A Way to Look At Free Will is to Consider What Merely Actually Happens.

[fhansen]

You may have a point, but the point I am hoping to get across concerns the fact that it is silly to think that God causing all things means we are without choice or responsibility. As humans, we absolutely DO choose, and our wills ARE involved. Like Shakespeare's MacBeth, we cause what happens --irrevocably what God causes.

My biggest problem with Arminian-leaning, particularly Pelagian, Christianity is the notion that we are anything of worth or ability in and of ourselves, apart from God. We are not even complete beings until we are what he made us for when we see him as he is in Heaven. Why the notion, then, that the very one who upholds all creation by his own power, is considered irrelevant as far as our will is concerned, is beyond me.

I'll put it this way, the reason that God allowed evil to even have its day with humans to begin with, beginning in Eden, and the reason He spent all the time afterwards gradually revealing Himself and preparing man down through all the centuries of toil and hardship and suffering and sin and death until the time was ripe in our history for the full light to arrive on the scene in the person of His Son, is precisely because the will of man is involved, because He’s wanted it involved from the beginning even as that included Adam’s choice and subsequent act of disobedience-as a matter of Adam's will- and then patiently working to draw man back towards willful obedience-because that's the right and best thing for us, and creation would be back in order at that point.

But there's a bigger picture behind it all. There's something more happening here than justice merely being restored to a wayward creation; there's something even greater meant to be produced from the creation that God originally began with. We have to understand that authentic obedience comes about only to the degree that man loves God with his whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Anything else, anything less, is legalism. So what is God’s major goal for us? To love as He does. To come to know and value the supremacy of love as the virtue which gives worth to everything else, all the more appreciated and easily embraced by living in a world without much love, without Him, IOW.

And here’s the “catch”: love is necessarily a choice- or it's not love at all. That’s the choice God ultimately wants us to make and grow stronger and more confirmed in, the choice to accept the gift of love (i.e. righteousness) He gives us and to run with it. We’re to choose our righteousness to the greatest extent we can, to own it, that’s what really makes us righteous even as that righteousness, itself, issues from God.
"...not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith." Phil 3:9

From your previous post:

I agree with you about the need or value of Love (or any goodness, for that matter) in me as NOT OF MYSELF.

Nothing is of myself, including, even, my very existence. Yes, we must learn that lesson first of all: God is the creator, not us, and there’s an infinitely vast difference between Himself and us. But when man accepts Him as his God again, by turning back to Him in faith, then we enter a union with Him within which He may now do a work in us. Because the truth is that we can’t even 'live and move and have our being' without Him-but we can think we can. Adam essentially thought he didn’t need God; by denying God’s authority he effectively denied His godhood, becoming his own “god”. Adam needed to learn a very important basic lesson: “Apart from Me you can do nothing.” John 15:5

So, back to love. If love is a choice, that we make as we come into alignment with God’s wisdom and will with the help of grace drawing us rather than coercing or controlling or strictly predestining us, then what fantastic creatures God is seeking to produce! Creatures as close to Himself as possible in large part because they chose it even as they weren’t responsible for creating any of it to begin with!! Like a flower that decides whether or not it will allow itself to blossom, instead of a flower who’s fate is strictly determined. We’re much more than flowers, or than snow-covered dung-heaps, or than otherwise worthless wretches from a bunch of worthless wretches, some of whom God decides to stock heaven with in spite of themselves-and then stock hell with the rest-end of story. Some story! God’s a much more interesting story maker than that.

To love God, to truly love God with all one’s heart, is a huge thing for little man. It’s his perfection, his purpose, his teleios. And it’s to begin here. The choosing, and therefore the loving, is to begin here, even if that choice begins with little baby steps, with He holding our hands.

Anyway, it's not that God is at all irrelevant as far as our wills are concerned. We cannot will rightly without Him; we're lost, we don't have a clue where to look in order to be found because God's "bigger'n" us to begin with. We lost the "knowledge of God" at the Fall and that loss is the basis, or essence, even, of man's injustice, his unjust state of being, his death and the chaotic state of this world. Man was made for communion with God. That's what his fallenness consists of, not of a corrupted nature as if man is now bad; he's just far less than he's meant to be; he's simply missing a huge part of what he needs in order to be whole and to attain his purpose. And to the extent that we remain apart from God even with revelation and grace received, our justice is less; we're choosing wrongly; we remain in sin, outside God's will. That's where man's will comes in to play. God must reach out to us, He must stir us, He must inform and move us towards Himself. But we can still say "no", while He means to elicit a "yes", even if only weakly at first. Justification and salvation are free gifts, but gifts we can still reject-at any point. And they're not just some one-time experience but rather an ongoing way of life, and series of choices.

