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| Open Theism Discussion Board > Public Forums > Theological Q&A > Free will is a collosal failure | Forum Quick Jump
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Pentemento
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2001
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 11/18/2003 8:37 AM (GMT -6) |   | Well, seeing as I'm not God, and don't know all the potentialities, it really isn't the same thing. However, God DID know Satan was evil, vile and what he was capable of, and yet He decides to let him loose on the earth with humans, because Satan made an accusation. There was no mystery here, Satan had already decieved many superior beings. That is what he chose to do with his free will. And he got rewarded for his whining and bullying and accusing by being given access to the earth. Great idea. Like we couldn't have free will without him around. Apparently that didn't stop Satan from having free will!!
There is nothing we as humans can now do about it. We are born already tainted, through no choice of our own. And yet we are supposed to be in awe, and be grateful that God provided 'saving' from our sinful nature (which we didn't choose to be born with in the first place!).
I know we aren't "suposed" to think/say such naughty things, but seriously, folks! If God has an answer to this, how will I know unless I ask and just be real about what is going through my mind? And maybe some folks are fortunate to just accept whatever they are told, or they have a 'gift' of faith that doesn't lead them to question, or whatever. I am jealous of that, but it isn't my experience.
Pentemento
"The artist repents" | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 11/18/2003 8:48 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Pentemento
Well, seeing as I'm not God, and don't know all the potentialities, it really isn't the same thing.
We do know lots of potentials for our children, potentials for good and bad. Yet we still have them due to our optimism that the good will outweigh the bad.
I love hanging out with my two daughters, it's a bit of heaven on earth. Certainly worth the danger it was to bring them into the world.
God knows all the potentials for us as well. Don't you think He gets some positive from us being here? Don't we as well? If you didn't exist, would you be happier? 
quote:
I know we aren't "suposed" to think/say such naughty things, but seriously, folks! If God has an answer to this, how will I know unless I ask and just be real about what is going through my mind?
We're supposed to ask those kind of questions.
quote:
And maybe some folks are fortunate to just accept whatever they are told, or they have a 'gift' of faith that doesn't lead them to question, or whatever. I am jealous of that, but it isn't my experience.
I'm not jealous of those kind of people. Who said "the unexamined life is not worth living"? Socrates maybe.
If all sounds sounded like Mozart, would you appreciate Mozart at all?
inside you the time moves and she don't fade
the ghost in you she don't fade | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 11/18/2003 9:47 AM (GMT -6) | | Pentemento,
I'm so sorry you've been hurting like this. Believe me, I go through the same thing and think many of the same thoughts, sometimes. It's sort of like a cycle with me. If things start to get bad in my life, I start to ask why it all is worth it. Or sometimes when I see bad things happen to other people, I ask those hard questions, too.
I know that in some parts of the world, young girls are getting their genitals mutilated because of skewed cultural beliefs. Many children in Africa get limbs chopped off because of corruption in the diamond industry. Young children get kidnapped and forced into lifelong prostitution in Asia. The list of horrors goes on and on. I ask myself, would any of these people consider even their own free will worth the price they're paying? I suppose the fact that they don't commit suicide proves that they still want to carry on and that therefore life has some value to them, but their lives are such nightmares, I don't know how or even why they do it. I don't know if I could go on living a life like that.
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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Leila
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 93
| Posted 11/18/2003 10:16 AM (GMT -6) | | Hey Pentemento -- Thanks for giving voice to issues that I grapple with too. I wish I had some answers, but I don't.
You wrote: "And yet we are supposed to be in awe, and be grateful that God provided 'saving' from our sinful nature (which we didn't choose to be born with in the first place!)."
I agree with your statement (and wish I didn't). It reminds me when parents tell their children that they should be forever endebted to them for bringing them into the world -- as if the child had a choice in the matter.
I'm looking forward to reading others' responses to you and hope they can help us both.
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 11/19/2003 8:55 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Pentemento
There are many cats that appear much happier than many children. Also, if God created us just so that WE could love HIM, how selfish is that? AND, not only that - we need to CHOOSE to love Him in order to satisfy His need/want to be loved?
Actually I think that God created us not out of a need to be loved, but as an expression of his love. Also, I think what we must choose is love over hate, good over evil, which of course entails choosing God or not. My point is that choosing to love is just RIGHT--right with the way the moral universe is designed. It is the way all people should live.
quote:
Do we have children so that they will love us? I hope not. It's not like God had no idea of the horror and despair that such an action could bring - He had apparently already tossed 1/3 of the angels out of heaven because they choose 'wrong'.
I think there is a big difference between a mistake and sin properly so called.
quote:
What about those little kids on the trash heaps in India - if they choose 'wrong', they burn in hell? huh? This is so far from 'love' that it makes a mockery of the word.
