Why did God create me if he knew I would spend an eternity in hell?

[laura_lu]

Sorry if I repeat anything already mentioned, but this question bothered me for a time as well. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and stumbled upon something that helped me deal with such a difficult issue, but is by no means a perfect explanation and may be completely insufficient for some.

Since God is not limited or controlled by time, it is already amazingly difficult to see through His eyes. How does God see someone as existing or not existing? For Him, is there any difference between us being there and not being there? Were we in his thoughts and thus in existence, for Him, from the beginning in His mind?

Also, God’s love is beyond our imagining. What suffering to know that those you so profoundly love not only despise you in return, but would rather endure the fires of hell than be with you? If anything, the fact that God still creates you, knowing the suffering it will bring upon Himself in return, only further illustrates His love for you.

Something to keep in mind is that God’s mercy is endless. He does not turn anyone away that truly wishes to be with Him. And while not many people would say, "I want to go to hell, " there are those who say, “I want a life without God. I am better off without Him.” Thus, these people have chosen their hell because there is no greater hell than the absence of God. God respects their decision because of His love for them. If they want to leave fully aware of what awaits them, He will let them.

 

[Iamacatholic77]

Interesting solution to the problem. Although I assume you realise that this would mean that God is not omniscient and is bound within time (both of which are as far as I know contrary to official catholic doctrine).

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omnipotence_paradox

 

[tonyrey]

Sorry if I repeat anything already mentioned, but this question bothered me for a time as well. I spent a lot of time thinking about it and stumbled upon something that helped me deal with such a difficult issue, but is by no means a perfect explanation and may be completely insufficient for some.

Since God is not limited or controlled by time, it is already amazingly difficult to see through His eyes. How does God see someone as existing or not existing? For Him, is there any difference between us being there and not being there? Were we in his thoughts and thus in existence, for Him, from the beginning in His mind?

Also, God’s love is beyond our imagining. What suffering to know that those you so profoundly love not only despise you in return, but would rather endure the fires of hell than be with you? If anything, the fact that God still creates you, knowing the suffering it will bring upon Himself in return, only further illustrates His love for you.

Something to keep in mind is that God’s mercy is endless. He does not turn anyone away that truly wishes to be with Him. And while not many people would say, "I want to go to hell, " there are those who say, “I want a life without God. I am better off without Him.” Thus, these people have chosen their hell because there is no greater hell than the absence of God. God respects their decision because of His love for them. If they want to leave fully aware of what awaits them, He will let them.

A very warm welcome to the forum, Laura.

Your first post is a fine answer!

 

[wynnejj]

Lets say that I reject God and choose to spend an eternity in hell. He knew I would make this choice, and yet he still made me.

If he loved me so much, why would he make me knowing that I would spend an eternity away from him?

Articles on omniscience, predestination, or this exact topic would be loverly.

In my circles, I know the story of a boy who was the son of a fall-down drunk spiralling out of control downwards. This boy’s father once said something to the effect “All God’s creatures have a purpose in God’s plan for Good”, to which his son asked “Then, what is your purpose?”. His reply was… “If only to serve as a bad example.”. (true story)

 

[Candide_West]

I would suggest that you read (if you haven’t already) my post 192.

I demonstrated there that you can keep the 4 characteristics as you call them and still retain free will.*

I did read that post. But haven’t replied to it since I’d consider that to be something of a regression in progress in this conversation. I think this post marks the best progress to date so I’ll reply from here.*

First you need to clarify how you understand hell…

No thanks. The whole hell issue is a sideshow to me, obviously I don’t believe hell to exist so getting into how different people imagine the concept seems rather irrelevant.*

The only purpose of point 1 was to show how the loss of free will is a more general case of the OP’s question - an expansion of it.*

As I mentioned earlier, who that person is, is not set in concrete at birth. We all know that for a fact, because we all know that we grow and change.