 

[Clare73]

Is not 'without constraint' contradictory to 'according to his disposition', since creatures are not sovereign? Does not one's disposition constrain him?

You got it!

By constraint, I meant external constraint (e.g., from God), which is what is usually thought of in discussions of free will.

 

[bling]

Before I begin, I want to mention that the reason I identify myself as Reformed is not because I agree with them, but that what they believe more closely resembles what I believe than any other theological line does. Please do not judge what I mean to write by the nomenclature.

There is something that has been obvious to me for years, yet I am still unable to get it into words, and I feel like it would be very useful in understanding and debate, concerning the matter of Predestination and Free Will. I will try again now to get it into words.

(One poster here has said something to the effect that if we could drop the notion of free will, and simply call it will, assuming whatever is true about it is true, instead of insisting on words that we spend hours arguing over, such as "free". I wish I could find it, because it was useful to me.)

My attempt here is to make it plain that there is no need of some 'point of tension' between the two (Predestination vs. Free Will). What we do and what God does work together in perfect fact (I would say "in perfect harmony", but that would imply, in the minds of some, willful cooperation (i.e. obedience or at least good intention) on our part.). What God intends does not at some point let off to allow us to operate. To perhaps make it more plain, what we do, is part of what God is doing (whether through obedience or disobedience, or if some reader here supposes, even through no relation to cooperation or opposition to God).

Regardless of means, motive or method, we do choose and we do act, however limited in scope or influence our choices may be; we do WILL to do what we choose to do. Whatever else happens outside of the scope of our intentions or influence is still going to happen, and like what we as agents choose and do, is replete with the will, choices and intentions of other agents --our part is no different, no more 'in and of itself' than theirs is. And it is all governed by what God is doing.


We do what we do, and God does what he does. To arrange a point of tension between the two, in our minds, is to construct something that is not there. We may demand intellectual satisfaction but our point of view, our worldview, is irrelevant to the facts. ONLY God's point of view is relevant. To perhaps say that better, the facts do not depend on our point of view, but they do completely depend on God's point of view, or he is not God.

We do choose, willfully, and God does predestine, with purpose. And what is going to happen is indeed going to happen. --Is this not all within God's purvue? Is it possible for something to happen that God did not know? (I say that, without respect to by what means he knows --such is not the point of this OP).

So I say, (quite hypocritically, in fact), give up with Point Of View, and leaning on one's own understanding.

Go with God. --MQ

The first thing you have to determine is: “How does God know miraculously the future perfectly?”

If I know unquestionable a truly free will choice you made yesterday that choice is fixed and cannot be changed since it is history. The fact I know your free will choice of yesterday, does not keep it from being a free will choice.

History cannot be changed even if God was the only one to know about something that has happened, since it still happened. Since God does everything right perfectly the first time, there is no reason to do it over again.

God is outside of time and omnipresent throughout time, so God at the end of time knows everything historically that has happened throughout time, making it unchangeable (fixed). Yet again just because God at the end of time knows all things that happened throughout time perfectly, does not mean human autonomous free will choice could not have been made.

God at the end of time is the same God existing within Himself at the beginning of time and thus has historically all the foreknowledge of what happened throughout time, but again that does not mean humans could not have made autonomous free will choices.

God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future, but that is not unusual and communicates to man from man’s perspective is also God’s way.

There are other ways God can know stuff, but would God, if He is outside of time, have to know everything historically throughout time?

 

[Mark Quayle]

The first thing you have to determine is: “How does God know miraculously the future perfectly?”

Why call it miraculously? He is God --first cause-- after all; so why even mention "miraculously"?

There are other ways God can know stuff, but would God, if He is outside of time, have to know everything historically throughout time?

