quote:

---

Meph, if I understand you, you hold that for created beings to be morally responsible they must be created decision makers. We couldn’t be virtuous if we had impeccable goodness built in, right? Yet, do you believe that GOD is a morally responsible being? Yet you grant that we praise God because he is good, even though he didn’t choose this (in a libertarian sense). If GOODNESS does not have to chosen for God, why does it have to be chosen by us? And, whatever your answer is, why think that LOVE does NOT have to be chosen by us just because its not chosen by God?

---

quote:

---

I see God’s eternal nature as being the MOST praiseworthy and the MOST free because its not "feasible" for him to sin.

---

quote:

---

Since I know God in JC,
and since I know God has a perfect love for everyone,
and since I know God is perfectly good,
and since I see in Scripture and experience that God doesn't always get his way,
and since I see in Scripture and experience that God detests evil,
and since I see in Jesus' ministry that God is against suffering,
and since I see in Scripture and experience that agents are FREE
and since I am given and reason which is wired to try to make sense out of reality,

THERE must be a metaphysical reason why God created THIS kind of a world....

and (I humbly submit) the best reason on the table so far is that love for created beings requires choice. Its intuitively true (see the microchip analogy) if not logically true (the necessary/contingent argument).

In other words, we can work at this problem from one of two directions.

We can go DEDUCTIVELY where we first try to establish the premise of what "love itself" is (for both God and us) and then deduce the implications ---viz. that there is no theodicy.

Or, we can go at this ABDUCTIVELY where we take a puzzling piece of data (the risk of evil in the world) and postulate a state of affairs which, if true, explain the piece of data.

The main argument for the plausibility of the postulated state of affairs is how well it explains the data. I submit that the TWT 1 (and the five postulates that follow from it in SPE) explain the data. And this itself is an argument favoring their plausibility. Meph's counterproposal rejects TWT 1 but results in explaining nothing.

---

quote:

---

If to salvage TWT 1 I had to do it, I would gravitate towards Iconoclast's idea that something like libertarian freedom is true even of God. As difficult as this explanation is, its at least AN EXPLANATION and thus preferrable to NO explanation. But, right now, I can't adequately give meaning to Icon's proposal, and I don't yet feel the need to go this route in any case.

---

quote:

---

By a wondrous compulsion and gracious governance He draws us to Himself alone and unites us to Himself only. This, I think, is the same compulsion by which He gathered those whom He invited to the house and the banquet when He said to the servant, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (Lk. 14:23).

Nicholas Cabasilas (c. 1320–c. 1390)

---

quote:

---

First, as I've mentioned to Meph, I think love really doesn't have to be chosen to be genuine love. But to me that's not the issue; it's the VALUE, WORTH and MEANINGFULNESS of love when compared between two contingent beings: one able to choose to love; the other not able to choose.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that one who would receive non-chosen love would find the love unfulfilling, incomplete, of little importance. Why? Because that kind of love is not compatibilism, it's programmed love (like or dislike the word Meph, that's what it is), and that's exactly how the receiver of that love would treat someone made to love with no choice: as a programmed person. Compatibilistic love, in the context we contingent beings will have in "glory," is not couched in isolation or a vaccum; it is couched in the awareness that WE chose to love and become what we will become. That mantains the value, worth and meaningfulness of the love in the eyes of God, the receiver.

---

quote:

---

O holy God, who restest in thy Saints, who art hymned by the Seraphim with thrice-holy voice, and art glorified by the Cherubim, and worshipped by all the heavenly Powers, and who from non-being hast brought all things into being, who hast created man after thine image and likeness, and hast adorned him with thine every gift, who givest to him that asketh wisdom and understanding, and who despisest not him that sinneth, but hast set forth repentance unto salvation, who hast vouchsafed us, thy humble and unworthy servants, even at this hour, to stand before the glory of thy holy Altar, and to offer thee due worship and glorification, thyself, O Master, accept even from the mouths of us sinners the Thrice-holy Hymn and visitus in thy loving-kindness. Pardon us every offense, voluntary and involuntary, sanctify our souls and bodies, and grant us to serve thee in holiness all the days of our life, through the intercessions of the holy Theotokos, and all the Saints, who from everlasting have been well-pleasing unto thee.

Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by thy grace.

Choir: Lord, have mercy.

---

quote:

---

We give thanks unto thee, O Lord God of Powers, who hast vouchsafed unto us even now to stand before thy holy Altar, and to fall down before thy compassion for our sins and for the ignorance of the people. Accept, O God, our supplications, make us to be worthy to offer unto thee supplications and prayers and bloodless sacrifices for all thy people. And enable us whom thou hast placed in this thy service, by the power of thy Holy Spirit, blamelessly and without faltering, with the witness of a clean conscience, to call upon thee at all times and in every place, that hearing us, thou mayest be gracious unto us in the multitude of thy goodness.

Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by thy grace.

Choir: Lord, have mercy.

---

quote:

---

Again and oftimes we fall down before thee and pray thee, O Good One who lovest man, that thou, regarding our supplication, mayest cleanse our souls and bodies from all pollution of flesh and spirit and mayest grant us to stand guiltless and uncondemned before thy holy altar. Grant also, O God, to those that pray with us progress in life and faith and spiritual understanding. Grant them always to adore thee with fear and love, and guiltless and uncondemned to partake of thy holy Mysteries and to be made worthy of thy heavenly kingdom.

Help us, save us, have mercy on us, and keep us, O God, by thy grace.

Choir: Lord, have mercy.

---

quote:

---

I believe, O Lord, and I confess, that thou art truly the Christ, the Son of the living God, who didst come into the world to save sinners, of whom I am first. And I believe that this is thine own immaculate Body, and that this is thine own precious Blood. Wherefore, I pray thee, have mercy on me, and pardon my trespasses, voluntary and involuntary, in word, or in deed, in knowledge and in ignorance, and make me worthy without condemnation to partake of thine immaculate Mysteries unto forgiveness of sins and unto life eternal.

---

quote:

---

1 Peter 4:13
But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.

2 Peter 1:4
Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.

---

quote:

---

You are using OUR perspective to argue FOR our perspective being GOD’S perspective. You are falling into exactly the same trap that Doc did. How do YOU know that God would find chosen love MORE valuable, worthy, and meaningful than unchosen love? You DON’T. You cannot know. You are ASSUMING that because it’s the case…and this is a FALLACY of affirming the consequent of our existence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Starkman

PoW Mary had TOTAL FREE WILL. But also she did NOT deliberate. For her there was only a "yes" possible; because any other answer would not be true to her nature, or the desires of her heart.

Starkman, what do you make of this?

Starkman I don't think it has much to do with what we're discussing. Mary loved God and was obedient to the call. But what we're talking about--at least what I'm adressing--is the choice one faces daily to love others, to love God, to love their dog. Yes, Mary faced these issues also, but her circumstances are not quite fitting to the discussion (at least I don't see that they are) in view of her call or because she was being true to her nature. Maybe I'm missing something here. Don't know.

Starkman

---

quote:

---

An example from drawing might help. Someone can try to trace a line' but the line does not carry the "nature" of what it bears in the drawing. A distinction as subtle as that between drawing the curve of a pillow versus that of a motorcyle helmet can best be accomplished by empathetically using one's 'kinesthetic' sense (muscle memory, etc.) In drawing it is the "nature" of the thing that the line must describe, and not just the sum of all the points in space that approximate the curve.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by PotOnWheel

Nicholas Cabasilas(c. 1320–c. 1390)

§4. IN THIS UNION CHRIST IS ALL-SUFFICIENT

...the Saviour is ever present in every fashion with those who dwell in Him, that He supplies their every need and is all things to them, nor does He suffer them to look to anything else whatever nor seek anything from elsewhere. There is nothing of which the saints are in need which He is not Himself. He gives them birth, growth, and nourishment; He is life and breath. By means of Himself He forms an eye for them and, in addition, gives them light and enables them to see Himself. He is the one who feeds and is Himself the Food; it is He who provides the Bread of life and who is Himself what He provides. He is life for those who live, the sweet odour to those who breathe, the garment for those who would be clothed. Indeed, He is the One who enables us to walk; He Himself is the way (Jn. 14:6), and in addition He is the lodging on the way and its destination. We are members, He is the head. When we must struggle He struggles on our side. For those who are champions in the contest He is the awarder of the prizes; when we are the victors He is the crown of victory.

Thus He turns our mind to Himself from every side and does not permit it to occupy itself with anything else nor to be seized by love of anything else. Even though we move our desire in another direction, He checks it and quiets it. He blocks that way and takes in hand those who go astray. “If I go up into heaven, thou art there,” it says, “if I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take up my wings in the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me” (Ps. 139:8–10). By a wondrous compulsion and gracious governance He draws us to Himself alone and unites us to Himself only. This, I think, is the same compulsion by which He gathered those whom He invited to the house and the banquet when He said to the servant, “Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled” (Lk. 14:23).

---

quote:

---

If to salvage TWT 1 I had to do it, I would gravitate towards Iconoclast's idea that something like libertarian freedom is true even of God. As difficult as this explanation is, its at least AN EXPLANATION and thus preferrable to NO explanation. But, right now, I can't adequately give meaning to Icon's proposal, and I don't yet feel the need to go this route in any case.

---