If <Jim does Q> is <Jim loves God>, the problem is still the same. It is impossible for Jim to not love God. God only made the Universe where Jim loves God. Jim doesn't love God freely. He has no choice.
You are equating an specific end result with the plan, and foresight with controlling.
I know humanity will continue to build computers. But I am not causing them to do it.
Absolutely, I think that traditional "Jesus password" Protestantism has this issue and often resorts to Calvinism.
So does a plan "I will let people choose to love me or not" allow for free will? If so, how does one make this choice?
@ HR, as you do not believe in hell, does God force us to go to heaven? Note, I am not questioning the validity of your experiences which I profoundly believe occurred.
I read the OP, and I adequately answered IA's issues, in post #2, and post #11, and my post #94
I missed post 11. I think you stated your interpretation of the OP most clearly there. Correct me if I am misrepresenting your point, but if "the plan" refers to an ultimate end goal, the intervening events can operate in a context of free will.
It is entirely possible God is smarter than dogma assumes and He can figure out what to do with individuals that desire His righteousness.
Possible, yes, but that doesn't really address the question. What if he isn't? What if he's a mean old one-eyed bastard who created the world in an act of murder, calls slain warriors to a "paradise" that consists of unending battle, and leaves those who die in bed to descend to a realm of mist, cold, and darkness?
Seems reasonable to not encroach upon the welfare of others unless the evidence is incontrovertible.
Consider Gideon. When he thought God was calling him to arms against an oppressor, he tested himself with signs.
This is contrasted to the people who objected to Jesus and asked Him for miraculous signs. Asking for signs wasn't at issue; Jesus had publicly done miracles. It was their motives for asking that was the problem.
Regarding "the plan", IMO God did not plan for evil to happen. He did plan to make a creation that freely would reject evil, and that plan will come to fruition. But in the meantime He has given much authority to us.
@ Grant: I think the truth of God and free will is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes He forces things to happen, other times He doesn't. The more one seeks Him, the more freedom and responsibility one is granted. I think it is possible for a person to seek God without realizing that is what they in fact are doing. (See the parable of the two sons where one tells the father he will do what he asks but doesn't, while the other does the converse.)
Whether OT references are correct regarding the amount of intervention God exercises is certainly debatable. Were the writers merely trying to assert His sovereignty and explain theology to the best of their ability? Or was God in fact imposing His will?
BTW, I do not subscribe to traditional teachings on Job that state God told Him He had no right to question Him. I believe God answered Him profoundly.
Perhaps I missed the post, but Icecream Man, each post I've read from you dismisses the OP's given statement. Is there a post where you have argued from the vantage that free will and God both exist?
I can appreciate your view, but even if you did adequately answer the OP somewhere, the debate has become irrelevant to the OP and it retreads discussion found in numerous other threads. I'd rather read discussion regarding the OP. I am curious to see what people who actually believe the OP's given think.
If I'm wrong, and there is no God, no afterlife, then I will just have to enjoy life as much as I can before I die. If there is an afterlife but it's not like the one Christianity portrays, then hopefully it's better like in Dead Like Me where everyone gets their own personal heaven. Worshiping God for all eternity doesn't sound much better than spiritual death.
"Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."
"Those grapes were probably sour anyway." I will suggest again that your understanding of heaven is probably steeped in tradition and specific scriptural interpretations. Be aware the atheists on these threads will evoke these interpretations and insist on unwavering meanings.
If God is odious and hateful, then indeed there is no hope. Do you trust what others tell you when they have no stake in it?
And I'm not even sure if hell is a place of eternal suffering or a place where you are thrown into a pit of fire and die for all eternity. I'm not even sure if there are people in heaven and hell right now. If there are people in hell right now, do they get destroyed when the final judgment comes?
One concept is that heaven/hell/Earth do not yet exist in their final form. Some assert that Christ's descriptions of "paradise" and "torments" are merely staging grounds for a spiritual existence and that bodily resurrection awaits the Time of Ends.
In essence, Revelation to depicts a chronology while OT prophecy holds a description. OT prophecy does not distinguish between descriptions of the 1000-year reign and the final state of existence; Doing so requires an acknowledgement that death cannot occur after a certain event.
So God doesn't like robots. He wants people to make their own choices freely and not control what anyone decides. This is important enough to Him that He does not intervene in human decisions.
(^ let's just take that as a given for the sake of this thread)
Seriously, do we have to reiterate the countless tired threads about God and free will when the OP concedes the concept of God and free will?
He is asking people that believe in free will AND God to explain how they reconcile this. I have no idea why a poster who has no belief in God or free would even be posting irrelevant objections in such a thread. Why not shake the dirt off your feet and move on?
Without getting into the tangle of this specific example, asking God for understanding, wisdom or compassion is one way people can ask God to guide them.
I like them in decks with a substantial amount of colorless CC's, or a deck that is heavily weighted to one color. It isn't a common thing to have a 3+ color deck with double-colored mana symbols only in one of those colors, but it does happen. Esper artifact decks, for instance.