As we make decisions, those decisions change us.*

No problem, I believe we already covered this in my previous post. Person’s soul designed by God is Soul version 1.0. After decision 1 (the two factors in which are both decided by God) we have Soul version 1.1. Which is still designed by God but with a layer of causality. So we build up till we reach Soul version 235337743553774336.53575 at the point of death. Every decision in the creation of which was determined by God, in advance, by determining the internal and external factors. There are just a lot of layers of causality at the end.*

The external does affect us but the external’s affects us only in as much as it gives the environment through which we exercise free will.*

Careful, there you are jumping in and assuming your conclusion here. The correct thing to say is that the external defines the options available and the factors affecting those options.*

It does not matter whether the external is good or bad, because the choice is always there to choose either good or bad.*

Of course the external matters, although obviously not in a simplistic “good or bad” way. The external element covers all the aspects of a situation which are not internal to ourselves. If you are rolling a dice you don’t bet on “heads”. If you are flipping a coin you’d be silly to call a “six”.*

I’ve already commented on 3A and explained that God does not “determine” the soul as if the soul at birth remains static and God judges the person based on the actions of this static soul.*

Yes, as we’ve discussed God instead determines the starting point and each stage of evolution of the soul from that point. Obviously this means that God determines in advance the state of each soul at each point in it’s existence.

In other words he doesn’t determine the soul at a given point by making it and fixing it. He does so by picking a starting point and a chain of causality. In both cases he has determined the internal aspect, just in the latter Gods hand is obscured from us by the chain of causality.*

I do not know where you are going with 3B. This has nothing to do with 3A since “responsibility” was not even in the scope of your previous post.

Responsibility rests with the one who makes the decision. Thus the two are directly related. If we have truly free will then we are responsible. If God has the specified characteristics, he is, because he made the choices.

The soul has something to do with who a person is because God creates a unique soul each time. I can’t see how, being made unique precludes free will.

On it’s own, obviously it doesn’t. As I’ve said, there are FOUR characteristics. Connected by the logic I have given.

You have a rather caricaturish view of the God-man relationship.

God does not ‘entirely’ determine what situations we experience. The situations we experience are also brought about by our choices.

Indeed, each situation is dependent on previous choices as well as other factors. As above each of those choices was ultimately made by God.

For example, someone kills a man and as a result meets this person, which leads to this situation, and so forth.

Exactly. This is the chain of causality I mentioned.
**

What do you mean by interventionist? What does He intervene in? Does He intervene in your choices by over riding your free will or does He intervene in the inanimate things in the universe.

It doesn’t really matter since the end result is the same. But for the purposes of this discussion I have assumed that he never interferes with internal workings of a persons thoughts. Otherwise I’d be assuming the conclusion which would be silly.*

 

[Candide_West]

*Let’s suppose that His intervention is to cause an earthquake…

Where in this scenario do you find support for your contention that because of the above, the person did not have any free will

Ok. Well I’ve already explained how I support my argument. In detail. But if you want me to apply it to a specific example then I can do that.

In the situation you described. God did indeed decide that person A would commit suicide. Allow me to demonstrate.*

God choose to create an earthquake, he chose it’s power, location, frequency etc. Let’s say that if he’d moved the epicentre (from position O) slightly to position A then person A would have gone to location A and helped save people. Or if he’d moved it the epicentre to position B then he would have gone to location X to run a food delivery service.*

God (from his own perspective) looking at those 3 options must have thought “I’m going to put the centre at O, this will cause (amongst billions of other things) person A to kill himself.”

That decision was made by God, and it was made along with every other decision at the beginning of the universe. By God. Person A may have the impression that he chose to kill himself, but given that who he would be at that point in time and the exact detail of how the earthquake would occur and how that would affect person A was already known by God 15 billion years ago. How can we say that it was truly his choice? God picked the suicide route for person A when he decided the location of the epicentre. He knew the available options and selected the one which would result exactly and inescapable in person A committing suicide.*

As with 3B this has no bearing on what we are discussing because we are not talking about responsibility.*

As covered above, the one who makes the choice bears the responsibility.

*Okay, let’s grant for the sake of this discussion that He is 100% responsible for the external factors.

How exactly does that nihilate man’s free will.

Refer back to my earthquake example.*

Done.

*Well no. *Going back to the earthquake scenario, Person A instead of killing himself could have responded to the devastation with empathy and helped those hurt by the earthquake. *Both options were open to Him. God did not build the suicide gene into his make up.

Indeed person A could have done differently. But only if God had either changed the earthquake or changed who person A was at the time of the earthquake (either through designing his soul differently or through changing the subsequent chain of causality). Again, only God ever had the power to change person A from “deciding” to commit suicide.*

The real point you are trying to make is NOT that “free will is an illusion because of these 4 Characteristics of God” BUT that “despite the free will, God should not blame us for our choices because He would have known that we would make those choices so in creating us, He is partly responsible for allowing those bad choices to be made”.

