Why Can't We Freely Make Only Good Choices?

[drich0150]

The "God is not real because evil exists" argument is probably the most popular and most argued atheist assertion, and rightly so.

The Christian response is always "Because God gave us free will, so we must have the choice to choose evil." This doesn't make sense to me.

If God is all powerful and can create anything, could he not create a world in which we all are free to make only good choices, and are morally perfect? Eliminating evil does not eliminate choice...you can still choose what to wear, what car to drive, what job you hold, etc. "Evil" just wouldn't be a part of our moral vocabulary or comprehension.

Is that not what God is? Angels (aside from one bad apple)?

Thank you for helping me understand this problem.

This was taken from another thread:
The tree represents True Choice. If anything and everything they did in the garden was indeed in the expressed will of God then Adam and eve had no real choice of their own because everything they did was in God will or in God's expressed Choosing for them.

The tree was the one area of the garden that represented a deed or action not in the expressed will of God. This is true Choice because we are now able to do or choose something that all mighty God does not want us to do.

The Choice the tree offers is "free will."

Here are the actual biblically based definitions of the following words:

Sin, is anything not in the expressed will of God.

Evil, is a malicious intent to be out side of the Expressed will of God.

Not all sin is Evil, but all evil is sin.

Free Will is the ability to be in a will not expressed or approved by God.

In other words "Free will" is the ability to Sin.

So why did God put the tree in the Garden? So that we would have the opportunity for Free Will.

That said know "Free Will" is not freedom of choice. Free Will is the state of being outside of the Expressed will of God. Or at least the ability to do so. If one were not outside the expressed will of God or in sin, then one would be in God's will and not his own. Free will can not exist if God's will takes precedence.

 

[bling]

The "God is not real because evil exists" argument is probably the most popular and most argued atheist assertion, and rightly so.

The Christian response is always "Because God gave us free will, so we must have the choice to choose evil." This doesn't make sense to me.

If God is all powerful and can create anything, could he not create a world in which we all are free to make only good choices, and are morally perfect? Eliminating evil does not eliminate choice...you can still choose what to wear, what car to drive, what job you hold, etc. "Evil" just wouldn't be a part of our moral vocabulary or comprehension.

Is that not what God is? Angels (aside from one bad apple)?

Thank you for helping me understand this problem.

Sin has purpose.

Sin is not the problem (unforgiven sin can be a big problem).

Our objective is not to keep from sinning.

There are some things God cannot do like create a being that has always been in existence. The one big thing God cannot do for man is make man with Godly type Love, since if instinctive to man that love would be robotic. God could not force that Love on man since it is not loving to force anything against the will of a mature adult free will agent.

Earthly humans have a different objective than heavenly beings and sin is part of help man fulfill his earthly objective.

 

[Question.Everything]

I understand that a contradiction cannot be created, but if we say God can create anything one could persistently say God can create contradictions. I don't, but I've seen just as many atheists claim it as Christians. It is for that reason I believe that definition "create anything" should be abandoned.

No...we're backpedaling here. A contradiction is not a real thing. Anything does not include contradictions. The lingual label "contradiction" is just a placeholder for something that doesn't actually exist. You have to call it something to understand it. God cannot create a square circle because such a thing cannot exist in any dimension. The only way would be to rewrite the definition of a square and a circle, which rewrites reality in the first place...this is pointless. God can still create anything, as long as it is a thing. A reality in which only good exists is a comprehensible "thing"...I'm sure you could imagine what a perfect society would act like, but you cannot imagine what a square circle would look like.

Your thoughts?

I don't really understand what you mean that all - powerful would mean more than infinity? Care to elaborate/make sense of that statement?

In this case, "all" means infinity. By this definition alone we're left with an endless debate. Now add the word "powerful", and we have an even more complex term. What is it to be infinite in the first place? And given infinity, what does it mean to have power in this sense? We're getting really off track with this topic and there is no solution, so discussing it is pointless. I don't know if infinity exists or it doesn't (as of now and my understanding, infinity may exist).

