Here are eight of the many strange and less than well-thought-out questions/objections you are probably tired of hearing while sharing your faith:
Q. "If there is a God who loves us, then why is there suffering in the world?"
A. Where does suffering come from? Suffering is caused by sin. If your home is broken into and your belongings are missing, that's suffering. Who caused it? A fellow human being who broke God's moral law, so your suffering was caused by man, not God. God gives us all a choice, the God you are proposing would force us all to adhere to His standards... that isn't very loving, is it?
Q. "Don't all paths lead to the same place?"
A. Most paths lead to the same place, so you're almost right. Truth is not relative, we don't get to decide what the truth is. If you step off the edge of a cliff and proclaim, "I don't believe in gravity," you will still suffer the consequences of breaking the law of gravity, regardless of whether you believe in it or not. Likewise, when you choose to violate God's moral law, you run the risk of suffering the consequences of breaking that law, regardless of whether you believe in it or not.
Q. "Why should I go to church when those people are nothing but hypocrites?"
A. True Christians don't claim to be perfect (which would violate 1 John 1:8), only forgiven.
Q. "Isn't the Bible full of contradictions?"
A. See Contradictions In the Bible?
Q. "If I'm a good person, God wouldn't send me to Hell, would He?"
A. If you were a good person, then you might be on to something. But the Bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23).
Q. "Can't I just worry about all this religious stuff in the next life?"
A. Trust me, you will be worrying about it in "the next life," but by then it will be too late to do anything about it. "And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27).
Q. "If I became a Christian, wouldn't I have to give up all the things I like to do?"
A. Why would you have to give them up? If you think that coming to God would mean giving up the things you enjoy, then doesn't that mean that you know those things are wrong? The choice is yours: Risk misery now, or guarantee misery for eternity.
Q. "I want to remain open-minded, so why would I want to become a Christian?"
A. If you know you will never become a Christian because you are too open-minded, then in reality you are being very close-minded.
More often than not, the sort of person who will ask any of these questions will probably ask them all (and in rapid succession). When this happens, you need not worry: you probably aren't going to get anywhere with this person no matter what you say, at least not in an intellectual argument. Try and direct the discussion toward one's personal sin and need of forgiveness, the true problem at the heart of the issue.
In Christ's Love,
Matthew
28 comments:
You know, don't you, that your first answer fails in about twelve different ways? I'll take it easy on you and save the difficult objections for last, but for now: you imply that it wouldn't be loving for God to "force us all to adhere to His standards." Very well - give me a world where we all freely adhere to them, then. Since this is logically possible, and since God is omnipotent within the limits of logic, God should be able to create that world and only that world. What's your explanation for God's failure to do this? It seems to me you either have to argue:
1. It's logically impossible for everyone to freely choose the right things.
2. There's some reason why allowing lots and lots of evil is better than allowing no evil at all, even given that freedom would be the same in both situations.
3. God doesn't exist.
Obviously, you'll want to choose between 1 and 2. But 2 is, at least on the surface, self-contradictory, and 1 is absurd. Good luck...
It isn't that it is impossible for us to all freely choose the right things, it is that God did not desire to create us that way. God COULD have made us any way He wanted to, but He chose to make us capable of desire for right OR wrong - thus choosing God over sin because a true act of love.
I'm sure you'll throw logic out the window and say that God COULD have done A, B, C, or whatever it is that you're trying to get to, but the bottom line is that you've chosen an unfalsifiable argument - i.e. I'm wasting my time if this is all you're going to do. I'm sure you feel very clever, but if this conversation were about any other topic you would see how foolish your argument is. Perhaps God wants us to be able to see and appreciate His justice, so He has given us a world in which humans are capable of disobeying Him so that we can appreciate His justice AND His mercy.
