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Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/7/2009 2:27 AM (GMT -6) |   | |
Back to basics. Let’s see.
1- God could have created:
1a- a risk-free world in which all sentient creatures were ready-made obedient servants and lovers from the get-go. This would guarantee an evil-free world that made God happy, provided him pleasure, and in which all creatures obeyed God and loved and worshipped him forever.
or
1b- a risky world in which sentient creatures have to freely determine themselves with respect to serving and loving God. It may or may not be the case that creatures could have grown to maturity without SOME amoral natural suffering. But regardless, the freedom this world possesses means running the risk of sin, the eruption of evil throughout the cosmos, and lots of pain and suffering. But in the end, all sentient creatures are fully united with God. (How likely it was that sin would erupt none can say, but in fact it took no time at all, in the case of human history, for the risk to eventuate and the pain and poison of sin to infect the whole.)
2 God is perfectly loving and competent.
3 God chose 1b over 1a.
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Jeff, I know you agree with 1 through 3. We’ve agreed on them too many times. So tell me again WHY you think God chose 1b over 1a. I’ve gotten lost in all the details. Sorry.
The reason I’ve understood so far from you is that God gets some unique pleasure from our freely loving him that he doesn’t derive from determining us in love from the get-go.
If there are reasons other than this ‘unique pleasure’ that have to do, say, with Christ’s suffering for a Kingdom, etc., can you just list them for me? I’m looking to understand from you why you think God went with 1b over 1a if (a) God doesn’t need to create in the first place and (b) God could create us lovingly obedient from the start without running the risks of evil and suffering. Why didn’t he go with 1a?
Tom
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PotOnWheel
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| Posted 8/7/2009 9:00 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Sahid
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Date Joined Jun 2004
Total Posts : 2013
| Posted 8/8/2009 2:05 PM (GMT -6) | | "God could create us lovingly obedient from the start without running the risks of evil and suffering."
I contend that the Christian concept of love entails risk. A relationship characterized by love is one in which all parties open themselves to the possible betrayal of the others. To pin the other down... to make oneself invulnerable to the other is to specifically NOT love the other. Time and again God put's his own feelings, valued creation, even his own living body on the line, and time and again those who love God submit themselves to dark nights of the soul where, like Abraham sacrificing Isaac, they open themselves to the possibilty that God will allow evil the last word.
God could create us obedient from the start without running the risks of evil and suffering.
But God could not create us lovingly obedient from the start without running the risks of evil and suffering.
By definition, love leaves the question of obedience open. Compelled obedience cannot be loving obedience. Otherwise, love is nothing but emotion.
So why 1b and not 1a? Because 1a makes love impossible. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/8/2009 8:14 PM (GMT -6) | | Z: God could create us obedient from the start without running the risks of evil and suffering.
J: As I understand you, you're saying God TRULY CAN create us obedient, but chooses not to.
I'm saying I don't KNOW if He can or not.
And Tom is saying He certainly can NOT do so.
I think we've got the spectrum covered!  I'm betting it works like this; let me know if I'm wrong:
1) You're saying (again, I'm just guessing here) that for God to create beings that are only free to act non-sinfully from the get-go is not logically impossible, therefore it is ACTUALLY possible for God to do it.
2) I'm saying that just because something is logically possible is not sufficient to establish that God can do it or be motivated to do it. To me, omnipotence means omnicompetence--i.e., that God can attain any end He purposes for Himself. I put no other stipulations on it, for I know of no others that are intuitive to me or discursively derived by me.
3) And Tom, you are saying that it is not even LOGICALLY possible that God can create us free to choose within the range of ONLY non-sinful options from the get-go. This means there is something you believe about God that I don't, cause I"m not seeing how it is not a LOGICAL possibility. It may be that you just believe that God's inability to create beings with the divine nature from the get-go just IS true as an intuitive truth with no deeper grounds. But that would be where we diverge. For I have no such intuition.
