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

[abucs]

Are you saying that you know that the true reality of time is not the one we experience?

How would one come to know that?

It is not necessarily a matter of knowing things, it is a matter of holding theories in relation to knowledge. You can view the video I linked a few posts ago to get a background from one source on why we might come to understand time in a different way which suggests that the way we experience time gives only a partial understanding which appears linear relative to us.

 

[pocaracas]

I just spent the last hour watching that documentary.
It explains the relativity of time in a very friendly way, but I’d say I’d be baffled at some point, if it were not for my previous knowledge of relativity.

Anyway… the past, present and future might all be fixed and the time we perceive as flowing onward might not be flowing at all… might… then again, it can be just what it seems.
If the future is fixed, no free will exists at all. In a world with an all-knowing god, such future would be fixed, at least in that god’s awareness.
If it’s not, free will might exist.

 

[abucs]

The difference is in thinking that if the future is already in existence then you have not made a free choice. The theory says you have made the choice, you are just not conscious of it.

 

[AveOTheotokos]

Have you ever heard of the No True Scotsman?

Since we’re at it, and I hope this is still a bit on topic, how would one develop a relationship with God? To me, it always seems like a one-sided approach.

Yeah, I saw that one coming
While perfection is not something reached, but rather something strived for, we still must define what the ideal is.

A relationship with God may seem like it is one sided at first, but as one gets closer to God, we begin to see His influence in our lives and come to understand that we were never actually the ones to make the first move; that God from eternity was calling to us and drawing us in to Himself and that we were merely answering that call, though we knew not what it was.

Humanity has a knack for arrogance and attributing all successes to their own efforts. As one develops a relationship with God, they begin to see this unravel as they gain humility and begin to understand God’s ever present grace within their lives.

Learning the ins and outs of Catholicism and Christianity and studying all the rich history and teachings they offer can give one a much better grasp on God and help them to gain an infantile conceptualization of Him, but a relationship with Him comes through prayer and the sacraments.

Many volumes have been written on how to grow closer to God, so I would fail miserably if I were to attempt to explain it online, but for me personally, the recipe includes confession, adoration, the Eucharist, silence, and striving to find God in all things, as these have done the most for my relationship with Him.

If someone truly wants to go deeper with God, I would highly recommend reading The Power of Silence by Cardinal Sarah, Fire Within by Thomas Dubay, and Augustine’s Confessions

I did not know we have those feasts. Saints, are they?.. amazing!

Did their children also become saints?

St. Abel’s feast day was actually yesterday, and in Christian tradition, Seth the Patriarch is commemorated as one of the Holy Forefathers and appears in Luke’s Geneology of Jesus. His feast day is traditionally held on March 1st.

As for Cain, the Church does not define or teach that any specific person is in Hell, so I pray that he was able to repent and amend his relationship with God.

 

[steve-b]

steve-b:

Just because He knows what we will choose doesn’t mean He forced it.

I didn’t say so. If what you choose is known in advance, then when the time comes to make your choice, it is already known what you will do, so there are no other real alternatives.

The alternatives are real, and were known in advance as well, and God knew in advance which choice out of the alternative choices, one would choose to take.

 

[Kei]

No, I am saying the decision and the act has already been made.
However, if you go 3 months into the future, you will know the action you made 3 months ago. God is timeless

 

[Kei]

A truly free will should depend on nothing, but the individual’s intellect at the moment of the decision.

If the decision is known beforehand (even if not by the individual making it) then how can it truly be free? It was predestined.

If it’s predestined, then how is it free?

I didn’t think my comment was so difficult to understand. Maybe I phrased it poorly?
God is timeless.

Say I know a person, named George. Today, say, George decided to buy a candy bar. Three months from now, I will know that George decided to buy the candy bar. Does my knowledge of this invalidate George’s decision? No, because he’s already made the choice. To a timeless being, it is as though we have already made our choices.

 

[mkoopman]

By anyone applies to God who gifts us with free will and is outside of time, time which He also created in what way?
It appears to me that you refuse to see God as awesome and The Holy Mighty One. He has mercy on us and this should be the aspect of what you could identify instead of having trouble with God determining causality. Does it not occur to you that it is God who allows free will? There is no other source by which free will could exist. The aspects of His nature with omniscience and omnipotence overlap in these representations we draw. The virtues are the clearest way to see these distinctions. Which also should lead to recognizing well formed conscience as a way to hear His voice and do His Will. The Divine Will that neither necessitates choice nor constrains freedom. He loves beyond measure.

 

[mkoopman]

You posit God as created and this builds your loop. Perhaps living without calamity is problematic for your world view?
There is no little track except in your small world model. The actors have free will from the one outside of your closed mind viewpoint. These actors can leave the cars and feed you to the dinosaurs in the park.

 

[mkoopman]

There are no such fatal flaws. God is perfectly just, as He loves perfectly. Not coming to grips with perfection is easy to understand. It does not seem to fit within a fallen world. Jesus came and the correction of this is certain. Our part is to be active in this change. Making fallacious views of our attachments as God’s cruel forming of our clay is a way of despair. He wants joy for you and has love in store for you. Wash the dirty laundry and hang them out in the river of the spirit and try on the new man.

 

[mkoopman]

Beautifully said. The love is implied but felt by the clarity in rational thought.

 

[AlNg]

I am saying the decision and the act has already been made.

I do not buy this. Suppose I want to go to college next year. I know now that I want to go to college, but I do not know what major I will choose. I am now considering philosophy or electrical engineering or political science. I have not decided yet. Then next year comes and I decide then to major in electrical engineering.

