No Chance

[bricklayer]

The idea of chance seems anathema to the idea of a sovereign God.

The idea that we are subject yet accountable offends every anthropocentric sensibility I have. For years, I accepted that a sovereign God can be subject (necessary be contingent), a flat out contradiction.

I recoiled at the thought that God gets everything He wants constantly, whether He likes it or not. I accepted that God does not want what He does not like, and that there is much that God does not like. Therefore, God does not constantly get everything He wants. He didn't want and never intended for there to be anything contrary to His nature (sin). He never wanted or intended for the to be suffering or death. He never intended for anyone to be in hell. To suggest otherwise was, to me, to make God accountable for acting contrary to His nature (sin). I did not accept that God was sovereign. I have since repented.

The difference between an author and a character is not humanly calculable, but it is quantifiable, both are finite. Yet I would never hold an author accountable for an act by his character. The author seems to be perfectly well within his rights to create and do with his creation whatever he will. The difference between an infinite Creator and a finite creature is infinite. God would therefore seem infinitely well off to do with His creation whatever he will. Is it not for this purpose that character and creature exist?

That which is contingent cannot become necessary.
That which is necessary cannot become contingent.
No effect can transcend its cause.
I understood these things. They are self-evident, yet I accepted that God subjects Himself to human-free-will and choices made by chance.
I have since repented.

The belief in chance appears to be the way of this world. It is devoid of a sovereign God. For chance to exist, God would have to be subject to it. Therefore God would not be sovereign. Although a spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy have never been observed, it forms the basis of the most widely held world view in human history, evolution. Although it is flat out contrary to all of the applied sciences, it is the dominant presupposition for the majority of the throretical sciences. The spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy (evolution) presupposes material necessity. It makes matter sovereign.

A free-will is free to act according to its nature. If our nature is to be subject, then we are not sovereign. If we are not sovereign, God is not subject to human-free-will. Human-free-will would therefore not equal human-sovereign-will. A sovereign God cannot subject Himself to our will anymore than a triangle can be round. I can make such statements, but they are contradictory.

Therefore, God is absolutely sovereign or absolutely not. If God is Sovereign Creator, then His creation is a prescribed cause and effect sequence, devoid of anything unknown to Him. If God interacts with us in a cause and effect sequence, and God starts and God ends the sequence, then does that not determine that what appears to be a dialogue is actually a condescension and what appears to be a reaction is actually an action, by God? I should be careful to never isolate a segment of the sequence of time that appears that I ever start or finish the sequence.

I seem to be left with two distinct views of God: sovereign and subjective, and two distinctly different views of His creation also, either necessary or contingent. Since material necessity has been des-proven by every attempted repeatable means ever tried, and a spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy has never been observed; what remains is material contingency and a subjective creation.
This begs a necessary Creator, a Sovereign God.
I am left to believe that, God is sovereign.
There is no chance.

 

[truth_not_allowed]

The idea of chance seems anathema to the idea of a sovereign God.

The idea that we are subject yet accountable offends every anthropocentric sensibility I have. For years, I accepted that a sovereign God can be subject (necessary be contingent), a flat out contradiction.

I recoiled at the thought that God gets everything He wants constantly, whether He likes it or not. I accepted that God does not want what He does not like, and that there is much that God does not like. Therefore, God does not constantly get everything He wants. He didn't want and never intended for there to be anything contrary to His nature (sin). He never wanted or intended for the to be suffering or death. He never intended for anyone to be in hell. To suggest otherwise was, to me, to make God accountable for acting contrary to His nature (sin). I did not accept that God was sovereign. I have since repented.

The difference between an author and a character is not humanly calculable, but it is quantifiable, both are finite. Yet I would never hold an author accountable for an act by his character. The author seems to be perfectly well within his rights to create and do with his creation whatever he will. The difference between an infinite Creator and a finite creature is infinite. God would therefore seem infinitely well off to do with His creation whatever he will. Is it not for this purpose that character and creature exist?