If this is correct, we have pretty much covered the bases in this respect as well. But this still leaves us with the question of how we define sin, etc., as mentioned on the other thread. That is a different question altogether.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 8/8/2009 8:40:01 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 8/8/2009 11:40 PM (GMT -6) | | I hate sea-food. I wont be motivated to eat it, therefore I will not eat it. Yet, I am able to eat it. I choose not to. "Can" and "Will" are different.
Likewise God hates evil. He wont be motivated to do it, therefore he will not do it. Yet, he is able to do it. He chooses not to. He can, but he wont.
To limit God's ability to something more specific than that which is logically possible is to deny that God can do all things. And "can do all things" is what omnipotence means. Omni = all. Potentia = ability.
Like Jeff, I say "that just because something is logically possible is not sufficient to establish that God can ... be motivated to do it."
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Now, in the case of creating fully obedient creations, I don't see how any of us can deny this possibility. God created the natural world. And it obeys his law perfectly.
Job 38:8 Who shut up the sea behind doors
when it burst forth from the womb,
9 when I made the clouds its garment
and wrapped it in thick darkness,
10 when I fixed limits for it
and set its doors and bars in place,
11 when I said, 'This far you may come and no farther;
here is where your proud waves halt'?
So God can create obedience. The issue is whether he wants to compel obedience in us. Obviously not. But what, aside from his motivation, rules out such compulsion? Nothing I know of. He could do it if he wanted to do it. It just wouldn't allow for love. | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/9/2009 3:53 AM (GMT -6) | | Jeff: Yep, it's easy to get lost in the details. I'm not claiming that God CAN be motivated to create according to 1a). For all I know it's impossible. And for all I know it's possible.
Tom: Right.
Jeff: And since significant freedom is part and parcel of how this creation works, it must be a necessary condition of the pleasure God gets from creation.
Tom: Exactly. That’s why I said earlier your view reduces to mine essentially. You posit the ‘necessity’ of freely chosen love for the ends for which God creates. You just expand your definition of ‘creaturely love’ to exclude this ‘freedom’. Creaturely love without such freedom is still ‘love’, just as much ‘love’ as freely chosen love, YET you admit that God prefers love that’s freely chosen.
What I’m looking for, Jeff, is for you to differentiate between the freely chosen love God did create for (1b) and the love God could (supposing for the moment that it’s possible) create for but didn’t (1a). What’s the difference in ‘pleasure’ for God? Can you say? Can you suppose for me WHY God would be pleased by a love that’s freely chosen and not be so pleased by a love he determines for us? Besides just locating the difference in freedom, WHY does God get a unique pleasure from freely chosen love? If ‘given’ love IS love, is true love, not some fake love, not a diluted form of love, but full love, then why would God get a pleasure from ‘love’ that he doesn’t get from ‘love’. Same love right? That’s what you’re saying. Why would one and the same love please God ‘here’ but not please God ‘here’? What’s ‘love’ in 1b do for God that the same love in 1a cannot do for God? That’s what I need to know. Can you unpack HOW and WHY it is that freely chosen love affects a pleasure in God which given-love can’t? You have to suppose SOME such difference, for you admit that your explanation of evil rests upon this very pleasure. Surely you want your explanation ‘to explain’ something, right? But is just saying, “God gets pleasure from risky love that he doesn’t get from risk-free love in the case of creatures,” without offering some real explanation of WHAT sort of pleasure this is doesn’t really explain anything I don’t think. If I’m an inquiring unbeliever, I’d like to know why a God would risk all this evil and pain to get THE SAME LOVE he could get by without the risk. Because the former uniquely pleases him? Why would one and the same love please him any differently? You are saying these are “the same love” right? It’s the “same loving relationality” in both 1a and 1b on your view, right? I hope so. Because if they’re not one and the same love, then why are you calling them both ‘love’?