Sure. You said even if we could not choose evil we would still be able to choose what to drive, what to wear, and where to work. Though as I said none of those things would even be relevant in a world where there is no evil and we just follow God of necessity. It would essentially be like Heaven with no concept of material needs at all.

Your last sentence sums up my sentiments perfectly. "With no concept of material needs at all" might as well be eliminated from your statement, as this is a given with "Heaven". Why not just be born into Heaven? Do God's angels and heavenly occupants not love him? God can find love without the need to create suffering and a material world. I see no real purpose to a material life in this case.

I have also argued that if we cannot choose to disobey God we cannot genuinely choose to follow Him either, as there would be no possibility of disobeying we would follow God out of pure necessity. Thus, no real choice in the matter.

And again I'll bring up Lucifer. You can be in God's perfect presence and still have the option to disobey him. It's just that nearly every being in his presence wouldn't do this...in fact only one chose to follow this path. This only makes for a good story, without it the story would be rather bland...

An angels free will is vastly different from man's will in that man is physically existent while angels are not. It is a different circumstance, too.

Says you?

For your information, angels physically present themselves to humans in the Bible. Angels are physically existent.

Angels are distinctive from humans yes, as that only shows my point that their two wills are totally different and incomparable. I don't know why we cannot be born all angels. While it would be nice you won't catch me complaining about this earthly experience. I enjoy this life, even if evil does pursue.

[/quote]

This statement says "I don't know, but I still appreciate life all the same." The same is said by any seeker or atheist. You do not know the nature or mind of an angel, and therefore cannot speak on their behalf. We only know what the Bible tells us.

Also it matters not if we're "comparable" to angels or not...obviously we're not. The question still remains: why are we humans instead of angels? The differences between humans and angels only seem to be negative things: suffering, hate, greed, sin, etc. What do humans possess that angels don't? As the Bible tells us, angels do have a physical presence on our reality. So what do we have that they don't?

 

[Question.Everything]

That's a strange way to put it, that we're "required" to be morally perfect in heaven. Righteousness is a prerequisite to getting into heaven (which is fulfilled by Christ's righteousness, not ours), but to say we're required to do that within heaven suggests we still have a sinful nature. It isn't really a matter of requiring us to do it, more like we just won't sin anymore, because we'll be freed from that curse. The evil desires that linger in our flesh will not be there in heaven.

You're only rephrasing what I've already said. Do you misunderstand the message of Christ to begin with? Why do we need Christ's sacrifice in the first place?

We need it to admonish us of our sins, because the only way to exist in the true presence of God is to be sinless and morally perfect. Christ offers us this through vicarious redemption: if you believe in Christ, your sins are abolished and you may enter the kingdom of heaven. There is no other way.

It is a requirement that you be sinless to enter the presence of God, and that follows logic. An imperfect being cannot live in a perfect being; it's a contradiction.

I don't think that's brainwashing at all. If we choose to love God in this life while we still have evil desires, then in heaven our evil desires are no more, and we are instead filled with a holy nature, then we simply keep loving God because there is no reason at all to ever stop loving him. It's not a matter of brainwashing, it's a matter of complete and utter satisfaction.

Why not be born into such satisfaction? Is God not satisfied by the angels and dead that worship him? We are implying certain needs upon God, which he should not need. A perfect being needs nothing at all; they are wholesome and perfect. There is no need to "fill" something wholesome. This is a self-contradiction.

 

[Question.Everything]

I don't know that Heaven is requiring everyone to be morally perfect.

See my response above. The message of Christ is that only through him may we enter Heaven. The message of Christ is that upon accepting his sacrifice, we are forgiven of all sins; ie. we are made morally perfect. The only way to enter heaven is to be forgiven by Christ and therefore morally perfect.

You do need the ability to chose evil in order to chose to truly love,

Wrong. Why can you not love something for the simple logic of it giving you a wonderful existence? Evil is NOT a necessity, only a genetic burden we carry.

I don't think heaven will be boring.

You aren't facing my question head-on. Do you think we have free will in Heaven?

 

[Question.Everything]

Earthly humans have a different objective than heavenly beings and sin is part of help man fulfill his earthly objective.

Again, pointless suffering is a major price to pay for the "objective" of a seemingly "perfect" being (that should require nothing).