That which is contingent cannot become necessary.
That which is necessary cannot become contingent.
No effect can transcend its cause.
I understood these things. They are self-evident, yet I accepted that God subjects Himself to human-free-will and choices made by chance.
I have since repented.

The belief in chance appears to be the way of this world. It is devoid of a sovereign God. For chance to exist, God would have to be subject to it. Therefore God would not be sovereign. Although a spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy have never been observed, it forms the basis of the most widely held world view in human history, evolution. Although it is flat out contrary to all of the applied sciences, it is the dominant presupposition for the majority of the throretical sciences. The spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy (evolution) presupposes material necessity. It makes matter sovereign.

A free-will is free to act according to its nature. If our nature is to be subject, then we are not sovereign. If we are not sovereign, God is not subject to human-free-will. Human-free-will would therefore not equal human-sovereign-will. A sovereign God cannot subject Himself to our will anymore than a triangle can be round. I can make such statements, but they are contradictory.

Therefore, God is absolutely sovereign or absolutely not. If God is Sovereign Creator, then His creation is a prescribed cause and effect sequence, devoid of anything unknown to Him. If God interacts with us in a cause and effect sequence, and God starts and God ends the sequence, then does that not determine that what appears to be a dialogue is actually a condescension and what appears to be a reaction is actually an action, by God? I should be careful to never isolate a segment of the sequence of time that appears that I ever start or finish the sequence.

I seem to be left with two distinct views of God: sovereign and subjective, and two distinctly different views of His creation also, either necessary or contingent. Since material necessity has been des-proven by every attempted repeatable means ever tried, and a spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy has never been observed; what remains is material contingency and a subjective creation.
This begs a necessary Creator, a Sovereign God.
I am left to believe that, God is sovereign.
There is no chance.

Round and round and round it goes, where it stops nobody knows..........

By this declaration, God knows what every character in this book will do from the very point of conception.
To see an outcome within every life or give it up to chance within the propensity of a creation and claim to have no part in it is absurd to the highest degree.
Regardless of the conclusion, yours or anyone else's..... Chance or subject to Order, how could God judge either?
Anyone who has ventured to reason, has already completed this same thought process.

The process is however incomplete because you have given the conclusion based upon the acceptance of an absolute.

 

[truth_not_allowed]

There is profound brilliance in the fact that the only thing in life we are ever able to prove is ourselves........ If every life did exactly this, do you think we might envision an existence where we provide every life with every chance?

 

[Penumbra]

The idea of chance seems anathema to the idea of a sovereign God.

The idea that we are subject yet accountable offends every anthropocentric sensibility I have. For years, I accepted that a sovereign God can be subject (necessary be contingent), a flat out contradiction.

I recoiled at the thought that God gets everything He wants constantly, whether He likes it or not. I accepted that God does not want what He does not like, and that there is much that God does not like. Therefore, God does not constantly get everything He wants. He didn't want and never intended for there to be anything contrary to His nature (sin). He never wanted or intended for the to be suffering or death. He never intended for anyone to be in hell. To suggest otherwise was, to me, to make God accountable for acting contrary to His nature (sin). I did not accept that God was sovereign. I have since repented.

The difference between an author and a character is not humanly calculable, but it is quantifiable, both are finite. Yet I would never hold an author accountable for an act by his character. The author seems to be perfectly well within his rights to create and do with his creation whatever he will. The difference between an infinite Creator and a finite creature is infinite. God would therefore seem infinitely well off to do with His creation whatever he will. Is it not for this purpose that character and creature exist?

That which is contingent cannot become necessary.
That which is necessary cannot become contingent.
No effect can transcend its cause.
I understood these things. They are self-evident, yet I accepted that God subjects Himself to human-free-will and choices made by chance.
I have since repented.

The belief in chance appears to be the way of this world. It is devoid of a sovereign God. For chance to exist, God would have to be subject to it. Therefore God would not be sovereign. Although a spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy have never been observed, it forms the basis of the most widely held world view in human history, evolution. Although it is flat out contrary to all of the applied sciences, it is the dominant presupposition for the majority of the throretical sciences. The spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy (evolution) presupposes material necessity. It makes matter sovereign.