Yes yes, but I'm asking, what possible motivation could God have had for not creating the world in which we are "capable of desire for right OR wrong" and in which we always freely choose "God over sin because [of] a true act of love." You agree that this is logically possible - thus denying 1 - but surely you recognize that's not the world we're in. So you've committed yourself to 2 without providing any kind of justification for the apparent contradiction therein.
I disagree that my argument isn't falsifiable. It's just that you haven't falsified it yet (or, really, even tried). You seem to have laid out a certain system of valuation whereby any individual moral choice on the part of humans is vastly outweighed by the mere fact that we have a choice. Very well - I disagree with that system, but I'll grant it to you for the sake of argument. Is it still not true, under such a system, that the moral value in a good choice is more than the moral value in a bad choice? I think you must say that this is the case, and thus that the best world would be one in which we always freely choose the right action (which, again, you admit is logically possible). But we are not in this world. If you want to falsify my argument, you only need present a view on which the actual presence of evil has moral value. That's all.
Speaking of falsifiability, though, I suspect this is an area you don't want to enter. The Bible - especially the creation story, which you're defending elsewhere - is rife with claims that have already been falsified. That you continue to believe in these stories nonetheless speaks volumes about the respect you have for the concept of falsifiability.
"Yes yes, but I'm asking, what possible motivation could God have had for not creating the world in which we are "capable of desire for right OR wrong" and in which we always freely choose "God over sin because [of] a true act of love."
So that's the real question? If so, then you should know better than to think that I would attempt to probe the mind of God like that. I don't know God's "motivation" for anything, because I am not God. Just because you or I cannot grasp God's reasons for His actions does NOT mean that He does not HAVE reasons for His actions (and, on a side-note, we have no right to demand reasons for His actions anyway).
The question I would like to have answered is whether or not you sincerely believe that God's existence in any way, shape, or form hinges on this question. Even if you thought God wasn't omnipotent, that still wouldn't mean He didn't exist.
"Speaking of falsifiability, though, I suspect this is an area you don't want to enter. The Bible - especially the creation story, which you're defending elsewhere - is rife with claims that have already been falsified. That you continue to believe in these stories nonetheless speaks volumes about the respect you have for the concept of falsifiability."
One topic at a time, please. Thank you.
One topic at a time, he says, and then this:
"I cannot grasp God's reasons for His actions."
No? Then your theory is unfalsifiable, Matthew. You have essentially just admitted that taking the evidence seriously means abandoning all rational defense of God - and yet you maintain your belief in God. That's fine, I'm not trying to take that away from you, and I'm certainly not trying to demand any justifications from a God I honestly believe is a pure fiction (been reading your apologists, though, have you? this isn't the first time I've heard that argument). Humans are entitled to irrational beliefs, even ones that are way off, so long as no major harm comes from those beliefs (and I have no reason to believe that any major harm has resulted in your case). But I dispute you calling skeptics "silly" for trusting logic and the evidence, rather than whatever it is you're using.
I think maybe you've phrased the question badly, but in essence, yes - I do believe that your God's (non)existence very much depends on the fact that your God is, by definition, logically impossible. If you'd rather redefine God to be only very powerful, or only very moral, or only very knowledgeable, I'll obviously have to use different arguments. At the same time, though, if you do any of those, you've abandoned every classical conception of Christianity.
"been reading your apologists, though, have you?"
No, actually, I haven't. My thoughts are my own (thus, MY Perspective), but thank you for insulting my ability to think freely.
Let me say that I think I recognize the issue here (since you said, "That's fine, I'm not trying to take that away from you"), too many Christians have tried to convince you to come to Christ because they can "prove" their beliefs, something which absolutely no one can do for any belief system.
"I do believe that your God's (non)existence very much depends on the fact that your God is, by definition, logically impossible. If you'd rather redefine God to be only very powerful, or only very moral, or only very knowledgeable, I'll obviously have to use different arguments. At the same time, though, if you do any of those, you've abandoned every classical conception of Christianity."
