How does one explain the omniscience of (the Christian) God and free will...

How does one explain the omniscience of (the Christian) God and free will? If everything is predestined then how is it fair that most people are just headed for hell, since God is also omnibenevolent.

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youtube.com/watch?v=sO1DdWeK5XM&list=PL3IOkNR8_9gpQa5teO1xQANB-3MiY17uk&index=5
newadvent.org/summa/index.html
catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/09/18/jesuit-who-says-aliens-have-souls-is-named-director-of-vatican-observatory/
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What you're saying is vanilla Calvinism. The belief that everything is set in stone according to God. God chose whose going to hell, and who is going to Heaven. This is false simply because of what happened to Adam and Eve.

The other argument is Arminianism. The belief that God forces himself to be blind our future decisions. Allowing us total free will. This is false too. God gave Paul a vision and thus revelation happened.

A good argument is somewhere in between these two beliefs. Which is completely subjective from person to person. God gave us free will in exchange for a genuine relationship. Since he is the past and the future, he knows who will make it.

So, is it something like what Thomas Aquinas said about predestination? You're born wanting to love God but then temptations of sin take you off that path?

>How does one explain the omniscience of (the Christian) God and free will?
You don't

This isn't a protestant board

Because free will is actual choice, not some algorithm that decides solely based on environmental factors and experience. You make decisions using reason, knowledge and past experiences usually, but you could very well make decisions without those things.

God exists outside of time. Augustine figures this out in the 5th century AD. Time is a creation of God, like everything else, so God is not bound by time.

And, since God is outside of time, God can view all of time at a glance. Past, present, and future are all a single perception for God. Therefore, God can see your entire life, and how it will unfold, without impinging upon your freedom of action. You're still free to make all the choices you'll make in your life. It's just that none of it surprises God or catches him off guard, because God can see every choice in your entire life in a single instant.

Well neither am I

You're not a protestant board?

Nope

how do you reconcile, time, causality and free will with it necessarily being a fixed sequence that god witnesses as a chain in his infinite wisdom?

In what way do they need to be reconciled?

Not familiar with Thomas Aquinas.

Sort of? It's up to you if you want to stray from the path. Either way, God gave you the freedom to make that choice. He didn't predestine you to hell like Calvinism leads on. Since he is all knowing, he does know what choice you will make without influencing your actions.

I went to a protestant Christian school where we were taught predestination. Nothing got me more heated than that shit.

What do you think about this?

Won't pretend I've done any extensive research on it outside of hearing about it at chapel, but the concept itself is infuriating that a God can be entirely just and still allow us to burn in hell forever if we fuck up. Seems like Calvinism Jr.

Perhaps there's just a dark empty place of hell for those who weren't really bad. I know Limbo isn't officially taught anywhere, but it seems like a reassuring idea for infants or people who die without baptism.

Why do you believe you need to be baptized in order to avoid hell or purgatory?

I mean, that's what the bible teaches.

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Just asking out of curiosity.

Did you grow up with that interpretation, or is that how you interpreted it when you read that verse?

Well, what other way is there to interpret that? It seems very straightforward.

Since there are a lot of translations from the Hebrew original, it's up in the air.

I always interpreted it as an analogy for being "birthed" a Christian.

John was originally written in Aramaic.

if causality is real and god can see the whole causal chain then there is no way in any sense that free will is objectively, or absolutely real. you mean in a contingent sense its real, and in another higher contingent sense (science) its not real. From God's perspective it can't be real, and unless you remove causality, which would negate his ability to see your universe history, then its not real for you either. The appearance of it is real, but science and the knowledge of a causal chain negate it. You simply couldn't have free will if your birth, your genes, your environment, your family are picked for you. You might have the slightest of influence over things somehow but you could never be said to be a full agent. So either there is no causality, which means God cannot at all see what happens and is either not real or not omniscient, or God must indeed be real, causality is real and free will is not. That's what I mean by reconciled. Reconcile them for me or address what I said, whichever is more satisfactory for you.