A good logic from the presumption of "God = First Cause = Omnipotent" doesn't need a 'how it is done', but it does deliver to us several very significant 'attributes' (we call them --I'm not even sure that is the best word for it, not descriptive enough). Among them is his immanence, which by no means counters or tempers his transcendence, unless only to our minds.

(While I do find it fascinating how God does things so mundanely and 'earthy', that is not my point here, except tangentially).

Please bear with me in wading through this next paragraph --I have a reason for writing it: God's immanence is more intricate, intimate and detailed that any of us can know, I think. We say that God upholds or sustains all things, but don't often equate that with the mere fact that he created all things. Some of us say he is the essence of all things, but are rightly careful not to reverse that by making it sound like the universe comprises him. At this point in science we know quite a lot more than bible-times people did about particles, fields and forces in quantum physics, but in doing so have opened up a little about how much we do NOT know. We even think that what we are seeing has some bearing on the reality behind classical physical laws, to include such things as passage of time and cause-and-effect! One thing that I can't help but think makes perfect sense is the notion that God himself in some way is the essence of the most basic part of physical fact, perhaps even IS that physical fact, or at least something about him is that basic physical fact --perhaps his love-- (though I would still be careful not to say that that physical fact is him).

I say all that concerning his immanence to suggest that his foreknowledge (which in the Greek, as I understand, has as much to suggest his intimacy with his object of attention as it suggests seeing into the future) is because he forecauses all things. The two, I think, are one and the same thing.

When you suggested that he being outside time might not see things historically, (which I wholeheartedly agree with), it also follows, I think, that he have spoken it all into existence, created his finished product --the Bride of Christ, his Dwelling Place-- instantly, and all things that it took to produce that construction within perhaps a time 'envelope' (I say, for a rough picture more than for accuracy.)

 

[Clare73]

The first thing you have to determine is: “How does God know miraculously the future perfectly?”

If I know unquestionable a truly free will choice you made yesterday that choice is fixed and cannot be changed since it is history. The fact I know your free will choice of yesterday, does not keep it from being a free will choice.

History cannot be changed even if God was the only one to know about something that has happened, since it still happened. Since God does everything right perfectly the first time, there is no reason to do it over again.

God is outside of time and omnipresent throughout time, so God at the end of time knows everything historically that has happened throughout time, making it unchangeable (fixed). Yet again just because God at the end of time knows all things that happened throughout time perfectly, does not mean human autonomous free will choice could not have been made.

God at the end of time is the same God existing within Himself at the beginning of time and thus has historically all the foreknowledge of what happened throughout time, but again that does not mean humans could not have made autonomous free will choices.

God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future, but that is not unusual and communicates to man from man’s perspective is also God’s way.

There are other ways God can know stuff, but would God, if He is outside of time, have to know everything historically throughout time?

It's called foreknowledge.

And it's foreknowledge of what God is going to do, not what man is going to do.
Ac 15:18 - "Known to the Lord for ages is his work." See Ac 2:23, 4:28.

Foreknowledge does not mean that God looks down the corridors of time and sees what man is going to do.

It means God knows what events are going to happen in the future, because he has decreed that they shall happen.

That is "how" God knows the "future" perfectly.

 

[Mark Quayle]

If I know unquestionable a truly free will choice you made yesterday that choice is fixed and cannot be changed since it is history. The fact I know your free will choice of yesterday, does not keep it from being a free will choice.

I should think that would depend on your notion of "free", within 'free will'.

History cannot be changed even if God was the only one to know about something that has happened, since it still happened. Since God does everything right perfectly the first time, there is no reason to do it over again.

I don't know that first sentence can be proven. It can be shown, at least to our satisfaction according to any evidence we have. But if it were not so, we would not likely be aware of it. It's kind of like a time travel story --how does the guy who went back through time know that he did, once he gets there, other than perhaps by his puzzlement about his surroundings and memory gaps. He might be well-advised to put a note in his pocket!

You are right, though, God has no reason to do it over again. There is no plan B.

God is outside of time and omnipresent throughout time, so God at the end of time knows everything historically that has happened throughout time, making it unchangeable (fixed). Yet again just because God at the end of time knows all things that happened throughout time perfectly, does not mean human autonomous free will choice could not have been made.

