God Endowed Humans with Free Will?

[RCSaunders]

Better yet, "Could God have created a universe in which there was no evil and all the good that is possible?"

Well, no. Not because God lacks power, but because, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, if there was no evil, neither would there be free will. All would be predetermined only to produce the singular "correct" result.

Is a universe with human beings that have free will a better universe than one in which humans are only robots? If the answer to that is, "Yes," -- and I think it very plausibly is...indeed, it seems certain to me that it is -- then God could not have made a universe in which everything was predetermined to be correct, and have it be as overall good as if it had free-will-possessing beings in it.

You didn't answer the final question, which I've decided to ask a different way.

Is sin possible in heaven?

[gaffo]

simple reading of the "bible" shows that man was just one of many "beasts of the field" - until he ate of that tree God denied eating of.

the tree of "knowledge" - tree of self awarness, and so frewill via self awarness.


so "God" did not want man to be self aware, and instead wanted him to be just another of his animals with no self awarness.


but instead man got upitty ate of that tree and became more than a mere aniimal.


but the fearfull "gods" removed that other tree - that of immortality - to keep man mortal - yes out of far the gods prevented man from becoming their equal.

[Immanuel Can]

Better yet, "Could God have created a universe in which there was no evil and all the good that is possible?"

Well, no. Not because God lacks power, but because, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, if there was no evil, neither would there be free will. All would be predetermined only to produce the singular "correct" result.

Is a universe with human beings that have free will a better universe than one in which humans are only robots? If the answer to that is, "Yes," -- and I think it very plausibly is...indeed, it seems certain to me that it is -- then God could not have made a universe in which everything was predetermined to be correct, and have it be as overall good as if it had free-will-possessing beings in it.

You didn't answer the final question, which I've decided to ask a different way.

Is sin possible in heaven?

I'm going to see what you do with my question first.

[Veritas Aequitas]

Since your supposed God is intrinsically omni-GOOD, omni-compassionate, omnibenevolent, omni-empathy and omni-morally-Good

These are terms you chose: I feel no obligation to make a case you have chosen to arrange for me, which is not what I would say. "Omni-empathy"? "Omni-benevolent?" Who would even say that? And you've got "good" twice in your list.

For example, where is God's righteousness, in that list? Where is His commitment to truth? Where is His power? Where is His wisdom? Where is His Creatorial role? Where is his justice? All these are normally claimed by Theists, in regard to the character of God.

You've left them all off, and represented a "god" with only one dimension: that of a sort of cosmic grandparent slipping into dotage -- "good," "empathetic," "benevolent," hovering over humanity for the exclusive purpose of doing them some sort of service, but not capable of having purposes the creatures cannot readily understand, or which do not serve their obvious self-interests.

But God is wiser than men. His reasons for allowing suffering or evil, if such He does, are obviously going to be much more complex and profound than a mere commitment to "empathy" or pallid human conceptions of what it might look like to be "benevolent," and certainly much more purposeful and nuanced than your depiction of His nature would imply.

But this is not because He lacks potency; it's rather because He never has to nor wants to act in contradiction of his own nature; and being all-powerful, He is never compelled to do so.

That is my point, your supposed God will logically not act in contradiction of his own nature.

But you've got his nature wrong. You've listed only the features you, yourself choose to assign to Him, and none that don't serve your purposes. No Theist I know would agree with your list, beyond that God is "good." Those other terms, you just made up yourself.

Therefore when God began to create humans, logically and it follows that God would have imbued human nature with Good and no possibility of evil.

This is time #6, and the last time I'll bother to try to explain it to you: your key problem is as follows:

How do you know that God can have no sufficient reason for the allowing of some evil.

I have given you the answers to the above question but somehow you are unable to grasp it due to confirmation bias.

The point is, it is not logically and is contradictory for God defined as intrinsically omni-GOOD to have sufficient reason to allow for any evil at all.

It is not me who listed those omni-features for your supposed God but it is your highest regarded theologians [St. Anselm, Descartes and others] who assigned your supposed God the maximal or whatever omni-Good qualities as an Ontological God.

It you don't backed your God as an ontological God [no greater can be conceived], then your God is an inferior God which leaves room for another superior God to kick your God's arse. No theist would want to do that, so they have to insist their God is an ontological God which no one can have a one-up-God than it.

Here is my argument;

• 1. For all ideas of what is supposedly a God, they are all reducible to the Ontological God - St Anselm, Descartes.
  