For me the difference between the two is just what constitutes the difference between love and robotics, while you want to locate both differentiated types WITHIN the single thing we call ‘love’. I don’t at all see as so diverse a thing as to BE love when freely chosen by me AND when determined for me unconditionally by another.
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Jeff: I'm saying I don't KNOW if He can or not.
Tom: But in terms of your arguments and theodicy, you might as well claim to know that God can so ‘give’ us love, for it’s clear in your arguments that you will not allow yourself any explanation of evil that precludes this possibility. You only allow yourself explanations of evil that make room for the possibility that God ‘can’ so create us. So whether you claim to ‘know’ what is in fact the case or only limit yourself to the possibility that it could be the case, you’re limited to the same explanations. Nothing would change about your explanations of evil were you to ‘know’ that God can so ‘give’ us love.
Jeff: 3) And Tom, you are saying that it is not even LOGICALLY possible that God can create us free to choose within the range of ONLY non-sinful options from the get-go.
Tom: Not exactly. I’m saying it’s not METAPHYSICALLY possible that God create us in such a way that we ‘love’ him and others. God can certainly create us to operate within a certain range of options. That’s just robotics. God can create us so that we enact certain end states and never enact other end states , yeah. What I dispute is that this would constitute our loving God and others. I have NO analogy or experience (nor have you) to ground the meaningfulness of such determination as ‘love’.
But to me, Jeff, you essentially agree with me but perhaps don’t see it (as I do of course! Ha). You agree that with such ‘givenness’ something would be significantly ‘lacking’ in beauty and in loving relationality. Imagine, a God who is relationally full and satisfied who doesn’t need to create to constitute his own being as love is prepared to risk so much (1b over 1a) just for the pleasure he gets from freely chosen love. What does this say about the metaphysical difference between what you’re calling ‘love’ under 1a and ‘love’ under 1b? I don’t know how to call them both ‘love’. Yet you have an intuition that tells you they’re both love, that one’s love can be determined for one by another and still BE love.
Not sure what you mean by ‘logic’. Some people just have semantics in mind. But sure, I can picture on the screen of my mind God creating beings who from the start do no evil as a matter of natural necessity, they go around mowing each other’s lawns and baking each other cakes and giving each other gifts, etc. I just wouldn’t call what they’re doing ‘love’. However, Hartshorne argued that what’s not metaphysically possible can’t be logically possible either. And to tell the truth, I’m inclined to agree. My point is, I don’t want you to think that my problem is just a ‘logical’ or ‘semantic’ one (that has to do with language). It’s metaphysical.
Tom
PS As for “obedience” Zach, I don’t make the difference you do. For me, obedience is a form of love and not robotics. The word obedience CAN stand in for the latter. A rock that falls to the ground ‘obeys’ the law of gravity. But the word doesn’t HAVE to mean that and that’s definitely NOT how I’m using it. | | Back to Top | | |
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Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968
| Posted 8/9/2009 10:28 AM (GMT -6) | | Z: I hate sea-food. I wont be motivated to eat it, therefore I will not eat it. Yet, I am able to eat it. I choose not to. "Can" and "Will" are different.
Likewise God hates evil. He wont be motivated to do it, therefore he will not do it. Yet, he is able to do it. He chooses not to. He can, but he wont.
J: I agree, except for one distinction. As I understand free-will, there have to be multiple NATURAL desires from WHICH to choose. So when I say that you CAN eat sea-food, I'm saying that it is conceivable that you COULD be motivated to do so. Maybe because someone was offering you a million dollars to do so, or something. But I can conceive of such things because of analogy. But God is not analogous to me to the degree that I can KNOW what COULD motivate Him about everything. So all I can know is that, per my understanding of free-will, if God can't be motivated to do a thing, He also CAN'T do it. For there would, in that case, be no NATURAL desire/impulse unto the act in question. Now God's free-will may be different than I define it. But as I define it, it seems like I'm coherent. So for me, omnipotence is like omniscience. It doesn't mean ABSOLUTELY "all."