You are nearly right but not quite. My point is that if God exists and has the 4 stated characteristics then he is entirely responsible for everything that happens, BECAUSE our “free will” is an illusion.*

*Actually very wrong. Your conclusion is way, way off track.

Free will is not an illusion. Free will does exist: not even once – from point 1 to 6 – were you able to show otherwise.*

Then by all means identify the failing in the logic. To date you have made a couple minor variations to the argument. Specifically you removed the biology from the equation and noted that God determines the “shape” of an individuals soul at any given point through a chain of causality, rather than directly. Obviously neither of these change the argument or prevent it from working, they just move Gods cause between point 3. and point 4.

However, one could reasonably argue that since God knew that using your own free will you will defy Him, why create you at all. If He knew the havoc you were going to make, yet still He made you then He is responsible for allowing the havoc to happen.

Or more accurately, God is responsible for causing that havoc to happen by his actions.

Actually, the OP said that simply and more to the point. Your original post added nothing new to that. If anything it just muddled the whole exercise.

As I said, I have expanded the point somewhat so I guess inevitably made it slightly more complex. But it remains a pretty straightforward argument. The real problem has arisen from your repeated introduction of people having free will in an debate about whether people have free will. In other words - assuming the conclusion.*

 

[davidv]

{snip}No problem, I believe we already covered this in my previous post. Person’s soul designed by God is Soul version 1.0. After decision 1 (the two factors in which are both decided by God) we have Soul version 1.1. Which is still designed by God but with a layer of causality. So we build up till we reach Soul version 235337743553774336.53575 at the point of death. Every decision in the creation of which was determined by God, in advance, by determining the internal and external factors. There are just a lot of layers of causality at the end.*

re: bold

What evidence do you have that supports this claim. Please demonstrate that every internal and external factor is created by God.

{snip}

 

[Spock]

re: bold

What evidence do you have that supports this claim. Please demonstrate that every internal and external factor is created by God.

Basic Catholic teaching… read the Catechism and the dogmas. It is stated crystal clear that God actively participates in every event. Not just created, but also maintained!

II.9 : God keeps all created things in existence. first source…

69: God keeps all created things in existence. (De fide.)
70: God co-operates immediately in every act of His creatures. (Sent. communis.) second source…
There are no laws of nature… that is a misnomer. The world would disintegrate into nothingness, if God did not keep it together every second. (Only deists think - incorrectly - that God started to put things in motion, created some laws to govern the world, and then stepped back. Catholics are required to believe the dogmas, which say otherwise.) There is no such thing as “free will”. We are simply playing out our predestined part according to the script prepared by God. If we fire a gun, it is God, you moves our muscles, it is God, who keeps the bullet on the trajectory.

It is nice of you guys to try to argue, but you really should be more familiar with your own Church’s basic teachings.

 

[davidv]

Basic Catholic teaching… read the Catechism and the dogmas. It is stated crystal clear that God actively participates in every event. Not just created, but also maintained!

II.9 : God keeps all created things in existence. first source…

69: God keeps all created things in existence. (De fide.)
70: God co-operates immediately in every act of His creatures. (Sent. communis.) second source…
There are no laws of nature… that is a misnomer. The world would disintegrate into nothingness, if God did not keep it together every second. (Only deists think - incorrectly - that God started to put things in motion, created some laws to govern the world, and then stepped back. Catholics are required to believe the dogmas, which say otherwise.) There is no such thing as “free will”. We are simply playing out our predestined part according to the script prepared by God. If we fire a gun, it is God, you moves our muscles, it is God, who keeps the bullet on the trajectory.

It is nice of you guys to try to argue, but you really should be more familiar with your own Church’s basic teachings.

None of what you quote says that God makes my choices for me. Care to try again?

 

[Spock]

None of what you quote says that God makes my choices for me. Care to try again?

Well, either God makes your choices, or your choices drive God’s actions. In the first case you have no free will, in the letter case God’s actions are contingent. And since God is simple, God’s essence cannot be separated from God’s actions, therefore God’s essence is contingent contrary to what the dogma says:

15. God is absolutely simple. (De fide.) jloughnan.tripod.com/dogma.htm
**25. God is absolutely immutable. (De fide.) **

And that is even worse. Because now you say that God’s “immutable essence” is actually contingent upon our actions. Huh! What a heresy!

