Why would God create people he knew would go to hell?

[Kei]

But you DO only make the one choice at the time, and that’s the only choice you actually do make. Hence you’ve already made the choice.
This could be misconstrued into something I am not saying, so let me make it easier so no one misunderstands.

At point 3, person A can choose either x or y. Say he chooses x. Now, that person does not choose y. He could have chosen y, but he did not. He chose x.
Now, at point 4 (which comes after point 3), person A knows that he chose x at point 3, because point 3 already happened. (I know I ate cereal this morning for breakfast as opposed to something else). An entity not bound by time is already at point 4 to see point 3. Person A actually makes the choice, but to the one not bound by time (which is what we mean when we say timeless), person A has already made the choice, and similar to how person A can know he chose x without that influencing his free will, the one not bound by time can also know that person A chose x without that influencing his free will.

This is true for time travel as well, if it were to exist to the future, assuming that there’s only one universe/timeline. If there is actually a branched off time line for each choice, then it wouldn’t matter as all choices allowed to occur would occur at some point.

 

[Kei]

Yes, to one bound by time.
You haven’t made the decision yet. However, you will.
Say you choose electrical engineering as your major.
Well, in 4 years, surely you will know that that is what you chose as your major, correct?

It’s similar to that, except a timeless being already knows what is 4 years from now, and similarly knows you chose such.

 

[jlhargus]

God gives sufficient grace to every human being to believe and be saved. As scripture tells us.

[Rms1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:]

[2Cor4:4 In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.]

 

[AveOTheotokos]

IMHO God is present within our existence. It is misleading to say that

I think that God exists both inside and outside our existence. Genesis, the Incarnation and the Eucharist prove that God is ;present inside our existence.

God, His being, His essence, are omnipresent; He is in all things, but He is not part of all things. There is no matter, composition, or accidents in God.

 

[pocaracas]

pocaracas:

I see… so there’s the abstract existence

Abstract? Who said that God is an abstraction?

Abstract concept of existence.
No one said anything an abstract god, only you!

So… why is it important that people believe that such an entity exists?

Umm… He created it. Without Him, we would not exist. That’s pretty important.

ok, ok… but why have to believe in that at all?
If I, as many do, do not believe that a god exists at all… then automatically, our existence is not dependent on any god.

How can mankind come to know about such an entity without entering into the real of mind games/cognitive fallacies/that sort of thing?

I guess I’d have to know what you mean by “mind games” and “cognitive fallacies” before I could answer that question… right?

Cognitive fallacies are those fallacies that lead many of us to wrong conclusions. There is the common search for patterns where there are none, like finding familiar shapes in clouds; there is the ad populum fallacy where we accept something as true simply because many others around us claim it to be true; there is the confirmation bias in which we find it easier accept things that confirm what we want to be true; etc.etc.etc…
Mind games are events or organizations that facilitate those cognitive fallacies… such as when someone else suggests that a cloud has a particular shape, and then you too see it, where you previously didn’t.
(those are my names for these things… maybe they have proper designations in psychology, but whatever… let’s go along with these )

 

[pocaracas]

That is why I keep saying that person A’s free will is an illusion. There is apparently nothing influencing it.
But someone, god, knows all. So, ultimately, the choice con only result in outcome, the one that god knows…

 

[Kei]

But that doesn’t follow from the situation.
Person A made a choice. Does the fact he can think back on the choice he made and cannot change if (because he already made it) mean he never made the choice in the first place?
I say no, and that such is not at all logical thinking.

I had breakfast this morning, eating cereal. I cannot change the FACT that I ate cereal this morning, because I already did it. Does that mean I didn’t actually choose to eat cereal? No, because I could have chosen to eat something else for breakfast, then it would have been that choice that I currently cannot change.

 

[pocaracas]

Yes, the person made a choice.
But the thing is that the person would have always made that choice. You would always have chosen to eat cereal at that particular time.
Things would always have unfolded as they were going to, because someone knows, in the past, how they would be when the person makes the choice.

 

[Kei]

Yes, he would have always made that choice after he has already made it. That does not mean that he never made it in the first place.

 

[AlNg]

I am not sure as to whether the future and/or the past exist now. I believe that the past did exist, but does not exist now. And I don’t see how the future can exist now. The future is undetermined to a large extent and things may exist in the future, but i don’t see how you can say that the future exists now. I think that things exist in the now, at the present moment.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

I am not sure as to whether the future and/or the past exist now. I believe that the past did exist, but does not exist now. And I don’t see how the future can exist now. The future is undetermined to a large extent and things may exist in the future, but i don’t see how you can say that the future exists now. I think that things exist in the now, at the present moment.