You're right.

I actually meant to put greek in the place of Hebrew. Doesn't matter though. Interpretation is still up in the air.

How retarded and naive do you have to be to believe in god?

law of causality

Why do someone's beliefs frustrate you to the point of faggotry?

that doesn't explain the question at all though, unless you believe in a deistic god (which still wouldn't explain it, but is more defendable)

>everything that begins to exist has a cause
>the universe began to exist
I feel it's harder to deny the existence of God or even say "he possibly doesn't exist" rather than just accept him.

it is not, as there are alternative - more proveable - theories about what came to cause everything (e.g. big bang), which explains causality in a more complex way.
even if we'd grant that god indeed exist, it would be a leap to say that it would be a theistic god, a leap that is undefendable

Here is a video that deals specifically with this retarded argument. youtube.com/watch?v=sO1DdWeK5XM&list=PL3IOkNR8_9gpQa5teO1xQANB-3MiY17uk&index=5 Now go watch it and stop being naive dumb fuck.

The big bang doesn't rule out God lmao, as a matter of fact, before people found out that the universe is infinitely expanding, the argument against the existence of God was that everything had always existed forever.
Assuming you're for real, you don't experience the laws of logic, yet we know these are real. If you believe that the laws of logic are not necessary and are contingent, I suggest you look at the principle of sufficient reasoning.

Why would it be a leap to say that God is theistic?
Each to their own about the beginning of the universe. This is where I believe the faith argument comes in. Can I prove evolution and the big bang as a hoax? No. Vice versa when it comes to Theism.

>Can I prove magic sky wizard rearranging energy and matter through some alien technology?

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Let me ask again since you're just attacking instead of discussing. Why do someone's beliefs turn you into a complete faggot?

If you want to talk about it, then talk about it. Attacking just to attack makes me think you're insecure or immature.

because you admit to knowing a god personally, what he wants, what he wants you to do, who you ought to have sex with and who not, etc
besides, i am sure you wouldn't accept that allah is just as probable as the christian god, or the christian god just as probable as the zoroastrian god
no? you were talking about causality and posit god as that causality. the big bang is a more likely originator of matter, as it is actually measurable, whereas god is not

The bing bong doesn't rule out the possibility of everything existing forever

>This small pin needle of all matter in the universe existed forever
lmaoing at atheists forever
The video you posted perpetuates a naturalistic worldview in which the creator basically says "Well if I can't see it how can I tell if it's real? It must not be real." The problem with this is that gravity or logic are not contingent things and are necessary, so God must be necessary since the big bang began to exist at one point.
If you really wanted me to believe that the big bang existed forever or is simply a chain in a series of big bangs, you would have to prove that infinite regress is possible in the real world. However, infinite regress is not possible. Let's say I have an infinite line of coins, and at random, I decided to take one coin from that, is infinity now equal to `infinity - 1` or is it still infinity? No matter what I do, I get contradictory results with the very nature of it. Another reason there cannot be infinite regress is because this contradicts the law of causality in which there must be an ultimate cause greater than everything, making an infinite chain pointless, and a God outside of time and the material world the greatest possible thing that exists.

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Proving whether Allah or Jesus is the true savior is simple to me. The Bible has 30+ authors. Each book aligning with the next. Meaning consistency among the authors and their source. The Quran has one author. An angel appeared to him and gave him the texts. This comes across as unreliable since it puts my faith in a man with inconsistencies in his source. Especially when the Muslim nation was a spawn of Abrahams inability to follow instructions.

I can admit to knowing a God personally. It's why I choose to have faith in what he's laid out. I don't believe God is controlling to the point of forcing you to do anything. But like I said previously, it's up to the person.

>The Bible has 30+ authors. Each book aligning with the next.
But that's wrong. For example, Proverbs says you get rewarded on earth for your good deeds, Ecclesiastes says you don't.