 

[christosdavid]

maybe he wanted to demonstrate his justice. Jaboc I loved but Esau I hated.

Why should God have to save everybody irrespective of how theyve behaved? He shouldnt and doesnt.

If you go to hell youve only yourself to blame. Dont blame God for being rightous just because youre unrighteous.

 

[benedictus2]

I did read that post. But haven’t replied to it since I’d consider that to be something of a regression in progress in this conversation. I think this post marks the best progress to date so I’ll reply from here.*

If you read that post, then you would know that that summarized your points completely and rebutted it completely. This discussion would be unnecessary if you understood it.

No thanks. The whole hell issue is a sideshow to me, obviously I don’t believe hell to exist so getting into how different people imagine the concept seems rather irrelevant.*

And this is the whole problem. Because it is a side issue to you, you therefore think it is a side issue when it actual fact it has a huge bearing on what we are discussing. It is precisely this failure to grasp something as fundamental as that that you keep making this errors in your conclusions.

The only purpose of point 1 was to show how the loss of free will is a more general case of the OP’s question - an expansion of it.*

And an understanding of hell is important to that.

1. No problem, I believe we already covered this in my previous post. Person’s soul designed by God is Soul version 1.0.

2)After decision 1 (the two factors in which are both decided by God) we have Soul version 1.1.
3) Which is still designed by God but with a layer of causality.
4) So we build up till we reach Soul version 235337743553774336.53575 at the point of death.
5) Every decision in the creation of which was determined by God, in advance, by determining the internal and external factors.
6) There are just a lot of layers of causality at the end.*

From say Version 1 to 235337743553774336.53575 is an enormous change which is very much more than a layer of causality. The adult is vastly different to the child and these changes were brought about by the choices of this person not some machination of God. So that’s your first error.

Second error. Point 5 is a total non-sequitur to points 1-4.
Nowhere in points 1 to 4 have you shown that because God created our soul and its every changed was caused by us, that somehow these changes were controlled by God. Actually this seems to be the error that you consistently make. Jumping to conclusions that in no way proceed from any premise you have actually laid out.

Careful, there you are jumping in and assuming your conclusion here. The correct thing to say is that the external defines the options available and the factors affecting those options.*

I am not. I have always had free will and the four “characteristics” as part of the givens. The thing that I have shown is that taken as a given with the four characteristic there is no contradiction.

As a matter of fact, you have been unable to show any contradictions. But you have indeed jumped to conclusions but these conclusions did not proceed from your premise.

 

[benedictus2]

Of course the external matters, although obviously not in a simplistic “good or bad” way. The external element covers all the aspects of a situation which are not internal to ourselves. If you are rolling a dice you don’t bet on “heads”. If you are flipping a coin you’d be silly to call a “six”.*

That absolutely makes no sense.

Yes, as we’ve discussed God instead determines the starting point and each stage of evolution of the soul from that point. Obviously this means that God determines in advance the state of each soul at each point in it’s existence.

Yes, we can say he created an infant soul.

In other words he doesn’t determine the soul at a given point by making it and fixing it.

Correct again.

He does so by picking a starting point and a chain of causality.

No. He does so by picking a starting point, not the chain of causality. The chain of causality the soul the soul determines in part by its choices.

In both cases he has determined the internal aspect, just in the latter Gods hand is obscured from us by the chain of causality.*

Well, no you have not been able to show that he has determined the internal aspect. He determined the “baby” of the internal aspect but not the “adult” of the internal aspect. And the adult is what counts, and the adult is arrived at by the choices that the soul makes.

Responsibility rests with the one who makes the decision.

Which happens to be the person. When the person chooses good or evil, it is the person who chooses not God.

Thus the two are directly related.

They are only related in so far as the baby was created by God but the person’s choices is what makes him the adult that he is. And this choices God did not dictate. He made them freely.

If we have truly free will then we are responsible.

Since we do , so we are.

If God has the specified characteristics, he is, because he made the choices.

And that is the non-sequitur that you have been repeating over and over and have not be able to establish.

On it’s own, obviously it doesn’t. As I’ve said, there are FOUR characteristics. Connected by the logic I have given.

Which , the same as before you have not been able to show. And there was no logic to what you have given since it is pockmarked with non-sequiturs.