He would seem to be doing this out of boredom, which is cruel.

 

[elopez]

No...we're backpedaling here. A contradiction is not a real thing. Anything does not include contradictions. God cannot create a square circle because such a thing cannot exist in any dimension. The only way would be to rewrite the definition of a square and a circle, which rewrites the definitions in the first place...this is pointless. God can still create anything, as long as it is a thing. A reality in which only good exists is a comprehensible "thing"...I'm sure you could imagine what a perfect society would act like, but you cannot imagine what a square circle would look like.

I still think you are missing what I've said. I do not include contradictions as a 'thing' that could be created. That said, while I can imagine what a perfect society would act like I still see it as impossible just as the square circle. There would be no world in which man is 'free' yet has no possibility of doing evil. The only way I can imagine a 'perfect society' is remembering a few episodes of the Stepford Wives. Can you imagine a marriage where the wife is totally submissive and does everything the husband tells her? Heck no! All joking aside though while that world is possible under the creation of God, would you think of such a wife genuinely doing the things her husband asks of her?

In this case, "all" means infinity. By this definition alone we're left with an endless debate. Now add the word "powerful", and we have an even more complex term. What is it to be infinite in the first place? And given infinity, what does it mean to have power in this sense? We're getting really off track with this topic and there is no solution, so discussing it is pointless. I don't know if infinity exists or it doesn't (as of now and my understanding, infinity may exist).

Well then I'm going to respond to this and if you want to be done with it afterwords because of some irrelevancy that is fine. Infinite here shouldn't be associated with mathematics, which is why I don't prefer to use the term "infinite" but as the prefix "omnis" has it which is "all." It means that nothing could be more powerful than God. That God has power over all of creation. Not really sure how there is no solution, but alright...

Your last sentence sums up my sentiments perfectly. "With no concept of material needs at all" might as well be eliminated from your statement, as this is a given with "Heaven". Why not just be born into Heaven? Do God's angels and heavenly occupants not love him? God can find love without the need to create suffering and a material world. I see no real purpose to a material life in this case.

We are not 'rushed' into Heaven as it would be against any motive in creating I can see. It is not about God needing love or anything from His creation as God is self - sufficient. I believe love existed eternally between the three persons of the Godhead, so yes.

Honestly there is no point to material life. There is now only because materialistic things are essential and this is the only life we get to follow God. This wouldn't have been the case again if our first parents had refrained from temptation.

And again I'll bring up Lucifer. You can be in God's perfect presence and still have the option to disobey him. It's just that nearly every being in his presence wouldn't do this...in fact only one chose to follow this path. This only makes for a good story, without it the story would be rather bland...

And again I'll state that Lucifer was created differently than humans were and in a different circumstance. Think back to my Stepford analogy: can we say that one is free by following and obeying by virtue of some type of force or necessity?

Says you?

For your information, angels physically present themselves to humans in the Bible. Angels are physically existent.

Says the Bible.

FYI, 'angels' are either a divine or human messenger, and even if the divine presents itself in a physical manner it does not exclude the divinity. In Jacob's dream of the latter to Heaven he saw angels coming and going down the stairs, though this is meant to be interpreted symbolically of course, the angels there as they are from Heaven are divine in origin.

This statement says "I don't know, but I still appreciate life all the same." The same is said by any seeker or atheist. You do not know the nature or mind of an angel, and therefore cannot speak on their behalf. We only know what the Bible tells us.

Also it matters not if we're "comparable" to angels or not...obviously we're not. The question still remains: why are we humans instead of angels? The differences between humans and angels only seem to be negative things: suffering, hate, greed, sin, etc. What do humans possess that angels don't? As the Bible tells us, angels do have a physical presence on our reality. So what do we have that they don't?

I'm not sure why I would want to speak on an angel's behalf anyway? I'm not sure I see your point, either. Though the difference between us and angels do matter for it may be that while angels are allowed to have free will in Heaven man may not.

