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Struggles by Non-Christians
Why are we accountable if we did not ask to be exist?
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<blockquote data-quote="aiki" data-source="post: 71485824" data-attributes="member: 178791"><p>But you don't create in the same manner in which God does. There are some superficial similarities between our creative acts and God's, of course, but His far outstrip in every respect anything we can manufacture. Most importantly, nothing you create is sentient. You don't impart life itself to anything as God does. And this difference makes all the difference to what God can demand of what He creates. </p><p></p><p>Now, if you're like others with whom I've discussed this issue, you may be tempted to suggest that you <em>do</em> create life as God does by having children. But "creating" children is not really an act over which we have anything but the most rudimentary control. Parents can't control the sex of their child, or its personality, or its intellectual capacities. Parents can't even really control - for the most part - whether or not they'll conceive a child. All of this stuff is in <em>God's</em> domain, not ours. Our biological reproduction relies on pre-existing material to work. God creates <em>ex nihilo</em> (out of nothing). It takes two humans, generally, to reproduce a new human life. God acts unilaterally, without any outside aid or collaboration, when He creates. And so on. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't hold to a deterministic view of human conduct. That's an atheistic thing, not a biblical one. I think what is fairly clearly revealed in Scripture is what Christian philosopher's call "soft libertarianism." There are points at which we all have a genuinely free choice. But having made a choice, we begin, thereby, to set ourselves upon a course of corresponding choices that gradually set a person in a habit of thought and action that powerfully limits their freedom to choose. </p><p></p><p>Determinism is an ultimately self-defeating idea. If one's thinking and conduct is simply the effect of a chain of prior circumstances, devoid of any real free agency, then how can one say that what one thinks is really true? Isn't the thought of every person determined by a prior chain of events rather than the truth or falsity of a thing? This is what determinism asserts. But if a person is espousing a view they had no real choice to espouse, how can they argue for its veracity? They're just arguing for an idea they <em>have</em> to argue for, whether its true or not! </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I have no idea who adhidw is and no good reason to accept his view - offered to me second-hand by you - as the end of the matter of human free will. So, respectfully, your assertion that my statements are false is itself false. (And its "sir," by the way).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="aiki, post: 71485824, member: 178791"] But you don't create in the same manner in which God does. There are some superficial similarities between our creative acts and God's, of course, but His far outstrip in every respect anything we can manufacture. Most importantly, nothing you create is sentient. You don't impart life itself to anything as God does. And this difference makes all the difference to what God can demand of what He creates. Now, if you're like others with whom I've discussed this issue, you may be tempted to suggest that you [I]do[/I] create life as God does by having children. But "creating" children is not really an act over which we have anything but the most rudimentary control. Parents can't control the sex of their child, or its personality, or its intellectual capacities. Parents can't even really control - for the most part - whether or not they'll conceive a child. All of this stuff is in [I]God's[/I] domain, not ours. Our biological reproduction relies on pre-existing material to work. God creates [I]ex nihilo[/I] (out of nothing). It takes two humans, generally, to reproduce a new human life. God acts unilaterally, without any outside aid or collaboration, when He creates. And so on. I don't hold to a deterministic view of human conduct. That's an atheistic thing, not a biblical one. I think what is fairly clearly revealed in Scripture is what Christian philosopher's call "soft libertarianism." There are points at which we all have a genuinely free choice. But having made a choice, we begin, thereby, to set ourselves upon a course of corresponding choices that gradually set a person in a habit of thought and action that powerfully limits their freedom to choose. Determinism is an ultimately self-defeating idea. If one's thinking and conduct is simply the effect of a chain of prior circumstances, devoid of any real free agency, then how can one say that what one thinks is really true? Isn't the thought of every person determined by a prior chain of events rather than the truth or falsity of a thing? This is what determinism asserts. But if a person is espousing a view they had no real choice to espouse, how can they argue for its veracity? They're just arguing for an idea they [I]have[/I] to argue for, whether its true or not! I have no idea who adhidw is and no good reason to accept his view - offered to me second-hand by you - as the end of the matter of human free will. So, respectfully, your assertion that my statements are false is itself false. (And its "sir," by the way). [/QUOTE]
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Why are we accountable if we did not ask to be exist?
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