Free Will, Predestination and Time

[zippy2006]

So you would say that when Hitler killed millions of innocent people in the Shoah, he was committing an evil act, but when God killed millions of innocent people in the Shoah, he was not committing an evil act? This is your position, is it not? That the law against killing innocents applies to Hitler but not to God?

Was it murder for God to kill the multitudes of people he did in the Old Testament? While you think about that, why not claim God kills us all by old age? Is not old age in his will? We are his creatures, not Hitler's, to do with as he sees fit.

Then you accept my characterization of your view, which says that when God killed millions of innocent Jews in the Shoah he was not committing an evil act? When Hitler did it he committed evil, but when God did it he did not commit evil.

That's correct, is it not? Am I or am I not correctly characterizing your view?

The one proposition, that anything can happen by chance, is self-contradictory. Chance has no causative ability.

Er, okay. So apparently you believe that anyone who believes in chance is contradicting themselves. That's a strange view, but why do you think I am committed to a belief in chance?

How is God's law or God's will from outside himself? I don't begin to believe such foolishness.

Sure you do. I said God is bound by his own law, and you responded by saying that God is not bound by his law, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself." Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a "principle from outside himself."

You also apparently think my claim that God is not a hypocrite is "blasphemy." For to say that God does not break the laws he gives others is just to say that God is not a hypocrite.

 

[Halbhh]

Thank you for the uncontentious response. I really do appreciate it.

But, you said:
Halbhh said: ↑
...'everything' isn't necessarily including 'everything' they way many of us use the word, where we mean even the most trivial and meaningless things (such as which way a butterfly flies or which flower it visits first or 2nd...).

Instead, myself where you wrote "everything" I would have written "everything that matters".

You qualified the word "everything", and to that I said, "Nope". If it helps, I believe absolutely everything matters to God who created / caused it.

Would that 'everything' that matters include say whether a water droplet on planet 4 around a star 50 light years away falls to the surface of the planet and impacts precisely on the edge of certain small particular rock on that planet, instead of just 1/4 inch over onto more of the rock more fully, considering that many more droplets are going to hit that rock also in the next 3 minutes on that lifeless planet 50 light years away from us?

 

[Mark Quayle]

Not in the West.



Sorry, what I meant was "energy in the Palamite sense," not, "pure energy in the Palamite sense" (i.e. the object of 'the Palamite sense' was 'energy', not 'pure energy'). The notion of divine energies is foreign to Aquinas, and it is therefore mistaken to say that when Aquinas is talking about pure act he is talking about pure energy. I grant that there is a etymological overlap, but Aquinas did not speak Greek and Gregory was not a metaphysical Aristotelian.



I realize Orthodox make that claim, but whether or not it is true, Palamas really is the high point and crystallization of the distinction between the divine energies and the divine essence (which is partially why many Orthodox hold that the related councils were ecumenical).



No, this is a misunderstanding of Aquinas. God does will his own goodness as an ultimate and perfect end, which is his essence, but a related part of that willing includes creation, which is not necessary. See Summa Theologiae Ia, Q. 19, Aa. 3, 8, and 10.



Aquinas would say that God wills his own perfect goodness in a necessary way, and that the overflow or manifestation of this is creation, but that creation is nevertheless not willed in a necessary way (and is instead willed in a free way).

Yay! This is not on the EO or RCC forums, so I can insert my remarks without more than debative reprisal. (Yeah, I made that word up, after trying out, 'argumentive', which also google didn't like.)

Two thoughts come to me, why EO and RCC debate such things, and I had not even heard of the question until I saw it here. And why even go into such divisions of God's attributes or person? For example, here I see debate which wants to separate goodness from his person, almost as though he must decide to be good. To me that is outrageous, but that is where the speculations have gone.

Ok, that is my hit and run, and though relevant, it is beside the point of the OP.

 

[aganrock]

Because all divine acts, .i.e. things that God does, are identified with the divine energies.

Not in the West.

To my knowledge, there was no issue with treating the terms actus and energeia as being synonymous in the debates between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria. The real issue was whether or not those divine acts (or energies) were really distinct from the divine essence.

 

[aganrock]

Two thoughts come to me, why EO and RCC debate such things, and I had not even heard of the question until I saw it here. And why even go into such divisions of God's attributes or person? For example, here I see debate which wants to separate goodness from his person, almost as though he must decide to be good. To me that is outrageous, but that is where the speculations have gone.