I assume you're talking about prov 11:30 and ecc 12:14?
You get rewarded for good deeds and punished for evil deeds. How is this a bad example?

Off topic, what's your end goal here?

>John was originally written in Aramaic.
Uh? It was written in Greek.

if that was the case then matter could be considered a pantheist god of the most uninteresting variety imaginable. Which would make atheism a position incompatible with materialism

I mean the philosophy of the respective books. Ecclesiastes 12:14 is a post-script not written by Qohelet. The main body of the book clearly lays out a view of a world that is mysterious and arbitrary. That's very different to the view of Proverbs where good deeds get a temporal reward.

e.g. Ecclesiastes 7:15
>In my vain life I have seen everything; there are righteous people who perish in their righteousness, and there are wicked people who prolong their life in their evildoing.

vs

Proverbs 9:10-11
>The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.
>For by me your days will be multiplied, and years will be added to your life.

My end goal is just to learn about the Bible, and its authors clearly have overlapping but different viewpoints. That's part of what makes it so interesting.

How did you get to that idea? The conclusion of many arguments for the existence of God is that pure uncut atheism, the denial of any God and all religion is that it is incompatible with anything. Atheists do not have the laws of logic in the sense that those laws have nothing to rest on. For what reason does the world work the way it does? It just does? As if a brute fact? What does this explain? It all must go back to a prime mover simply because he is necessarily a foundation for the laws of the universe to rest on, as if the laws of logic is what goes on in the mind of God, or every single thing that exists rests on his own shoulders. (For lack of better words.)

Not OP, but OP's right. It was translated from Aramaic into Greek.

>Allah or Jesus
Allah is just the Arabic word for God. And Jesus is considered a prophet by Muslims.
>The Koran had one author
Correct. Abu Bakr, the first Caliph.
>Angel visited him and gave him the texts.
False. Gabriel visited Mohammed in a cave outside Mecca and told him Christians and Jews had lost their ways of Submission (Islam in Arabic) to God.
Mohammed even invited Jews to pray with him, because they both celebrated Passover in the beginning. And instead of facing Mecca, which was still a Pagan monument at the time (I mean, it's a shrine filled with idols and built around a meteorite), the original Muslims faced the site of the Temple of Solomon. After years of being ostracized by the Jews, Mohammed instructed his followers to face Mecca instead, and Passover became Ramadan.
>Muslims Nation was a spawn of Abraham's inability to follow instructions
Wut

Also, you are correct that you shouldn't trust the Koran because it is written by one man, you just have some of your facts a bit unclear. Abu Bakr started out by writing Mohammed's actual intent, and as the Caliphate became more warlike and expansionary, he wrote more and more verses about killing khaffirs and law only applying to Muslim women and other awful shit. There's also a verse that says if two verses are contradictory, the later verse is the correct one.

There's no evidence for that, scholars generally agree it was written by a native Greek-speaker. It's written in sophisticated Greek with no hint of semitisms which would give away that it was translated. When it quotes the Old Testament it quotes the Septuagint, not the Hebrew or Aramaic.

>After years of being ostracized by the Jews
Islam was a slave morality revolt against Jewish discrimination and spiritual aristocracy. The poor barbarian hordes being dunked on by a little clique of nomadic insular legalists.

Wouldn't there be a lot of evidence to point towards Aramaic origins of the writings? Especially since that was the native language?

>This small pin needle of all matter in the universe existed forever
Who are you quoting?

die

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>Muslims Nation was a spawn of Abraham's inability to follow instructions

Let me be detailed
>Abraham was promised kids.
>Abraham could not have kids
>Abraham forced a kid from another woman
>The kid became the origins for muslims

I've heard Revelations is believed by some to have been written by a native Aramaic speaker and in manner resembling a somewhat garbled mode of speech and translation into Greek at that.
Maybe this is what's being confused for John.