I think you need to think this through a little bit, here's why: You've questioned God's omnipotence, something even Christians themselves have done in the past, and used this to say that God's existence is in question (a conclusion that Christians don't ever draw from this argument, regardless of which side of the line they sit on). If I were to tell you that my house was yellow, and then you looked at it and said it was green (a perfectly logical scenario, considering my partial color-blindness), neither of us would conclude that I did not have a house, merely that my description of my house may be innaccurate. In the same way, I examine the descriptions of God given and conclude He is omnipotent, whereas you examine the same descriptions and draw a different conclusion based off your belief that true omnipotence is impossible. It is not logical to conclude that God does not exist, merely that my description of Him may be innacurate.
Despite your condescending tone toward the beginning (I'm 17 years old, so I'm used to be spoken to this way), I'm actually mildly enjoying this discussion. I appreciate your questions.
You're joking - you came up with that "stop asking God for explanations" thing on your own? I was trying to give you credit, actually, because that's quite possibly the most useless argument to bring up in this discussion: it's besides the point, presumes to know what I'm thinking, raises yet more questions about the character of the God you worship, and seriously begs the question when it comes to explicating a worldview. But hey, if you wanna take credit for it, it's yours. Moving on...
I don't feel as though I've been overly proselytized-to, but who knows, maybe my subconscious has just had enough. Rather, I think I just find it curious that Christians often have incredibly strong beliefs in this one area despite not really ever being able to back it up logically. I keep looking for the person who's able to give even a plausible case, but I have yet to find him. To continue this point, I'll examine this newer analogy (which is one I had yet to hear, good job).
The difference between you or I mistaking the color of your house and the Bible mistaking the nature of God is that the Bible is the only potentially original source of knowledge about God (except, of course, personal revelation, which I can address if you like). Once we start questioning the Bible's word on God, which pretty clearly states that God can do anything, then that's it - there's nothing else to fall back on. If asked about God but not allowed to use the Bible, we'd have literally no information. Your house, however, is visible to other people who can either verify our perspectives or not; we could check the records to see which color paint was bought when it got painted; heck, we could even get a robot to look at the house and tell us what color it is, at this point. Regardless of whether or not these analogical discrepancies can be resolved, though, the analogy still doesn't really address my argument (or the argument of the skeptics to whom you refer in this post). We all want to argue that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God is impossible, given the state of the world (note that this is different from trying to prove that "true omnipotence is impossible"). So long as you concede that no such God exists, you agree with us. Evidently, though, that's not quite what you want.
Instead of us rejecting God altogether, you want us to leave open the possibility "merely that [your] description of Him may be innacurate." The problem here, Matthew, is that it isn't just your description: it's everyone's description who's ever presented one. This happens because gods are pretty much always defined to fill the gaps in our knowledge. There are some obvious examples of this - don't know how lightning works? it's Thor! - which I assume you reject outright. You may not think this is what you're doing, Matthew, but I assure you it is. Your God coincidentally is powerful enough to create the universe ex nihilo, regularly break the laws of physics by performing miracles, and enforce morality in the afterlife (don't even get me started on that one), but somehow not powerful enough to create a free species that nonetheless doesn't do evil things. And the reason why it needs to be exactly that powerful is because that's exactly the set of circumstances that you believe to obtain and yet cannot explain otherwise. We philosophers call this ad hoc argumentation, and it's a fallacy. I could continue to point out to you how even a very powerful, very knowledgeable, very good God would almost certainly prevent more evil than is currently being prevented, or how such a God who also wants to be loved would probably do a vastly better job at inspiring love in humans, or how such a God would hardly produce such a shoddy piece of work as the Bible, but first I would have to have some kind of guarantee that you won't just change your hypothesis to fit whatever new information I bring forward while simultaneously claiming that you've really been arguing for the same hypothesis all along. If you think you can give me that kind of guarantee, then lay out your hypothesis as explicitly as you can and we'll go from there.
