Why would God create a flawed creation?

[Archaeopteryx]

The false statement that God planned the Fall, when He clearly anticipated it and also had an alternative that does not include the Fall. There is no distinction made between anticipation and planning, the most ridiculous failure in logic.

He didn't merely anticipate it. He knew for certain that it would happen. As I said earlier, he wasn't some naive bystander.

The false statement that somehow God is omniscient, everything that He allowed must therefore be a part of His plan. Bogus reasoning, because clearly things can be anticipated, even allowed, but not planned.

The bolded part is telling.

The false statement that God directly caused the Fall, when all He did was to let go of His control of things and gave the power of decision to His created humans. To call this a direct causation of mankind's fall is slander.

He engineered the circumstances of the fall, knowing for certain what would happen. That seems to suggest he had a fairly direct part to play.

The above false statements are not just unreasonable, but deliberate attempts at accusing God and painting a negative picture about His nature, design and purpose. Pretty appalling that people like you have such a fervent attempt to do this, even though you believe God does not exist. Sounds more like what a person in denial will do.

The Bible doesn't exactly paint a positive picture of him.

 

[Messy]

How do you know that?

From Watchman Nee who found it in the Bible

 

[Messy]

How do you know?

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

 

[WoundedDeep]

I don't consider having to love a being I have no evidence for in order to save my eternal soul to be a healthy relationship.

Lol. Your statement there is nothing but an indication that you choose to close your heart to God. And certainly, you can close your heart to God just as much as you can close a heart to a woman you do not love or have not met. But how is that any indication that a relationship with her or God is automatically unhealthy when you have not even attempted it yet? Just admit it, there is an animosity against God, and it is not because there is no healthy relationship possible with Him.

Actually I blame it on you attempting to redefine what jealousy means.

Because that is how the translation is in the Bible, I cannot avoid using the word, can I? Again, blame it on the limited vocabulary of English in describing emotions.

How do you know?

Didn't I explain already? Sorry, but I hate to repeat myself.

And what happens to them if they choose to not worship god on their own accord? And remember, since we're talking about the Israelites, the Old Testament applies.

If they have made a clear commitment to worship God, and then they turn back on that commitment later, they are no different from betrayers. They will logically be cut off, just like how you will cut off a woman who betrays you after making her commitment. Is that unjust?

And the moment Moses went up the hill to get the ten commandments, they promptly turned on god and started worshipping a golden calf.

If you read Exodus 32, you'll also notice that god was enraged when they started worshipping the calf on their own free will and Moses had to talk him out of destroying them... Sounds like a loving being to me. (p.s. this does fit the standard human definition of jealousy quite well though).

And you believe God was enraged for no apparent reason? After God saved them from Pharaoh, after He parted the sea for them to cross, after promising to bring them to a good land, after giving them knowledge of who He is and what He can do, they still betrayed Him. If He did not love these people, why would He be angry at their betrayal? And why should God allow betrayers to be within His household?

What has anger towards betrayal got to do with jealousy? Or do you propose that if a person is not jealous in the human way, he can never be angry when he is betrayed?

Moses also had the faithful slaughter roughly 3,000 of the people who had sinned against god by worshipping the calf, with god's blessing.

So, it's pretty clear that if you decide to start worshipping other things than god, he's pretty cool with having you killed off.

You forgot to mention that Moses asked first who will be on God's side, and only the Levites wanted it. If the 3,000 stood on the side of God, why will they die?

Yeah, after you decide to worship Him, you still secretly worship other gods. It is no different from saying you decide to love a woman, but you secretly have other women behind her back. How does that kind of betrayal sound?

So, let me get this straight then...

The Old Testament only applies to Israelites, however the Ten Commandments, which are found in the Old Testament apply to you even though you aren't an Israelite?

I am talking about the moral and spiritual principles behind the Ten Commandments.

 

[WoundedDeep]

So in other words, he was still incapable of sin. If the nature of god overpowers the nature of man, he still can't possibly sin.

... If He is completely incapable of sin when in human form, satan must be out of his mind to try to tempt Him.

 

[Dave Ellis]

What contradiction is there in my argument? It is you who are contradicting yourself when you insist that God's plan will lead to only one outcome (ie. the Fall) while on the other hand you insist God's plan should have alternatives since He is omnipotent. That is YOUR fatal contradiction.

I refuted that contradiction by saying God's plan does have an alternative, and that the Fall was not planned but rather anticipated by God. Can you not tell the difference?

I'm not arguing for either position as I believe the whole thing is a myth.

Again, I am pointing out the inherent contradiction in the arguments you have made.

