Free will, heaven, and probability

[Alla27]

It's a forum go ahead.

Thank you. I was breaking some rules. I don't want to do this any more. I will try to stay on topic.

 

[Ran77]

If it will never happen then it is purely because there is zero chance you will choose it. Do you have free will or not?

Exactly. I have free will and there is zero chance I will choose to go that route. There goes your premise.

 

[Alla27]

Given how unusual the intervention was, and intervention it surely was, it was a shepherding to a very high degree.
And it was particular.
Given that as an ex-theist I've been decodedly open to the existence of a deity, God(if existing) must know exactly what moment, experience, encounter.. would make me realise the truth of Christianity if true it is.
(I know what experiences insights encounters changed my mind to the opposite perspective.)
But none of these have occurred.

Chris,
Experience that Paul had and you didn't have did not rob Paul his agency.
We all have influences in our lives. From God or people we have good influences and from Satan and people we have bad influences. But those influences can not rob us our agency. They only can make it easier for us to make right choices or harder for us to make right choices.
When Paul had that experience you didn't have it was not to taking away from Paul his agency and forcing him into something, but God had to call Paul to do work. God chose Paul to do this work before Paul was born on earth. God called Paul exactly when God needed him. Paul could say :"no". But Paul CHOSE to say "Yes, sir. I am ready. What should I do?"

On smaller stuff, you have every lottery winner picked by hand. Is there any evidence that lottery winners are on the average more pious or more deserving? Or remarkable in using their money? I don't think so.

I agree with you. BTW, God doesn't want us to paly lottery. God said that man have to work to have food on the table.
Lottery is looking for easy money. It is NOT God's will for us to have easy money.

A couple I knew: he was killed by a drunken driver one month into their marriage.
In the Christian world there is no room for "accident" or "bad luck". That was, actively or passively an engineered event.
The end of the dinosaurs and other mass extinctions of life were not happenstance or accident but deliberate policy.

I don't believe this. In this world "accidents" are part of life. We have to deal with accidents. We can be victims of accidents.
Some accidents can be real tests of our faith. This life is all about tests and how we face tests, how we handle them and what we BECOME in each test/trial. Some trials are results of accidents, something nobody planned.

A baby with a random severe birth defect won't be "at random", of course. Again it is the deliberate hand of God creating or allowing the situation.

No, not at all. God's plan that in this fallen world "random" is part of this life. Random can be source of real test of faith.

I don't see how free will survives this where each individual is surrounded by a cloud of *chosen* events, from the remarkably good to the remarkably bad.

First of all, it is not true that everything in this world is planned and there are no accidents. But even when something is planned by God and I am talking about influence we still have moral agency to choose between good and evil. It can be harder to chose the right when we have bad influence and it can be easier to choose the right when we have good influence.

 

[Chris B]

Thank you. I was breaking some rules. I don't want to do this any more. I will try to stay on topic.

If you prefer, do feel free to start a new thread and copy my relevant postings into the head of it, with your responses.
No rush...I have plenty of time, but no energy (literally no energy, not a "not bothered" no energy.)

Chris.

 

[Alla27]

If you prefer, do feel free to start a new thread and copy my relevant postings into the head of it, with your responses.
No rush...I have plenty of time, but no energy (literally no energy, not a "not bothered" no energy.)

Chris.

I don't know if I should open another thread on free will. We can stay on topic here. NV doesn't mind. So, I guess we can continue here.
I hope you have more energy. I really wish you well.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Well...no. There is no being called "Lucifer", the Latin translation of Isaiah has lucifer (a reference to the planet Venus) as an epithet against the king of Babylon. "Lucifer" isn't the devil. Though this nit pick aside, let's continue anyway.

This is an argument I've been making for years. To no avail. Christians don't listen. So yes, I agree, but I was unaware there were any Christians out there that understood that passage.

Well, for one, "heaven" isn't what Christians hope for in the long run. That is, the historic Christian religion teaches that the hope which Christians have in Christ is to be resurrected from the dead and to share in the total renewal and restoration of the whole of creation. The idea that we will be floating around as spirits in some place called "heaven" for all eternity is a popular idea and popularly believed even by many modern Christians, but it is totally out of line with everything the Christian religion has taught over the last two thousand years.

And now you've lost me.

But let's move beyond this talk of Lucifer, the devil, or heaven. Your actual question is this: What is going to stop anyone, in the great hereafter, from sinning and potentially causing a whole new fall from grace.