You aren't the first I've heard positing the notion that history is unchangeable (fixed) merely by the fact of God knowing it. You may instinctively made the reasoning that the fact God knows it, means it cannot change, but I suggest perhaps the mere fact that God knows it, is the thing that causes it to be fixed fact.

As for 'autonomous free will', you are partly correct --this discussion doesn't prove it is or is not a valid concept; there are other ways to show 'autonomous free will' cannot be attributed to anyone but God.

God at the end of time is the same God existing within Himself at the beginning of time and thus has historically all the foreknowledge of what happened throughout time, but again that does not mean humans could not have made autonomous free will choices.

Here you begin to impinge on the impossibility of 'autonomous free will' in a creature. In one swell foop, you have erased the notion that God has history the way we do. Can you see how that erases the notion of 'autonomous free will' as attributable to humans?

God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future, but that is not unusual and communicates to man from man’s perspective is also God’s way.

God does communicate to us on our level, but this is another thing to me that is miraculous about God --that he can do so, yet somehow (and here I disagree with what you said, "God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future"), I think he did present quite a bit of information on the matter, though of course WE cannot 'sound the depths of it'. Everytime I read the Bible through, every day there is some new insight, some layer of meaning, some understanding concerning God's intimate involvement with his creation.

 

[Mark Quayle]

It's called foreknowledge.

And it's foreknowledge of what God is going to do, not what man is going to do.
Ac 15:18 - "Known to the Lord for ages is his work." See Ac 2:23, 4:28.

Foreknowledge does not mean that God looks down the corridors of time and sees what man is going to do.

It means God knows what events are going to happen in the future, because he has decreed that they shall happen.

That is "how" God knows the "future" perfectly.

Are you implyint, then, that God does not quite know exactly what man will do?

 

[Clare73]

Are you implyint, then, that God does not quite know exactly what man will do?

No. . .I make no implication regarding what he knows about what men will do.

Its relevance is to the argument that God's foreknowledge is the basis of election, that God's foreknowledge is knowing in advance what men will do, and that what he then does is conditioned on what they do; e.g., God knows who will believe, so those are the ones he chooses to elect.

That argument is based in wrong understanding of the Biblical usage of "God's foreknowledge," which is about himself, not others.

 

[bling]

Why call it miraculously? He is God --first cause-- after all; so why even mention "miraculously"?



A good logic from the presumption of "God = First Cause = Omnipotent" doesn't need a 'how it is done', but it does deliver to us several very significant 'attributes' (we call them --I'm not even sure that is the best word for it, not descriptive enough). Among them is his immanence, which by no means counters or tempers his transcendence, unless only to our minds.

It is not that God turned the clock on as the “First Cause” and everything runs totally as the result of that “First Cause”, that is the way science can talk about the “First Cause” since science does not believe in God interacting with Man’s Universe all the time, so there is only one “First Cause” action at the first for science. God as a “Causer” changed the direction by interjecting at any time with His free will. God has also provided all mature adults with very limited autonomous free will to make changes to their personal outcome, which is not the direct result of the “First Cause”, but what the “First Causer” allowed.

(While I do find it fascinating how God does things so mundanely and 'earthy', that is not my point here, except tangentially).

Please bear with me in wading through this next paragraph --I have a reason for writing it: God's immanence is more intricate, intimate and detailed that any of us can know, I think. We say that God upholds or sustains all things, but don't often equate that with the mere fact that he created all things. Some of us say he is the essence of all things, but are rightly careful not to reverse that by making it sound like the universe comprises him. At this point in science we know quite a lot more than bible-times people did about particles, fields and forces in quantum physics, but in doing so have opened up a little about how much we do NOT know. We even think that what we are seeing has some bearing on the reality behind classical physical laws, to include such things as passage of time and cause-and-effect! One thing that I can't help but think makes perfect sense is the notion that God himself in some way is the essence of the most basic part of physical fact, perhaps even IS that physical fact, or at least something about him is that basic physical fact --perhaps his love-- (though I would still be careful not to say that that physical fact is him).

I say all that concerning his immanence to suggest that his foreknowledge (which in the Greek, as I understand, has as much to suggest his intimacy with his object of attention as it suggests seeing into the future) is because he forecauses all things. The two, I think, are one and the same thing.

