Post Edited (One Love) : 5/11/2010 4:02:15 PM (GMT-5)

Whole thread

Posted By : Tom - Yesterday 11:11 PM

D: So, Tom, using Asher's "planet/ship" analogy, in your view, is it genuinely possible that the ship forever chooses to refrain landing on the planet? Yes or no. T: What do you mean by “forever chooses”? I’m VERY serious. You can mean ONE of two things: Either (1) we succeed in actualizing all our future possibilities, traversing eternity, and rejecting God throughout the entirety of it. You SAY you see how this is impossible. OK, then that leave only one option, that by “forever chooses to refrain” you mean that (2) for any given point in time, we’re free to land and free to refrain from landing. That’s it. I think (2) is the case. That’s it. There IS NO other meaningful way to phrase the question.

Posted By : One Love - Yesterday 11:19 PM

Tom: What do you mean by “forever chooses”? I’m VERY serious. You can mean ONE of two things: Either (1) we succeed in actualizing all our future possibilities, traversing eternity, and rejecting God throughout the entirety of it. You SAY you see how this is impossible. OK, then that leave only one option, that by “forever chooses to refrain” you mean that (2) for any given point in time, we’re free to land and free to refrain from landing. That’s it. I think (2) is the case. That’s it. There IS NO other meaningful way to phrase the question. I'm going to take this very, very, very sloooooooow. Given (2), if the ship, continuously and WITHOUT CEASING, exercises it's freedom to refrain from landing, will the ship ever land on the planet?

Posted By : Tom - Yesterday 11:20 PM

D: It just makes sense, dawg. Your system PHILOSOPHICALLY ALLOWS FOR a hellbound person to stay in "hell" moment by moment into the infinite future by their own choices. T: What in the world does "into the infinite future" mean? If it means that forever every ACTUAL moment they're free to perpetuate their rejection of God, then yes. But you cannot apply "forever" to this. "Forever" cannot be an adjective of any ACTUAL moment or any actual length of time a person succeeds in having rejected God. There can be no such thing as "refusing forever" and hence no possibility of "refusing forever." T KIXYTΘEMTA

Posted By : One Love - Yesterday 11:21 PM

Tom: What in the world does "into the infinite future" mean? If it means that forever every ACTUAL moment they're free to perpetuate their rejection of God, then yes. But you cannot apply "forever" to this. "Forever" cannot be an adjective of any ACTUAL moment or any actual length of time a person succeeds in having rejected God. There can be no such thing as "refusing forever" and hence no possibility of "refusing forever." Man, you know what the heck I mean!  Your system makes it genuinely possible that "every actual moment of a hell-experiencing creatures existence, they are free to perpetuate their rejection of God" such that if they NEVER CEASE rejecting God...they shall NEVER experience God's salvation.  Even though the rejection is never irrevocable, it would STILL be the case that God's salvation would not be experienced by the unceasingly rebellious creature actualizing their rebellioon moment by moment.

Posted By : Tom - Yesterday 11:25 PM

D: Given (2), if the ship, continuously and WITHOUT CEASING, exercises it's freedom to refrain from landing, will the ship ever land on the planet? T: It will never land on the planet. But I don't think "refraining from landing continuously without ceasing into internity" is possible. So my "it will never land" is required because your question is meaningless. It is the very violation of future eternity I'm talking about. Tom KIXYTΘEMTA

Posted By : One Love - Yesterday 11:27 PM

D: Given (2), if the ship, continuously and WITHOUT CEASING, exercises it's freedom to refrain from landing, will the ship ever land on the planet? T: It will never land on the planet. OK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wonderful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   Now... Breaking planet's gravity <=> Irrevocable self-separation from God Landing on planet <=> Leap of faith in receiving God's love and salvation Staying in orbit <=> Experienced self-separation from God Let's do plug-and-play, shall we?  Just changing the underlined parts...   If a hell-experiencing creature, continuously and without ceasing, exercises her freedom to refrain from "leaping" towards God in faith, will the creature ever experience God's salvation?   My answer: She will never experience God's salvation.

Posted By : Tom - Yesterday 11:33 PM

D: Man, you know what the heck I mean! Your system makes it genuinely possible that "every actual moment of a hell-experiencing creatures existence, they are free to perpetuate their rejection of God"... T: Yes. That's my view. D: ...such that if they NEVER CEASE rejecting God... T: No! I said, "so long as they don't cease rejecting God" they don't experience salvation. That's very different. To say "if they never cease in rejecting God" is to say "they succeed in traversing FOREVER." That's what 'never' means.

"One can not cease (never stop) doing something "into the infinite future" if you mean keep going and going and never stop. No problem."

and...

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/12/2010 9:39:14 AM (GMT-5)

Posted By : Tom - Yesterday 4:00 PM

D: Quoting YOURS TRULY!! "In my view, it's MORE PROBABLE that a person could be on top of the Eiffel Tower with two shoeboxes of cardboard letters that can spell out Psalm 119, throw them in the air, and have them readably spell out Psalm 119 on the ground below...than it is that anyone in hell fails to come around to freely resigning to God." Would YOU be able to say that, Tom? T: Yeah, though I have to admit the MATH of infinitude and all that, I have difficulty imagining anyone perpetuating their rejection very long. But the MATH and logic won't let me say 1, just like I can't say the probability of the Scrabble letters not forming Ps. 119 is 1. Technically it's 'possible', though irrational to EXPECT. Tom

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/12/2010 9:55:39 AM (GMT-5)

I will bless the Lord at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
let the humble hear and be glad.

Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
and let us exalt his name together!

--Psalm 34

Give me the grace, Jesus...that I may praise you with my last breath.

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/12/2010 11:42:13 AM (GMT-5)

Tom: So, somebody who has no sinful nature or flesh to deal with, whether inherited or conditioned by a sinful environment, will necessarily make all righteous choices?

Jeff: Absolutely not. As you say, Adam and Eve were seemingly just such cases. But Adam and Eve were't put in the garden to have mercy bestowed upon them. They were put in the garden with the very intention of allowing a bona-fide choice with bona-fide consequences. All people WILL die because they sinned. All people WILL have some kind of works accountability. No choosing out of that, as far as I can tell. But I don't know just what there is to choose once you're receiving accountability for your works. There's no choosing your way out of it. And there's no way, IMO, that human denial can render one oblivious to it. I think all mouths will be stopped. I.e., God's judgment will HAVE its proper effect upon the minds of human beings. They WILL bow the knee and confess with the mouth.

Does God prefer it to have all occurred according to plan A? Sure. That's my very point. But God takes what He can get. And He gets enough to render the project WORTH it. I think that's all we need for a theodicy. If there's more to it, as in the sense you're arguing for, great. I just don't see that scripture or reason compels the NEED for it. What I think we NEED to account for is the ROLE of significant freedom in God's purposes. And to my mind, that role is to provide the very kind of NOVEL pleasure He could not experience independent of creation.

Because for all I know, God doesn't need to create to have MERE aesthetic pleasure that doesn't involve human LFW. He may be able to get as much aesthetic pleasure from imagining as from creating, apart from LFW, IOW. I just don't know. But the kind of LFW we have IS something that can only be TRULY experienced by God from creation. Because the godhead doesn't have our kind of LFW. And it is not possible to imagine BONA-FIDE free choices of other beings. An imagined scenario is not ACTUALLY an experience of bona-fide FREE choices.

Post Edited (Similtude) : 5/12/2010 10:18:50 PM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (Tom) : 5/13/2010 8:01:21 AM (GMT-5)

Post Edited (One Love) : 5/13/2010 12:04:53 PM (GMT-5)