Because the debates regarding predestination, human free-will and divine sovereignty between Christians from various confessions largely stem from the controversy over the distinction between essence and energies in God. If this controversy were properly addressed there would actually be far less speculation and a lot more understanding.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Then you accept my characterization of your view, which says that when God killed millions of innocent Jews in the Shoah he was not committing an evil act? When Hitler did it he committed evil, but when God did it he did not commit evil.

Then you accept my characterization of your view, which says that when God killed millions of innocent Jews in the Shoah he was not committing an evil act? When Hitler did it he committed evil, but when God did it he did not commit evil.

That's correct, is it not? Am I or am I not correctly characterizing your view?

No, because there are too easily implications made by others reading, and perhaps by you, though you have been very mannerly, that my admitting to that bare description is admitting to God being unloving and/or unjust, which he is not. Other than that, I think yes, and so I accept this statement that: When Hitler did it, he committed evil, but God planning and causing it was not evil, unless by evil you mean disaster and outrageous circumstance, or whatever is meant by this verse, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” (Isa 45:7).

Er, okay. So apparently you believe that anyone who believes in chance is contradicting themselves. That's a strange view, but why do you think I am committed to a belief in chance?

Because if God didn't cause it, then it either came about by chance, or by some other first cause. Both are logical impossibilities.

Sure you do. I said God is bound by his own law, and you responded by saying that God is not bound by his law, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself." Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a "principle from outside himself."

Either I typo'ed or you misquote me. I would not say that {he is not bound by his law by reason that he is not subject to any principle from outside himself}. Please send me the post number or link.

You also apparently think my claim that God is not a hypocrite is "blasphemy." For to say that God does not break the laws he gives others is just to say that God is not a hypocrite.

Now that is pretty plainly misusing what I said. I really would like to see these posts you seem to be quoting from. I looked for them, and saw posts that have some or most of those words in them, but you have grossly condensed them, leaving out critical words or phrases, making them say what I did not say.

You may think my caution in accepting your characterizations of what I say is unwarranted, but THIS you are doing is my reason. (I was married long enough to learn to be cautious in argument, haha).

 

[Mark Quayle]

Actually I was just writing to you above in post 32 how what we see isn't like 'random chance' but radically different! The analogy: it's like carefully designed loaded dice -- so what might seem to some to be 'chance' actually is designed ahead of time to lead to a specific planned outcome that can be fully seen ahead of time by the Designer. (that's how 'loaded dice' work -- they lead to the outcome they are designed to achieve)

That's what post 32 says, to paraphrase post 32.

Does that help?
If it does, let me ask: was post 32 hard to interpret? What did it seem to say if you read it carefully?

I'm not sure if it helps or not. At one point you claim that God caused it all, but then you claim, not quite absolutely everything. Perhaps in the latter, you only mean to project what time-bound creatures consider action by chance, while they actually know and admit that cause-and-effect is pervasive? You seem to me inconsistent, but I could be wrong.

#32 was more hard to accept than hard to understand, I think. You keep calling it chance, though, granted, you did put it in quotes, as though to refer to what people in general might call it. But then the scenario you describe is obviously not at all chance, but "loaded dice". Whether loaded dice work, as designed to produce 11, or whether sometimes they fail to produce 11, there are forces at work that necessarily cause the result each time, as there are also when the dice are not loaded. This is not actual chance, no matter what people call it. Proverbs 16:33 "The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord."

 

[Mark Quayle]

Because the debates regarding predestination, human free-will and divine sovereignty between Christians from various confessions largely stem from the controversy over the distinction between essence and energies in God. If this controversy were properly addressed there would actually be far less speculation and a lot more understanding.

Granted that is a possibility. But that doesn't mean the considerations are valid. When I read both sides of a disagreement on what is essence and what is energies, I can't help but think how human the arrangements are, and, sorry, but, how silly they sound. But I'll admit some of mine are too —in fact, from God's perspective, I'd have to guess they all sound like child's prattle.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Would that 'everything' that matters include say whether a water droplet on planet 4 around a star 50 light years away falls to the surface of the planet and impacts precisely on the edge of certain small particular rock on that planet, instead of just 1/4 inch over onto more of the rock more fully, considering that many more droplets are going to hit that rock also in the next 3 minutes on that lifeless planet 50 light years away from us?