When you suggested that he being outside time might not see things historically, (which I wholeheartedly agree with), it also follows, I think, that he have spoken it all into existence, created his finished product --the Bride of Christ, his Dwelling Place-- instantly, and all things that it took to produce that construction within perhaps a time 'envelope' (I say, for a rough picture more than for accuracy.)

You said: “you suggested that he being outside time might not see things historically” is just the opposite of what I am saying. How could God at the end of time not look back at everything historically, since at that time it is all history?

You say: “his foreknowledge is because he forecauses all things.”, which I do not agree with. Yes, God could have “perfect foreknowledge” because He caused everything to happen, but God can also have perfect foreknowledge because God knows Historically everything that happened, from God’s perspective, throughout time, without having to personally cause everything.

 

[bling]

It's called foreknowledge.

And it's foreknowledge of what God is going to do, not what man is going to do.
Ac 15:18 - "Known to the Lord for ages is his work." See Ac 2:23, 4:28.

Foreknowledge does not mean that God looks down the corridors of time and sees what man is going to do.

It means God knows what events are going to happen in the future, because he has decreed that they shall happen.

That is "how" God knows the "future" perfectly.

Do you agree:

1. God has perfect “Foreknowledge” of what He is going to do and God at the end of time knows historically all He did throughout time?

2. God at the end of time knows what man did throughout time, historically?

3. History cannot be changed?

4. Knowing a historical decision does not automatically keep that decision from being an autonomous free will choice?

5. Time over the last 100 years has been scientifically shown to be relative and nothing have disproved the relativity of time?

6. God is not limited by time?

7. God is omnipresent throughout the Space Time Compendium?

8. If God at the end of time sent back to Himself and through Himself at the beginning of time, all human history throughout time, then God at the beginning of time would have perfect foreknowledge of all man’s future?

Please let me know what you disagree with and why?

 

[bling]

I should think that would depend on your notion of "free", within 'free will'.



I don't know that first sentence can be proven. It can be shown, at least to our satisfaction according to any evidence we have. But if it were not so, we would not likely be aware of it. It's kind of like a time travel story --how does the guy who went back through time know that he did, once he gets there, other than perhaps by his puzzlement about his surroundings and memory gaps. He might be well-advised to put a note in his pocket!

You are right, though, God has no reason to do it over again. There is no plan B.



You aren't the first I've heard positing the notion that history is unchangeable (fixed) merely by the fact of God knowing it. You may instinctively made the reasoning that the fact God knows it, means it cannot change, but I suggest perhaps the mere fact that God knows it, is the thing that causes it to be fixed fact.

As for 'autonomous free will', you are partly correct --this discussion doesn't prove it is or is not a valid concept; there are other ways to show 'autonomous free will' cannot be attributed to anyone but God.



Here you begin to impinge on the impossibility of 'autonomous free will' in a creature. In one swell foop, you have erased the notion that God has history the way we do. Can you see how that erases the notion of 'autonomous free will' as attributable to humans?



God does communicate to us on our level, but this is another thing to me that is miraculous about God --that he can do so, yet somehow (and here I disagree with what you said, "God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future"), I think he did present quite a bit of information on the matter, though of course WE cannot 'sound the depths of it'. Everytime I read the Bible through, every day there is some new insight, some layer of meaning, some understanding concerning God's intimate involvement with his creation.

You say: "there are other ways to show 'autonomous free will' cannot be attributed to anyone but God", Can you explain them?

 

[Clare73]

Do you agree:

1. God has perfect “Foreknowledge” of what He is going to do and God at the end of time knows historically all He did throughout time?

2. God at the end of time knows what man did throughout time, historically?

3. History cannot be changed?

4. Knowing a historical decision does not automatically keep that decision from being an autonomous free will choice?

5. Time over the last 100 years has been scientifically shown to be relative and nothing have disproved the relativity of time?

Do you agree:

1. God has perfect “Foreknowledge” of what He is going to do and God at the end of time knows historically all He did throughout time?

2. God at the end of time knows what man did throughout time, historically?

3. History cannot be changed?

4. Knowing a historical decision does not automatically keep that decision from being an autonomous free will choice?

5. Time over the last 100 years has been scientifically shown to be relative and nothing have disproved the relativity of time?