The evidence isn't there. All John manuscripts are Greek and show no sign of translation. They were written by someone educated in Greek, whoever that was.

Yeah, there's a lot of poor Greek grammar and semitisms in Revelation. One theory is that it was translated from an Aramaic or Hebrew original. Another view is that it deliberately imitated Hebrew or Aramaic grammar to emphasize its connection to Jewish scripture.

What I understood was more that it was written by someone who simply wasn't as fluent in Greek thus the erratic nature of the grammar.

That's also possible

Did you even watch the video you retarded nigger?

Yeah user, why are you so angry.

>The video you posted perpetuates a naturalistic worldview in which the creator basically says "Well if I can't see it how can I tell if it's real? It must not be real."
He doesn't say that in the video
>If you really wanted me to believe that the big bang existed forever or is simply a chain in a series of big bangs, you would have to prove that infinite regress is possible in the real world
No where in the big bang theory the inifinite regression is required. Go study some physics and then express your retarded opinions. Oh wait, you can only study a book of fairy tales called bible.

Again, the big bang is not an ultimate explanation for the cause of the universe, this matter must have come from somewhere. You are the retarded nigger here if you can't understand this.

>Not familiar with Thomas Aquinas.
>trying to defend Christian theodicy

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>it was created by a wizard

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Sorry senpai, I guess you're just too stupid to have a real conversation with.

>makes false claims about the video i've posted, meaning he didn't watch it, but still proceded to argue with it
>made false claim about big bang theory
>ends up with the exact argument that is refuted in the video
Yeah, keep deluding yourself.

How did I make a false claim if in his video he was talking about contingent things and necessary things. How did I make a false claim about the big bang, which by the way was hypothesized by a Catholic. And how on Earth did my argument get refuted when the argument I presented is still valid and stronger than "Hue, can't see it, doesn't exist." The argument I presented earlier about the laws of logic isn't even addressed in the video if the causal argument is not good enough. (Which actually validates the causal argument anyway, so...) Why are atheists such memey man-children who get btfo at every corner they turn.

I think we should permaban every idiot who still hasn't solved the free will / predestination "paradox".

I just wanted to start a thread. Do you think a question like "What do you all think of Molinism?" would have gotten replies?

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>Not familiar with Thomas Aquinas.
yikes

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Seems pretty simple to me. If God is real and is also omnipotent, omniscient, and wants to be buddy-buddy with me, then he, she, it, they, or weasel will understand how arbitrary I found their rules and not delight in my eternal suffering. Or will because more arbitrary stuff. Whatever.

I was actually going to mention molinism user

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God is outside of time and space, He sees the past, present, future all in one, as we see only the present.

Too, why would God's knowledge of the future have to be causal? Never understood that

Obviously nobody has free will if you consider free will as picking your genetics, parents, country of birth etc. Seems a bit of an odd distinction to make though.

No, I don't know who this man is.

However, do you have any recommendations on what he wrote(his signature book)?

Like the fucking SUMMA? You legit never heard of Saint Thomas?

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No? My family avoided catholicism a lot growing up. Maybe that's the problem? Either that or I'm daft.

A lot of my knowledge comes from Christian Doctrine by Erickson and the Bible obv.

Well, generally speaking, this is about 20,000 pages or so to deal with when reading, so you have to have a lot of time on your hands, and a set of his translated works (by the church) cost anywhere between $300-$500. But if you're poor like everyone else on this site, you can look up his most popular rebuttals to arguments and questions like "Well if God exists and he is all good, how come there is evil in the world" and other ones like this. There is also a podcast on YouTube that takes a lot of questions and answers them with what Saint Thomas writes in the Summa, I forgot the name of it though.

pints with Aquinas?

The Big Bang and evolution are both reconcilable ( and indeed reconciled in some religions ) with the idea of a God.
They are just mechanisms through which he acts.

20,000 page book for $300-$500 seems like a relatively good deal. But I get what you mean.