  2. The Ontological God is 'a Being than which no greater can be conceived'.
  
  3. In this case, God has to be 'a Being than which no greater GOOD or Power can be conceived' - i.e. logically that means OMNI-GOOD and omni-potent respectively.
  
  4. No greater Good or Omni-Good means no possibility of EVIL in whatever the circumstances.
  
  5. Since God is omnipotent, God has the power to prevent Evil in any circumstances.
  
  6. Therefore it follows that God cannot have any sufficient reason to allow any evil at all.

Since there has been real terrible evil and violence committed by humans, a supposed God as defined above cannot exists as real.

[Immanuel Can]

I have given you the answers to the above question

You have not, actually. But I can see you cannot even grasp that you have not. So there's no point in me asking again.

It's still the key question. It will remain so.

[RCSaunders]

Well, no. Not because God lacks power, but because, as C.S. Lewis pointed out, if there was no evil, neither would there be free will. All would be predetermined only to produce the singular "correct" result.

Is a universe with human beings that have free will a better universe than one in which humans are only robots? If the answer to that is, "Yes," -- and I think it very plausibly is...indeed, it seems certain to me that it is -- then God could not have made a universe in which everything was predetermined to be correct, and have it be as overall good as if it had free-will-possessing beings in it.

You didn't answer the final question, which I've decided to ask a different way.

Is sin possible in heaven?

I'm going to see what you do with my question first.

This whole discussion has been because you disliked my answer. "Sin of omission."

If you asked another question, I couldn't find it.

So be it. Others will see you are evading the obvious. If God could make an eternal world in which sin does not exist (heaven?), and I assume the denizens of heaven have free will, why didn't he make it that way to begin with? It looks like your argument is the same as any tyrant's, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs (we'll just send a few million to burn in an eternal oven, er, "hell," for the sake of the greater good of those we save).

[Immanuel Can]

This whole discussion has been because you disliked my answer. "Sin of omission."

Not "disliked" at all: "didn't understand your intended application of it" is the right way to put it. I needed more explanation than you gave in order to know if I was taking you aright.

If you asked another question, I couldn't find it.

Here it is: "Is a universe with human beings that have free will a better universe than one in which humans are only robots?" It was there; see above.

[RCSaunders]

This whole discussion has been because you disliked my answer. "Sin of omission."

Not "disliked" at all: "didn't understand your intended application of it" is the right way to put it. I needed more explanation than you gave in order to know if I was taking you aright.

If you asked another question, I couldn't find it.

Here it is: "Is a universe with human beings that have free will a better universe than one in which humans are only robots?" It was there; see above.

Meaningless question. Beings without volition are not human beings. It's like asking if a universe with vegetarian lions would be better than the carnivorous kind. Whatever a creature is that is not carnivorous is not a lion, no matter what name you give it. A being without volition is not human, whatever name you give it.

From that perspective the question is, why couldn't God create a universe in which volitional beings would not do evil, or a universe in which no act was an evil one, i.e. a universe in which the consequences of all possible actions were benevolent?

[Immanuel Can]

This whole discussion has been because you disliked my answer. "Sin of omission."

Not "disliked" at all: "didn't understand your intended application of it" is the right way to put it. I needed more explanation than you gave in order to know if I was taking you aright.

If you asked another question, I couldn't find it.

Here it is: "Is a universe with human beings that have free will a better universe than one in which humans are only robots?" It was there; see above.

Meaningless question. Beings without volition are not human beings. It's like asking if a universe with vegetarian lions would be better than the carnivorous kind. Whatever a creature is that is not carnivorous is not a lion, no matter what name you give it. A being without volition is not human, whatever name you give it.

That doesn't make the question meaningless; if anything, your explanation makes it far more pressing. For now, you say, not only is a free-will-lacking being not as "good" as one that has free will, but such a being altogether lacks what makes a human essentially a human.

So your answer would not be to say that the question was "meaningless," but that you takes as a given that all human beings definitionally must have free will.

From that perspective the question is, why couldn't God create a universe in which volitional beings would not do evil, or a universe in which no act was an evil one, i.e. a universe in which the consequences of all possible actions were benevolent?

You've now answered that question for yourself. You've said that such a world could not contain anything you regard as even "human." Assuming, then, that you don't think humans are intrinsically a bad thing for a world to have, a world with them would be better than one without...even if that second world were incapable of staging evil actions as well as good.

[RCSaunders]

So your answer would not be to say that the question was "meaningless," but that you takes as a given that all human beings definitionally must have free will.