To restate my argument:

1) You stated that you believed it was god's intention for man to learn the difference between good and evil.

2) Knowing the difference between good and evil is achieved through eating the fruit. If it's god's intention for point 1 to happen, then Adam and Eve must necessarily eat the fruit for his plan to work.

3) Eating the fruit directly caused the fall of man (and the punishment for eating the fruit was directly imposed by god)

Therefore

4) If god wanted Adam and Eve to learn the difference between good and evil, then by necessity for god's plan to work they must have eaten the fruit which triggered the fall. The fall of man was a direct consequence of god's plan.

However:

You have also argued that the fall of man was due to a corruption of god's "perfect" plan, which contradicts the scenario above.


My point is regardless of what viewpoint you stand behind, an omnipotent being should have figured out a better way to carry out his plan, which does not contradict anything. I was just basically stating what you have argued are two contradictory points, and whatever one may be the correct viewpoint is still a poorly formulated plan.

 

[WoundedDeep]

How perfect is a design that winds up having every living person corrupted?

Let's not go in circles on what we have already discussed.

 

[WoundedDeep]

You mean the calamity God allowed him to cause? Again, we're back to unleashing the dragon.

Heh. The dragon became a dragon on its own accord, God simply used him to turn bad things into good things. Can you not tell the difference?

Then why doesn't he kill everyone?

Lol? I thought you were so against God bringing physical death?

Can they resume their character-building at this point?

Are you going to chew on the point about "character building" forever?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Heh. The dragon became a dragon on its own accord, God simply used him to turn bad things into good things. Can you not tell the difference?

Couldn't God do good things on his own? Why unleash the dragon in the first place? Why create the dragon, knowing what it is capable of and knowing exactly what destruction it would bring?

Lol? I thought you were so against God bringing physical death?

You made it sound like he was doing Job's family a favour by killing them (or by allowing them to be killed).

Are you going to chew on the point about "character building" forever?

It's your point. You claimed that it was character-building for Job to be tormented by Satan. I simply noted that opportunities for character-building were denied to Job's relatives.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Are you kidding me? I have said multiple times that God told them right from the start that if they ate from the forbidden tree there would be a negative outcome. How is this stern advice not enough for them to competently make a decision? Please don't ridicule yourself like this.

How could they have comprehended it to be an evil act when they had no comprehension of evil?

If you tell a mentally handicapped person who is incapable of understanding you not to do something, or else they get in trouble, is it just to hold them accountable for doing that bad thing?

Without the knowledge of good and evil, Adam and Eve were both essentially mentally handicapped when making judgment calls like that. You can not identify an evil act without the ability to comprehend what evil is, even if someone tells you not to do it.

Ridiculous logic. So if I anticipated a hurricane I must have planned the hurricane to happen? Try convincing someone else of this bogus reasoning. Anticipation or foreknowledge has absolutely nothing to do with planning.

If you are responsible for the creation of weather patterns on earth and you have full knowledge that your system will lead to hurricanes, then yes, your plan caused the hurricanes.

Total control over the creation of something + total knowledge of all things that will happen = total responsibility for all things that happen within your creation.

No, God had plans sufficient to deal with any circumstance, and all are perfect. If the Fall happens, God will institute plan A: the plan of salvation. If the Fall does not happen, God will institute plan B: which only God knows.

So you're saying god didn't know that the fall was going to happen? Then you're arguing that god is not omniscient.

 

[Dave Ellis]

I'm always a little confused as to why omniscience isn't removed from the equation with so many believers. Remove omniscience, and no one has to really "make excuses for God" in so many areas. If God doesn't know every single that that is going to happen, then it also makes things more dynamic in my opinion, more involved.

It would make a lot more sense, and based on the reading of Genesis (and the religion at the time Genesis was written) Yahweh was not omniscient. In fact he wasn't the only god in their religion at that time either....

However, modern Christianity has adopted the idea that god is the ultimate in everything, and therefore has omniscience. The end result is a lot of theological problems such as this one.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Ridiculous logic. So if I anticipated a hurricane I must have planned the hurricane to happen? Try convincing someone else of this bogus reasoning. Anticipation or foreknowledge has absolutely nothing to do with planning.

Actually, anticipation and foreknowledge have a lot to do with planning. Your plans for the future as based on what you anticipate happening. If you lack sufficient foresight, your plans are less likely to come to fruition.

 

[Dave Ellis]

Taste and see that the Lord is good.

?

How do I taste god? And what flavours does he come in?

