Could Noah's Ark hold all the animals?

[Kiwivillan]

Oh dear, what you going to throw up next? Ray Comfort's banana proof?

Holy shit. That's some funny shit.

[GarethRDR]

Some of you were asking "If God knows what is going to happen, how can we have free will"..

I have found this;

"God" forbid you'd have an opinion of your own, but I've got time for this so...

I've always been puzzled by the notion held by some people that if God knows what we are going to choose in the future, then we don't really have free will. They say that if God knows we are going to make a certain "free will" choice, then when it is time for us to make that choice, because God knows what we are going to choose, we are not really free to make a different choice and God's foreknowledge means we cannot have free will.

Quite honestly, I do not see this as being a problem at all.

It is a problem, the two cannot logically, possibly co-exist.

Let's work with the idea that we are free-will creatures and that God knows all things, even our future choices.

You can't simply "work with the idea", it is fundamentally flawed; if "God" does exist and knows what I was going to do, then it wouldn't matter a jot what supposed "choices" I made as my future is predetermined. Conversely, if truly have free-will then God cannot possibly know what I'm going to do, and claiming after a choice a made that he did is tantamount to someone simply saying "Ah, I knew that'd happen" after an event has actually happened.

Furthermore, let's define free will in the Open Theist sense as the ability to make equal choices between options, regardless of a person's sinful nature.

What the deuce does sin have to do with anything?

1 Given these conditions, are God's omniscience and our free will incompatible as the Open Theists claim?

I don't know what an Open Theist is, but simple common sense dictates the incompatibility of free-will and determinism.

By analogy, knowing what will happen does not mean that we are preventing or causing that thing to happen. The sun will rise tomorrow. I am not causing it to rise nor am I preventing it from rising by knowing that it will happen. Likewise, if I put a bowl of ice-cream and a bowl of cauliflower in front of my child, I know for a fact which one is chosen - the ice cream. My knowing it ahead of time does not restrict my child from making a free choice when the time comes. My child is free to make a choice and knowing the choice has no effect upon her when she makes it.

Conjecture. The subject assumes statistically impossible certainties. By that logic, you're stating that a child will never choose ice-cream, so if I gave a million kids the same choice you're telling me every single one of them will opt for the same ice-cream? Statiscal impossibility. "The sun will rise tomorrow"; what about supernovae? I'm fairly certain if the sun blew up, it probably wouldn't be rising anytime or soon (or that there'd be a tomorrow, as we'd all be burnt to a cinder).

Logically, God knowing what we are going to do does not mean that we can't do something else. It means that God simply knows what we have chosen to do ahead of time. Our freedom is not restricted by God's foreknowledge; our freedom is simply realized ahead of time by God. In this, our natural ability to make another choice has not been removed any more than my choice of what to write inside the parenthesis (hello) was removed by God who knew I would put the word "hello" in the parentheses before the universe was made. Before typing the word "hello," I pondered which word to write. My pondering was my doing and the choice was mine. How then was I somehow restricted in freedom when choosing what to write if God knew what I was going to do? No matter what choice we freely make, it can be known by God, and His knowing it doesn't mean we aren't making a free choice.

Right, so we're back to my previous analogy of Joe Bloggs saying "Ah, but I knew that'd happen!" conveniently after an event has occured.

Part of the issue here is the nature of time. If the future exists for God even as the present does, then God is consistently in all places at all times and is not restricted by time. This would mean that time was not a part of His nature to which God is subject, and that God is not a linear entity; that is, it would mean that God is not restricted to operating in our time realm and is not restricted to the present only. If God is not restricted to existence in the present, our present, then the future is known by God because God indwells the future as well as the present (and the past). This would mean that our future choices, as free as they are, are simply known by God. Again, our ability to choose is not altered or lessened by God existing in the future and knowing what we freely choose. It just means that God can see what we will freely choose -- because that is what we freely choose -- and knows what it is.