Indeed, each situation is dependent on previous choices as well as other factors. As above each of those choices was ultimately made by God.

Well, as I keep saying, you have failed to establish that. All you’ve managed to do is something like blame the railway corporation for the person who jumped on the tracks because if there was no track to jump off then the person would not have jumped off the tracks. Totally absurd.

Exactly. This is the chain of causality I mentioned.

Which all happens to be caused by the person, not God.

It doesn’t really matter since the end result is the same.

The end result which was done by the person so therefore he was responsible for his actions.

*But for the purposes of this discussion I have assumed that he never interferes with internal workings of a persons thoughts. Otherwise I’d be assuming the conclusion which would be silly. **

**Exactly. And if he never interfered with the internal workings of a persons thoughts, or coerced him to act in a certain way, then the person acted freely. Therefore the person has free will. **

 

[benedictus2]

Ok. Well I’ve already explained how I support my argument. In detail. But if you want me to apply it to a specific example then I can do that.

In the situation you described. God did indeed decide that person A would commit suicide. Allow me to demonstrate.*

God choose to create an earthquake, he chose it’s power, location, frequency etc. Let’s say that if he’d moved the epicentre (from position O) slightly to position A then person A would have gone to location A and helped save people.

Another one of your non-sequiturs. You seem to have a penchant for this.

Can you explain to me how changing the epicenter of an earthquake would change a person’s decision to help the disaster victims or to end one’s life? I mean beyond pure speculation. You need to show that if the epicentre is in point A this will unquestionably move Person A to suicide but if it were in Point B this will completely logically move Person A to help.

Or if he’d moved it the epicentre to position B then he would have gone to location X to run a food delivery service.*

Same fallacy yet again. How exactly does moving the epicentre change Person B from a suicide case to a food delivery service angel? Where is the connection there.

God (from his own perspective) looking at those 3 options must have thought “I’m going to put the centre at O, this will cause (amongst billions of other things) person A to kill himself.”

Third illogical conclusion this far in your post. How exactly do you know that this is what God would have thought?

That decision was made by God, and it was made along with every other decision at the beginning of the universe. By God.

How exactly do you know that for a fact?

    Person A may have the impression that he chose to kill himself, but given that who he would be at that point in time and the exact detail of how the earthquake would occur and how that would affect person A was already known by God 15 billion years ago.

And here again, you fall again into that error that David accused you of –equating knowledge with causation.

Remember, the only way that God would have caused this person to kill himself is if He had whispered into this man : “kill yourself”, and then overwhelmed his will such that he has no other option but to kill himself.

But remember, you said earlier in your post that you are not saying that God does that at all.

So therefore, if God did not do those things then how exactly has God caused him to not freely choose to kill himself.

How can we say that it was truly his choice?

Because as you said before, He did not influence the man’s thoughts not over rode this man’s choices.

God picked the suicide route for person A when he decided the location of the epicentre. He knew the available options and selected the one which would result exactly and inescapable in person A committing suicide.*

No He didn’t, because the person has two options open to him. As you said, before, God did not manipulate his thoughts.

As covered above, the one who makes the choice bears the responsibility.

Well as I said before, that is as idiotic as the real life case of a teenager who sued the parents of his friend because this teenager sustained major injuries after he jumped of the backyard fence of his friend’s house. His claim was, knowing how that he likes to take chances and fool around, they should have put a guard on the fence to prevent him jumping off it! The parents were not even there when he did it, it was just him and his friends. And this guys’ claim for compensation is as idiotic as idiotic can get.

 

[benedictus2]

Indeed person A could have done differently. But only if God had either changed the earthquake or changed who person A was at the time of the earthquake (either through designing his soul differently or through changing the subsequent chain of causality). Again, only God ever had the power to change person A from “deciding” to commit suicide.*

And again, the non sequitur.

How do you know that A could have done differently with a change to the epicentre. You are making major assumptions here.

Furthermore, “could have” does not mean “would have”. It seem you are unable to make a distinction between these two. The “could have” existed even at the same epicentre.

You are nearly right but not quite. My point is that if God exists and has the 4 stated characteristics then he is entirely responsible for everything that happens, BECAUSE our “free will” is an illusion.*

Nope, I am right and very much so.

