free to let go of being a control freak and with being overly concerned with pleasing them, if it is more loving to do otherwise.

Why did God make you? Because from the foundation of the world, God has loved you, and, having loved you, He would let nothing stop you from coming into being.

The question still seems unanswered… Why did God create us? LOVE seems the answer that is always given… then the next question would be… why did he create us the way we are? If he knew how we would turn out?

 

[LilyM]

You’ve started three threads with the same question. In future, please only start one. Otherwise you’re just wasting bandwidth and confusing people.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Why did God create us?

Out of an abundance of love.

In fact, the entire creation of the entire universe was an act of love on God’s part.

 

[surritter]

Daneel,
Evil has power because the wages of sin is death.

I said that love is not merely an act. God* is* love, according to the Gospel of John. But God is not an act. Love is willing the best for someone, and you have stated correctly that it is God’s very nature.

You ask what choice has to do with it. Everything! Otherwise, go marry a Roomba.

The fact that God can’t “not-love” does not mean He is a robot. In fact, Martin Luther fell into the same trap, but instead of proclaiming that God is a robot, he thought that God was capable of not-love, but always chose love. This is calling God arbitrary.

 

[R_Daneel]

Daneel,
Evil has power because the wages of sin is death.

Evil is just a concept, it is not an entity, that can act or influence.

I said that love is not merely an act. God* is* love, according to the Gospel of John. But God is not an act. Love is willing the best for someone, and you have stated correctly that it is God’s very nature.

Then the same question still arises: “why does God not act in everyone’s best interest? - where the best interest of everyone, be they Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, atheist, pagan… whatever - is to be with God in perfect happiness.” And don’t tell me that some people would not “want” that. Who would not, being exposed to such love? And don’t talk to me of the so-called fallen angels - it is just a myth. Everyone craves happiness, and having the perfect happiness is everyone’s ultimate desire.

You ask what choice has to do with it. Everything! Otherwise, go marry a Roomba.

I have no idea what that means. If I were in need of help, I would not care one bit if the helper coming along “chose” to help me, or had no choice and had to help me, because he was so programmed. And I bet you would not reject the help of a programmed being.

The fact that God can’t “not-love” does not mean He is a robot. In fact, Martin Luther fell into the same trap, but instead of proclaiming that God is a robot, he thought that God was capable of not-love, but always chose love. This is calling God arbitrary.

What is the relevance of what Luther said? If God cannot choose to be “not-loving”, then by definition he is robot - but then again I see nothing wrong with robots. In a sense a robot is not a moral agent (not being able to act immorally), but who cares? The important factor is being loving, caring - not the reason why someone has that kind of disposition.

 

[jpjd]

God gave us free will because He wants us to FREELY love Him. It’s not really love if you make it happen. That would be more like programming a computer. We are not pre-programmed to love God, we have free will to love God. Choice is good because it is a true measure of our love for God.

You ask an interesting question, Did He create us perfect? I know He created us good. Is being created without sin the same as being created perfect? Were we good AND perfect, until Adam and Eve sinned and then we were no longer perfect? I’m not sure of the theology on that.

The only reason God knew we would choose sin is because He lives in the eternal now, outside of time. Every moment is the present moment is present to Him. He could see what our choices would be, but even so He wanted to share His love.

That of course brings us to the problem of suffering. Why create us if He could see that suffering would be our lot? We don’t know, but the fact remains that suffering is in the world. We do know that through our own experiences of suffering, we have the opportunity to love as God loves. It was through God’s love for us that He sent His Son to suffer and die for us. It is through joining our suffering to Christ that we can make it fruitful. By offering up our suffering, we can use it to love God and love one another as God loves us. This is really better explained by countless Catholic books on the subject of redemptive suffering.

 

[surritter]

A Roomba is a brand name of a robot you can buy that will vacuum your house. It’s a small disc shape, and can be programmed to “love” you, according to the given definition. Of course, I was being facetious, but if you agree that love is the foundation of a marriage, and robots are the only things that can truly love, ergo your ideal mate is a Roomba. (Tongue in cheek, friend!)

 

[Kevroy]

God created us so that He could love us, and so that we could love Him in return. But He wanted our love to be a free choice on our part, so He gave us free will and the option to not love Him. Adam and Eve used their free will to disobey God, breaking their union with Him, which kind of messed it up for the rest of us, giving us concupiscence (or the tendency to sin), which is why there is so much evil in the world.
God doesn’t need us to be happy, He is Perfect, so He is perfectly happy without us. But He made us to manifest His Glory. God has two kinds of glory, intrinsic and extrinsic, the former being God’s glory within Himself, which is infinite, the latter being all of the created world, including Angels and Man. Saying that God created us to love us and that He created us for His greater glory are really saying the same thing, because God’s glory is the manifestation of His Perfection’s, and one of God’s perfection’s is Love. I remember hearing that God’s Perfection’s are all actually the same thing, that His Mercy is the same as His Justice, but I don’t fully understand this, but I heard it from Fr. Ripperger, who is a reliable source.

 

[R_Daneel]

A Roomba is a brand name of a robot you can buy that will vacuum your house. It’s a small disc shape, and can be programmed to “love” you, according to the given definition. Of course, I was being facetious, but if you agree that love is the foundation of a marriage, and robots are the only things that can truly love, ergo your ideal mate is a Roomba. (Tongue in cheek, friend!)

That is fine. But we are not talking about human love, which is primarily an emotion, do we? (Not that I want to drift away, but marriages should not be based upon only emotional love; rather friendship, respect etc. also should play a very important part. And as soon as robots will exhibit those faculties, and will have a proper body - suitable for the physical aspects of a marriage - they will become the ideal partners.)