So, who is responsible?

[mellestad]

Yeeesh! One more time, slowly. (This is also in response to Mellestad’s post #136) In this world God created us with free will, which is the freedom to choose to love and obey him or not. In the world you postulate, God would create only people who love and obey him…or what? There is no other option, therefore no free will.

Free will is not about the ability to come here or go there, to choose one occupation over another, to live here or there. Free will is very simply the having the ability to choose to love and obey God or turn away from him.

People still have free will, God only creates those he knows won’t mess it up.

The problem is the inherent contradiction of omniscience and free will, really. You can’t logically have both and these examples point that out.

---

Let me try a different way.

1: You are a Catholic, right? Did God know you would be a Catholic before you were born? Could God have kept you from being born?

2: I’m an atheist. Did God know I would be an atheist before I was born? Could God have kept me from being born?

3: If God kept me from being born, but let you be born, would you stop having free will?

If the answer to 3 is “No, I would still have free will even if God never let mellestad be born” then our point stands. If the answer is “Yes, I would not have free will” then you’ve got some serious problems with omniscience that you need to reconcile.

 

[mellestad]

What if He wanted to be surprised, and see what happens?

I often make paintings that in the end I don’t like. I don’t regret making them, though, because I learn something new every time I make a painting.

God can’t know speculative things. He only knows that you “will” do this or that, because He is already watching you do it, from His vantage point in Eternity. But if He had never created you, then you would/will never have done it, and He could not watch you doing it, to know that you “will” do it at some point in the future. It is only by creating you that He can know what you will or will not do.

Interesting. So God needs to start an experiment before He knows the outcome of an event?

i’m not picking on you, this is a serious question. Is this Catholic Dogma or personal speculation?

 

[jmcrae]

Interesting. So God needs to start an experiment before He knows the outcome of an event?

i’m not picking on you, this is a serious question. Is this Catholic Dogma or personal speculation?

First, let me be clear that this is my personal speculation, based on what I understand about God so far.

And yes, my thesis is that God can only be aware of reality as it is.

He sees and knows all of it, from beginning to end, top to bottom, front to back, and everywhere in between, which is why He can seem to “predict” future events - but He is only “predicting” what He has already observed, from His vantage point outside of time.

If the event of the future does not actually occur, He cannot “predict” it, because He cannot observe things that don’t actually occur. He would be no more able than you or I to speculate on someone’s future behaviour, without actually observing it - He would have a better sense of the variables involved, of course, and would eliminate the impossible variables, but there would always be room for doubt.

 

[Warrenton]

Hmm…I’m trying to think of how else to put it, without just copying Spock.

Does that help?

I understand. Thanks!

 

[mellestad]

First, let me be clear that this is my personal speculation, based on what I understand about God so far.

And yes, my thesis is that God can only be aware of reality as it is.

He sees and knows all of it, from beginning to end, top to bottom, front to back, and everywhere in between, which is why He can seem to “predict” future events - but He is only “predicting” what He has already observed, from His vantage point outside of time.

If the event of the future does not actually occur, He cannot “predict” it, because He cannot observe things that don’t actually occur. He would be no more able than you or I to speculate on someone’s future behaviour, without actually observing it - He would have a better sense of the variables involved, of course, and would eliminate the impossible variables, but there would always be room for doubt.

Why would you theorize He lacks the capability of speculation? I can understand that it resolves certain long-standing issues with omniscience, but how do you justify the belief on its own?

My thought would be that such an edicts is placing a limit on the processing power of God’s intellect and that seems like a rather odd position to take.

I’m also thinking it creates problems with God’s own free will…if this reality is all that God can see, what happens when God intercedes? Or is God’s own reality subject to his own timelessness, and He is not actually able to make an independent decision because He is trapped into predestination by his own omniscience?

Or perhaps the argument is that God is outside of time, we are inside of time, and so our entire universe is something God observes…I dunno, trapped in amber, the whole thing in one solidified event that God can observe but not change even by interacting with it because the whole thing was created at once, even including His interaction, from His perspective? That might make sense, although we’re back to free will not existing and there is the problem of how something outside of time and causality can choose to do anything in the first place.

Couldn’t God simply think about the various possible universes, then create the one without evil?

 

[Warrenton]

I was short om time when I wrote that and I meant no offense. I did not have time to elaborate. I was merely suggesting that free will and OUR exercising of that free will is directly related to how much love and mercy we recieve from God.

