Will we sin when we get to heaven?

[Oncedeceived]

No it doesn't and you already showed you don't understand my argument. You cannot follow it, summarize it, or respond to it. I do not follow your argument either, I do not understand how God is not limited by logic yet is unable to violate it.

We do not meet the most basic requirements for conversation so I think we're done.

You are the one that is not following the argument. I understand completely that you feel that God is bound by logic. That is not the case and you don't understand my argument against yours. In fact, you say right there you do no understand how God is not limited by logic yet is unable to violate it. What you are saying here, without perhaps even realizing you are, is that logic is a separate entity.

edited to add: This is my position: God's is limited to God's thoughts and is unable to violate His own thoughts. The reason God can not create a square circle is that God's thoughts determined that a circle is a round shape and that a square is a square shape and He will not violate His determined rational thought about the shapes He created. Logic is the inherent rationality of God.

 

[Moral Orel]

Yes, once the physical body and nature is completely gone and we have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit due to accepting Christ's payment of our sins we take on our spiritual body and nature allowing us to co-exist with God.

Okay then, this is correct:

a creature can come into existence for a brief few moments and then have a perfect sinless nature without ever choosing anything

The "then" means later in time in this context. The entire lifespan of a created being can lead to a perfect sinless nature eventually without that created being ever making a choice of its own.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Okay then, this is correct:


The "then" means later in time in this context. The entire lifespan of a created being can lead to a perfect sinless nature eventually without that created being ever making a choice of its own.

Ok so I'll concede, if God creates us all and forces us to die as babies we could go to heaven and never sin. I don't know why God would do that but I suppose He could if He did.

Edited to add: We would all still have the sin nature through our physical bodies but we would not have actualized it.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

You are the one that is not following the argument. I understand completely that you feel that God is bound by logic. That is not the case and you don't understand my argument against yours. In fact, you say right there you do no understand how God is not limited by logic yet is unable to violate it. What you are saying here, without perhaps even realizing you are, is that logic is a separate entity.

edited to add: This is my position: God's is limited to God's thoughts and is unable to violate His own thoughts. The reason God can not create a square circle is that God's thoughts determined that a circle is a round shape and that a square is a square shape and He will not violate His determined rational thought about the shapes He created. Logic is the inherent rationality of God.

Your answers have been circular at best and are generally incomprehensible. The best you can possibly do at this point is claim the problem lies with me because I'm blind to spiritual things.

Because I've explained numerous times that it doesn't matter if logic "flows from God." I can still ask the same question that you're trying to avoid: can God change the logic that flows from him? Can God violate, change, or deviate from his own nature?

If yes, then you refute your own argument and we see that yes, God can create us to be sinless to begin with. So you will be left with having to explain why he did not do so despite the fact that it would be both in his best interests (so he wouldn't have to die for us) and in our best interests (so we wouldn't have a lifetime of profane existence on this planet and a chance of eternal damnation).

If no, then you admit that God cannot change the laws of logic as they are currently laid out. It follows from this, as I showed, that God is not omniscient.

You are trying to avoid a black-and-white dichotomy in the same way that many Christians dance around the Euthyphro dilemma: is X good because God says so, or does God say X is good because it intrinsically is? Christians absolutely love to say, "Well, it's a third thing: X is good because it is consistent with God's nature." Are you simply redefining good? It is consistent with God's nature to torture and murder infants, impregnate virgins without their consent, demand blood sacrifice, order war crimes such as unprovoked attacks and genocide upon villages, express permission to commit rape and own slaves, and etcetera. Those things are consistent with God's nature. Do you want to say they're good? Or is it then that God is good and everything else isn't, so if I were to commit those atrocities I'd be evil? Then what kind of worthless definition of good is that?

So when you go on this multi-page rant saying that logic flows from God and that God has determined what logic is, you are dodging the very simple question: can God violate logic or not? Your assumption that God is not separate from logic does not stave the question away because, as I've said, you're only forcing me to rephrase the question to be something like, "Can God deviate from his own nature?" There's going to be a simple yes or no to that one, you're quite pinned down.

 

[Moral Orel]

Ok so I'll concede, if God creates us all and forces us to die as babies we could go to heaven and never sin. I don't know why God would do that but I suppose He could if He did.

Okay.

Edited to add: We would all still have the sin nature through our physical bodies but we would not have actualized it.

"Still" when? Not in Heaven, right? Even babies don't have any more "sin nature" when they go to Heaven. So you just mean we're born in "sin nature" and later it goes away right?

 

[dcalling]

Then you're the only Christian, more or less, who denies God's utter omniscience.

I think the major thing all Christians agrees upon is that God told us to Love God and Love our neighbors as ourselves, and that Jesus died for our sins. You met too few Christians.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

I think the major thing all Christians agrees upon is that God told us to Love God and Love our neighbors as ourselves, and that Jesus died for our sins. You met too few Christians.