And look, if the people you hang out with in real life condescend to you because you're 17, you need to hang out with new people. Alternatively, if you think you're being talked down to online because of your age, that ain't it - we've just all been down these roads before. I mean, just look at how fed up I got with this clown, and he's a full-fledged (legal) adult.
Okay, dude, let me line out my frustration: It would seem that you are suggesting that if God could do anything then He would have done things your way, because, of course, your way makes more sense (to you) than His. The problem here is that you've tried to attack the classic Christian view of God without looking at the ENTIRE classic Christian view of God. You've overlooked the fact that God is far wiser than any creature of His creation (that includes you and I). This doesn't mean that my argument in non-falsifiable, merely that the only way to prove God is not omnipotent would be to show me a scenario where God set out to do something and failed - I'm sure you'll have a snide comment here, but if all else fails we come back to square one: It's impossible to prove the non-existence of God (or anything else, for that matter). You can prove that something does not exist in certain circumstances (for instance, I can say "there's ice-cream in the refrigerator, and you can go look in the refrigerator and see that there is no ice-cream in the refrigerator), but you cannot prove that it does not exist at all (there is no ice-cream in the universe). Likewise, you could (potentially) prove that God did not exist in the suggested circumstance (omnipotence), but not that He does not exist at all.
So... here's my hypothesis, and I won't stray from it: It is impossible to prove the non-existence of God, therefore the possibility is worth at least a little attention in light of the incredible amount of people who seem to think He does and the risk involved in being wrong about the subject.
Do I have personal experience? Of course. Does it prove anything to you? Of course not, you don't share in my experiences. But it does prove something to me. Does that mean people of other faiths haven't had genuine experiences? Again, of course not. But I have no problem with that. You see, the way I see it, Allah, Thor, Horus, etc. probably do/did exist, they simply weren't the 'gods' they claimed to be. I have no problem with people using personal experience to verify the existence of the object of their worship, so what's your hang-up? (I assume you have a problem with it based off the side-comment you gave about personal experience)
Apparently you didn't believe me when I said this the first time, so I'll repeat: we've all been down these roads before. Your claim that God is wiser than anybody who's ever tried to look at this issue is a failsafe device designed to make your theory unfalsifiable: for any given objection that you cannot see a way around, you can - and do! - just fall back to this claim. It's an appeal to ignorance and it's just not convincing. If nothing else, it's your job as a defender of this God's existence to at least propose guesses. Insofar as you fail to do so, you fail to defend God's existence.
Next, you try another popular move in apologetics (sorry - even if you're coming up with this stuff on your own, it's hardly original). It's impossible, you say, to prove the nonexistence of anything. There are so many problems with this I don't know where to start. Let's try this: do you think it's impossible to prove the nonexistence of a four-sided triangle? I'll continue this line of argumentation depending on your answer.
Continuing on, your hypothesis doesn't do much for me. As I'm sure you can tell, I've already given this subject more than just "a little attention," in fact going so far as to believe that it is possible to disprove God - or, at least, some gods. Here we come to another problem: just which God do you believe in? What essential attributes does this God have, and how does this God relate to the world in general and me in specific? Without some sort of identifying characteristics, it really is impossible to disprove anything - but, then again, it's also very hard to prove the existence of anything. So there must be some details that you have in mind - what are they?
I won't rightly be able to answer your question about personal experience until we've nailed these things down, but I can at least give you some previews of coming attractions. In all likelihood, you'll want to present a God who desires to be known among humans. If so, the huge variance in religious beliefs indicates that any such God is doing a really awful job of accomplishing this. That is, unless you want to water down your definition of God to be just some generic creator thing and not the God of any particular religion?
I've just realized what's been bothering me from the beginning about this conversation. I assumed it was your attitude of being far smarter than me that was getting on my nerves, but you seemed to think you weren't doing that. And now I see you were right. My frustration is at the more astounding arrogance that you think that you must be wiser than God. ("the huge variance in religious beliefs indicates that any such God is doing a really awful job of accomplishing this.")