Yes.

As is logically necessary, if God knows all things and creates, anyway, what will cause precisely that. Anything else is admitting to causation by chance, which logic does not.

But as First Cause, him being simple and timeless, it is not only him creating what will cause precisely that, but him sustaining the nature and substance of those very details. To create something, I think, is for him to uphold (continuous or 'within time') the very existence of it. Thus, "the smallest motion of matter/energy is his doing".

 

[zippy2006]

To my knowledge, there was no issue with treating the terms actus and energeia as being synonymous in the debates between St. Gregory Palamas and Barlaam of Calabria. The real issue was whether or not those divine acts (or energies) were really distinct from the divine essence.

Perhaps, but it gets tricky, for actus and energeia are not synonymous when the latter is being used to signify something that is distinct from the divine essence. Since we don't have Barlaam's half of the dispute, it would be hard to say whether this was discussed. My intuition is that you are right insofar as it was not considered a central issue, but that it nevertheless played a role in the background insofar as whether or not the actus/energeia is distinct from the divine essence will affect its nature.

The argument you have already given is a good example of this. You think that only a divine will which is identified with the divine energeia can lack necessity, and you thus believe that the divine properties associated with the divine essence are intrinsically different from the divine properties associated with the divine energies (which is precisely why the Orthodox make that distinction in the first place). To say that actus and energeia are fully synonymous would be to deny that the essence-energies distinction makes any difference.

 

[zippy2006]

Then you accept my characterization of your view, which says that when God killed millions of innocent Jews in the Shoah he was not committing an evil act? When Hitler did it he committed evil, but when God did it he did not commit evil.

That's correct, is it not? Am I or am I not correctly characterizing your view?

No, because there are too easily implications made by others reading, and perhaps by you, though you have been very mannerly, that my admitting to that bare description is admitting to God being unloving and/or unjust, which he is not. Other than that, I think yes, and so I accept this statement that: When Hitler did it, he committed evil, but God planning and causing it was not evil, unless by evil you mean disaster and outrageous circumstance, or whatever is meant by this verse, “I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.” (Isa 45:7).

Okay, great. I will consider that settled.

Because if God didn't cause it, then it either came about by chance, or by some other first cause. Both are logical impossibilities.

Evil is a mystery, but I do not believe it comes about by chance.

Sure you do. I said God is bound by his own law, and you responded by saying that God is not bound by his law, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself." Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a "principle from outside himself."

Either I typo'ed or you misquote me. I would not say that {he is not bound by his law by reason that he is not subject to any principle from outside himself}. Please send me the post number or link.

A link was already included in that post. The text between the first set of quotation marks is a link.

Now that is pretty plainly misusing what I said. I really would like to see these posts you seem to be quoting from. I looked for them, and saw posts that have some or most of those words in them, but you have grossly condensed them, leaving out critical words or phrases, making them say what I did not say.

You may think my caution in accepting your characterizations of what I say is unwarranted, but THIS you are doing is my reason. (I was married long enough to learn to be cautious in argument, haha).

Well how do you define hypocrisy?

I said that God cannot kill the innocent for the sake of a further purpose, for this is contrary to God's law. You said that God can kill the innocent for the sake of a further purpose, and that he did so in the Shoah, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself."

I don't think God is a hypocrite, for I don't think that God gives laws that he himself does not follow.

 

[Halbhh]

At one point you claim that God caused it all, but then you claim, not quite absolutely everything.

Ah, both. God created all that is, 100% of the Universe, and I understand from scripture we are unlikely to be in a 'clockwork universe' that merely plays out a fixed predetermined show play. (with everything and all human action predetermined/fated, and thus no free will and worse, not even any ability to love by turning and choosing the Lord and doing as He said; without free will we are 'robots' and it's meaningless). Instead of that, God made us like Himself we read, in his "image", and as Christ said, we are alike in some key way: "I have said, you are 'gods'".
To summarize about many things being predestined, and what may not be, please look carefully at all the details in HTacianas's well worded post #2 : Free Will, Predestination and Time (link to post 2)

 

[zippy2006]

Yay! This is not on the EO or RCC forums, so I can insert my remarks without more than debative reprisal. (Yeah, I made that word up, after trying out, 'argumentive', which also google didn't like.)