Psalm 8:5 says, "For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor." It's not about what humans poses that angels don't but the other way around. Angels would poses many things that man would not. For one the direct communication and revelation of God's will, as angels are God's messengers to mankind (no wonder they would appear to us physically?). The account of Zacharias depicts the angel as speaking "within him," so I think it could be said that angels also have some type of interior control over man, while man certainly does not share this.

 

[razeontherock]

your false assumption that "most atheists" see the argument as weak. Most of them see it as strong actually, which is why it is so heavily debated.

Actually we are both wrong in our statements. I don't believe either of us have actual data to back up any claim of "most atheists." You may conclude that most atheists you have observed have such and such a perception, and I will not challenge that. I will point out I do not watch debates, for Spiritual reasons. I should have said most atheists that I see comment on this argument of evil on CF, will step up to the plate readily admitting it is a weak argument.

I will further assert that debating this topic, "heavily" or not, is futile. It is solved, and very simply. (Takes a lot of steps and a lot to write out though)

If our reality reflects God's reality, then God's reality is shockingly evil and destructive. Taking human evil aside, a star explodes (dies) every second. There is incomprehensible amounts of destruction that goes on in the universe, does this reflect God's reality?

Yes. Bingo! And, you get it. "God's reality" is the realm of the spirit, and we are inescapably involved in spiritual warfare. This is something we do not have a choice about, but is part of the human condition.

Why would God stray us from our home? To challenge us to willingly "find" him? Again, this is a cruel test unbecoming of a God that is supposed to love us.

1) We know no home other than this present life.

2) The fakeness of your first question in this snippet is ridiculously transparent. It is a good question; why do you toss it aside in favor of unlearned assumption? this is not consistent with your username, but jumping to conclusions, armed with no info. Most unwise!

The subject matter I raised was free will and freedom of choice. You can have that while also being only good. You can be good and still have the choice to turn away from God, it's just highly unlikely that in his presence you would (Lucifer is 1 fallen angel out of how many angels?). On the other hand, when you introduce evil/greed/lust into the mix, the odds of turning from God become much higher. I'm not sure why God wants this.

Notice your own words, "I'm not sure." THERE you have a legitimate line of inquiry! You should not be so willing to forfeit that, exchanging it for worthless assumption. Employ username instead.

Your often repeated idea the ONE lone angel out of millions rebelled is off by a factor of millions, at least. Fully 1/3 of heaven rebelled. (Just as a FYI)

You have tremendous wisdom to gain by actually questioning these phenomenon, rather than sweeping it all aside with your broad brush of assumption.

I can see your justification for suffering, now that we have it. But I don't see any reason for God to introduce the idea in the first place. Again, we can freely choose to love God without suffering.

1) No, you really can't.

2) "You don't see any reason." That is a true statement, and you will do well to stick to it! You express a heart that defiantly claims to see, which brings Judgment upon your head, in line with one who actually "sees." That is a terrible position to be in! Conversely, one who truly sees can (with discipline and exertion) assume a "heart position" of one who does NOT "see," and receive the Mercy extended to one who truly does not "see." You can't yet really be in that position, but I hope you can see this would be superior, and you can certainly reap that same benefit of Mercy. (And that may prove to bring you a whole lot closer to "seeing" what's going on here, if that is really your goal)

3) Can we "freely choose to love God w/o suffering?" I honestly don't know, nor do I see how you could possibly answer that question. If I ever "arrive" at the goal of truly loving God like I'm supposed to, I might comment on this.

As mentioned, I do not overlook Lucifer. He is 1 fallen angel out of probably millions. Once you're in the presence of God and only know good; you are highly unlikely to stray from him (this is what Heaven is supposed to be).

This is NOT about "likelihood!" It is about spirits. Do you really have any idea how this impacts YOU, presently?

No, we can't. According to the Bible we are born broken, and we will always sin.

Disagreed! Did you really come to this conclusion by your own critical reading and thought processes, or was this instilled in you by someone? Please allow me to point you to something called "Orthodox Christianity." As in, the very first Church in Jerusalem, and ALL the original Churches except for Rome. They have an active community here, called TAW, found in "Faith Groups" on our home page, with a couple sub-sections designed to address concerns of outsiders. VERY knowledgeable posters! Many are very intent on allowing NC's to post in said sub-sections, and actively seeking to change forum rules to accommodate this. I'm not sure of the formal status, but I am sure you could get better info from them than I can deliver, at least on this particular topic. (Maybe a few other nitty gritties too?)