Look, man, I don't care if you are unsatisfied with my answer, it stands as it is: God is smarter than YOU. If you don't like it, too bad because that's how it is and that's how it is always going to be and until you see that IF God exists then He is smarter than you, this conversation is a dead-end and merely adding to my already ridiculously high stress level at the moment (due to personal issues, medical issues, and a recent family crisis which could still go one way or the other - not that you cared about any of that, but I felt the need to point out why this is bothering me so much).
"do you think it's impossible to prove the nonexistence of a four-sided triangle?"
Now who's failed analogy is it? Can I prove the non-existence of a four-sided triangle? Yes, but I would be a real pathetic fool to then conclude from my very reasonable observation that no triangles exist AT ALL. (Can ice-cream be made of sand? No, because it would no longer be ice-cream - therefore ice-cream does not exist)
So...
Just like your God is powerful enough to create the universe but not powerful enough to prevent evil, apparently your God is smart enough to have a master plan for all of humanity but not smart enough to provide any kind of convincing evidence for its own existence so that this plan might succeed in any reasonable sense. So much for me being able to demonstrate that God has failed at something God wanted to do, I guess...
Of course this conversation is a dead-end - it was one before it began, because I trust the evidence of my senses and of logic, whereas you trust something else. When I speak of evidence and reason, then, I'm talking past you, and when you talk about master plans that are unfalsifiable and beings whose definitions can conveniently conform to any evidence, you're talking past me.
If you realize that four-sided triangles are logically impossible and thus capable of being disproven, then why not give me a rigorous definition of your God? You believe, obviously, that such a definition would be logically compatible with the actual world, so you have nothing to lose. Yet, for some reason, you've not done so. You've already abandoned omnipotence - are you, then, afraid to be caught contradicting (for instance) Revelation 19:6? Would you also do away with John 21:17 and Psalms 19:7, as soon as omniscience and omnibenevolence become problematic? Or do you simply not know which God it is you defend? Defining God is the absolute most basic task of your defense, Matthew - without it, you haven't even reached square one.
I have not changed the definition of God. He is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent, etc. It is your perception of omnipotence which is faulty. God can accomplish any task set before Him, but you have adopted the twisted idea that God MUST accomplish any task YOU set before Him, and this is simply not so. If you and I lived in the idealistic world you seem to think would be so much more wonderful than this one, then you would still be complaining - this time about how the 'free-will' God had given us didn't allow for the desire to do evil, which seemed a cruel limitation and suggests that 'God doesn't trust us' which would probably really upset you. You have elected to be unpleasable, and thus it is impossible for YOU to be convinced.
What bothers me is that most atheists think they can disprove God's omnipotence if they can simply string together a series of words that don't quite make sense together. Things like "If God can do anything, can God fail?" An incredibly annoying question considering that failing is not a legitimate action but rather the absence of succeeding, just as dark is the absence of light and cold the absence of heat. So, in actuality, if one sets out to fail, it is impossible not to fail (and thus succeed).
Omnipotence means that God, in His infinite power, never fails and never will fail, nor is there a hypothetical situation in which He could fail, because He is infinite in power.
Keep pretending that logic disproves God, but "we've all been down these roads before."
I think you're confused about what the word "perception" means, Matthew. My definition of omnipotence is the power to do anything that's logically possible - if you've got an alternative definition, now's the time to provide it. Likewise, I define omniscience to mean knowing everything it's logically possible to know and omnibenevolence to mean having all and only morally perfect desires, insofar as this is logically possible. Under these conditions, it's trivially easy to see that any being with each of these three qualities would want only a morally perfect world and - if such a world is logically possible - be able to create it without first creating any other world. You've already agreed, though, that it is logically possible, and you seem to agree also that it's not the world that we actually have. Either object to one of the premises or accept the conclusion - you don't logically have another choice.
