Scott Myers:
"Accepting paradox and contradiction is the mark of the ignorant who believe simply to believe." I accept no contradiction within a perfect God and will not entertain the word (personally) in describing Him, but freely use the word paradox.
Reality based paradoxes are always resolved through demonstrating that they are false or not really paradoxes at all. Are you so willing to accept God has them in his nature?
Let me explain my position as to why and the difference. Using the determined vs. free will example, it's always a good example; either position has decent claims at the onset of a reasonable discussion. But… If one chooses to be dogmatically committed to either, under all proposed circumstances and under all hypothetical situations (likely examples or pure imaginations), the opposition has been proven right by the sheer absurdity of a path completely imagined out to the fullest extent of either.
What makes it utterly absurd to take anything to its extreme if it is valid to do so?
Refresh… Two individuals have faith in God, assume with me. One knows for a fact that no one is a mere drone automaton-ing his or her way through the universe. Rival; the other believer knows for certain that actions have consequences; therefore God has rules and has put limitations on human power and actions and has ultimate rule over man. Both are right about what God is not; according to acceptable theology and even scriptural basis (and actually even themselves), but both may have trouble agreeing once the ridiculous have been introduced into the argument. They have created what is contradiction.
If the truth is that neither are right to the fullest extreme, then there is no contradiction. That is, if one has freedom within a limited scope, but God has also set rules, this is not a contradiction.
So… the ‘What God is not’ may be the most important truth to be discovered. This is conventional, actually, with Existential Theism on one point, that makes claim to the wholly ‘otherness’ of God. You know… he is neither male nor female (even though he is described using gender), he is neither only material or only spirit, etc.
The method of "What God is not" is often used in various Oriental and Indian philosophies, as well as in the Eastern Orthodox Church. I do not deny that this is useful. I do, however, deny that it is useful without also attributing positive aspects also, for indeed if one can know what God isn't, does not it stand that one can know what God is, atleast in a vague manner?
We do not have to subject the full knowing, and understanding of what God is, by our objective universe, to know he exists. However, we may well be able to say what he is ‘not’, very easily using our objectivity. This is not a Yin and Yang argument by the way, I assure you.
I disagree. To know - that is, to have justified true belief - is to be one hundred precent certain, specifically in the case of -necessary- beings. Necessary beings either can be or cannot be, there is no happy medium. God, in fact, is the only being one could ever prove or disprove to exist. To not have one hundred precent basis is to be merely holding an opinion, which might or might not be true. Plato would elaborate on this concept in many of his dialogues, including "Meno" and "The Republic".
This may be similar to what great physicists of our day might theorize about dark matter, which I quite enjoy. Dark matter may well be the fabric that holds the space-time continuum in order and it might be the glue of the known universe. Physicists know some of the effects of the dark matter and they know it is not material as we have learned to understand it with present objective laws of physics, but they can easily tell us what it is certainly not! Granted this is not complete knowing, but it is an interesting way to approach the ‘is God’ question, before we write him off to ignorance.
But, due to no positive proof of Dark Matter's existence, science does not yet incorporate it into theory and/or law.
Prince; in the second point of your attempt to head off the free-willys, I think you have shown something that exposes the real quagmire with belief in general. You wrote: “2. If God is said to be free-will and perfectly good, then why can't his creations be?” An excellent question, but it most certainly is dependant upon one’s own presuppositions about what God should be, according to one’s own moral standards.
If God is all good, but yet then creates his creations with the capacity to be evil, and indeed, knows they'll be evil, then he is the source of that evil, and has failed to create things as maximally best as he could, which also notes an imperfection in him, for to act outside of perfection would be to be imperfect oneself.
In other words; not that free will is your personal gauge of value, but why would that be any better than being a robot? Why would being a robot be any better than being free? Asking why God is apparently not perfect automatically sets an individual in opposition with the possibility of God being true. One has already placed his or herself as the moral standard according to their own human experiences, cultural persuasions, or any number of things that influence the individual’s claim of knowing what moral is. Judging the morality of God is disbelief in a nutshell. Believing, is accepting the possibility of the existence of a being that will set the standard, of what is good and evil. How does one come to either position? Surely I cannot claim to know, but think it is His call ultimately; but read below.
I would disagree with this. If it is said that God loves goodness, and is perfectly good, then he cannot possibly love evil, or be perfectly evil, as well. Because free-will, or non-limited free-will, allows for evil, God cannot create it withotu being himself not perfeclty good, specifically if God can be free and perfectly good. Yes, it is in someways blasphemous to judge God in anyway, but if we do not judge God, how can one come to knowledge of him? Belief is mere opinion and cannot be rooted firmly, knowledge is the only path to firmness. I would say that faith, blind and without foundation, is thus an affront to God and the true blasphemy, as one cannot stake one's certainty on him, ultimately demonstrating that one is not perfectly faithful.
On your first point, “1. We are not necessarily free and in fact, likely not if God exists.”. I understand your "likely not" this way; since… if there is a God and all that entails, than it is most certainly up to Him what happens, right? But cannot God grant something like free will to His creations? In other words, even though it would be within His power to turn every crank, including our very thoughts, could he not release this power to humanity at His own discretion?
Impossible by virtue of his omniscience and perfection. God can neither act against his perfection without ceasing to be perfect, nor can anything act upon against his omniscience without his omniscience ceasing to be perfect or omniscience at all, for omniscience requires perfection in order to be omniscience. It can admit no error or it is not omniscience.
One Raven:
Unless you have no compassion at all for other livign beings, everything you do during this lifetime matters, because it affects everyone.
If, however, there is a wonderful eternal paradise awaiting us, then this earth and existence is only temporary, and those that suffer will find pleasure in the afterlife. Therofre there is no impetus to relieve suffering of others in this lifetime.
If you knew one suffering man was going to be suffering the rest of his days if he has no help and another was going to be just fine tomorrow, which would you be more likely to offer assistence?
I bow before the brilliance of your post.
Scott Myers:
Since, as you grant, he would be all knowing; He could choose how He wished to write the book of determinism, choose (as I alluded to above) when to grant freedom, and also choose when the book is over, so to speak, to be completely free of His own determinism once again. Would he be right about what He thought He would desire to do under each pre-written circumstance? I think yes; therefore He would be free for the duration, even under His own determinism.
An interesting argument but ultimately flawed, I assert. If God knows what he will desire to do, then God all ready knows the outcome of that desire, as he cannot be in anyway mistaken, hence God still is not free to do otherwise. Similarly, to "grant freedom" at all is ludicrous, because he knows, by virtue of his omniscience, what that person is going to do without error, and they cannot hope to go agianst his knowledge. What omniscience does is rob -anyone- of freedom, including God, and thus freedom is a myth stemming from ignorance if God is omniscient. If God is not omniscient and is still a thinking being, then God is not perfect, and one could argue, not even a necessary being, hence coming to disbelieve in God fully.
