If there’s a God, it’s all on God. God new the results, the consequences, the required blood sacrifice for redemption and yet…yet…he created it all anyhow.
Now… let’s see how that plays out in reality…*When you take out the existence of an all good, all knowing and all powerful God, existence and our difficult lives makes sense.
*So, would this mean that we are just an illusion to ourselves and to others - afterall… with no Creator, there is no creation! Of course everything would be an illusion - from Genesis to Revelation, too!*
When you throw in the existence of a God as described as above, that’s where these issues rear their heads.
*Ah, did you forget to ‘…throw in…’ the existence and effect of sin on all of creation? Hmmmmmmmmmmm… on second thought… rather then doubt the existence of God because I can not explain everything that bothers me about creation, maybe I just need to address the fact that I will never be able (with my finite mind) to grasp God (the Infinite Good) …Honest. We really are limited in our understanding - but, maybe Faith can help this process move forward. What do you think?
God bless
Tom*
Just browse through this thread and different Christians have different ideas on how to best reconcile the dilemma.
No God, no dilemma.
If there’s a God, it’s all on God. God new the results, the consequences, the required blood sacrifice for redemption and yet…yet…he created it all anyhow.
By rejecting your responsibilty for personal sin (we do not need to address Original Sin at this time) you have found a very convenient out. Unfortunately, I really do not think God will let you get away with that, Zatzat!And, how do I know that … well… here you are, freely choosing your own topic and words to explain your position on Catholic Answers Forum. I really do understand you are having some problems here - and, dare I say… asking for help. But, surely, there are more ways you could go about this - as opposed to throwing out God.
If there’s no God, it’s all on us. Like I said and I really do believe it, no God, no dilemma.
Don’t bet on it.
We’re on our own, which explains an awful lot.
**
Taking God out of the equation, although the Holy book becomes irrelevant, existence doesn’t change one iota.
I genuinely don’t believe in the story of original sin.
You’re the second Christian that chooses to read too much into my username. In any event, an enquirer is quite simply, someone who asks questions.
Evasions…
I think that god allows us the choice to fail. It sounds awkward, but not when you consider Jesus Christ. He is God, he is man and yet although he could have used his infinite power to easily leave the cross he chose not to. The reason I believe is so that we could see just how far he would go to prove his love for us. He did not have to do any of that, but he did.
.
God new before the universe was even created that man would fall and he’d need to bring Jesus in to make it right. God new this ahead of time…just as he knew that Eve would eat the apple., but he put the tree in front of her anyhow.
I don’t agree. Not only did God have to do it, but God new before he even created the universe that he was going to have to do it…else he wouldn’t be omniscient.
**The entire focus of God is Love - and we all are created in His Image of Love. He has given us a free will from which we choose to either cooperate with His Grace and do good or to turn our back on God and do evil. Christ showed us His Tremendous Power to forgive sin - look at Peter who denied Christ - and it only a few hours previous that Peter had said he would die for Christ - and so did the other Apostles. Yet, in a moment, Peter chose to deny Christ rather then face the accusation of a maid servant.
God already knows what we’re going to choose.
God new Peter would deny Christ. Other than God knowing ahead of time what Peter would do, I don’t understand the point your trying to make.
A fair comment.
Good Post Tom…Hi, Mrhenrik,
I think you have misread or misunderstood Fermet…
It is worth the time to read it and is probably is hear at Catholic Answers, I got it from New Advent .com
[newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm](Http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1510.htm)
Your Brother in Christ
William
I think we need to remember that God allows us to participate in the creating of life, which is a whole other topic, but what it leads back to is choices yet again. Free will is a powerful thing and I found Romans 5:20 very helpful in trying to understand this whole concept. You can find some better explanations at:
Note on the above I think the point he was trying to make was that regardless of the fact that Jesus even told Peter he was going to deny him and Peter said he would not, that in fact he did. That being said he did not force Peter to make that decision, Peter made it all his own and as a consequence of that decision he HAD to reach out to God for forgiveness, which he did and that action brought him closer to God. The only difference between what Peter and Judas did, was that Peter asked for and accepted Gods grace, Judas did not… Again my understanding… Good hunting …
I wouldn’t necessarily say an omniscient god would be the cause of everything, but if he had knowledge of everything I would argue that there are no other options than what he knows (since he knows everything).
Clearly written: “There is free will. I haven’t seen it in the Bible, but I have a feeling it’s true. Things written in the Bible wouldn’t make sense if we didn’t have free will, I use that as proof that we do have free will.”
…but it doesn’t address anything - it just asserts that we have free will without any backing in science or scripture.
Thank you for asking. My wife and I raised six children. There were many occasions when I knew one or more of them would disobey. With the same level of certainty, I also knew that I had no role in causing them to disobey.
I cannot help you there as I am an extreme novice when it comes to this topic. However, I am certain that I have the gift of free will, even given that God’s knows all about me.
With all due respect, I would actually argue that you did have a role in causing them to disobey. If you had an intricate knowledge in all the psychological workings of children, you would tell them things in a way that would ensure they wouldn’t disobey.
This seems almost like what St. Augustine wrote. In any case, the gist of it is that it doesn’t make sense, but it would be weird if we didn’t have free will so we’re going with the assumption that we do. Small logical flaws like this in the Bible are amongst the reasons why I really don’t put any faith in it at all.