Again, if "God" is at all places in time and can see into the future, then the future is predetermined and free-will is a fallacy; if, however, my choices are truly my own, any action I take other than that the "God" has foreseen that I (or anyone/anything else) will make in the future will radically alter said future, meaning that at any given time an infinite number of minute choices I do or do not make can create an infinite possible futures, ergo "God" doesn't have the foggiest idea what I'm going to do, no matter how omniscient he/she/it claims to be.

Part of the problem in Open Theism is that by restricting God to the present only, His existence is defined in such a way as to imply that time is part of His nature and that He is restricted to it. The question is whether or not this is logical as well as biblical.

I'm not restricting "God" to anything, if you want to assert that "God" is Mystic Meg and he/she/it knows my future then fine, but you cannot then claim that I have free-will.

For an analysis of the logic of the position, please see A logical refutation of open theism.

It's not the responsibility of one party in a debate to look up supporting material for the opposing party, so when you've found "A logical refutation of open theism" please feel free to post it (or maybe go a little crazy, let your hair down and try actually joining the debate yourself as opposed to simply regurgitating the work of others wholesale).

Scripturally, God inhabits eternity. Psalm 90:2 says, "Before the mountains were born, or Thou didst give birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God." But this verse, an others, do not declare that God lives inside or outside of time. Rather, the Bible tells us that God is eternal. We can, however, note that the Bible teaches that God has no beginning or end. This is not definitive, but we may be able to conclude that since time is that non-spatial, continuous succession of events from the past, through the present, and into the future, and that since the word "beginning" denotes a relationship to and in time, and since God has no beginning, that time is not applicable to God's nature. In other words, God has no beginning and since "beginning" deals with an event in time, God is outside of time.

Conjecture. Assumptions based on what scripture "doesn't tell us"? The Bible doesn't say that I can't whip down my boxers, stick my dick in a glazed donut and run around Basingstoke town centre screaming "Mein flugzeug ist kaputt!", does that mean that the Bible is actually saying I should be doing this? Cripes, better get myself down to the nearest Krispy Kreme stand pronto...

Nevertheless, the scriptures are not definitive on this issue and we can only conclude what they do say - namely, that God is eternal, without beginning, without end, and that He can accurately and precisely predict what will happen.

In which case, free-will doesn't exist.

"As for you, O king, while on your bed your thoughts turned to what would take place in the future; and He who reveals mysteries has made known to you what will take place," (Dan. 2:29).

Who is this "He who reveals mysteries" character, and can "He" give me next week's Euromillions numbers?

So, in relation to our free will and God's predictive ability, there is no biblical reason to assert that God's foreknowledge negates our freedom.

Ah, so it's a predictive ability now? Well, that's a little bit different to claiming to actually know something. If "God" is merely making predictions, looks like my free-will is back in play. "No biblical reason to assert that God's foreknowledge negates our freedom"? It's not an issue of "biblical" reason, it's an issue of rational reason (and rationality is hardly top of the agenda in the manifesto for the 'water into wine/talking snakes/big ****-off wooden arks' club). Of course the bible's not going to assert that "God" can't do it all, what'd be the point? It'd be like David Blaine telling an audience the secret behind his magic tricks before he performed 'em.

There is no logical reason to claim that if God knows what choices we are going to make that it means we are not free. It still means that the free choices we will make are free -- they are just known ahead of time by God. If we choose something different, then that choice will have been eternally known by God. Furthermore, this knowledge by God does not alter our nature in that it does not change what we are -- free to make choices. God's knowledge is necessarily complete and exhaustive because that is His nature, to know all things.

Did Bruce Hornsby pen this document? Because the entirety of this argument hinges on the concept that "that's just the way it is". If we're allowed to form entire debates on that basis, I could make up any old shit.

In fact, since He has eternally known what all our free choices will be, He has ordained history to come to the conclusion that He wishes including and incorporating our choices into His divine plan: “For truly in this city there were gathered together against Thy holy servant Jesus, whom Thou didst anoint, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, 28to do whatever Thy hand and Thy purpose predestined to occur," (Acts 4:27-28). Why? Because God always knows all things: "...God is greater than our heart, and knows all things," (1 John 3:20).

So no free-will then!