6. God is not limited by time?

7. God is omnipresent throughout the Space Time Compendium?

8. If God at the end of time sent back to Himself and through Himself at the beginning of time, all human history throughout time, then God at the beginning of time would have perfect foreknowledge of all man’s future?

Please let me know what you disagree with and why?

6. God is not limited by time?

7. God is omnipresent throughout the Space Time Compendium?

8. If God at the end of time sent back to Himself and through Himself at the beginning of time, all human history throughout time, then God at the beginning of time would have perfect foreknowledge of all man’s future?

Please let me know what you disagree with and why?

I've given very little thought to this subject, and am not in a position to comment on your observations.

At this point, I view God as "outside time" in the sense that he sees all things as completed,
and views them, deals with them "in time" from that "perspective."

That's the best I can do at this point.

 

[fhansen]

You may instinctively made the reasoning that the fact God knows it, means it cannot change, but I suggest perhaps the mere fact that God knows it, is the thing that causes it to be fixed fact.

But you're insisting here that the mere fact of God knowing it, is the sole cause of its happening. In some hypothetical world where God doesn't even exist but man does, should/would that fact of His non-existence, alone, necessarily change our choices, or perhaps suddenly render them to be free whereas otherwise they wouldn't be? And I'd submit that, from man's side of the fence that's exactly what we have, a world that's effectively free from His overt presence and therefore His moral authority and control, at least until we begin to recognize and believe in Him for ourselves. What will the servants do when the Master's gone away-and belief in His very existence is optional? We really show our faith by how we live-and that's why it's so important that people do not think that it's possible to be declared righteous apart from being righteous; the two are inseparable.

But I strayed here. Why can't God allow man to freely make his choices even if that means allowing evil to enter the scene in the beginning by an act of disobedience directly opposing His will, and even if it might mean some men continuing to oppose His will later by resisting and rejecting subsequent grace (His calling us to make the better choice, back to Him)-and then, looking down through history, knowing the beginning from the end and the ultimate outcome that He's after, deeming creation to be worth it, as is?

A good God could not be the direct cause of evil, as in willing a malicious act, but could allow evil for His purposes, presumably to bring about an even greater good from it in the end. By allowing evil God is saying to us, "Look what occurs when My will is not done, when creation is turned away from Me". Here we experience, we literally know, evil, and can therefore identify and know good by contrast-and have the option to choose between the two. Anyway, if the distinction between God's allowing vs directly causing evil isn't acknowledged, then God would be evil, and untrustworthy, and heaven may really be worse that hell for all we can know.

 

[Mark Quayle]

No. . .I make no implication regarding what he knows about what men will do.

Its relevance is to the argument that God's foreknowledge is the basis of election, that God's foreknowledge is knowing in advance what men will do, and that what he then does is conditioned on what they do; e.g., God knows who will believe, so those are the ones he chooses to elect.

That argument is based in wrong understanding of the Biblical usage of "God's foreknowledge," which is about himself, not others.

Very good, and thank you. I was making sure.

God does not depend on man's "freewill" (random?) choices nor on chance, to accomplish that for which he made mankind. The word, "according to", as I understand it, in that context doesn't even show cause and effect, but 'in agreement with', or the like.

Both 'God's foreknowledge' and 'God's decree', don't mean what people want to take them to mean. Possessing of all authority and all power, not to mention the most outrageously beautiful plan and purpose, he is not like us, and cannot be made into the small god people posit, who must wait for us to accidentally (by free will) step into his plans before he can decide what to plan.

 

[fhansen]

Possessing of all authority and all power, not to mention the most outrageously beautiful plan and purpose, he is not like us, and cannot be made into the small god people posit, who must wait for us to accidentally (by free will) step into his plans before he can decide what to plan.

A large God allows His creatures true freedom, to the extent they're able, meaning to draw them into the proper use of that freedom so as to make something of themselves with His grace and guidance. Adam wanted none of that, proving by his disobedience that this partnership is optional for man. God's plan is beautiful in large part due to His inclusion of man's choices in it all. He certainly has no desire for accidental choices, but only informed, wise choices. He wouldn't have bothered placing us down in a moral pigsty, relatively speaking, if He didn't want us to struggle, to develop a hunger and thirst for true righteousness, for Him, so that we might choose rightly when He reveals and offers the real food and drink from heaven that can quench that hunger and thirst.