 

[WoundedDeep]

To restate my argument:

1) You stated that you believed it was god's intention for man to learn the difference between good and evil.

2) Knowing the difference between good and evil is achieved through eating the fruit. If it's god's intention for point 1 to happen, then Adam and Eve must necessarily eat the fruit for his plan to work.

3) Eating the fruit directly caused the fall of man (and the punishment for eating the fruit was directly imposed by god)

Therefore

4) If god wanted Adam and Eve to learn the difference between good and evil, then by necessity for god's plan to work they must have eaten the fruit which triggered the fall. The fall of man was a direct consequence of god's plan.

Your argument #2 is already wrong. The rest of the arguments #3 and #4 therefore lie on a false premise. Eating the forbidden fruit brought sin into the world, it did not bring true knowledge of good and evil.

However:

You have also argued that the fall of man was due to a corruption of god's "perfect" plan, which contradicts the scenario above.

My argument contradicts with yours because yours was wrong in the first place.

Besides, I never said God's plan was corrupted by the Fall of Man. His plan was contingent on what Adam and Eve chose in the Garden. Whether there was the Fall or not, He will have a perfect plan to bring humanity to the true knowledge of good and evil. That was my argument.

My point is regardless of what viewpoint you stand behind, an omnipotent being should have figured out a better way to carry out his plan, which does not contradict anything. I was just basically stating what you have argued are two contradictory points, and whatever one may be the correct viewpoint is still a poorly formulated plan.

I get your point, and I told you already that God decided to let Adam and Eve decide the course of things and He steps in with a plan on top of the natural course of things to fulfil His own purpose. I can't believe you have not understood this up to this point, and seeing that you are an INTJ, I am even more appalled because INTJs are known to be excellent in grasping concepts and highly intelligent. Hmm.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

?

How do I taste god? And what flavours does he come in?

Any flavour you like.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

I get your point, and I told you already that God decided to let Adam and Eve decide the course of things and He steps in with a plan on top of the natural course of things to fulfil His own purpose. I can't believe you have not understood this up to this point, and seeing that you are an INTJ, I am even more appalled because INTJs are known to be excellent in grasping concepts and highly intelligent. Hmm.

Just as an aside: Why the Myers-Briggs test is totally meaningless - Vox

 

[WoundedDeep]

Couldn't God do good things on his own? Why unleash the dragon in the first place? Why create the dragon, knowing what it is capable of and knowing exactly what destruction it would bring?

Because He has the ability to use evil for good? Who are you to tell Him what He should or should not do?

You made it sound like he was doing Job's family a favour by killing them (or by allowing them to be killed).

Does not matter what you think, the final outcome for both Job and his family is good. People like you who have no hope of eternal life cannot understand how trivial physical death is for people who know everyone will die once and be resurrected.

It's your point. You claimed that it was character-building for Job to be tormented by Satan. I simply noted that opportunities for character-building were denied to Job's relatives.

Yeah, but you chew on that single point as though God had no other intentions other than character building. Salvation and eternal life was the biggest reason anyway.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Because He has the ability to use evil for good? Who are you to tell Him what He should or should not do?

Can't he just do good?

Does not matter what you think, the final outcome for both Job and his family is good. People like you who have no hope of eternal life cannot understand how trivial physical death is for people who know everyone will die once and be resurrected.

If it's so trivial, why bother with life at all? This is starting to sound cultish...

Yeah, but you chew on that single point as though God had no other intentions other than character building. Salvation and eternal life was the biggest reason anyway.

What were his intentions for Job's family, other than to see them killed so that Job could have his character-building lesson?

 

[WoundedDeep]

Actually, anticipation and foreknowledge have a lot to do with planning. Your plans for the future as based on what you anticipate happening. If you lack sufficient foresight, your plans are less likely to come to fruition.

But the event you anticipate and the plan you make are entirely separate. You anticipate a hurricane, your plan is to stay at home. Did you cause the hurricane to occur in order to have the plan to stay at home? Nonsense! So it is nonsense that you say God caused the Fall so that He can have the plan to save mankind!

 

[WoundedDeep]

Can't he just do good?

Is turning evil things around into good outcomes not a way of doing good? Or is your definition of doing good too narrow to encompass that?

If it's so trivial, why bother with life at all? This is starting to sound cultish...

Yeah, you made it sound cultish. I never said we do not value our physical life, I said we are not troubled by physical death, it is a freeing thought. That is a world of difference from your attempt to paint it as cultish.

What were his intentions for Job's family, other than to see them killed so that Job could have his character-building lesson?

Please don't read my sentence halfway, because I stated the intentions already.