Ok - thanks! I understand. I need to mull your idea and mull’s ideas over. You all are way too fast for me

 

[jmcrae]

Why would you theorize He lacks the capability of speculation? I can understand that it resolves certain long-standing issues with omniscience, but how do you justify the belief on its own?

Well, because the traditional theologians tell us that when God thinks of something, it comes into existence. If this is so, then it becomes not possible for God to think of something that does not exist, since the act of Him thinking of it is what causes it to exist.

Or perhaps the argument is that God is outside of time, we are inside of time, and so our entire universe is something God observes…I dunno, trapped in amber, the whole thing in one solidified event that God can observe but not change even by interacting with it because the whole thing was created at once, even including His interaction, from His perspective?

I kind of think of it as a multidimensional work of art, where He is poking at it and tinkering with it to finish it off, but without ever erasing anything that was in it to begin with - moving things around, and letting things play out, but not actually removing the parts that aren’t working right.

Couldn’t God simply think about the various possible universes, then create the one without evil?

Perhaps God has created many Universes, and perhaps there is one that contains no evil.

 

[Warrenton]

Why would you theorize He lacks the capability of speculation?

I speculate that God does not speculate. Speculation is a process of arriving at a conclusion. For instance, you, Spock and I are in a lifeboat. I wake up, and Spock is missing. I think, did Mellestad kill Spock? Did Spock jump over board? Was he eaten by a sea monster? This process I call speculation. It is running through the various “perhaps” scenarios.

God does not need to do this.

There are no instances in the New Testament of which I can think when Christ speculates.

The questions God poses, often through the prophets in the Old Testament, are rhetorical (e.g., “How long shall I forbear, O Israel?”). Or, they are meant to elicit a response from the hearer (e.g., Genesis: “Who told thee thou wast naked?”). We do not understand this to mean that God really needed Adam to tell Him the answer for His edification.

As I mentioned to Spock earlier, Catholics “work backward” from your approach, because we take the existence of God as the “fact” (through revelation). The bible is our oldest memorialization of the fact, and it is primarilly through scripture that Catholics begin to form ideas about God.

That is why I said to Spock, that intellectually, the atheist approach is more interesting. You get to start with a wider field of inquiry, so to speak.

I’m still working out the alternative universe problem you posed. It may take me a while!

 

[Warrenton]

Perhaps God has created many Universes, and perhaps there is one that contains no evil.

Not perhaps. He has. It is heaven.

 

[jmcrae]

Not perhaps. He has. It is heaven.

Good point.

 

[mellestad]

Well, because the traditional theologians tell us that when God thinks of something, it comes into existence. If this is so, then it becomes not possible for God to think of something that does not exist, since the act of Him thinking of it is what causes it to exist.

I kind of think of it as a multidimensional work of art, where He is poking at it and tinkering with it to finish it off, but without ever erasing anything that was in it to begin with - moving things around, and letting things play out, but not actually removing the parts that aren’t working right.

Perhaps God has created many Universes, and perhaps there is one that contains no evil.

Hmm. Sort of a synthesis of theology and quantum mechanics?

 

[davidv]

People still have free will, God only creates those he knows won’t mess it up.

All with free will, with two know exceptions, have and will “mess it up”. Therefore no one would exist, defeating the purpose of creation. Since God is perfect his purpose is perfect. Therefore you proposed state is a contradiction and is not possible.

The problem is the inherent contradiction of omniscience and free will, really. You can’t logically have both and these examples point that out.

Why is ther an inherent contradiction? Please demonstrate that “knowing” = “causing”.

---

Let me try a different way.

1: You are a Catholic, right? Did God know you would be a Catholic before you were born? Could God have kept you from being born?

2: I’m an atheist. Did God know I would be an atheist before I was born? Could God have kept me from being born?

3: If God kept me from being born, but let you be born, would you stop having free will?

If the answer to 3 is “No, I would still have free will even if God never let mellestad be born” then our point stands. If the answer is “Yes, I would not have free will” then you’ve got some serious problems with omniscience that you need to reconcile.

Since in God’s perspective there is no “before”, your questions above are nonsensical.

 

[mellestad]

I speculate that God does not speculate. Speculation is a process of arriving at a conclusion. For instance, you, Spock and I are in a lifeboat. I wake up, and Spock is missing. I think, did Mellestad kill Spock? Did Spock jump over board? Was he eaten by a sea monster? This process I call speculation. It is running through the various “perhaps” scenarios.