With everything that you have written, the only thing you have so far been able to support is the conclusion that because of these 4 “characteristics”, knowing that you will freely choose to make a bad choice, he is therefore partly responsible for the resulting chaos that this bad choice engendered.

That is all the case you can make. Free will remained free, and definitely not illusion.

He knew you were going to make that choice and he still chose to create you. That is all the case you can make and nothing more.

Then by all means identify the failing in the logic.

I have done plenty of time. You just don’t seem to be grasping it because you keep making the same errors, the same non-sequiturs.

To date you have made a couple minor variations to the argument. Specifically you removed the biology from the equation and noted that God determines the “shape” of an individuals soul at any given point through a chain of causality, rather than directly. Obviously neither of these change the argument or prevent it from working, they just move Gods cause between point 3. and point 4.

The chain of causality - which the person at each juncture chose freely.
Y
ou were unable to make a case that each individual choice at each point in this person’s life was somehow coerced by God. Only then, does free will disappear and become an illusion. That is a very simple thing that for some reason seems to elude you.

Or more accurately, God is responsible for causing that havoc to happen by his actions.

No he wasn’t because the person had a choice not to. As you yourself said, God did not manipulate his thoughts.

And you know what, what we choose, depends on what we think. How we act depends on what we think. If God did not interfere with your thoughts then obviously your thoughts are your own and your decisions are your own.

As I said, I have expanded the point somewhat so I guess inevitably made it slightly more complex. But it remains a pretty straightforward argument. The real problem has arisen from your repeated introduction of people having free will in an debate about whether people have free will. In other words - assuming the conclusion.*

You did not make it complex. You are just not very clear about your position which makes me think that you do not grasp entirely you own position.

As for assuming the conclusion, you assumed the conclusion way before, when you said that the 4 characteristics and free will are in opposition. And that is one huge assumption which after so much keystrokes you have not been able to prove.

I on the other hand have shown in post 192 that they very much co-exist extremely well and very, very logically.

 

[benedictus2]

Well, either God makes your choices, or your choices drive God’s actions. In the first case you have no free will, in the letter case God’s actions are contingent.

Some of God’s actions are indeed “contingent” in so far as they are in response to your actions.

Example, God could let matters take its course by allowing you to be killed if you jump on the train, but sometimes, He acts to save you when all things given you should have died.

But it is not always like this.

It also like the if-then-else that a programmer builds into his program.

If I choose A then another choice opens up and so forth and if I choose B then another choice opens up and so forth as well.

And since God is simple, God’s essence cannot be separated from God’s actions, therefore God’s essence is contingent contrary to what the dogma says:
15. God is absolutely simple. (De fide.) jloughnan.tripod.com/dogma.htm
**25. God is absolutely immutable. (De fide.) **
And that is even worse. Because now you say that God’s “immutable essence” is actually contingent upon our actions. Huh! What a heresy!

Depends on how you understand God’s essence and what God’s essence is.

If God’s essence is Love, then all His actions are loving. If loving this his actions are also a response in love to our actions. God can move independent of our actions but He chose to be limited by our free will.

 

[davidv]

Well, either God makes your choices, or your choices drive God’s actions. In the first case you have no free will, in the letter case God’s actions are contingent.

Sounds like a false dicotomy fallacy to me. Can you prove these are the only options?

nd since God is simple, God’s essence cannot be separated from God’s actions, therefore God’s essence is contingent contrary to what the dogma says:

15. God is absolutely simple. (De fide.) jloughnan.tripod.com/dogma.htm

**25. God is absolutely immutable. (De fide.) **
And that is even worse. Because now you say that God’s “immutable essence” is actually contingent upon our actions. Huh! What a heresy!

No heresy, as it is a false conclusion.

 

[Spock]

Sounds like a false dicotomy fallacy to me. Can you prove these are the only options?

It is assumed that all the actions of all humans are known to God. In other words, there are two sets: one is the set of all human actions. The other set is God’s knowledge about these human actions (God has other knowledge, too, but it is not relevant in this respect). There is a one-to-one correspondence between the two sets.

In theory there are exactly 4 options:

1. God’s knowledge causes human actions.
2. Human actions cause God’s knowledge.
3. Some unknown causative agent causes both God’s knowledge and human actions.
4. It is sheer coincidence that human actions and God’s knowledge just “happen” to be the same.