I agree. Romans 1, 2, and 3 show that all people have the knowledge of God and know enough to choose Him. Those little kids who burn on trash heaps in India are not held responsible for what they do not know. In those first three chapters of Romans we find that all people will be judged by God for what they DID know. I happen to believe, as many theologians do, in an age of accountability, before which, children who die go to heaven.
quote:
I'm just saying - how much more messed up could it be if you tried? There has got to be a better way than this - an all-knowing and all-loving God could certainly have come up with a better plan.
Actually, I don't see any other plausible option than the one Laika describes - a world full of robots.
BTW, I am not threatened by your ideas at all. Any theology must bear the burden of intense scrutiny, and that is only right.
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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God_Is_Truth
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2003
Total Posts : 33
| Posted 11/22/2003 9:11 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by Pentemento
I would feel better if God designed a world where NO One would be on the trash heaps, be abused, be abandoned, etc. I DO NOT buy that He could not have found a way to do that, if He is indeed all powerful and all knowing.
ah...the good ol' problem of evil. | | Back to Top | | |
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 11/24/2003 3:24 PM (GMT -6) | | I sympathize Pentemento. Whenever a risk goes bad it feels like it wasn't worth it. And the reason is because the "worth" is found in the possible gain, not in the loss. But to assess the veracity of the "worth," one has to look at the possible gains as well as the possible losses. If you focus ONLY on the losses, of course you're going to feel like the whole project is a "collosal failure."
I address this in Satan and the Problem of Evil. I call it "the principle of proportionality." The more you venture to gain, the more you have to venture to lose. Milton says of Satan, "As high he could soar, so low he fell" (paraphrase). The medievals had a phrase, "corruptio optimi pessima" meaning, "the corruption of the best is the worst." I think they're hitting on something.
A Hitler is the reversed potentiality of a Mother Teresa. If you want a world where Mother Teresas are possible, you have to risk a world where Hitler's are possible.
And any world above a world of cats has got to include a risk of some significant evil.
Not saying this answers all questions. But I think it offers the best perspective to make sense of the hell-hole the world often becomes. We may not always be able to see clearly the worth of the risk. But we at this point have to understand that "we see through a glass darkly." We are finite and fallen and don't see the big picture or the long picture. We are something like a two year old child questioning our parents decision to have us.
The only one who could assess with perfect accuracy the "worth" of the risk is God... and he apparently deemed it worth it.
Finally, consider the alternatives, for the plausibility of any theory is in proportion to the implausibility of all alternatives.
No God exists?
A intriniscally helpless god exists?
God exists and determines everything?
Or
God exists and gives free will.
No view is going to fit all the data equally well. But my gut and head say that the fourth fits the most data the best.
think about it
greg
"The responsibility is with the chooser -- God is blameless." Plato, Republic, 10. | | Back to Top | | |
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chestertonian
Registered Member
Date Joined Nov 2003
Total Posts : 31
| Posted 11/28/2003 12:35 AM (GMT -6) | | | I'd go for the third option myself, really, though it depends on your definition of free will. Evil exists because people are corrupt. People have to be corrupt or they couldn't have the impulse to strive. Without the impulse to strive we would indeed be a world of cats. Also evil is within not without. Suffering is not innately bad. Sometimes it purifies, sometimes it hastens corruption. It' part of necessary providence. | | Back to Top | | |
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Laika
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2003
Total Posts : 2433
| Posted 11/28/2003 4:52 PM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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streetpreacher
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 11/30/2003 8:03 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by John Earp
By the way, I fully concur with you about the unjustness of being born with a "sin nature" that we didn't choose. Sin is not a nature, it's a CHOICE, or else conviction of sin is meaningless.
Having once rejected moral government theology as heresy, I find myself now full circle. Once I rejected fatalistic Calvinism for it's only alternative: Open Theism, I was forced to rethink my view of the atonement (much like Calvinism forces one to do the same). I mean if the atonement truly forgives me of all my sins: past, present and future, eternal security is unavoidable (I might add that antinomianism is unavoidable as well). And once you work it out logically, you can't help but see that this is based on Individual Pre-determination.
The atonement is where the crux of this theological matter is really at, probably moreso than foreknowledge. Until we work things through on this one (and how it relates to a supposed inherited sin nature, etc.), we will be just as guilty of the charge of inconsistency as Classical Arminians.
Most people will be unwilling to accept MGT however, because it truly holds us responsible for our sins; but as far as I can tell it the logical antithesis to Five-Point Calvinism.
What can I say? God has not "blessed" me with the priviledge of being a compatiblist of any stripe or living in the mushy middle.
Today Lucifer is probably surveying the church just as Bonaparte did China. One can almost behold the fear in his eyes as he thinks of the Church's unmeasured potential and growls, "Let the Church sleep! If she wakes, she will shake the world." Is not the Church the sleeping giant of today?.... - Leonard Ravenhill | | Back to Top | | |
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John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 11/30/2003 8:44 PM (GMT -6) | | Hi streetpreacher,
MGT has greatly changed my life, though I must admit that just because one's theology may be 100% logically tight doesn't necessarily mean they exhibit the fruit of the Spirit. For true Christian character to be developed in us, I think it takes much more than simply admitting that we have a free will and are 100% responsible for our sins. To live a truly holy life takes thorough repentance as often as necessary and absolute dependance on the gracious power of the Holy Spirit to form us into the image of Christ.