If you have not read it, you may enjoy this chapter from Augustine’s Confessions that examines whether the past, present, and future exist.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf/aug11.htm

 

[mkoopman]

You are now missing that God’s will is, always. There is no action on the part of God for His Will to be performed, it is. God’s will, for example, holds creation together. If God’s will is to end creation, it no longer has existence.

 

[mkoopman]

You deny the existence of God with this framework. God created time. Free will is not centric on time and natural causality. Free will is what connects us with the eternal, principally by the action of virtues, or in contradiction vices. God is particularly not interested in the consequences of these choices enabled by grace, this world is fading away. Don’t chose to fade away from God. Know your conscience is not a logical fallacy but your true friend.

 

[AlNg]

If you have not read it, you may enjoy this chapter from Augustine’s Confessions that examines whether the past, present, and future exist.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/augconf/aug11.htm

Thank you for this reference. Although the chapter is pretty verbose, There is a paragraph where it looks like he is saying the same thing as I said above:
“But how is that future diminished or consumed, which as yet is not? or how that past increased, which is now no longer, save that in the mind which enacteth this, there be three things done? For it expects, it considers, it remembers; that so that which it expecteth, through that which it considereth, passeth into that which it remembereth. Who therefore denieth, that things to come are not as yet? and yet, there is in the mind an expectation of things to come. And who denies past things to be now no longer? and yet is there still in the mind a memory of things past. And who denieth the present time hath no space, because it passeth away in a moment? and yet our consideration continueth, through which that which shall be present proceedeth to become absent. It is not then future time, that is long, for as yet it is not: but a long future, is “a long expectation of the future,” nor is it time past, which now is not, that is long; but a long past, is “a long memory of the past.””

You deny the existence of God with this framework.

I don’t see how this denies the existence of God. What is the difference between what St. Augustine says in the paragraph quoted, and what I said above?

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Thank you for this reference. Although the chapter is pretty verbose, There is a paragraph where it looks like he is saying the same thing as I said above:

Yes, this section took me a couple days to get through reading it in adoration and felt a bit rambling, but I ultimately found his underlying analysis quite intriguing.

If you can get your hands on a copy of the Frank Sheed translation, I think it reads much easier, yet does a masterful job of retaining Augustine’s poetic style. Unfortunately, the only free versions I can find online are much older translations that are a bit cumbersome for us modern English speakers.

 

[Gorgias]

IMHO God is present within our existence. It is misleading to say that

Gorgias:

God is outside our existence.

I think that God exists both inside and outside our existence.

He makes himself present within creation. That doesn’t mean that He exists within creation.

Genesis, the Incarnation and the Eucharist prove that God is ;present inside our existence.

Yes, but that doesn’t prove your assertion.

 

[Gorgias]

ok, ok… but why have to believe in that at all?

That’s the beauty of it: you don’t. You’re free to disbelieve.

If I, as many do, do not believe that a god exists at all… then automatically, our existence is not dependent on any god.

No, that’s an error of logic. If I don’t believe that the sun exists, that doesn’t mean that it really doesn’t exist. It just means that I disbelieve something that’s real.

 

[mkoopman]

The difference is context. Augustine starts with identifying God as the Holy, mighty and immortal one. There can be no other who is immortal, truly, because all other beings have a beginning.
The beginning of each one originates in God. Our immortal souls and actually our bodies, once resurrected, are not equally immortal as is God. Is a ray a line? Is an Angel a man, no, but still a person.
So, when we speak of persons as men there is connotation that does not exist where we are speaking of angels and men. You propose your singular time network as relating to created things and God. This diminishes omnipresent to less than the divine quality. God is always present in all places and time as the Creator who sustains all of creation from beginning to end. God is not transient within time as are created things (and the begotten human nature of Jesus).
How do you envision Jesus interacting with time as a risen human glorified and in heaven? Do you see this interaction as differing from God, the Father’s interaction? Would you posit your framework on these agents? Is Augustine posing this view of the passage of time as an experience that God, the Father also inhabits?

 

[AlNg]

Do you see this interaction as differing from God, the Father’s interaction?

It seems that it is a bit different because Jesus prayed: “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but Thine be done.”

 

[mkoopman]

Now you identify your framework on the experience of time as a pretext. You convolute a question clearly posed upon the one who sits at the right hand from the garden of Gethsemane. Such an interaction or interpolation of a historical person and a currently living person, even the same specific person (in this case, Jesus) may not occur in the shoebox where time is kept running and we need to be current.
How do you now propose Jesus at Gethsemane is relevant to Jesus who sits at the right hand when the past is already eaten by langoliers. I asked about the current Jesus not the one about whom you replied. Is not your description of how to live in the present moment applicable at this moment?