Two thoughts come to me, why EO and RCC debate such things, and I had not even heard of the question until I saw it here. And why even go into such divisions of God's attributes or person? For example, here I see debate which wants to separate goodness from his person, almost as though he must decide to be good. To me that is outrageous, but that is where the speculations have gone.

Ok, that is my hit and run, and though relevant, it is beside the point of the OP.

Ha, well it is a complicated debate with a long history, so it would be difficult to distil into a nutshell, but the root of the debate was entirely practical, and had to do with the legitimacy of Orthodox hesychasm.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Okay, great. I will consider that settled.

I hope so, unless you consider me to have agreed with your wording, and its possible implications.

Evil is a mystery, but I do not believe it comes about by chance.

Good to know! Nothing can come by chance.

Well how do you define hypocrisy?

I said that God cannot kill the innocent for the sake of a further purpose, for this is contrary to God's law. You said that God can kill the innocent for the sake of a further purpose, and that he did so in the Shoah, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself."

I don't think God is a hypocrite, for I don't think that God gives laws that he himself does not follow.

Once again you quote only part of what I said. So I guess I will have to go find it to show you. This is a plain MISquote.

To review:
Here you misquote me, in post #41, and I will number them A and B:

A) 'Sure you do. I said God is bound by his own law, and you responded by saying that God is not bound by his law, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself." Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a "principle from outside himself."

B) 'You also apparently think my claim that God is not a hypocrite is "blasphemy." For to say that God does not break the laws he gives others is just to say that God is not a hypocrite.'

To continue reviewing:
Here you say something similar in post #27, again mistaking something I said. (I'm still looking for what you quoted, (and what you failed to include).) This is pretty much a repeat of A above. You say, 'It seems to me that you are falling directly into the Euthyphro dilemma, for you are in effect claiming that God's law flows entirely from his will, which is "outside himself," and which does not bind God. Such is theological Voluntarism.'

I have never claimed that God's will is from "outside himself"!!! Where do you get this from? Do you read too fast sometimes? I have said repeatedly and in many ways to pretty much everyone I disagree with, that God, who is First Cause, cannot logically be subject to any principle from outside of himself —yet here you are repeatedly accusing me of saying his own will is from outside himself! How is such a thing even possible to be considered? It makes no sense! I did not say it. If you can show me where I did, then it is a typo, because it certainly is not what I believe. I gave you the opportunity to link or give me the post number, where I said it, and you declined, so farther down in this post I pasted the only post I wrote that I can see where you might have been misquoting from.

This is the only post I found that you might have been referring to, but from which you only quoted certain parts, completely neglecting the rest of what I actually said, transposing it to make me sound like I'm saying outrageous foolishness.

Here is what I said, in post 26: "God did not do evil. For us to take such a responsibility into our hands would be evil, because we are not the Creator. God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to, any more than parents don't have to be in bed by 8:00.

"Your notion that he cannot do that and be just is to claim that these happen by mere chance, and that is simply self-contradictory, not to mention it claims God is subject to things beyond himself, which is, sorry, in my book it is blasphemy. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God."

So here's my answer to A: How you can jump from the part I highlight in red above, linking it somehow directly to the part I highlight in blue in the next paragraph down, and that, changing what I said in the negative to make it sound like I said it in the positive, is beyond me. I did not say, hint, nor imply what you present me as saying.

And to B: I defy you to explain to me how you come up with that. But I'm more than half afraid you will once again misquote what I said. Use quotes, not part quotes —quotes that include my whole statement, or my whole line of reasoning, not just the parts that offend or appeal to your outrage. What I said was blasphemy in MY book, (in other words, 'from how I see it'), was the notion that anything can happen by chance, because that notion necessarily implies that there is a principle ("chance") to which God himself must react and is therefore subject to in some way, from outside of God, and not from God. To say that something can happen from outside the causation of God, is to deny he is the sole creator and first cause. To admit to causation by mere chance is to claim God is not God, after all, but merely a very powerful supernatural being.

I hope this can return to friendly discussion again. If not, I think I'm done.

 

[zippy2006]

I hope so, unless you consider me to have agreed with your wording, and its possible implications.