On the contrary, I've met too many Christians.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Your answers have been circular at best and are generally incomprehensible. The best you can possibly do at this point is claim the problem lies with me because I'm blind to spiritual things.

It isn't even that you are blinded by the spiritual side of the argument. You are simply not looking at it with an open mind.

Because I've explained numerous times that it doesn't matter if logic "flows from God." I can still ask the same question that you're trying to avoid: can God change the logic that flows from him? Can God violate, change, or deviate from his own nature?

Yes, you could but you would still be missing the point.

If yes, then you refute your own argument and we see that yes, God can create us to be sinless to begin with. So you will be left with having to explain why he did not do so despite the fact that it would be both in his best interests (so he wouldn't have to die for us) and in our best interests (so we wouldn't have a lifetime of profane existence on this planet and a chance of eternal damnation).

If no, then you admit that God cannot change the laws of logic as they are currently laid out. It follows from this, as I showed, that God is not omniscient.

God can't be self-contradictory. That is what you are missing here. Just as you can't create a square circle due to the nature of circularity, God cannot exist outside His nature, including the nature of His logical thoughts. Logic is foundational simply because God is foundational. The Laws of Logic are objective, unchangeable, internally consistent and transcendent because they reflect the nature of God.

You are trying to avoid a black-and-white dichotomy in the same way that many Christians dance around the Euthyphro dilemma: is X good because God says so, or does God say X is good because it intrinsically is? Christians absolutely love to say, "Well, it's a third thing: X is good because it is consistent with God's nature." Are you simply redefining good?

Why would you have to redefine Good?

It is consistent with God's nature to torture and murder infants, impregnate virgins without their consent, demand blood sacrifice, order war crimes such as unprovoked attacks and genocide upon villages, express permission to commit rape and own slaves, and etcetera. Those things are consistent with God's nature. Do you want to say they're good? Or is it then that God is good and everything else isn't, so if I were to commit those atrocities I'd be evil? Then what kind of worthless definition of good is that?

This seems to be just an appeal to emotion. This is a very good depiction of the half truths that Satan is known for in the Bible. First and foremost, you would need to provide a good and reasonable origin of the Laws of Logic, which I haven't seen you provide. Secondly, we were discussing logic and you are deflecting.

So when you go on this multi-page rant saying that logic flows from God and that God has determined what logic is, you are dodging the very simple question: can God violate logic or not?

Rant? It seems that when someone argues against any of your points or positions that your best come back is either ad hominem remarks or to blame others for your not comprehending an argument.

Your assumption that God is not separate from logic does not stave the question away because, as I've said, you're only forcing me to rephrase the question to be something like, "Can God deviate from his own nature?" There's going to be a simple yes or no to that one, you're quite pinned down.

Can a rock deviate from its nature, a tree, how about a frog? The nature of something is its nature and that is a fact. God will not self-contradict Himself.

 

[Oncedeceived]

Okay.

"Still" when? Not in Heaven, right? Even babies don't have any more "sin nature" when they go to Heaven. So you just mean we're born in "sin nature" and later it goes away right?

Sin nature just doesn't go away. That is where your mistake comes in.

 

[Moral Orel]

Sin nature just doesn't go away. That is where your mistake comes in.

People still have their "sin nature" in Heaven? What keeps them from sinning then? And to be completely honest, it doesn't sound scriptural. Can you back that up for me?

 

[Oncedeceived]

People still have their "sin nature" in Heaven? What keeps them from sinning then? And to be completely honest, it doesn't sound scriptural. Can you back that up for me?

I said it just doesn't "go away".

 

[Moral Orel]

I said it just doesn't "go away".

So it was just my phrasing you didn't like? It goes away like a disease goes away in that God cures it. Only God can cure it and make it go away. If you're worried that I'm trying to trap you into agreeing that people can do something for themselves, I'm not, I swear. This is all about what God can do and only about what God can do.

All I'm trying to get at is that there exist beings who do not have a sin nature and never sin and still have free will (people in Heaven). Not every person in Heaven chose Jesus (babies) they just didn't choose not Jesus (double-negative intentional) because they died before they were capable of making a choice.

So then, since these beings are created, God can make there be beings that have no sin nature, who never sin, and still have free will, and your one caveat is that He must follow a certain procedure and order of states to achieve that final perfect state. God can't create a person who would never sin, but He can cure someone of ever wanting to sin before they have an opportunity to make a choice.

 

[Oncedeceived]

So it was just my phrasing you didn't like? It goes away like a disease goes away in that God cures it. Only God can cure it and make it go away. If you're worried that I'm trying to trap you into agreeing that people can do something for themselves, I'm not, I swear. This is all about what God can do and only about what God can do.

All I'm trying to get at is that there exist beings who do not have a sin nature and never sin and still have free will (people in Heaven). Not every person in Heaven chose Jesus (babies) they just didn't choose not Jesus (double-negative intentional) because they died before they were capable of making a choice.