There's a reason for this life and our experiences here-and it's all about the obstinate will of man. Otherwise, again, He may as well have simply stocked heaven with the elect and hell with the reprobate from the beginning and avoided a whole lot of unnecessary and ugly pain and suffering.

 

[Mark Quayle]

It is not that God turned the clock on as the “First Cause” and everything runs totally as the result of that “First Cause”, that is the way science can talk about the “First Cause” since science does not believe in God interacting with Man’s Universe all the time, so there is only one “First Cause” action at the first for science. God as a “Causer” changed the direction by interjecting at any time with His free will. God has also provided all mature adults with very limited autonomous free will to make changes to their personal outcome, which is not the direct result of the “First Cause”, but what the “First Causer” allowed.

Not that science would agree, although philosophy might, but God as 'first cause', logically implies immanence, which in turn implies he 'interjects' (to use your word) himself in the most intimate details of EVERYTHING, particle and force, principle and fact. To him, to cause in the beginning, by no means negates that he is always causing every detail --they are one and the same. By virtue of that detailed activity, the fact he uses means to accomplish his ends still doesn't mean that he is not THE causer of those ends.

This stands in direct opposition to the notion of any autonomy on the part of the creature. But in case you disagree with some portion of what I have said so far, note that 'limited autonomy' is self-contradictory.

You said: “you suggested that he being outside time might not see things historically” is just the opposite of what I am saying. How could God at the end of time not look back at everything historically, since at that time it is all history?

You say: “his foreknowledge is because he forecauses all things.”, which I do not agree with. Yes, God could have “perfect foreknowledge” because He caused everything to happen, but God can also have perfect foreknowledge because God knows Historically everything that happened, from God’s perspective, throughout time, without having to personally cause everything.

One thing I would like you to consider is the notion that 'when' God Elected his people to salvation, for heaven, it was immediately a done deal, just as surely as he spoke the world into being.

But to look at things the way you seem to, you see a constancy to time, a real-ness that governs all things including eternity. I see it rather as a pocket of temporal reality in which we operate, all in the hand of God.

All this we see and know is but a passing vapor compared to the solid reality of God's way of things. He doesn't skitter about the timeline to see it from this perspective or that, nor even from within it, but he knows it making it --such is the substantiveness of his decree.

 

[fhansen]

Not that science would agree, although philosophy might, but God as 'first cause', logically implies immanence, which in turn implies he 'interjects' (to use your word) himself in the most intimate details of EVERYTHING, particle and force, principle and fact. To him, to cause in the beginning, by no means negates that he is always causing every detail --they are one and the same. By virtue of that detailed activity, the fact he uses means to accomplish his ends still doesn't mean that he is not THE causer of those ends.

This stands in direct opposition to the notion of any autonomy on the part of the creature. But in case you disagree with some portion of what I have said so far, note that 'limited autonomy' is self-contradictory.



One thing I would like you to consider is the notion that 'when' God Elected his people to salvation, for heaven, it was immediately a done deal, just as surely as he spoke the world into being.

But to look at things the way you seem to, you see a constancy to time, a real-ness that governs all things including eternity. I see it rather as a pocket of temporal reality in which we operate, all in the hand of God.

All this we see and know is but a passing vapor compared to the solid reality of God's way of things. He doesn't skitter about the timeline to see it from this perspective or that, nor even from within it, but he knows it making it --such is the substantiveness of his decree.

Aren't we limiting God if we insist that He cannot create a being who can oppose His own will? We know that evil is only allowed to coexist with good for now, for a season, for God's purposes. There'd be absolutely no reason for hell unless for the ability of creatures to refuse to stop being in opposition to Him and His will. If God, OTOH, is the direct cause and orchestrater of every human act, then all evil is attributable directly to Him-and He's more blameworthy than satan, let alone man.

 

[Mark Quayle]

You say: "there are other ways to show 'autonomous free will' cannot be attributed to anyone but God", Can you explain them?