Either the characterization is true or false. It seems to me that your conscience irks you when you are forced to admit that my characterization is true. If you think it is false then you will have to explain why and provide the true characterization.

I gave you the opportunity to link or give me the post number, where I said it, and you declined, so farther down in this post I pasted the only post I wrote that I can see where you might have been misquoting from.

No, this is false. I pointed out that I had already linked to your quote in the very first post where I quoted it (namely, in post #41). You have continually chosen to ignore the link included in that post. There was no need for you go to searching for the quote I gave in #41. I included the link all along.

You say, 'It seems to me that you are falling directly into the Euthyphro dilemma, for you are in effect claiming that God's law flows entirely from his will, which is "outside himself," and which does not bind God. Such is theological Voluntarism.'

I have never claimed that God's will is from "outside himself"!!! Where do you get this from?

Two very important words, "in effect."

Once again you quote only part of what I said. So I guess I will have to go find it to show you. This is a plain MISquote.

To review:
Here you misquote me, in post #41, and I will number them A and B:

A) 'Sure you do. I said God is bound by his own law, and you responded by saying that God is not bound by his law, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself." Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a "principle from outside himself."

B) 'You also apparently think my claim that God is not a hypocrite is "blasphemy." For to say that God does not break the laws he gives others is just to say that God is not a hypocrite.'

To continue reviewing:
Here you say something similar in post #27, again mistaking something I said. (I'm still looking for what you quoted, (and what you failed to include).) This is pretty much a repeat of A above. You say, 'It seems to me that you are falling directly into the Euthyphro dilemma, for you are in effect claiming that God's law flows entirely from his will, which is "outside himself," and which does not bind God. Such is theological Voluntarism.'

I have never claimed that God's will is from "outside himself"!!! Where do you get this from? Do you read too fast sometimes? I have said repeatedly and in many ways to pretty much everyone I disagree with, that God, who is First Cause, cannot logically be subject to any principle from outside of himself —yet here you are repeatedly accusing me of saying his own will is from outside himself! How is such a thing even possible to be considered? It makes no sense! I did not say it. If you can show me where I did, then it is a typo, because it certainly is not what I believe. I gave you the opportunity to link or give me the post number, where I said it, and you declined, so farther down in this post I pasted the only post I wrote that I can see where you might have been misquoting from.

This is the only post I found that you might have been referring to, but from which you only quoted certain parts, completely neglecting the rest of what I actually said, transposing it to make me sound like I'm saying outrageous foolishness.

Here is what I said, in post 26: "God did not do evil. For us to take such a responsibility into our hands would be evil, because we are not the Creator. God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to, any more than parents don't have to be in bed by 8:00.

"Your notion that he cannot do that and be just is to claim that these happen by mere chance, and that is simply self-contradictory, not to mention it claims God is subject to things beyond himself, which is, sorry, in my book it is blasphemy. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God."

So here's my answer to A: How you can jump from the part I highlight in red above, linking it somehow directly to the part I highlight in blue in the next paragraph down, and that, changing what I said in the negative to make it sound like I said it in the positive, is beyond me. I did not say, hint, nor imply what you present me as saying.

And to B: I defy you to explain to me how you come up with that. But I'm more than half afraid you will once again misquote what I said. Use quotes, not part quotes —quotes that include my whole statement, or my whole line of reasoning, not just the parts that offend or appeal to your outrage. What I said was blasphemy in MY book, (in other words, 'from how I see it'), was the notion that anything can happen by chance, because that notion necessarily implies that there is a principle ("chance") to which God himself must react and is therefore subject to in some way, from outside of God, and not from God. To say that something can happen from outside the causation of God, is to deny he is the sole creator and first cause. To admit to causation by mere chance is to claim God is not God, after all, but merely a very powerful supernatural being.

I hope this can return to friendly discussion again. If not, I think I'm done.

You are claiming that I accused you of making God's will "outside himself." What I actually did was connect God's law to God's will, and lump them together as something which is "outside himself." This is the logical conclusion of your theological camp, which is called Voluntarism. For example:

• "Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a 'principle from outside himself.'" (post #41)

Note that I said "God's law or God's will." Apart from the allusion to Voluntarism, I have focused much more on God's law, and it would seem that the umbrage you are now stirring up over God's will is a red herring which is side-stepping the elephant in the room. Here are the various quotes where I have been making points about God's law:

Well how do you define hypocrisy?