The rest of your comment is mere rambling, and, to be quite honest with you, beneath me to even address. If you want to have a philosophical discussion, it behooves you to stay on topic. When you decide to do that, maybe I'll have something insightful to say - until then, you're just flatly denying the primacy of logic and substituting your faith for it.
"Under these conditions, it's trivially easy to see that any being with each of these three qualities would want only a morally perfect world"
And that's where the chain fails, you've taken a perfectly logical series of statements and inserted an incredibly presumptuous statement into the middle of it. You don't know what God wants (which takes us back to square one). Other than that, it was a respectful attempt.
If you really want to know my take on it, I suspect God wants a harvest of followers who willingly chose Him in spite of a desire for evil things. If this seems unfair to you, consult Romans 9:17-24 (which, actually, answers your question better than I can).
Boy, are you confused. When I say that God wants a morally perfect world, and when you say that "God wants a harvest [that's as large as possible] of followers who willingly chose Him in spite of a desire for evil things," we're saying the exact same thing. I've been saying, and you've been agreeing, that "as large as possible" means "everyone," so where's the disconnect? You've still not disputed a single one of my premises. And sorry - I don't really trust books with logical contradictions in them to teach me about reality. I'll stick with your answers, for the time being.
God's not going to manipulate the numbers, that's not A CHOICE. Sounds like you should have read the passage, unfortunately you were afraid you might learn something.
So God won't "manipulate the numbers" so that we live in the best world, you say? Then why has God manipulated the numbers so that we live in a sub-optimal world? Creating the world means "manipulating" the numbers either way, and manipulation, if it's not an option in and of itself, is just as allowable (or not) whether the result is good or bad. So barring some further argumentation, you can't really use this as an excuse. It'd also be nice if you gave an argument about why this manipulation isn't a choice, rather than just putting it in all caps.
"So God won't "manipulate the numbers" so that we live in the best world, you say? Then why has God manipulated the numbers so that we live in a sub-optimal world?"
Personally I believe, in all honesty, that the world you describe is far less than "the best world." A world in which everyone choses God over sin simply because they have no desire to sin, nor did they ever. Doesn't sound much like "choosing" to me, and the sooner you get it through your head that if you ask someone to choose between two things and only offer them one thing, then there's really no choice to make, the sooner we can move on. But I'm sure you're much too stubborn and hate God too much to see that (or admit it).
So here's what you seem to have missed:
1. God wants it this way.
2. His way is better than yours.
3. Some of us can see that, so you're definition of "best" is most certainly a matter of opinion.
4. A strange contradiction: you claim that choosing God over sin is "the best" choice, yet your life, it would seem, in no way reflects that. You would much rather stay as far away from God as possible, so there must be something pleasurable about it. You've chosen to be happy now. I've chosen to wait. Sounds fair to me.
5. If you think that you're going to be able to blame God for your choice on judgment day, then again you need to read Romans 9:17-24.
Interesting that you have cricisms of the way God runs the world, yet choose to hurl them at me rather than take them to Him, and when I take them to Him for you, He offers a response and you won't even read it (which is your choice, I suppose). For an atheist, it seems like you're awfully afraid of God.
Let's count the fallacies, shall we?
"Personally I believe, in all honesty, that the world you describe is far less than 'the best world.'"
Irrelevant - so long as you believe that this world could be better, which you say you do, you agree with my underlying point.
"A world in which everyone choses God over sin simply because they have no desire to sin, nor did they ever."
Straw man - if you can point out the spot where I said that, I'll give you a million dollars. In fact, I can find for you where I said the exact opposite: my second comment.
"God wants it this way."
So you say, but why? You have no idea - that's an argument from ignorance. It's also ad hoc. Without evidence of massive evils, you'd have no reason to adapt your hypothesis to suit them.
"His way is better than yours."
For a definition of "better" that you have yet to coherently provide.
"Some of us can see that, so you're [sic] definition of 'best' is most certainly a matter of opinion."