It is only the blood of Christ that can cleanse us.

True! But you don't say that because you believe it. Neither does it have anything at all to do with where you go next:

Broken people are not capable of making only good choices.

Again, disagreed! And strongly so. As an infant / toddler / young child no one forced either of us to screw up. We did that on our own or with help, and have our own story of "breaking." (Unrelated to the statement by my avatar, btw)

That's where the confusion begins, why are we created broken in the first place?

We weren't. Not only that, we weren't "created." We were procreated. (Even though my Mom says I was hatched, I don't believe her

Why were Adam & Eve created to be broken people?

They weren't, but as your following comments indicate, our species is considerably more complex than the others.

 

[razeontherock]

So God allows billions of innocent people to pointlessly suffer and die throughout history, and his way of saying "Here, I'll make it up to you" is by sending 1 human as a bloody sacrifice?

I'm sorry but that idea is extremely unappealing to me.

Well good, because that's not the idea.

 

[KBD]

I think of it this way: We are in school. We are in the school of life. In this life we face tests and trials, we are surrounded by evil, and we have a body that is prone to sin. While we will never achieve the goal of perfect sainthood, at least most of us will not, we will still have the choice and obligation of followers of God to keep moving forward, keep learning, keep overcoming the hurdles of life on our way to heaven.
If there was no evil, no hardship, no tests and trials, we would always be weak people who could never truly master the experiences in life that will shape and change us, making us better or worse as our character is tested. If seen in this light, both free will and evil are necessary for us to grow up and graduate into Christlikeness on our way to heaven.
Jesus was tested and tried on this earth--as we follow in His footsteps we must also be tested and tried.

 

[razeontherock]

Please explain why Heaven is different. Heaven is a place where everyone is required to be morally perfect (ie NO evil), yet it is supposed to be a desirable place. I thought you need evil in order to choose to truly love?

This too is a worthwhile question.

The Bible never says "we go to heaven when we die." Can we call it the next life? In the resurrection? The difference is again time. As you have observed, we have a period of testing to endure. If you feel like voicing that it is cruel, involves suffering, etc etc etc, I encourage you to embrace that heartily, intensely, thoroughly, and AS BRIEFLY AS POSSIBLE via getting it out of your system. This will put you in the company of King David and possibly others, as you can witness in the book of Psalms. It should also be noted here that God Himself declared David to be "a man after God's own heart." Quite the statement! Especially in light of this perspective.

Anyway, before our period of testing otherwise known as our whole lifetime, we have one condition; humility. After the Judgment there is at least the potential for glorification, which is "the desire of all Nations." You know you were born for that! This is your Spirit, and almost certainly "the Holy Ghost drawing you to the Father." (Not that I expect those words are terribly meaningful to you right now, but I know no others that serve us better)

You will notice this is a stark difference, humiliation from glorification. Also, I think it will serve you better to view this as a test or perhaps even a dressing room to prepare for the next life, rather than "you need evil in order to choose to truly love" W/o facing temptation, you couldn't possibly prove or pass the test of reliably choosing Love in every situation, forever. Which is what we must do to be Glorified, which I hope you have discovered is what "your heart" yearns for, and was created for.

Consider:

"now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:" (Genesis 3:22) Please review the context here, and see how this fits in with my comment.

God Bless

 

[razeontherock]

Do you misunderstand the message of Christ to begin with?

It is a requirement that you be sinless to enter the presence of God, and that follows logic. An imperfect being cannot live in a perfect being; it's a contradiction.

Please explain:

"But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him. (Romans 5:10) For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son"

I hate to have to be the one to break this to you, but just as Jesus prophesied, what you accused another of, (misunderstanding the message of Christ) you have (almost immediately) done yourself. I honestly have no explanation for how or why this works so reliably, but it does impress upon me the need to heed Christ's words, moreso than any other's.