5-color decks sometimes fit the bill; I like to focus on one color (usually green) and keep the others to single mana requirements.
Of course, in Progenitus the Time Spiral storage lands are nice for helping cast him.
As I am sure you are aware, but others may not be:
[QUOTE=Jesus] And do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.
While there is a geneological line from Abraham to Jesus, the purpose of it is God communicating with a particular group. I think this perspective bolsters the latter points of your post.
The pastor at the church I frequent just talked about that passage recently when he was talking about the difficulties of being a disciple of Christ in that age, and how people have lost that in this age.
From what the pastor said, the entire extended passage was basically Jesus berating all those people who only halfheartedly give into his message and cause, and telling them that it is a difficult road to follow. Don't bother if you can't handle it.
As such, that particular statement is supposed to be literal, like B_S said.
While I have no doubt that is His message, I think there is another layer. Especially if one considers the Christ as the Reason (Logos) that has existed for all time and stepped into the flesh in an imperfect world, one has to wonder what His prior existence would resemble, and what our existence will resemble when the fall rescinds.
My point to the OP being that traditional interpretations of the impending Kingdom may not be accurate. But if folks wish to endorse to the imagery he described, feel free to do so.
You are equating an specific end result with the plan, and foresight with controlling.
I know humanity will continue to build computers. But I am not causing them to do it.
So does a plan "I will let people choose to love me or not" allow for free will? If so, how does one make this choice?
@ HR, as you do not believe in hell, does God force us to go to heaven? Note, I am not questioning the validity of your experiences which I profoundly believe occurred.
I missed post 11. I think you stated your interpretation of the OP most clearly there. Correct me if I am misrepresenting your point, but if "the plan" refers to an ultimate end goal, the intervening events can operate in a context of free will.
Seems reasonable to not encroach upon the welfare of others unless the evidence is incontrovertible.
Consider Gideon. When he thought God was calling him to arms against an oppressor, he tested himself with signs.
This is contrasted to the people who objected to Jesus and asked Him for miraculous signs. Asking for signs wasn't at issue; Jesus had publicly done miracles. It was their motives for asking that was the problem.
@ Grant: I think the truth of God and free will is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes He forces things to happen, other times He doesn't. The more one seeks Him, the more freedom and responsibility one is granted. I think it is possible for a person to seek God without realizing that is what they in fact are doing. (See the parable of the two sons where one tells the father he will do what he asks but doesn't, while the other does the converse.)
Whether OT references are correct regarding the amount of intervention God exercises is certainly debatable. Were the writers merely trying to assert His sovereignty and explain theology to the best of their ability? Or was God in fact imposing His will?
BTW, I do not subscribe to traditional teachings on Job that state God told Him He had no right to question Him. I believe God answered Him profoundly.
I can appreciate your view, but even if you did adequately answer the OP somewhere, the debate has become irrelevant to the OP and it retreads discussion found in numerous other threads. I'd rather read discussion regarding the OP. I am curious to see what people who actually believe the OP's given think.
It is entirely possible God is smarter than dogma assumes and He can figure out what to do with individuals that desire His righteousness.
"Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow we die."
"Those grapes were probably sour anyway." I will suggest again that your understanding of heaven is probably steeped in tradition and specific scriptural interpretations. Be aware the atheists on these threads will evoke these interpretations and insist on unwavering meanings.
If God is odious and hateful, then indeed there is no hope. Do you trust what others tell you when they have no stake in it?
One concept is that heaven/hell/Earth do not yet exist in their final form. Some assert that Christ's descriptions of "paradise" and "torments" are merely staging grounds for a spiritual existence and that bodily resurrection awaits the Time of Ends.
In essence, Revelation to depicts a chronology while OT prophecy holds a description. OT prophecy does not distinguish between descriptions of the 1000-year reign and the final state of existence; Doing so requires an acknowledgement that death cannot occur after a certain event.
Seriously, do we have to reiterate the countless tired threads about God and free will when the OP concedes the concept of God and free will?
He is asking people that believe in free will AND God to explain how they reconcile this. I have no idea why a poster who has no belief in God or free would even be posting irrelevant objections in such a thread. Why not shake the dirt off your feet and move on?
5-color decks sometimes fit the bill; I like to focus on one color (usually green) and keep the others to single mana requirements.
Of course, in Progenitus the Time Spiral storage lands are nice for helping cast him.
While there is a geneological line from Abraham to Jesus, the purpose of it is God communicating with a particular group. I think this perspective bolsters the latter points of your post.
While I have no doubt that is His message, I think there is another layer. Especially if one considers the Christ as the Reason (Logos) that has existed for all time and stepped into the flesh in an imperfect world, one has to wonder what His prior existence would resemble, and what our existence will resemble when the fall rescinds.
My point to the OP being that traditional interpretations of the impending Kingdom may not be accurate. But if folks wish to endorse to the imagery he described, feel free to do so.
Are you implying this is a solved translation, and that there are not many contested interpretations of this phrase?
I am aware of the traditional interpretation of this scripture, but given His phrasing, do you think it possible He is lamenting for humanity?