A free-will is free to act according to its nature. If our nature is to be subject, then we are not sovereign. If we are not sovereign, God is not subject to human-free-will. Human-free-will would therefore not equal human-sovereign-will. A sovereign God cannot subject Himself to our will anymore than a triangle can be round. I can make such statements, but they are contradictory.

Therefore, God is absolutely sovereign or absolutely not. If God is Sovereign Creator, then His creation is a prescribed cause and effect sequence, devoid of anything unknown to Him. If God interacts with us in a cause and effect sequence, and God starts and God ends the sequence, then does that not determine that what appears to be a dialogue is actually a condescension and what appears to be a reaction is actually an action, by God? I should be careful to never isolate a segment of the sequence of time that appears that I ever start or finish the sequence.

I seem to be left with two distinct views of God: sovereign and subjective, and two distinctly different views of His creation also, either necessary or contingent. Since material necessity has been des-proven by every attempted repeatable means ever tried, and a spontaneous increase in available complexity, information and energy has never been observed; what remains is material contingency and a subjective creation.
This begs a necessary Creator, a Sovereign God.
I am left to believe that, God is sovereign.
There is no chance.

This makes a number of assumptions. You've said in my Discerning truth thread that logic is based off of presuppositions, and you seem to be using them freely here.

You're forming a dichotomy between a God that is sovereign or a God that exists in a world of chance. Other options include, but are not limited to: that there doesn't exist a god, or that a god exists yet freely allows chance to take hold, and has no preference in what occurs.

-Lyn

 

[bricklayer]

If chance were to exist, God would be subject to it.
He would therefore not be sovereign.

God is either absolutely sovereign or absolutely not.
I am left to believe that God is sovereign.

I am left to believe that there is no chance.

 

[tansy]

If chance were to exist, God would be subject to it.
He would therefore not be sovereign.

God is either absolutely sovereign or absolutely not.
I am left to believe that God is sovereign.

I am left to believe that there is no chance.

I agree with you (in so far as I am able to understand the way things are, and the who God is..though of course I may be mistaken)
People often say that God took a risk when He created the universe and people...but I really don't believe that is so. I think He knew EXACTLY what He was doing, and everything that that would entail.

 

[bricklayer]

hear here, Tansy

 

[Penumbra]

If chance were to exist, God would be subject to it.
He would therefore not be sovereign.

God is either absolutely sovereign or absolutely not.
I am left to believe that God is sovereign.

I am left to believe that there is no chance.

Hmm, well that doesn't address the other options I presented, but no matter.

Basically what you're saying is that you believe in Predestination.

Would you say you agree with Paul's statement from Romans 9?

10Not only that, but Rebekah's children had one and the same father, our father Isaac. 11Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad—in order that God's purpose in election might stand: 12not by works but by him who calls—she was told, "The older will serve the younger."[d] 13Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated."[e] 14What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! 15For he says to Moses,
"I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion."[f] 16It does not, therefore, depend on man's desire or effort, but on God's mercy. 17For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."[g] 18Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.
19One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" 20But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?' "[h] 21Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use?
22What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? 23What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— 24even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles?



Do you feel that God loves some people and hates others before they are born, and creates the ones he hates so that they can be objects of his wrath to show how glorious he is to the objects of his mercy?

Or no?

-Lyn

 

[bricklayer]

You're very close to what I am left to believe.

I should not espouse any set doctrine with which I am not intimate,
there may be some aspect of it I do not affirm.

As for predestination, it is a temporal term.
It is what God's sovereignty looks like from a temporal point of view.
It is anthropocentric.

I am left to believe that God is as sovereign over His creation as a human author appears to be,
and both cannot be so.

 

[Penumbra]

You're very close to what I am left to believe.

I should not espouse any set doctrine with which I am not intimate,
there may be some aspect of it I do not affirm.