I said that God cannot kill the innocent for the sake of a further purpose, for this is contrary to God's law. You said that God can kill the innocent for the sake of a further purpose, and that he did so in the Shoah, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself."

I don't think God is a hypocrite, for I don't think that God gives laws that he himself does not follow.

Sure you do. I said God is bound by his own law, and you responded by saying that God is not bound by his law, because God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself." Such a response is a clear affirmation that God's law or God's will is a "principle from outside himself."

You also apparently think my claim that God is not a hypocrite is "blasphemy." For to say that God does not break the laws he gives others is just to say that God is not a hypocrite.

The Elephant in the Room

In post #25 I pointed to a law that St. Paul affirms: <One cannot do evil that good may come>. In post #26 you responded by saying that "God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to," and that God is not "subject to any principle from outside himself," implying that God's law is a principle from outside himself. In that same post you said that the idea that "God is subject to things beyond himself" is blasphemy.

Again, I think the person who does not follow their own laws is a hypocrite, and since I believe that God is not a hypocrite, I therefore believe God follows his own laws (Matthew 23:13). "Blasphemy" seems to be a very strange and dishonest way to describe the belief that God is not a hypocrite. I am probably the one who ought to be taking umbrage, not you.

Now in that same post, #26, you compared God's law to a parent's bedtime rule, "God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to, any more than parents don't have to be in bed by 8:00." The problem with this is that the transgression we were discussing was the Shoah (Holocaust). So you literally compared Hitler's Holocaust to a parent going to bed after 8:00, which is a remarkable comparison, and honestly, is a deeply immoral comparison.

Calvinists do seem to get angry when their views are accurately characterized and brought into the light. But don't get angry at me. I'm just the messenger or the mirror. I didn't think up Calvinism, and I strongly disagree with it. Your anger is of course perfectly justified, but the proper object of anger is Calvinism itself.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Ah, both. God created all that is, 100% of the Universe, and I understand from scripture we are unlikely to be in a 'clockwork universe' that merely plays out a fixed predetermined show play. (with everything and all human action predetermined/fated, and thus no free will and worse, not even any ability to love by turning and choosing the Lord and doing as He said; without free will we are 'robots' and it's meaningless). Instead of that, God made us like Himself we read, in his "image", and as Christ said, we are alike in some key way: "I have said, you are 'gods'".
To summarize about many things being predestined, and what may not be, please look carefully at all the details in HTacianas's well worded post #2 : Free Will, Predestination and Time (link to post 2)

Before I forget, I keep meaning to ask you, if your avatar and handle are intentional references to the Hale-Bopp comet? I know that is the galaxy, Andromeda, and not a comet, but still, something about it, along with the initials in your handle, makes me think of that comet, and of Halley's comet, too.

It was I who rated @HTacianas post (#2 in this thread) winner, though with qualifications. I don't see how you can have it both ways, that God did create 100% of the Universe, yet by your words as I understand them up til now, there are still some things God does not control. The implication is that some things are undirected, then, and happen by mere chance. To me that is not only illogical but rather outrageous, as in, offensive to God.

Not that a clockwork universe necessarily implies robothood, as opposed to free agency, but 'clockwork universe' implies Deism, as though God only set things in motion, which isn't quite logical (see the various philosophical attributes of God, which together imply he may well, in having "done", be still "doing", and there be no difference, from his point of view.) I tend to think, in fact, that God in fact IS, or at least, maintains, the motion.

 

[zippy2006]

Here is what I said, in post 26: "God did not do evil. For us to take such a responsibility into our hands would be evil, because we are not the Creator. God is not subject to the laws he obligates us to, any more than parents don't have to be in bed by 8:00.

"Your notion that he cannot do that and be just is to claim that these happen by mere chance, and that is simply self-contradictory, not to mention it claims God is subject to things beyond himself, which is, sorry, in my book it is blasphemy. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God."

So here's my answer to A: How you can jump from the part I highlight in red above, linking it somehow directly to the part I highlight in blue in the next paragraph down, and that, changing what I said in the negative to make it sound like I said it in the positive, is beyond me. I did not say, hint, nor imply what you present me as saying.

Are you really attempting to claim that the red and the blue are not related? It seems to me that they surely are. What principle were you talking about in the blue, if not the very law we were discussing (<One cannot do evil that good may come>)?