Option #1 denies free will.
Option #2 denies God’s absolute nature, making it contingent.
Option #3 makes both God’s absolute nature and human free will impossible.
Option #4 is a mathematical impossibility.

Pick your choice.

 

[Spock]

Some of God’s actions are indeed “contingent” in so far as they are in response to your actions.

Not according to the Catechism and the dogmas. God is absolute and not contingent. God is simple - God has no “parts”. God’s knowledge cannot be separated from God’s essence (whatever it may be). If God’s knowledge would be contingent, then God would be contingent. There is no way out of this. All are the “infallible” () dogmas of the Church, which must be accepted by all Catholics.

 

[Candide_West]

If you read that post, then you would know that that summarized your points completely and rebutted it completely. *This discussion would be unnecessary if you understood it.

No, perhaps you didn’t read my reply. I HAVE read your post 192. I acknowledge that you tried to rebutt my argument. But you failed and I don’t think it is a valuable exercise to backtrack over territory we have already covered to show you why you failed.*

Especially when your most recent set of posts (that I’m currently replying to) show so clearly the two most major errors you have made. And presumably have been making all along. The arguments and errors you have made suddenly make much more sense once I saw these. I’ll reply to them and explain as they come up below.*

And this is the whole problem. *Because it is a side issue to you…

No, it really is a side issue. IF we have free will, THEN we are responsible for everything we do including (if they exist) whether we end up in heaven or hell.*

IF we don’t have free will, THEN we are responsible for nothing including (if they exist) whether we end up in heaven or hell.*

The above statements both remain true no matter what heaven or hell is like. You see now? The question of what heaven or hell might be like if they exist is entirely secondary in this discussion to whether we have free will in the first place.*

From say Version 1 to 235337743553774336.53575 is an enormous change which is very much more than a layer of causality.

Indeed, there are many billions of layers of causality. But as covered in my previous post. God ultimately determined in advance the internal and external elements of each and every decision. Thus he just hides himself from being visible to us. But remains the cause of each decision.*

Perhaps I should again take you right back to the start for simplicity. See if we can get through the most basic example together.*

That very first decision (decision 1) that a baby makes when their “soul” is still exactly as it was crafted by God. Let’s say that God had four shapes (square, triangle, circle and oval) that he could have made the soul in for simplicity. And there are two options (A and B) available from this very first decision point.*

God (being omniscient) knows the nature of the first decision situation the soul he is making will go into. He also knows how his shaping of the soul will affect the “choice”. Let’s say (for simplicity) the results will fall out as follows:

Square (S) - option A
Triangle (T) - option A
Circle (C) - option B
Oval (O) - option B

So. God at the point of selecting a soul shape determines whether option A or B will be chosen in decision point 1.

Are you still with me at this point? I’ll leave this here for now and see because I don’t want to go jumping ahead again.*

The adult is vastly different to the child and these changes were brought about by the choices of this person not some machination of God. So that’s your first error.

No, I haven’t made this error. However I won’t reply to this in detail until I see how you manage with my back to basics example above.*

Second error. Point 5 is a total non-sequitur to points 1-4.

No, actually it isn’t. But it does require that you’ve read my previous post explaining how this works in more detail if you can’t join the dots. Again I’ll leave this for now in favour of the above example.

…Actually this seems to be the error that you consistently make. Jumping to conclusions that in no way proceed from any premise you have actually laid out.

Right, to avoid jumping ahead again I’ll wait on your response to the above.*

I am not. I have always had free will and the four “characteristics” as part of the givens. *The thing that I have shown is that taken as a given with the four characteristic there is no contradiction.

Here is the first of the two errors I mentioned at the start of this post that you’ve been making. Your “givens” include us having free will. This is a logical error as your conclusion is one of your assumptions. This makes it a tautology.*

If you start with the assumption that we have free will then it’s hardly surprising that ANY line of logic will lead you to the conclusion that we have free will. In order to have a meaningful discussion about whether free will is real or an illusion you will need to cease using the assumption that it is real as one of your starting points.

As a matter of fact, you have been unable to show any contradictions. *But you have indeed jumped to conclusions but these conclusions did not proceed from your premise.

I am not attempting to show contradictions. I am attempting to show you a line of logic. At the moment the problem appears to be with point 3. So I’ll focus on this one and I’m using the back to basics example above to do so. I’ll try to take it a step at a time so as to avoid jumping ahead. So you just let me know if / when you lose me.*