The theologian and church father St. Irenaeus writes of Christ as One who sanctifies the entire human condition, from infancy and even in death. The creative purpose behind man is discovered in Christ, and indeed Christ was always the point. In the garden we were like infants, in the fall like rebellious adolescents, in Christ there is a mature adulthood, and it is that full measure of humanity that we believe to be in the future age.

But why not just make everyone an adult from the beginning? I don't know, if in the age to come I get a chance to ask around I'll see what I can find out.

-CryptoLutheran

"Wait until we're dead" is a poor answer and I accept that as an admission of defeat.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Look, you asked the same question twice, just phrased differently. You were asking why we have free will, then asked why our will's are not "cemented" to God... which warrants the same answer... not sure you how don't grasp that. If something is to be contributed here, it is a more well thought out question-answer dialog on your behalf.

I never asked anything about will being cemented. That doesn't even make sense and it flies in the face of what free will actually is. You are being a politician - rejecting the question, making up your own question, and answering that. Unacceptable here.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The devil has no independent autonomous function; as an example of him unwittingly contributing to the refinement of someone's faith, see the Book of Job. I have brought this up before, by the way; it is not my fault if you opt voluntarily to ignore my replies.

So the devil has no free will. OK.

Your views are so bizarre. You're as far off the mark as Mormons.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Exactly. I have free will and there is zero chance I will choose to go that route. There goes your premise.

Then why on earth did Satan rebel?

 

[Wgw]

So the devil has no free will. OK.

I would not go that far; rather, the devil is simply not omnipotent; to the extent that the devil is able to do things that you or I could not do, like tempt someone, or otherwise exercise powers one might term "angelic," he is bound by the will of God.

The difference between mainstream Christianity and dualiat religions like Gnosticism or Zoroastrianism, is that we do not regard the devil as being a rival demiurge operating within a defined sphere autonomously and destined to lose in the eschaton to a beneficient higher order power owing primarily to philosophical considerations (which I would argue amount to aesthetics); rather, our conception of the devil is as a fallen angel, who in the scope of his activities is ultimately limited to what God will permit.

If one says the devil has no free will according to this scheme, which I expect Calvinists would say, one would have to argue that humans have even less free will.

Your views are so bizarre. You're as far off the mark as Mormons.

It's hardly my fault you did not take the time to study the dogmatic theology of the major Christian denominations, inclusing, in my case, the second largest denomination after the Roman Catholic Church. I should also note that I believe Catholic and Orthodox doctrine on the subject of the devil is broadly compatible, possibly identical.

Lastly, I am surprised a Nihilist would admit to belief in "a mark." That seems ro me rather a shocking concession against your worldview. Hamartia implies hamartiology and belief in a (philosophicalpy and epistemologically unprovable) first principle to effect a canon. So it seems to me that you have a system you believe in, and it is not Nihilism.

 

[Ran77]

Then why on earth did Satan rebel?

As far as I know the Bible doesn't specify the reason.

 

[ViaCrucis]

And now you've lost me.

The idea that we will become disembodied ghosts floating around in some place called heaven strumming harps on clouds and with golden streets is not what the Christian religion teaches.

The Christian religion teaches that at the conclusion of history there will be a resurrection of the dead, we will be resurrected from the dead in the same way that Jesus was.

"Wait until we're dead" is a poor answer and I accept that as an admission of defeat.

Whatever floats your boat.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[elopez]

I never asked anything about will being cemented.

Ok, either we are talking past each other, or you're just confused. If you didn't ask about my comment on our will being "cemented", then what is up with your question:

Then why is that option not available to us here and now? Why the game

Which was in response to my comment that you snipped specifically:

Our will, if we reach Heaven, is "cemented" in the love and awe of God, unable to break away.

??

Try being more clear...

That doesn't even make sense and it flies in the face of what free will actually is.

Well, this isn't really an argument against what I proposed. Remember, I'm claiming there is no free will in Heaven. It would be no wonder then that flies in the face of what free will is, as we again wouldn't even have it!

You are being a politician - rejecting the question, making up your own question, and answering that. Unacceptable here.

I rejected no question. Did not make one up, and am working with the two you posed. I am simply saying they are asking essentially the same thing. Pretending I'm doing something I'm clearly not intead of actually addressing anything I am saying, I think, is what's not allowed here.

 

[ViaCrucis]

Your views are so bizarre. You're as far off the mark as Mormons.

Wgw is a member of one of the historic churches of the Christian East. This statement of yours here is about as ironic as one could get.