Oh - obviously my opinion is just an opinion, but your opinion is fact. I should've known that from the beginning...
"you claim that choosing God over sin is 'the best' choice, yet your life, it would seem, in no way reflects that."
Straw man: my claim was, if and only if God exists, then choosing God over sin is the best choice. In fact, the only reason I adopted this implication in the first place is because it's what you believe, so in order to show that your beliefs are contradictory, I had to use some of them.
Your point 5 is simply irrelevant, as God doesn't exist. You also contradict your earlier claim that we have no justification to ask God for explanations by telling me to go do that, and then for some reason you tell me I'm afraid of God rather than even attempting to interact with my arguments.
Phew! Very nice work, Matthew - that's Peter-Kreeft-level bumbling there. Keep that up and you'll have a professorship at some second-rate college in no time. But, I'm sad to report, you still won't have defeated my arguments and you still won't have constructed an even remotely plausible defense of God. You need to go back and read the actual words that I wrote and then try to dispute them either with facts or with theory. It's not that hard to argue using valid logic, Matthew, you just have to try. But, then again, you don't want to try, do you, because valid logic is guaranteed to yield the truth, and, given the choice between the truth and God, you'd rather take God.
You amuse me. Congratulations, I'm starting to enjoy this conversation.
"Irrelevant - so long as you believe that this world could be better, which you say you do, you agree with my underlying point."
I've let you get away with putting a lot of words in my mouth, but this one needs to be pointed out. I've said from the beginning that God knows better than we do and that His way is always better than ours. So, in fact, I am saying that this world could NOT be better. You simply disagree because we have different priorities.
"Straw man - if you can point out the spot where I said that, I'll give you a million dollars. In fact, I can find for you where I said the exact opposite: my second comment."
I've gone back to your second comment, where you said this (I should have headed this off from the start): "Yes yes, but I'm asking, what possible motivation could God have had for not creating the world in which we are "capable of desire for right OR wrong" and in which we always freely choose "God over sin because [of] a true act of love." You agree that this is logically possible"
It is, technically, possible for God to create a world in which we all freely choose Him of sin, but the choice would be meaningless because He would have pre-programmed us to do so, which negates the "true act of love" part.
"So you say, but why? You have no idea - that's an argument from ignorance. It's also ad hoc. Without evidence of massive evils, you'd have no reason to adapt your hypothesis to suit them."
I've said why multiple times, actually (see my first comment). But because you don't agree with God's priorities, you've ignored my explanation. God wants us to love Him, and love means sacrifice. If we are pre-programmed to automatically want Him instead of sin, then we aren't sacrificing anything. If we desire sin, and then choose to give it up for God, then we are showing our love for Him.
"For a definition of "better" that you have yet to coherently provide."
Smarter, wiser, more thought-out, more intelligently planned, accomplishes more important and meaningful goals, etc.
"Straw man: my claim was, if and only if God exists, then choosing God over sin is the best choice. In fact, the only reason I adopted this implication in the first place is because it's what you believe, so in order to show that your beliefs are contradictory, I had to use some of them."
You've proven, however, that if you knew God existed then you would not choose Him because you consider Him cruel, unwise, and less intelligent than yourself.
"Phew! Very nice work, Matthew - that's Peter-Kreeft-level bumbling there. Keep that up and you'll have a professorship at some second-rate college in no time. But, I'm sad to report, you still won't have defeated my arguments and you still won't have constructed an even remotely plausible defense of God."
You don't 'defeat' arguments, you expose them as fraudulent or not fitting all the facts. Which is difficult to do in this case when one considers that I have yet to see how your arguments even begin to make sense, let alone illustrate anything other than your utter contempt for the God you don't think exists. You sure do spend a lot of time thinking about someone who you say doesn't exist. Your arguments are simply far too presumptuous for me to devote any real time to.