[snowychap]

I've always been puzzled by the notion held by some people that if God knows what we are going to choose in the future, then we don't really have free will. They say that if God knows we are going to make a certain "free will" choice, then when it is time for us to make that choice, because God knows what we are going to choose, we are not really free to make a different choice and God's foreknowledge means we cannot have free will.

Quite honestly, I do not see this as being a problem at all.

It is a problem, the two cannot logically, possibly co-exist.

Now this gets me interested.

Is that the case?

Even if it is the case in our perception, does logic exist outside ot time and causality?

As other threads will attest, I'm no goddist - this, however, gets in to the realms of interesting!

[snowychap]

Part of the issue here is the nature of time. If the future exists for God even as the present does, then God is consistently in all places at all times and is not restricted by time. This would mean that time was not a part of His nature to which God is subject, and that God is not a linear entity; that is, it would mean that God is not restricted to operating in our time realm and is not restricted to the present only. If God is not restricted to existence in the present, our present, then the future is known by God because God indwells the future as well as the present (and the past). This would mean that our future choices, as free as they are, are simply known by God. Again, our ability to choose is not altered or lessened by God existing in the future and knowing what we freely choose. It just means that God can see what we will freely choose -- because that is what we freely choose -- and knows what it is.

Again, if "God" is at all places in time and can see into the future, then the future is predetermined and free-will is a fallacy; if, however, my choices are truly my own, any action I take other than that the "God" has foreseen that I (or anyone/anything else) will make in the future will radically alter said future, meaning that at any given time an infinite number of minute choices I do or do not make can create an infinite possible futures, ergo "God" doesn't have the foggiest idea what I'm going to do, no matter how omniscient he/she/it claims to be.

What happens here if you chuck in the multiverse idea?

If every action/thought or whatever splits the universe in to another dimension then couldn't knowledge of everything that is going to happen (because everything IS going to happen - according to that) be consistent with that?

Would that not allow free will (with the omniscience and omnipotence) because every possibility would be accounted for in every possible universe?

[MrDuck]

[JulieB]

Why is Jesus Christ put against Jesus Barabbas when they are clearly the same person?

Why would you think that they are the same person? Pilate differentiates them “Which one do YOU want me to release to YOU, Bar‧ab′bas or Jesus the so-called Christ? as quoted below.

Jesus was not an uncommon Hebrew name in Palestine at that time, which is why Jesus the Nazarene is often differentiated from others as"the Christ" (Messiah or Anointed One) Jewish historian Josephus of the first century C.E. mentions some 12 persons, other than those in the Bible record, bearing that name.

Also this Jesus is not the only Jesus that the Bible mentions. Luke lists another Jesus in the geneology of Jesus Christ at Luke 3:29

Jesus Barabbas in Hebrew literally means - son of the father and Jesus, son of the father respectively frrom Wikipedia

Pontious Pilate didn't really want the blood of an innocent man on his hands, so he envoked an apparent Jewish custom to release a prisoner on the eve of the Passover. Joh 18:39.

(Matthew 27:15-17) . . .Now from festival to festival it was the custom of the governor to release a prisoner to the crowd, the one they wanted. 16 Just at that time they were holding a notorious prisoner called Bar‧ab′bas. 17 Hence when they were gathered together Pilate said to them: “Which one do YOU want me to release to YOU, Bar‧ab′bas or Jesus the so-called Christ?. . .

It failed because at the behest of the Jewish heirarchy the crowd asked for the release of Barabbas, who was convicted imprisoned criminal guilty of robbery, sedition, and murder and shouted "impale him" at Jesus.

The account then says Pilate washed his hands before the crowd “I am innocent of the blood of this [man]. YOU yourselves must see to it"

Matthew 27:24-25

Edit Add: This thread should have the title changed methinks as it's as usual, transformed itself from the original topic.

[GarethRDR]

What happens here if you chuck in the multiverse idea?

If every action/thought or whatever splits the universe in to another dimension then couldn't knowledge of everything that is going to happen (because everything IS going to happen - according to that) be consistent with that?

Would that not allow free will (with the omniscience and omnipotence) because every possibility would be accounted for in every possible universe?