One of them is the simple use of words. "Limited Autonomy" is self-contradictory. In everyday use, we say "Sovereign" and "Autonomous" and "Spontaneous" and such as if it were really so, but it is not; when we say "Sovereign nation" all we mean is that it is governed by no other nation. We don't mean that it is in charge of all things, and under the governance of no other fact. When we say "Autonomous" all we mean is that a thing behaves according to its 'programming' (dare I say?), like a mechanical doll we can wind up and it behaves as it was built to do, without outside influences. An 'autonomous program' is still a program, governed by its programming. When we say "Spontaneous", we mean only that we don't attribute what a thing does to sudden influence from outside itself. We don't mean that the 'spontanous event' was not caused. We may even mean that what a person thought of 'spontanously' was not suggested to it by any other human.

But in their absolute sense, only God possesses these things. Limited autonomy, then is not really autonomy at all. Does God have limited omnipotence?

 

[bling]

Not that science would agree, although philosophy might, but God as 'first cause', logically implies immanence, which in turn implies he 'interjects' (to use your word) himself in the most intimate details of EVERYTHING, particle and force, principle and fact. To him, to cause in the beginning, by no means negates that he is always causing every detail --they are one and the same. By virtue of that detailed activity, the fact he uses means to accomplish his ends still doesn't mean that he is not THE causer of those ends.

What we seem to agree on, is The first Causer ,“God”, does not stop with just the very first cause that happened but causes other things to happen all along the way that would not have happened without His continued “interjections”. The question is could others be “first causes” of “human choices” that would not have happened if they had not “interjected” these first causes? Before addressing that question tell me this:

1. Does God have the power to allow some humans to have very limited autonomous free will ability or does that break some “Law”?

2. If there was a good Loving logical reason for humans to have this very limited free will is God’s Love great enough to provide at least those who need this free will with free will?

3. If a human does not have the ability to make the autonomous free will choice to Godly Love God, but the choice is like a kneejerk reaction, programmed into the person, how is that different then a programmed robot loving God?

4. Would you prefer to be “loved”, by someone made to love you (like a robot) or be Loved by someone, who made a real choice over other likely alternatives. It is not “logical” for them to Love you, but they made a conscience choice to Love you in spite: of what you have done, will do or who you are. There is no expectation of you Loving them back, since that will not change their Love for you.

This stands in direct opposition to the notion of any autonomy on the part of the creature. But in case you disagree with some portion of what I have said so far, note that 'limited autonomy' is self-contradictory.

How is “limited autonomy” self-contradictory? Limited autonomy is only need for a limited amount of time over a limited number of mental choices with God not allowing humans to make further choices on their own. What “Law” is being broken?

One thing I would like you to consider is the notion that 'when' God Elected his people to salvation, for heaven, it was immediately a done deal, just as surely as he spoke the world into being.

But to look at things the way you seem to, you see a constancy to time, a real-ness that governs all things including eternity. I see it rather as a pocket of temporal reality in which we operate, all in the hand of God.

All this we see and know is but a passing vapor compared to the solid reality of God's way of things. He doesn't skitter about the timeline to see it from this perspective or that, nor even from within it, but he knows it making it --such is the substantiveness of his decree.

The first thing you have to determine is: “How does God know miraculously the future perfectly?”

If I know unquestionable a truly free will choice you made yesterday that choice is fixed and cannot be changed since it is history. The fact I know your free will choice of yesterday, does not keep it from being a free will choice.

History cannot be changed even if God was the only one to know about something that has happened, since it still happened. Since God does everything right perfectly the first time, there is no reason to do it over again.

God is outside of time and omnipresent throughout time, so God at the end of time knows everything historically that has happened throughout time, making it unchangeable (fixed). Yet again just because God at the end of time knows all things that happened throughout time perfectly, does not mean human autonomous free will choice could not have been made.

God at the end of time is the same God existing within Himself at the beginning of time and thus has historically all the foreknowledge of what happened throughout time, but again that does not mean humans could not have made autonomous free will choices.

God did not present this miraculous method of “how” He knows the future, but that is not unusual and communicates to man from man’s perspective is also God’s way.

There are other ways God can know stuff, but would God, if He is outside of time, have to know everything historically throughout time?

 

[fhansen]

God necessarily enables and sustains every human act, whether good, evil, or indifferent. But He allows man to decide upon the act itself, and that’s the essence of man’s freedom. There’s a reason that Jesus never tortured, killed, lied, etc while on earth; it’s because those things go against the nature of God, outside of His will IOW.