So then, since these beings are created, God can make there be beings that have no sin nature, who never sin, and still have free will, and your one caveat is that He must follow a certain procedure and order of states to achieve that final perfect state. God can't create a person who would never sin, but He can cure someone of ever wanting to sin before they have an opportunity to make a choice.

Like I said, if God wanted to surround Himself with only infants and toddlers I guess that would work.

 

[Moral Orel]

Like I said, if God wanted to surround Himself with only infants and toddlers I guess that would work.

Well that still isn't quite the point, but out of curiosity, babies stay babies in Heaven forever? That seems like a weird eternal bliss...

 

[Nihilist Virus]

God can't be self-contradictory. That is what you are missing here.

I'm not missing that. In fact I used that as my one and only assumption in proving that he cannot be omniscient. That's the only thing I'm even trying to prove. Once again, here's my condensed version of Gödel's proof:

1. "X and not X" if and only if "Anything at all can be proven".

In other words, anything follows from a contradiction. This is well known in the field of logic and is not up for debate. It is also known as the principle of explosion. It obviously works in the reverse direction because if I can prove anything at all then I can prove a contradiction. Hence the statements form an equivalence.

2. It is legal to negate both sides of an equation/equivalence. Again, this is not up for debate. Negating both sides yields:

"Not (X and not X)" if and only if "Not (Anything at all can be proven)".

The left side is the law of non-contradiction. The right side is the statement that there is at least one true/false proposition whose truth value cannot be known.

Conclusion: God is not omniscient. QED

 

[zippy2006]

Is there sin in heaven?

Zippy: No
Nihilist Virus: Will Christians still have Free Will?
Zippy: No, not in the sense of an ability to sin (It depends on your definition of Free Will)
Nihilist Virus: Then why wasn't humanity initially made without an ability to sin?​

Essentially, the reason one cannot sin in heaven is because they behold God directly in the beatific vision. Sin is the result of being able to choose between competing goods, but nothing can compete with God when seen in his essence. You are asking why humans were not created with the beatific vision.

The beatific vision fulfills man completely, but is not natural to man in the sense that he can achieve it on his own in the way that he can achieve natural beatitude. It is an elevation of man, by God's grace, to his ultimate state of being and fulfillment. A central aspect of this reality is that it is not commanded by man, but comes to him as a gift received from God. Although speculation about why God might not bestow the beatific vision at the moment of creation can only ever be speculation, perhaps it is so that we might more fully comprehend the fact that it is an elevation, a gift, something received. It may even be that this humble knowledge is part and parcel of the beatific vision.

There is an older version of freedom as espoused by virtue ethics which equates it with an ability to choose the good and therefore find fulfillment. On this definition heaven offers only greater freedom than the lapsarian or prelapsarian state.

 

[Nihilist Virus]

Essentially, the reason one cannot sin in heaven is because they behold God directly in the beatific vision. Sin is the result of being able to choose between competing goods, but nothing can compete with God when seen in his essence.

Nonsensical; the angels beheld God and a third of them blasphemed.

You are asking why humans were not created with the beatific vision.

Correct.

The beatific vision fulfills man completely, but is not natural to man in the sense that he can achieve it on his own in the way that he can achieve natural beatitude. It is an elevation of man, by God's grace, to his ultimate state of being and fulfillment. A central aspect of this reality is that it is not commanded by man, but comes to him as a gift received from God. Although speculation about why God might not bestow the beatific vision at the moment of creation can only ever be speculation, perhaps it is so that we might more fully comprehend the fact that it is an elevation, a gift, something received. It may even be that this humble knowledge is part and parcel of the beatific vision.

There is an older version of freedom as espoused by virtue ethics which equates it with an ability to choose the good and therefore find fulfillment. On this definition heaven offers only greater freedom than the lapsarian or prelapsarian state.

Your answer has been shown to be completely wrong and, even if we ignore that, you admit that the answer itself doesn't make much sense (at least not to us).

 

[zippy2006]

Nonsensical; the angels beheld God and a third of them blasphemed.

They didn't behold God.

Your answer has been shown to be completely wrong and, even if we ignore that, you admit that the answer itself doesn't make much sense (at least not to us).

Feel free to try to offer some kind of argumentation or rational indications if you wish to be seen as something other than purely irrational.

 

[zippy2006]

Perhaps we need to dumb it down a bit:

Why were we not created in heaven?

Because heaven is a gift, and gifts must be received. The receipt of a gift involves the choice to receive it, and a choice requires the existence of the one choosing. Therefore God first gives us existence, then allows us to choose. Only after this would we be able to enter heaven.

(The more thorough answer can be found here)

 

[Nihilist Virus]

They didn't behold God.



Feel free to try to offer some kind of argumentation or rational indications if you wish to be seen as something other than purely irrational.

If this is the case then I don't know what you mean by "behold." Also you seem to be encroaching upon the level of fan fiction with such an assertion, presuming I understand your claim correctly. Lastly, why do you suggest I'm being irrational?