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Similitude
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| Posted 8/9/2009 10:32 AM (GMT -6) | | | Tom, God derives pleasure from a SOFA that involves significant freedom. This is just the obvious. God, per us, didn't exist in a SOFA where there was significant freedom, sans creation. This, too, is just obvious, per us. Thus, as I see it, God is for the KIND of pleasure derived from the KIND of SOFA's that significant freedom occasions. This can be because of the diversity of the godhead or something else. But I don't assume that God has exactly ONE kind of pleasure with just differences of degrees. And yet diversity of KINDS of pleasure equals the possibility of NOVEL pleasures from a creation (a creation is, by definition, a NEW thang). I think that's all I need. What more would be needed?
I don't have to explain what God CAN'T do, except where those are explicable in terms of intuition. I have to explain WHY He did what He obviously DID. And I think I've done that. If not, explain. I could be wrong that God has more than one KIND of pleasure. But I don't see that as being problematic. It's a bit analogical at least.
Post Edited (Similtude) : 8/9/2009 10:38:25 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Sahid
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| Posted 8/9/2009 4:26 PM (GMT -6) | | T: As for “obedience” Zach, I don’t make the difference you do. For me, obedience is a form of love and not robotics.
Z: But this reverses your earlier meaning. In the original post you juxtaposed risk-free ready-MADE obedience against risky possibly-disobedience. The ready-MADE alternative is robotics. If you don't mean compelled, robotic, predetermined when you say risk-free and ready-made, then what do you mean? I don't see the distinction. It is a creature made to be a certain way with no alternative. Our point of departure is not obedience but love. You and I both understand what you mean by 1a: it's the risk-free ready made alternative. If you want to define the term "love" in such a way that includes limiting a creature's will to only that which pleases the creature, then that's your prerogative. But don't confuse that for the agape of the New Testament or the hesed of the Old. Such "love" is not compatible with the biblical conception of love.
God could have created us ready-made risk-free good guys (assuming he could be so motivated), but such a creation would not be capable of a relationship characterized by biblical love. Love requires the freedom to be unloving. It is not just any freedom that will do, but precisely the freedom to oppose that which is in question. A creature that is free to only either right God a love poem or otherwise sing him a love song, is specifically NOT free at the point of whether or not it will love God. The secondary freedoms have no bearing, because they are the result of being denied the primary freedom that love itself requires. | | Back to Top | | |
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PotOnWheel
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Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 8/9/2009 7:13 PM (GMT -6) | | Rather than focusing on risk, this focuses on love:
"God knew His creatures would be evil," Fr. Hopko continued. "However, because of God's great love, He created them anyway.
(o) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/11/2009 12:56 AM (GMT -6) | | JEFF: Tom, God derives pleasure from a SOFA that involves significant freedom. This is just the obvious.
TOM: Well, not just any SOFA. But LOVE. LOVE. Yes, God derives pleasure from our freely choosing to love him. But you suppose it’s possible (for all you know) that God also derives pleasure from our NOT freely choosing to love him, since (for all you know) it’s possible that God can determine that we love him by giving us a nature that loves necessarily.
What I’m looking to understand from you still is what difference that freedom makes. You don’t ‘know’ that God cannot (or that God can) create us to love him by a necessity of the givenness of nature, so all along you’ve had adopt explanations of evil that allow for both possibilities and reject explanations like mine which rely on precluding the possibility that God could—poof—just create a loving world from the get-go. I’m asking you to make the possibility of God’s determining us to love him MEANINGFUL to me. It’s obviously meaningful to you, because I know you, like me, don’t tolerate meaningless worlds. So I need you to make it meaningful to me, and you can do that by distinguishing between the different sorts of pleasure you suppose God derives from these two sorts of creaturely love (freely chosen love & determined love).
1) I love God freely.
2) I love God unfreely.