God does not need to do this.

There are no instances in the New Testament of which I can think when Christ speculates.

The questions God poses, often through the prophets in the Old Testament, are rhetorical (e.g., “How long shall I forbear, O Israel?”). Or, they are meant to elicit a response from the hearer (e.g., Genesis: “Who told thee thou wast naked?”). We do not understand this to mean that God really needed Adam to tell Him the answer for His edification.

As I mentioned to Spock earlier, Catholics “work backward” from your approach, because we take the existence of God as the “fact” (through revelation). The bible is our oldest memorialization of the fact, and it is primarilly through scripture that Catholics begin to form ideas about God.

That is why I said to Spock, that intellectually, the atheist approach is more interesting. You get to start with a wider field of inquiry, so to speak.

I’m still working out the alternative universe problem you posed. It may take me a while!

Hmm. I think the problem would be how we define speculation then.

I wouldn’t think God would need to speculate about anything in the way you suggest, but I would have assumed God had the capacity to imagine events as other than they are. Possibly simply by being omniscient He would already know all possible states of being. The act of speculation would not perhaps be conscious, it would rather be an aspect of omniscience.

Or would the argument be God could speculate, He simply refuses to do so?

This is not an idea I’ve thought through, really, but wouldn’t any act of intercession be necessarily involved with an act of speculation, since God is changing the outcome of an event? Otherwise God would not be able to ‘decide’ what to do since He would be incapable of modifying reality due to a lack of imagination.

Or am I misunderstanding what your main point is? I confess it’s been a while since I’ve attempted to speculate from this perspective.

 

[jmcrae]

Hmm. I think the problem would be how we define speculation then.

I wouldn’t think God would need to speculate about anything in the way you suggest, but I would have assumed God had the capacity to imagine events as other than they are. Possibly simply by being omniscient He would already know all possible states of being. The act of speculation would not perhaps be conscious, it would rather be an aspect of omniscience.

Or would the argument be God could speculate, He simply refuses to do so?

This is not an idea I’ve thought through, really, but wouldn’t any act of intercession be necessarily involved with an act of speculation, since God is changing the outcome of an event? Otherwise God would not be able to ‘decide’ what to do since He would be incapable of modifying reality due to a lack of imagination.

Or am I misunderstanding what your main point is? I confess it’s been a while since I’ve attempted to speculate from this perspective.

Unlike us, God is pure Spirit. He doesn’t have a body; nor does He require material support - therefore, when He thinks of doing something, there is not the intervening stage of finding material support and then using hands and other body parts to create something. There is no stage of planning ahead - it simply comes into being, at the moment that God thinks of it.

For God, thinking is the same as doing. When God thinks of you, you exist. If God were ever to stop thinking of you, you would just pop out of existence altogether.

 

[mellestad]

Unlike us, God is pure Spirit. He doesn’t have a body; nor does He require material support - therefore, when He thinks of doing something, there is not the intervening stage of finding material support and then using hands and other body parts to create something. There is no stage of planning ahead - it simply comes into being, at the moment that God thinks of it.

For God, thinking is the same as doing. When God thinks of you, you exist. If God were ever to stop thinking of you, you would just pop out of existence altogether.

Interesting. Is that personal speculation, or dogma? If dogma, do you have any references I could glance at?

Or are you extrapolation from Aquinas and potential vs. act?

How does God think of a person without controlling them though…how is that idea compatible with free will? Or is that what this whole thread started with? Lol. I bet it is, that would make sense. Spock obviously knows more Catholic doctrine than I do.

So, really? Catholic doctrine is that everything we do is an act of will on God’s part? Doesn’t that cause a ton of problems?

 

[mellestad]

All with free will, with two know exceptions, have and will “mess it up”. Therefore no one would exist, defeating the purpose of creation. Since God is perfect his purpose is perfect. Therefore you proposed state is a contradiction and is not possible.

Why is ther an inherent contradiction? Please demonstrate that “knowing” = “causing”.

Since in God’s perspective there is no “before”, your questions above are nonsensical.

The fact that there are known exceptions makes the point valid, yes?

Also, as I pointed out, at the very least you could solve a lot of problems by simply not creating non-believers.

The inherent contradiction is what this whole thread is about.