As for predestination, it is a temporal term.
It is what God's sovereignty looks like from a temporal point of view.
It is anthropocentric.

I am left to believe that God is as sovereign over His creation as a human author appears to be,
and both cannot be so.

Ok.

Thanks for clarifying your position.

-Lyn

 

[WhatGoesUpMustComeDown]

What is 'chance'? Is it some principle of magical randomness by which things happen without a cause? Or is it something else? If there is such a thing as chance, what is found in its absence?

Perhaps a re-examination of our assumptions is in order.

 

[bricklayer]

Were such as chance to exist, God would be subject to it.
That is oxymoronic.

 

[Tinker Grey]

Were such as chance to exist, God would be subject to it.

Why would an omniscient omnipotent god who is truly transcendent be subject to chance?

 

[bricklayer]

He's not, there is no chance.

 

[Tinker Grey]

If there were chance, why would he be subject to it.

 

[bricklayer]

God knows what He knows necessisarily, not objectively.
He does not need a thing to exist to know it.
He is not the objective observer of His creation.
He is the necessary sustainer of His creation.
What is is contingent upon Him.
Therefore, there is no chance that it not be.
Necessity and contingency appear to exclude spontenaety and objectivity.

God is necessary, there is no chance.

 

[Tinker Grey]

I think we have confusion as to what is meant by chance. Perhaps that is my problem.

It appears to be true that quantum events can occur un-caused. All quantum events appears to have a probability distribution function. That is, they are random. They are unpredictable in the sense that there is only a probability that such-and-such an event will occur.

Colloquially, they are chance events. Things happen by chance. That things in the universe appears orderly is due to the central limit theorem. That is, sums of random variables tend to a gaussian distribution. This, in turn, implies that though these events are chance, the events that tend to happen are the ones that are most similar to the mean of the probability distribution function.

If God, though, is outside time then all of space-time is done, finished, complete, kaput, or whatever word for final you like. Space-time, for such a god, is a single complete object and every aspect of which (from 13.7 billion years ago to 13 trillion years from now) is available simultaneously for him (whatever simultaneous might mean for him.)

We experience chance because we are subject to the laws of the universe which we seem to have discovered do include chance. What we mean by chance is that it appears that what occurs "now" is not predictable based on "then." At a quantum level, this appears to be true; events occur that, not even in principle, are predictable.

But what does "now" and "then" mean to a god outside of time? Nothing. What does predictable mean to a god outside time? Nothing. It is all known. What does the word event mean to such a god? Nothing. It is final and done and over. That what event occurs without any predicate implies nothing to a god for whom all-of-it is now.

Forgive me if I'm wrong, but it appears that your definition of sustaining (on which your argument seems to hinge) depends on a god who must moment-by-moment be involved in his creation.

But, "moment-by-moment" is a meaningless concept to a truly transcendent god. Such a god may "sustain" in some sort of way to make people happy with their theology and without undefining chance.

The way I see it, one can have an sustaining, transcendent god without denying the physical reality that we see. We can have chance as part of physical reality without denying god's sustaining power or his ability to know everything.

 

[bricklayer]

Your propostion stands if, one presupposes material necessity.

One must presuppose material necessity to accept your quantum conclusions.
To me, material contingency is a lot less of a stretch.

The incalculable does not, to me, equate to the unknown,
that seems very anthropocentric and again smacks of material necessity.

 

[Tinker Grey]

My conclusion is that with a certain understanding of transcendence your denial of physical reality as we experience in not necessary.

You do understand that I am allowing your god necessity (thru transcendence and omni-max properties). There is no requirement for material necessity in my discussion since the whole space-time object and its nature are determined/sustained/created/known/etc. by your god. And, one need not deny what our "god"-given brains observe about the universe.

 

[bricklayer]

Well, i thank you for giving the ground of material contingency.

Stading upon it, I say that no effect can transcend its cause.

This again stands in direct opposition to the idea of a spontaneous increase in available information, complexity or energy.

Having conceded material contingency, will you now support its operation as necessary.