That's right.

From that perspective the question is, why couldn't God create a universe in which volitional beings would not do evil, or a universe in which no act was an evil one, i.e. a universe in which the consequences of all possible actions were benevolent?

You've now answered that question for yourself. You've said that such a world could not contain anything you regard as even "human."

No, I never said that and what I said does not imply that.

There is no reason volitional beings (humans) cannot live without ever doing anything wrong or evil. There is no reason a universe with rational volitional beings must include evil.

You are implying that volition necessitates evil. Only you equate volition with evil.

[Immanuel Can]

There is no reason volitional beings (humans) cannot live without ever doing anything wrong or evil.

You're sort of right. It's not that there can be no volitional beings without actually doing evil; it's that there could be no volitional beings if they never even had the possibility of choosing evil. For to have a choice entails that one can do the one thing, or the other thing; one can do the will of God, or one can disobey the will of God. Without that stipulation, there is no authentic volition.

You are implying that volition necessitates evil.

Implying? Necessitates?

No, I am stating outright that the existence of volition entails the freedom to choose to disobey must be present at some point. And if it never was, then there was never any authentic volition.

[Veritas Aequitas]

I have given you the answers to the above question

You have not, actually. But I can see you cannot even grasp that you have not. So there's no point in me asking again.

It's still the key question. It will remain so.

I did not grasp it earlier, not my fault, but it is your communication in this case.

Now that you have presented the question,

• How do you know
  that God can have no sufficient reason
  for the allowing of some evil?

I note it is simple enough to answer, i.e.

• I know,
  that God can have no sufficient reason
  for the allowing of some evil,
  because it would be not logical and contradictory
  for God to allow some evil.

It is a direct and straightforward answer to your question.
You are deflecting because you are cornered?

Why it is contradictory and not logical?
I have provided my argument above, repeat here'

• 1. For all ideas of what is supposedly a God, they are all reducible to the Ontological God - St Anselm, Descartes.
  
  2. The Ontological God is 'a Being than which no greater can be conceived'.
  
  3. In this case, God has to be 'a Being than which no greater GOOD or Power can be conceived' - i.e. logically that means OMNI-GOOD and omni-potent respectively.
  
  4. No greater Good or Omni-Good means no possibility of EVIL in whatever the circumstances.
  
  5. Since God is omnipotent, God has the power to prevent Evil in any circumstances.
  
  6. Therefore it follows that God cannot have any sufficient reason to allow any evil at all.
  Since there has been real terrible evil and violence committed by humans, a supposed God as defined above cannot exists as real.

Why do you think my argument above is wrong?

[Veritas Aequitas]

No, I am stating outright that the existence of volition entails the freedom to choose to disobey must be present at some point. And if it never was, then there was never any authentic volition.

You are twisting and turning from the 'checkmate' point your supposed God cannot exists as real in the first place.
There is no good reason to bring in the point re freewill at all.

The main point is your supposed-God is supposed to be omni-compassionate, omni-benevolent with omnipotence, thus it would be contradictory for your supposed God to create humans with ability to disobey God and commit evil.

Note it is your highly regarded Christian theologians who argued your supposed God is supposed to be 'a Being no greater can be conceived' thus omni-whatever - omni-compassionate, omni-benevolent with omnipotence

Your supposed God being omnipotent and to be aligned with God inherent nature of omni-compassionate, omni-benevolent, your supposed God should logically follow to create humans [from the beginning] without the ability to disobey God to commit evil.

[RCSaunders]

You are implying that volition necessitates evil.

Implying? Necessitates?

No, I am stating outright that the existence of volition entails the freedom to choose to disobey must be present at some point. And if it never was, then there was never any authentic volition.

I'm talking about, "evil," you're talking about, "disobedience," as if they were the same thing. If a law is evil, it is evil to obey it. Disobeying an evil order is a virtue, not an evil.

To not exercise one's volition is an abdication of the requirement of one's human nature. One's choices are only volitional when they are free from any constraint, like someone else's laws. To disobey is always a virtue.

[Immanuel Can]

Now that you have presented the question,

• How do you know
  that God can have no sufficient reason
  for the allowing of some evil?

I note it is simple enough to answer, i.e.

• I know,
  that God can have no sufficient reason
  for the allowing of some evil,
  because it would be not logical and contradictory
  for God to allow some evil.

Well, let's see if you're committed to that answer.

Would it be better for God to allow no possibility of human free will, or to make free will possible but accept that some humans will use their free will badly?