The appropriate response seems to be to have the awareness that perhaps your presumptive ideas of what Christianity is and looks like might be, at the very least, very limited.

-CryptoLutheran

 

[Sojourner1]

Mod Hat On​

The SoP for this forum has been updated with the following guideline:

• Only Christian members (see our faith groups list) may defend the Christian faith against arguments and opposing viewpoints from non-Christian members.

Mod Hat Off​

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I would not go that far; rather, the devil is simply not omnipotent; to the extent that the devil is able to do things that you or I could not do, like tempt someone, or otherwise exercise powers one might term "angelic," he is bound by the will of God.

The will of God is pretty much "Anything goes." He's allowed two extremes in that he has ordered his own people to commit genocide and then also allowed his own people to nearly have the same thing perpetrated on them. Countless other atrocities occurring for no good reason. So what can Satan possibly do to even match what we humans are doing? I'm asking why he hasn't twisted the Bible without our knowledge, and, what, you say there is some hedge of protection there? Some hedge of protection that a clever, ancient, malicious entity cannot impede while at the same time humans who are trying their hardest to preserve the Bible have trampled all over this hedge of protection. All according to the will of God? Surely you don't mean to say that we humans are violating the will of God...?

The difference between mainstream Christianity and dualiat religions like Gnosticism or Zoroastrianism, is that we do not regard the devil as being a rival demiurge operating within a defined sphere autonomously and destined to lose in the eschaton to a beneficient higher order power owing primarily to philosophical considerations (which I would argue amount to aesthetics); rather, our conception of the devil is as a fallen angel, who in the scope of his activities is ultimately limited to what God will permit.

If one says the devil has no free will according to this scheme, which I expect Calvinists would say, one would have to argue that humans have even less free will.



It's hardly my fault you did not take the time to study the dogmatic theology of the major Christian denominations, inclusing, in my case, the second largest denomination after the Roman Catholic Church. I should also note that I believe Catholic and Orthodox doctrine on the subject of the devil is broadly compatible, possibly identical.

You have pretty much gone on record saying that Satan was created to help us, and that he has no free will. Now you are reversing it. Like I said a million times, you are wasting my time.

Lastly, I am surprised a Nihilist would admit to belief in "a mark." That seems ro me rather a shocking concession against your worldview. Hamartia implies hamartiology and belief in a (philosophicalpy and epistemologically unprovable) first principle to effect a canon. So it seems to me that you have a system you believe in, and it is not Nihilism.

No. You misunderstand. I was a Christian for two decades, so I know what your mark is. And you're missing it. The fact that it is imaginary is the cosmic joke you're missing out on.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

As far as I know the Bible doesn't specify the reason.

So if you don't know what the reason is, how can you say you won't end up doing the same thing?

1. Free will
2. Eternity
3. Unknown temptation
4. ????
5. You will not sin in heaven

Looks like you are not allowed to argue here anymore, sorry, not my decision, you can message me your response.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

The idea that we will become disembodied ghosts floating around in some place called heaven strumming harps on clouds and with golden streets is not what the Christian religion teaches.

The Christian religion teaches that at the conclusion of history there will be a resurrection of the dead, we will be resurrected from the dead in the same way that Jesus was.

Resurrected, and then do what?

Pretty much float around and play harps on clouds... so... your point is?

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Ok, either we are talking past each other, or you're just confused. If you didn't ask about my comment on our will being "cemented", then what is up with your question:
Which was in response to my comment that you snipped specifically:??

Try being more clear...


Well, this isn't really an argument against what I proposed. Remember, I'm claiming there is no free will in Heaven. It would be no wonder then that flies in the face of what free will is, as we again wouldn't even have it!


I rejected no question. Did not make one up, and am working with the two you posed. I am simply saying they are asking essentially the same thing. Pretending I'm doing something I'm clearly not intead of actually addressing anything I am saying, I think, is what's not allowed here.

I don't care if you do or don't want to contribute.

But if you do, just forget everything that's been posted because, like you said, there is confusion. Re-read the OP and answer it.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Wgw is a member of one of the historic churches of the Christian East. This statement of yours here is about as ironic as one could get.

The appropriate response seems to be to have the awareness that perhaps your presumptive ideas of what Christianity is and looks like might be, at the very least, very limited.

-CryptoLutheran

The guy has changed his story on me. He has said that the devil was created to help us and that he has no free will. Does that sound like normal Christianity to you?