We are implying certain needs upon God, which he should not need. A perfect being needs nothing at all;

True! I lost context; is this in response to the idea that God somehow "needs" our love, our worship, or something? He does not. Which raises not only a whole slew of questions but the one biggie: why are we here, and what the ____ is going on?

While everyone here may hope to offer some small piece that may actually benefit, I'd be remiss if I did not point out that you need to come to your own answers. There may be some overlap with any one of us, but if you deny your own uniqueness, you will ultimately deprive the Body of Christ.

 

[razeontherock]

Again, pointless suffering is a major price to pay

What does the Bible have to say about that?

Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

You are familiar with the term "renewing our minds?"

 

[razeontherock]

I think of it this way: We are in school. We are in the school of life. In this life we face tests and trials, we are surrounded by evil, and we have a body that is prone to sin. While we will never achieve the goal of perfect sainthood, at least most of us will not, we will still have the choice and obligation of followers of God to keep moving forward, keep learning, keep overcoming the hurdles of life on our way to heaven.
If there was no evil, no hardship, no tests and trials, we would always be weak people who could never truly master the experiences in life that will shape and change us, making us better or worse as our character is tested. If seen in this light, both free will and evil are necessary for us to grow up and graduate into Christlikeness on our way to heaven.
Jesus was tested and tried on this earth--as we follow in His footsteps we must also be tested and tried.

Excellent summary! I wish I were so concise ... back to renewing our minds: the verbiage there refers to the metamorphosis of a caterpillar to a butterfly. "Help" the butterfly out of it's cocoon, and it will never develop the ability to fly. The struggle is essential! And so often it is our struggle that seems to be important to G-d

 

[elman]

Wrong. Why can you not love something for the simple logic of it giving you a wonderful existence? Evil is NOT a necessity, only a genetic burden we carry.

Wrong. The ability to love requires the ability to not love. If one cannot refuse to love then the choice to love is not a choice but simply a programed response.

You aren't facing my question head-on. Do you think we have free will in Heaven?

I answered the question. Yes I think we will have free will in heaven.

 

[Question.Everything]

That said, while I can imagine what a perfect society would act like I still see it as impossible just as the square circle.

If you can see it and it doesn't contradict, and God is all powerful, it follows that God should be able to create it. Comparing a perfect society to a square circle is irrelevant because you can't even imagine what a square circle looks like. You can imagine exactly what a perfect society would be like.

There would be no world in which man is 'free' yet has no possibility of doing evil.

It's not about absolutes. Heaven is a place with a 99.9999999999% success rate, that's close enough to a perfect society for me.

All joking aside though while that world is possible under the creation of God, would you think of such a wife genuinely doing the things her husband asks of her?

Yes. You seem to be having trouble imagining this world, evil does not exist, it is not a part of anybody's vocabulary. Evil is like a Kddafdkfjwehohasd in our reality...it's nothing. So all other choices would be genuine, as they would be the only choice would has a true desire to make.

Evil can exist, but we would be hard-wired to neglect all desire to do evil out of love for our creator and existence (much like angels). If a husband asks his wife to do something, his intentions are not evil and his wife would have no reason not to give a genuine response (he wouldn't command her around like a robot, that's immoral and evil).

That God has power over all of creation. Not really sure how there is no solution, but alright...

There's no solution because you can't prove that such power exists. Infinity is only a definition for something we don't understand, it's not an actual object. That's why we can only use it in mathematics, we can write it on paper and try to understand it, but we can't demonstrate it.

Honestly there is no point to material life.

That's a baffling and troubling statement. God created a material planet, universe, and human race in the first place. Adam and Eve were material beings from day 1. He made this all for nothing? No point?

I'm not sure why I would want to speak on an angel's behalf anyway? I'm not sure I see your point, either. Though the difference between us and angels do matter for it may be that while angels are allowed to have free will in Heaven man may not.

Psalm 8:5 says, "For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor." It's not about what humans poses that angels don't but the other way around. Angels would poses many things that man would not. For one the direct communication and revelation of God's will, as angels are God's messengers to mankind (no wonder they would appear to us physically?). The account of Zacharias depicts the angel as speaking "within him," so I think it could be said that angels also have some type of interior control over man, while man certainly does not share this.