The blue is the antecedent of a modus tollens argument, as follows:

1. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God.
   
2. But God is First Cause.
3. Therefore, God is not subject to any principle from outside himself.

Surely the blue sentence, as well as the preceding sentence, intend conclusion (3). I simply have not mischaracterized the blue.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Are you really attempting to claim that the red and the blue are not related? It seems to me that they surely are. What principle were you talking about in the blue, if not the very law we were discussing (<One cannot do evil that good may come>)?

Of course they are related, but not in the way you relate them.

The blue is the antecedent of a modus tollens argument, as follows:

1. If God is subject to any principle from outside himself, he is not First Cause, and therefore, not God.
   
2. But God is First Cause.
3. Therefore, God is not subject to any principle from outside himself.

Surely the blue sentence, as well as the preceding sentence, intend conclusion (3). I simply have not mischaracterized the blue.

The blue sentence certainly intends conclusion 3. But the red sentence does not relate to the blue the way you combine them. Nor did the way I originally said them imply that combination.

 

[Halbhh]

God did create 100% of the Universe, yet by your words as I understand them up til now, there are still some things God does not control.

Ah, as I think of it, to me the answer to that is very clear: evidently God chose and designed this temporary universe and Earth to give us free will (and thus the ability to love also).

I don't assume you disagree with that by the way.

Of course, here we are not talking only about whether there is free will.

We are into the weeds of speculative ideas about Nature -- what God created -- some aspects of which God in His wisdom (superior to ours) chose not to tell us. (It's obvious to us all I think that the Bible doesn't address relatively unimportant things like Chemistry, Geology, Physics...because this is a temporary world, and He will replace it one day)

But there is a crucial, very key reason God didn't reveal every last bit of how Nature works.

It's because what God wants and requires from us is to have faith!

Not some accomplishment of esoteric knowledge of Nature (God's creation) or theological understandings. Those are beside the point of what God wants from us, because faith is what God requires of us.

We read that we are only saved solely by believing on Christ. (And, as often discussed here on CF, that from real faith and dwelling with Christ (on the Vine, John 15), we are able and given chances to bear good fruits, works that God has prepared for us to do -- Ephesians 2:8-10. -- there's a theological discussion that does matter, because Christ said Matthew 7:24-27, and He is the authority, not anyone else)

So, it's so important to remember when someone disagrees with a view we have in these discussions about the small details of Nature -- what God created -- are only academic, ultimately.

Out on the internet, the reason Genesis 1 is overly discussed (too much, and thus at the expense of diverting attention from the saving Gospel!) is because it's the agenda of a portion of atheists to try to use things in the Old Testament to attempt to destroy Christians.

The fundamental need in life is faith in Christ, not doctrines from church X or church Y.

For example, say you or I don't recognize/agree to the Catholic doctrine X.3.4 (maybe papal supremacy) -- then, praise God, we are not in danger of losing salvation, because salvation does not depend on men's doctrines, and salvation does not depend on even correct interpretations of everything in scripture (example: sabbath keeping, etc.) -- there is only one thing we need, and only one, direct from Christ in the Gospels: we must have faith in Christ.

So, a mentally handicapped person can enter heaven, and some very able, well versed theologians (some) may not.

Since we are not saved by having intellectual knowledge. And since only the Gospel of Jesus Christ alone can lead to salvation (as we read in the gospels and other places in the new Testament like Romans 10:17 and more), someone wrong about all sorts of things (or right), won't be helped by getting another detail of doctrinal questions of church X or Y right, but only by hearing the gospel and then responding to the gospel with faith.
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halbhh is actually just my name, Hal, followed by some additional letters I picked long ago merely in order to be able to begin my username with my real name somewhere once about 2001 or so.

 

[zippy2006]

Of course they are related, but not in the way you relate them.

The blue sentence certainly intends conclusion 3. But the red sentence does not relate to the blue the way you combine them. Nor did the way I originally said them imply that combination.

These are quibbles, and they probably aren't even true quibbles. Many of your complaints are nothing more than complaints that I have inferred conclusion (3). But you intended conclusion (3), and therefore my inference is certainly not a mischaracterization!

Again I ask, "What principle were you talking about in the blue, if not the very law we were discussing (<One cannot do evil that good may come>)?"