God=perfect so everything that exists doesn’t require justification is fine, but honestly if that is your tact then there isn’t any point in apologetics, since everything else is totally superfluous.

As for the knowing = causing, I don’t really see how that relates in the discussion with seagal.

Overall I’m a bit confused by your post, but maybe I’m just tired.

 

[seagal]

People still have free will, God only creates those he knows won’t mess it up.

The problem is the inherent contradiction of omniscience and free will, really. You can’t logically have both and these examples point that out.

---

Let me try a different way.

1: You are a Catholic, right? Did God know you would be a Catholic before you were born? Could God have kept you from being born?

2: I’m an atheist. Did God know I would be an atheist before I was born? Could God have kept me from being born?

3: If God kept me from being born, but let you be born, would you stop having free will?

If the answer to 3 is “No, I would still have free will even if God never let mellestad be born” then our point stands. If the answer is “Yes, I would not have free will” then you’ve got some serious problems with omniscience that you need to reconcile.

Did you actually read my post? Your question #3 makes no sense.

 

[jmcrae]

Interesting. Is that personal speculation, or dogma? If dogma, do you have any references I could glance at?

Or are you extrapolation from Aquinas and potential vs. act?

Uh - yeah, that.

Probably. I’m influenced a lot by a certain strand of contemporary philosophical writing, which I assume comes out of the Thomistic tradition, and at the moment I’m kind of going by feel and memory more than by any book I have open on the desk, here.

How does God think of a person without controlling them though.

The end effect would probably be similar to how you can think of your imaginary friend, and then your imaginary friend does something unexpected. In our case, our imaginary friend is influenced by things that we experience outside of ourselves, which in turn influence our imagination - but in God’s case, He has endowed each of us with a free will, with which we make decisions that He didn’t think of.

So, really? Catholic doctrine is that everything we do is an act of will on God’s part?

No, no - the fact of our existence is caused by God’s act of will - but we are created with the ability to act independently, using our free will. But without our being created, we can’t use our free will to do things God doesn’t expect, for Him to observe us doing from His eternal vantage point - if He chose not to create us, based on a speculation that we might make mistakes, He would never know for certain what we would or would not have done with our freedom.

 

[davidv]

The fact that there are known exceptions makes the point valid, yes?

No. Since one of the two is God. How would a human population of one work out?

Also, as I pointed out, at the very least you could solve a lot of problems by simply not creating non-believers.

Believers “mess up”. This doesn’t solve the problem.

The inherent contradiction is what this whole thread is about.

Then show how “knowing” equals “causing”.

God=perfect so everything that exists doesn’t require justification is fine, but honestly if that is your tact then there isn’t any point in apologetics, since everything else is totally superfluous.

Strawman.

As for the knowing = causing, I don’t really see how that relates in the discussion with seagal.

Its at the root of the apparent conflict between free will and omniscience.

Overall I’m a bit confused by your post, but maybe I’m just tired.

How are you confused?

 

[Spock]

Of course the father in this example should be held responsible-whether by God or a court of law. But it seems you’re assuming Adam & Eve were like children in the face of a commandment they couldn’t possibly comprehend or live up to and no where in Catholic teaching is one held accountable on such terms.

Well, I have never seen an authoritative, dogmatic proposition, just how should one read and understand the story. So, all I can do is read it according to my best ability.

1. We talk about the “Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil”.
2. Before eating the fruit A&E did not know right from wrong (or good from evil). They could not have known it, otherwise what was the point of the tree?
3. Therefore they were not moral agents, just like a child is not a moral agent. As such they were not culpable.
4. The usual objection is that God commanded them not to touch the tree. He told them about the consequences. God told them that on the day they eat from the tree they will “surely” die.
5. But the Catholic teaching is that “death” was absent from the world until the “fall”, death was the result of the fall, so the word “death” was meaningless before the fall.
6. The next objection is that whether they understood the meaning of “death”, it was still a command, and they disobeyed it.
7. But, is plain “disobedience” - in and by itself - wrong? If it is not wrong, then why the punishment? If it is wrong, then they could not have known it, since they gained knowledge only after eating that fruit.

So my conclusion is simple. A&E were like children, who did not know right from wrong, and who did not understand what the word “death” meant. They could not have known that disobedience is wrong. No loving father would throw a child out from his home after ONE act of disobedience. “One strike and you are out” is overreacting, to say the least.