Perhaps your arguments would make more sense if you informed as to what exactly it is that you're suggesting was God's motivation in creating the universe - because I have a feeling that your suspicions on this are quite a bit different than mine. God's motivation in creating the universe will go a long way in explaining why He made it the way He did.
Oh, see, this explains your confusion:
"It is, technically, possible for God to create a world in which we all freely choose Him of sin, but the choice would be meaningless because He would have pre-programmed us to do so, which negates the "true act of love" part."
Yeah - that's a contradiction, Matthew. Having been pre-programmed to do something means by definition that you aren't freely doing it. Do you mean to say, maybe, that it's impossible for God to create a world where we all freely choose the good (and if so, why didn't you just pick 1 when I offered it to you initially)? Because right now you're asserting a logical contradiction, which is bad. So until you pick a side on this one, the rest of your argumentation is, strictly speaking, nonsense.
We're essentially saying the same thing, just that you're saying the choice would no longer be free and I'm saying the choice would be pointless, so yes, I'll pick a side: It is impossible for everyone to freely choose God over sin if we are capable of desiring both.
Okay, but why should I believe that? You believe that God created us with free will, meaning that every free decision with which we are faced must have at least two possibilities each with a non-zero likelihood of being chosen. Likewise, every morally significant free decision we face has at most three and at least two possibilities with non-zero probabilities: that we choose the good, the bad, or a morally neutral action, or two of the three. It doesn't really matter what these probabilities are, but let's define probability(good) = p(g), probability(bad) = p(b), probability(neutral) = p(n). In any morally significantly free decision, then, we have:
p(g)+p(b)+p(n) = 1 (or, if you prefer, 100%), and at least two of the three are > 0.
These decisions, being free, are also independent. Statistically speaking, that means that if I have two decisions, d1 and d2, then the probability of me choosing the good in both of them is:
p(g|d1)*p(g|d2)
Likewise, the probability of me not choosing the bad is:
1-(p(b|d1)*p(b|d2)) = [p(g|d1) + p(n|d1)] * [p(g|d2) + p(n|d2)]
And so on. But since these are, by assumption, morally significant choices, there must be at least one non-bad way for me to choose. So if we string out all the morally significant free choices in my life, d1 through dx, we see that I have a nonzero chance of always choosing the good:
[p(g|d1) + p(n|d1)] * [p(g|d2) + p(n|d2)] * ... * [p(g|dx) + p(n|dx)] > 0
This is so because each of the decisions has a non-zero chance of me choosing something good and/or neutral, and you can't reach zero by multiplying finitely many non-zero numbers. But wait: that means that it is logically possible for me to freely never sin. In fact, generalizing to all humans, it proves that it's logically possible for everyone to freely never sin. So, as it turns out, you're wrong to try to accept 1, especially if you hold to the factual accuracy of the story of the garden of Eden (which you do), because nobody would ever have sinned if Eve had simply refused the fruit. Given that it's logically possible, then, and a better world than the one in which we live, why aren't we in it?
Let me begin by pointing out that if Eve hadn't eaten the fruit, someone else would have. Secondly, while it is technically possible for someone to never sin, the odds of this happening are very low indeed, to the point of being practically impossible (illustrated by the fact that we don't have a bunch of morally perfect people walking around), and the idea that everyone would be morally untainted is even less likely. While it is technically possible to "get lucky" and find yourself in such circumstances, this is entirely different from God "making a world" where this happens, as this would suggest that God made it happen that way (which removes free will).
So, then, you're saying that God had no choice in which world to create? I'm pretty sure that means God's not omnipotent.
@ larryniven
1.The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10
2. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in knowledge of him Ephesians 1:17
3. If this doesn't make sense to you refer to #1.
Butterfly
Sounds like the perfect end to a pointless conversation.
Matthew
My favorite thing about this entire effort: "Butterfly" (aka Matthew? one of Matthew's friends?) tells me to fear God, but Matthew's been saying that I feared God all along. May your contradictions help you live your life, fella(s) - this is the only one you've got.
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