- Dec 14, 2017
- 154
- 63
- 34
- Country
- United States
- Gender
- Male
- Faith
- Christian
- Marital Status
- Single
Upvote
0
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Sorry, my post got messed upIt my personal experience. I always wish the best for people and if they
do not choose me to be with me, then I feel that is best for them. It may
hurt me, but I love them and let them go.
To think on that we have to get really speculative. Speculations piled on one another. What is consciousness? One could see 100 theories. But it's honest to admit we can't be sure. I believe God puts a spirit, our individual spirit, into us, and this affects our consciousness, or interacts with our consciousness, altering it. So, I think there is a separate part of us, our own spirit/soul, which has agency. Or at least, can have a real effect at certain crucial moments when other psychic forces (natural biochemical/somewhat deterministic forces) are largely canceling each other out enough (see the speculations piling up.) So, anyways, I'm thinking (speculating), our soul/spirit has agency, and is not controlled by the body -- by passions -- unless we choose (our spirit chooses) to let it be so. Of course I don't know that much about all the characteristics of the human spirit even if I knew 10 things, right? I'd just have a sense about some things only. I feel like there are moments when we make real choices, and are not truly compelled by nature and circumstances, but have a true agency. But this is only the tip of the iceberg in some ways.
I guess one of the reasons this makes me anxious is that if I accept that God would be justified in passively or actively allowing eternal torment of a soul that just was on the "wrong" path of causality, then I must also accept that, were I to find out after death that some other god was actually real, they would likewise be justified in having me tortured for eternity.
Torment. Torment is self imposed misery.
Both, really, but I'm actually pretty okay with the idea that all our actions are ultimately a single flow of causality. It's just that in the light of this, hell has become more terrifying than I ever realized before
Most people never hear YHWH'S Voice, the SHEPHERD'S VOICE(JESUS), nor even their own spirit.My soul/spirit, hopefully, acts and chooses in rational, non-random ways. If it's not random, then it is determined, just not by physical laws in this case. I certainly wouldn't be able to calculate the soul's decision, but that's just because of complexity.
And what caused that person's mind to be in such a state that they "chose" to self-impose it? Think about causality. Eventually the causes that got their mind/soul to be in that state end up being external causes
Thank goodness we seem clearly to be neither robots nor are we puppets.
Not when YHWH is in charge, ruling, directing in a person's life, or a nation, or a people.All events are determined by the events before it, including random events.
Shouldn't be, no.Our decisions are made based on some rules, no? Very complicated ones, yes, but rules nonetheless. They are not random. So if someone were capable of viewing the rules by which I make decisions, could they not predict what decisions I will make with 100% accuracy?
And , as YHWH'S WORD Says Clearly, little children can learn (and few do) from YHWH, to live as He Says and to DO as He says every day.I don't agree. People can learn from their experiences, or they can choose not to learn.
YHWH would fall under the category of causes outside of an agent. In that case, God's will would be one of the rules guiding an agent's decisionsNot when YHWH is in charge, ruling, directing in a person's life, or a nation, or a people.
And , as YHWH'S WORD Says Clearly, little children can learn (and few do) from YHWH, to live as He Says and to DO as He says every day.
Nothing at all contrary to His Word, nothing random.
Conditions , as it appears you have been stating them and considering them,What would cause a person to learn vs. not learn? Under the exact same circumstances, do you believe that a person who did not learn would have been able to learn, had the conditions been precisely the same?
In other sections where it is permitted to talk about incoherent things, more has been discussed and can be discovered there that is truly of life and death importance.An event that YHWH determines isn't determined by anything?
That's a truly incoherent thing to say.
This doesn't address my issue though. I can't accept "phew, thank goodness I'm one of the lucky souls that was connected to a brain that ended up deciding to follow Jesus!"
My issue is that if I were to view any other authority, whether some other god or man, doing the same thing, I would find them to be monstrous. I know I'm supposed to think "well God's doing it so it must be okay" but - I can't say that without being disingenuous. If I'm being completely honest with myself, I cannot in anyway find that to be anything short of terrifying, and it's been making it really hard for me to love or worship God these past few months
I started a thread on this topic recently, you might find it helpful, maybe some things to think about and consider. It is a difficult issue, and people tend to oversimplify it into mischaracterizations and strawmen, and without taking into consideration the whole context of Scripture while applying their view on this important subject.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?