No, I'm sorry but your entire view is distorted.
Then it should be a simple matter to explain why an omniscient loving merciful god would create people knowing that they will, by their own free will, go to hell.
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No, I'm sorry but your entire view is distorted.
Just pointing out that there is nothing novel about your question. It's a variant of one that was posed millennia ago and addressed in various ways since.
dr truth said:if he's omniscient he also knows the actual outcomes. if he doesn't, he isn't omniscient.
Great, and the answer is......?
in purely logical terms, it isn't omniscience.
The question assumes an omniscient god. We can do a less gifted version of god on a different thread if you like but I'd like to stick with the omniscient kind on this thread please.
I've pointed to two. One that addresses it as logical philosophy and points out the logical flaw. The more ancient that answers it with a story. I prefer the latter approach.
If I were to design an ai to play against in a game of chess, that alone might display my skill as a software engineer, but since computers are deterministic machines I would know every move it would make before-hand. On the other hand, if I want to design this ai to display my chess playing skills, then I would have to incorporate some element of unpredictability in its decision making process so that I could not possibly know exactly what it would do in every case. Also, an intelligence that could fully comprehend the problem space of all possible futures would have to be incredibly vast as compared to one which comprehends only a single, static course of events. If you want to suggest that a God with that kind of ability is somehow less gifted than the alternative, well, fair enough, but it's only an opinion.
you have given poor answers to a different question, you have not even addressed my question.
the god of this question is omniscient.
The logical flaw applies as much to your variant as to the usual form.
One could rewrite the narrative to address your variant but I suggest you apply a bit more imagination and read it as is.
Does that mean God must know of a triangular square in order to be omniscient? If God exists, God is omniscient, and free will is not an illusion, then at least some of our decisions must be unknowable until we invent them.
god is either omniscient or not. For the purposes of this question he is omniscient. I want to try to keep it simple rather than going off on various tangents, or we will never get to the answer to this specific question. Would you like me to post another question with a god who is not omniscient? I can certainly do that if you like.
If god creates people knowing they will go to hell, he is neither merciful nor loving. So your answer can't be right.
This question is based on the following assumptions of god, so it applies only to this particular kind of god. If your god doesn't match these assumptions then ignore the question.
1. god is omniscient
2. god is loving
3. god is merciful
4. hell exists
5. free will exists
Question:
Why would an omniscient, loving, merciful god create people knowing that they will, by their own free will, go to hell?
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Honesly, though, the eternal and unending conscious punishment vision of hell is not DEMANDED by the Bible except in the case of Satan, the Beast, and the False Prophet (see Revelation 20:10).
This question is based on the following assumptions of god, so it applies only to this particular kind of god. If your god doesn't match these assumptions then ignore the question.
1. god is omniscient
2. god is loving
3. god is merciful
4. hell exists
5. free will exists
Question:
Why would an omniscient, loving, merciful god create people knowing that they will, by their own free will, go to hell?
Then lets define it as death or non existence. Now where is the problem?However you like, it makes no difference to the question. If hell exists then it is hell, not heaven.
This question is based on the following assumptions of god, so it applies only to this particular kind of god. If your god doesn't match these assumptions then ignore the question.
1. god is omniscient
2. god is loving
3. god is merciful
4. hell exists
5. free will exists
Question:
Why would an omniscient, loving, merciful god create people knowing that they will, by their own free will, go to hell?