And I retain that the difference between humans and angels only seems to be negative things. We suffer and they do not. We die and they do not. We feel greed and lust and they do not. Why aren't we just created as angels that love God? Why the need to create a being that endures so much suffering?

 

[elman]

Again, pointless suffering is a major price to pay for the "objective" of a seemingly "perfect" being (that should require nothing).

He would seem to be doing this out of boredom, which is cruel.

You don't have enough facts to make a judgment.

 

[razeontherock]

Heaven is a place with a 99.9999999999% success rate, that's close enough to a perfect society for me.

Hopefully you wrote these before reading my last string of posts? As far as we know, heaven has a 66% success rate. A Rather stark difference from your claim, don't you think? Clearly, some things need to change before the resurrection

You seem to be having trouble imagining this world, evil does not exist, it is not a part of anybody's vocabulary. Evil is like a Kddafdkfjwehohasd in our reality...it's nothing.

This is demonstrably a false idea, per the Bible. I posit that this is (at least one reason) why Jesus mentions being able to see the suffering in hell, from heaven. Evil will still "be a apart of our vocabulary!" And the idea did not originate with Him then and there, but He drew from the OT; He merely re-affirmed it for us. So to achieve better than a 66% success rate, He must ensure that we learn to master evil and sin HERE.


Hebrews 9:27) "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"

Why the need to create a being that endures so much suffering?

If you re-phrase this with decision instead of need, it becomes a VERY worthwhile topic to pursue understanding! I do have the info the Lord has shown me on this, and while I have accepted that Truth I do not pretend it is everything pertinent to the topic. It makes sense to me and satisfied my curiosity. It is quite possible the Lord barely began showing me what He wanted me to know even on this isolated point, and I hardened my heart against Him, deciding I'd heard enough. I hope that's not the case!

Anyway, I hope you at least have a glimpse of why I hesitate to simply divulge what I know on the topic, and even if we do discuss those details I encourage you to seek this for yourself. Not only Bible study, but also prayer and fasting are much needed tools. Picking another mortal's brains may be likened to a guide bringing you through the foothills, but not ascending the peak of Everest

 

[aiki]

The "God is not real because evil exists" argument is probably the most popular and most argued atheist assertion, and rightly so.

I'm not so sure...How does evil preclude God's existence, exactly?

The Christian response is always "Because God gave us free will, so we must have the choice to choose evil." This doesn't make sense to me.

I've always heard it put a bit differently: God has given us the choice between good and evil. If one can only choose one of these two options, then one doesn't have a choice between them, does one? I'm not sure why this doesn't make sense to you...

If God is all powerful and can create anything, could he not create a world in which we all are free to make only good choices, and are morally perfect?

Sure He could. But only being free to make good choices is no choice at all. I can't legitimately claim to have chosen to do good if I have no other option available.

Eliminating evil does not eliminate choice...you can still choose what to wear, what car to drive, what job you hold, etc. "Evil" just wouldn't be a part of our moral vocabulary or comprehension.

But the choice at issue is the one between good and evil, not between brown socks or blue ones, the truck or the sedan, etc, etc.

Is that not what God is? Angels (aside from one bad apple)?

Yes, "God is light and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 Jn. 1:5) This is a consequence of His nature, however, not a choice He makes.

Thank you for helping me understand this problem.

Sure.

Selah.

 

[bling]

Again, pointless suffering is a major price to pay for the "objective" of a seemingly "perfect" being (that should require nothing).

He would seem to be doing this out of boredom, which is cruel.

What makes you think it is pointless.

God does not like: Tragedies of any kind, but God does not also like: Christ having to go to the cross, satan roaming the earth, evil, hell or us sinning. These are all allowed to help humans fulfill their objective.

God is not “requiring” anything, but is doing all He can to help those that are just willing to accept His help allow Him to help them.

God is not trying to “get” us to do something, but just wants and is trying to help us to accept the greatest most powerful gift in all universes.

The problem is humans do not like to accept “Charity” from a giver that paid a huge price for the gift.

Since the gift is huge and we are totally undeserving of such a gift it must be accepted as “Charity”.