I really need you to tell me what it is about (1) that provides a unique pleasure to God since BOTH (on the view you find meaningfully possible) ARE GENUINE LOVE FOR GOD and BOTH PLEASE GOD (though differently—so unpack the difference for me).
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JEFF: God, per us, didn't exist in a SOFA where there was significant freedom, sans creation. This, too, is just obvious, per us.
TOM: Nothing of the sort is obvious to me. Significant (i.e. libertarian freedom), I think, is a feature that defines love’s expressive form intra-trinitarianly. In other words, creating a non-God world is not the first creative, libertarian form of self-expression God makes. I take free creativity to be an essential, defining attribute of deity.
But let’s NOT pursue this.
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JEFF: Thus, as I see it, God is for the KIND of pleasure derived from the KIND of SOFA's that significant freedom occasions. This can be because of the diversity of the godhead or something else. But I don't assume that God has exactly ONE kind of pleasure with just differences of degrees.
TOM: I get that. That’s not my question. It’s obvious that you need there to be a KIND of pleasure God gets from freely chosen love that he doesn’t get from determined love. I don’t think you just differentiate in degree of pleasure between (1) and (2) above. I’m asking you to make this distinction in KINDS of pleasure meaningful for me in terms I can understand so I can find it meaningful too. What’s the difference between the pleasure God derives from determining a world in love and the pleasure he derives from that world’s determining itself in love if BOTH are genuine love?
JEFF: And yet diversity of KINDS of pleasure equals the possibility of NOVEL pleasures from a creation (a creation is, by definition, a NEW thing). I think that's all I need. What more would be needed?
TOM: But, Jeff, a world in which God determines us in love (for all you know) is as novel as the one we’re in. Remember, you said God would only determine THAT we love (at all) necessarily (in this supposed possible world). We’d still free to determine WHICH loving sofa (among a selection of equally loving options) we actualize. So BOTH ‘novelty’ and a ‘libertarian freedom’ re: which loving sofa we actualize are in BOTH worlds (i.e., our world and the supposed world in which God determines THAT we love automatically by nature). Hence, appealing to novelty and freely determined expressive forms of love can’t distinguish these two worlds in KIND and thus cannot be responsible for the difference in the KIND of pleasure God derives from each. Something other than ‘novelty’ or ‘freely determined expression’ would have to account for the difference in pleasure God derives from these two worlds we’re considering.
SO, again, what could this be? The only difference (on your view) between the two worlds is that in one we determine ‘THAT’ we love while in the other God determines ‘THAT’ we love. God creates ‘this’ world we’re in because beside the novelty and freedom of expressive form which characterize BOTH he gets a unique pleasure from the mere fact that we determine THAT we love him. It’s not about novelty or freely determined expressive form. Those are in BOTH worlds. It’s just about WHETHER OR NOT we love God at all. The unique KIND of pleasure you suppose God gets in each world is based solely in the fact that in one WE decide whether or not we love him and in the other GOD decides whether or not we love him. And what KIND of unique pleasure would the difference constitute for God? I’m really trying to grasp it. You obvious find the distinction meaningful. Can you give me some analogy to help me grasp its meaning? Until I can find ‘determined creaturely love’ somehow meaningful I can’t imagine its possibility.
Tom Post Edited (Tom) : 8/11/2009 2:50:04 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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Tom
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Total Posts : 10353
| Posted 8/11/2009 2:56 AM (GMT -6) | | T: As for “obedience” Zach, I don’t make the difference you do. For me, obedience is a form of love and not robotics.
Z: But this reverses your earlier meaning. In the original post you juxtaposed risk-free ready-MADE obedience against risky possibly-disobedience. The ready-MADE alternative is robotics.
T: In that original post I granted for the sake of argument what Jeff says is possible (for all he knows), and then compared the two worlds. I don't think it's possible that God create us from the get-go with a nature by which we necessarily love God and others and obey his commands. But when I concede its possibility for the sake of argument, I talk as if it's possible.
Tom | | Back to Top | | |
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