It seems to me that some who say they believe in MGT overemphasize our natural ability to keep the law, to the point where their basic message is "repent and keep the law," instead of, "repent, and believe the gospel." I have even known of some who claimed to believe as Finney did who said they did not need Christ. No doubt the great revivalist would be turning over in his grave if he knew some were using his theology to advance a legalistic scheme.
I also agree with you that the Atonement is a very crucial doctrine that absolutely must be fully worked out if one is ever to have a consistent theology. In the past year or so since I have frequented this forum, we have discussed the doctrine of the atonement only a few times, as I recall. You might try a search of the site. I can't ever get the search engine to work for me, but maybe you can.
God bless,
John
"The Discovery of new truth will modify old views and opinions, and there is perhaps no end to this process with finite minds in any world." Charles G. Finney, Systematic Theology.
revivaltheology.net
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Pentemento
Registered Member
Date Joined Sep 2001
Total Posts : 16
| Posted 12/1/2003 6:23 AM (GMT -6) | | I am questioning if we even know that God DOES win. I mean, how do we know? Let's be honest - it's a gamble. We don't actually, for sure, KNOW until we die. and maybe not then. Why do we assume God has it all under control, He won't change His mind (again), He has our best interest at heart, etc.? It is like a huge co-dependent denial that flies in the face of what we see every day with our own two eyes. Yeah, if I totally shut my brain off I can buy all that. We want so much to believe - like clinging to the hope that there are actually life boats off this planet, when CLEARLY the planning of the voyage so far is horrible and slapdash at best.
I can no longer leave any rock unturned in my soul. I can no longer be in denial about my own thoughts and questions. Why, why, why, in the face of the terrible shape the world is in, do we still cling desperately to the idea that we are just too 'stupid' to understand it all, that we don't have to "worry" - just trust. (If I hear "God's ways are not our ways" one more time . . . ack! God's 'ways' pretty much seem to be chaos!!)
I see nothing trustworthy here. Just being brutally, finally, honest.
It probably sounds like I am depressed, angry, etc. Actually, I feel like I am alive and real for the first time in a long time.
Pentemento
"The artist repents" | | Back to Top | | |
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johnmd
Registered Member
Date Joined May 2002
Total Posts : 154
| Posted 12/1/2003 11:56 AM (GMT -6) | | This is where faith comes in. But not blind faith.
Ultimately we all must decide based on the historical veracity of the documents if the scripture indeed is true. If we reject scripture we continue on our quest. The honest skeptic, I believe, will find this quest for meaning endless because he, as an honest skeptic, will require that the "answers" he encounters elsewhere be verified both existentially and historically. In my experience --saved at age 38 out of agnostisism (which grew out of my educational experience)--Biblical Christianity is the "answer" that most closely approximated historical verification as well as my experience. "The tumblers were turned" in my mind when I realized (after much study) that scripture was true and reliable. Open Theism made further sense out of the many paradoxes and delimas encountered in classical Christian thought. Dr. Boyd's warfare view is satisfying to me intellectually as to the nature of the case of this world.
My confidence in the scripture which presents God as thoroughly benevolent as evidenced not only by the cross but by creation gives me reason to hope. My confidence in scripture also gives me confidence that all will be made right in the end for those who love God. God will not "change His mind" with regard to man precisely because God has not changed his mind with regard to man. The scripture presents God as eternally and infinitely benevolent. Mathematically since infinity only equates with infinity, the benevolence of God from infinity past guarantees the benevolence of God into infinity future. Those are pretty good odds.
This attitude was a long time coming for me. I am a physician. The burden of my profession and my own inability to overcome evil and suffering in dealing with disease, illness, addiction, broken homes et.al. fed my skepticism for years as I cared for my patients. Recall Neo (to Agent Smith) in Matrix Revolutions, "I continue...because I choose to..."(or something like that). I am not sure what the basis of Neo's decision was. The movie indicates that it was at least partially "intuitive." However, the Christian response, while certainly existential is also rooted in history and the Resurrection. I ultimately "chose" to believe the scripture despite the present apparent "collasal failure" (which the scriptue also acknowledges) and I also choose to believe what the scripture says about future redemption. I envision this redemption (faith) because the document that challenges me to do so has proven reliable historically as well as true to my personal experience and the way the world appears. No other "answer" philosophy, religion, etc. worked for me. I have looked with Nieche into the abyss and concluded the abyss is not for the Superman but for those who have concluded they have no options.
My prayer is that you will be able to gain enough confidence in the scripture and the benevolent God that the scripture presents to see the God of the Bibleas an option which will sustain you and learn to envision a future of redemption in what the all loving God has declared and promised to those who love Him.
I hope my response is not too personal.
To God alone be the glory,
John
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