 

[pocaracas]

I didn’t think my comment was so difficult to understand. Maybe I phrased it poorly?

Sorry for being thick…

God is timeless.

Time-less… as in God has no time?
How would you or anyone know about this?

Say I know a person, named George. Today, say, George decided to buy a candy bar. Three months from now, I will know that George decided to buy the candy bar. Does my knowledge of this invalidate George’s decision? No, because he’s already made the choice. To a timeless being, it is as though we have already made our choices.

Nice analogy, but faulty, methinks.
I think you wish to claim that God is a being that has access to all points in time, simultaneously. So God has access to both when a decision is made and when that decision is known. However, to him, the decision can only be that one.
The person making the decision has the illusion of free choice, but the truth of the matter is that the choice he makes can only be the one that’s pinned down by God’s simultaneous awareness of all time.

Of course, there is always the question of how do people know what God’s features are… timeless… what if God is not timeless? What if he only has access to the past? That would ease up and not cause such a free will conundrum.

You also have the no-god option, but that one gives us a fully physical Universe… and Physics has the habit of being deterministic, leading again to the illusion of choice by the individual mind, when there is only one possible outcome. At least, there’s no extra claim of free will, so there’s no problem, no matter how uncomfortable it might feel.

 

[benjamin1973]

I haven’t posited anything about God, except that his knowledge must represent the Truth, perfect and immalleable, wieht the emphasis on immalleable.

If God knows where you will end up, then that’s where you will end up. No matter what you think you are doing, no matter your plans, your desires, your best intentions, if you are one of the ones destined for hell, you must necessarily have some fatal flaw which will guarantee that’s where you end up.

Is this wrong? Would you like to say that I can cheat God’s knowledge and end up in Heaven when He in his wisdom already knows that I’m destined for hell?

 

[benjamin1973]

If I have the intention to be good and to live well, and God already knows that I am going to end up in Hell, then that means I have a fatal flaw-- despite my best intentions, some spiritual shortcoming in me must eventually knock me off track and lead me to that destination.

Let me ask you this: can I with determination find my way to Heaven, or is it through God’s will that I end up in Heaven?

 

[Gorgias]

The author is specifically saying that it’s impossible for God to contradict His own nature. The author isn’t saying that God can choose evil over good…but chooses not to, he’s specifically saying that God CAN’T choose evil over good. It’s impossible. Which differs from you or I, who can and often do choose evil over good. God therefore is missing the most essential aspect of free will, the ability to both understand and choose between good and evil.

It’s this ability to choose between good and evil that lies at the heart of man’s free will. But God…if the referenced author is correct, can’t make such a choice. Not won’t…can’t. One would therefore have to conclude that God lacks free will.

I understand and appreciate the author’s position, but I can’t help but find it fundamentally flawed, and perhaps we should just leave it at that.

I think you’re misunderstanding what’s being said here – or, at the very least, misconstruing the use of the words “will not” and “can not”.

Your assertions would have more force if what was being claimed were that there is some external force that compels God not to do evil. If that were the case, then your claims would hold up, and your analysis of “can not vs will not” would have legs.

However, God’s “inability” to do evil is not a lack on His part. In your analysis, you pointed out that humans can choose evil over good. That would represent both an exercise of free will and a failure to do so properly. It would represent a lack, on our part, to exercise free will toward the ends that it is directed. God has no such lack. Therefore, to say that “God cannot choose evil” is not an expression of a lack of power or free will on God’s part – it’s an expression of the perfection of His nature.

If it makes it easier for you to wrap your head around it by expressing it “God is perfection and goodness itself, and therefore, in that perfection, God’s expression of His free will is always to choose good and never to choose evil”, then so be it. However, I’m not seeing the “fundamental flaw” in that argument, unless you perceive it as proceeding from a different definition of terms (in which case we can discuss how we perceive the premises differently).

 

[Gorgias]

The person making the decision has the illusion of free choice, but the truth of the matter is that the choice he makes can only be the one that’s pinned down by God’s simultaneous awareness of all time.

No. Your error comes from attempting to force the ‘eternal’ to act like the ‘temporal’. Even to call it ‘foreknowledge’ betrays this limitation. God does not know your actions “in time”, He knows them “eternally.” Therefore, it’s not as if He knows them beforehand, per se, in such a way as to limit your ability to choose and act freely. Rather, He knows them eternally, so He sees the expression of your free will in the decisions and actions you take.

 

[pocaracas]

What does “eternal” mean?
How is it different from eternal?

Eternal, according to google’s dictionary:
“lasting or existing forever; without end.”

Note the absence of “without beginning”.

 

[Gorgias]

What does “eternal” mean?

How is it different from eternal?

Eternal, according to google’s dictionary:

“lasting or existing forever; without end.”

Note the absence of “without beginning”.

A couple of thoughts for you:

• Google (or any general-purpose dictionary) is not attempting to discuss theology
• Theology, like all disciplines, has its own nuances and jargon. Attempting to define theology in terms of general-purpose definitions is an epic fail.
• In a theological context, ‘eternity’ is not a span of time, as your Google definition attempts to claim. Rather, it is timeless and without beginning or end.

 

[pocaracas]

Timeless, to me, refers to the absence of time.
Actions cannot be carried out in the absence of time. So, how would a timeless being carry out this data gathering exercise?

You know… all you need to do is posit a 2D temporal plane of which we are only aware of one dimension… but that’s a whole other can of worms.