Ooh, now I do like the multiverse theory, however I think the concept of a God itself and such a theory are somewhat mutually exclusive. The multiverse theory is born out of the need for a logical explanation for this very specific "coincidence of cosmic parking" that has lead to life on our planet, as opposed to the notion that a 'creator' entity has fine-tuned the universe to allow Earth as it is now to exist.

Also, if you're hypothesising that there are an infinite number of parallel universes where an infinite number of possibilities are played out with everthing that can or cannot ever exist, surely there would be as many universes where a creator entity exists as there would be universes where a creator entity does not exist. Also, those universes where a creator entity exists could be split down further into universes that contain seperate, specific creator entities (e.g. in universe A there is no God/Gods, in universe B the Hindu gods exist, in universe C the Norse gods exist, in universe D the Christian gods exist, in universe E nothing exists et cetera).

The concept of a multiverse does not allow for a constant in all possible universes, as the infinite nature of such universes constitutes an "anything goes" policy for each and every possible universe.

[mjmooney]

We're here because we're here because we're here because we're here...

“You must believe in free will; there is no choice” (Isaac Bashevis Singer)

[steaknchips]

:oops: sorry double post.

[steaknchips]

Gareth you have got free will..Just because God "knows" what is going to happen dosnt mean you dont have free will.God is outside of time...Your thinking is inside of time.

God is all knowing; 1 John 3;20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

We cannot understand; 1 corinthians 2;14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Heres another answer you could read on the subject.

http://carm.org/questions/about-doctrine/if-god-all-knowing-and-he-knows-our-future-then-how-free-will

[wiggyrichard]

Can i ask a question...

If there is a God, why does such horrible things happen to good people? why are children born with disabilities? why do good people die young?

[GarethRDR]

My thinking isn't chronoligically bound, I can easily consider an assertion that "God" can see the past/present/future, but in doing so you are binding the future to one possible outcome (the one that "God" is claimed to be able to see) and negating the possibility of me making any choices that deviate from that possible future. You can't have it both ways.

[MrDuck]

Can i ask a question...

If there is a God, why does such horrible things happen to good people? why are children born with disabilities? why do good people die young?

You and God just have different views on what's good and bad. He fucken loves all that cruelty shit. He's a veritable nutjob. Read yer bible - the Judeo-Christian God is an utter cnut!

[BG_Villa_Fan]

Can i ask a question...

If there is a God, why does such horrible things happen to good people? why are children born with disabilities? why do good people die young?

Well duh... because a few thousand years ago a talking snake lied to Adam so he ate from the fruit of knowledge, which enforced the original sin everyone is born with. Seriously, can you think of a worse thing a man could do than eating an apple? Cardinal sin, I tells you!

[Wainy316]

Can i ask a question...

If there is a God, why does such horrible things happen to good people? why are children born with disabilities? why do good people die young?

Well derr, because the all powerful lord gave us free will which Adam our forefather abused. His sin is now ingrained in all of mankind and that's why we die and have illness etc.

I thought that was obvious.

[wiggyrichard]

Sorry my bad, i was too busy looking up girls skirts at Sunday School, knew i should have paid more attention!

[Wainy316]

Ha ha, scarily identical posts above.

[LondonLax]

Gareth you have got free will..Just because God "knows" what is going to happen dosnt mean you dont have free will.God is outside of time...Your thinking is inside of time.

God is all knowing; 1 John 3;20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things.

We cannot understand; 1 corinthians 2;14 But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Heres another answer you could read on the subject.

http://carm.org/questions/about-doctrine/if-god-all-knowing-and-he-knows-our-future-then-how-free-will

You can either know the future or you can have a number of choices open that the future might become. If "God" knows the future then there is no choice available as to what it will become. It will become the one "god" knows. There is no free will involved.

[MMFy]

Does God condone child molestation?

[TrentVilla]

I'm sure that will be dismissed as being the sin of man, not God, he gave us free will bla bla bla

Handily though that free will has allowed a wide range of religious organisations to turn a blind eye to child abuse and even help protect those responsible.