Wouldn't the questions and rebuttals take his works out of context though(even dilute)? I'm not for certain I understand how someone could go about learning the summa or Thomas through other sources.

This is me I can see where the big bang and God can be compatible. I just don't see where evolution falls into the mix. Especially when it says he made man in his own image. Which if we're constantly evolving and changing as a species, at what point are we his image? Unless this means God is everchanging too. Which is false.

I'm not too familiar with Theistic evolution though. I always thought it was silly from afar. I'll have to do some digging.

Are you American? It's only Americans that struggle with evolution and religion, because they were raised in a society of Protestant error and Biblical fundamentalism.

You should read Pope Pius XII's encyclical: Humani Generis

Too, the Church does not have a dogmatic position on evolution, because if you think about it, biology and most sciences other than math/physics is only inductive. It is strong induction, but theory does not reach the same level as mathematical law that is immutable. But, again, evolution fits in very very well with theism, Catholicism in my case.

The Catholic Church officially recognizes evolution as fact. Read up on some of their arguments.

Well, not technically. Here's a little sentence from the Wiki:

"In the 1950 encyclical Humani generis, Pope Pius XII confirmed that there is no intrinsic conflict between Christianity and the theory of evolution, provided that Christians believe that the individual soul is a direct creation by God and not the product of purely material forces."

Yes, I am American. I'm actually struggling with theism vs evolution right now. Evolution has such a strong argument since it has physical evidence. Compared to the bible that is faith believed.

Appreciate the source! I'm gonna give it a go.

Yes, that's it.

sounds good

Yeah, read it and hopefully it'll make you more comfortable with evolution and theism(because they work well together!). Hopefully, you can see that evolution is another beauty of God's hand

The image of God is understood as the rational soul rather than the particulars of the human form. Ability to comprehend nature, the abstract, etc, and participate in creation via free will. See Catholic views on aliens.

Also newadvent.org/summa/index.html if you want to read it online. You can read by section, but a lot of it is interdependent. If you find yourself with objections to any points he makes, try checking other articles or for differences in the metaphysics you're working with.

if evolution is real then there is no reason for god to be introduced into the equation nigger

Do you know of a decent source off the top of your head concerning the image of God(Catholic view of aliens)? Trying to find anything other than facebook clickbait articles.

No OP but did you even think before you submitted your post?

Why isn't there a reason for God to be introduced into the "equation"?

>hurr the Bible isn't literally true therefore God isn't necessary
There will never be a scientific explanation for the existence of the universe without invoking qualities of God. Just because man-made religions aren't 100% accurate doesn't mean God doesn't exist.

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If God is omnipotent he knows the consequences of all his potential actions through all time, which means as soon as he influences the human world in any way he’s making a decision to set human history in stone forever and remove your free will.

This is stupid.

All of Gods decisions for humanity have been through other men. He influences them, and it is up to them to follow through with it.

This just makes the free will argument all that stronger.

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Still his decision to build the boat, you idiot.

Go back to beddit and get the attention you so desperately crave.

Does God 'see' all the possible timelines as well or just one - the one that's about to happen? This taps into determinism and parallel universes, but I'm much more interested in how this allows God to have free will, regardless of whether we assume hard determinism, randomness or parallel universes. How is his existence like? He can't not know something and like you said nothing would hold surprises for him, right?

Wikipedia's substantive section provides a decent overview of imago dei in general, but for application to aliens in particular, see
catholicherald.co.uk/news/2015/09/18/jesuit-who-says-aliens-have-souls-is-named-director-of-vatican-observatory/
Was in catholic school at the time, the reaction was more "duh" than surprise when that made the round in news. CS Lewis in Space Trilogy and Dostoevsky in Dream of a Ridiculous Man also approached similarly ensouled aliens. That bit of theology isn't much expounded on, but it's a pretty simple extrapolation of the idea of imago dei.

In a Catholic understanding, He sees only what exists- ie, alternate uses included iff they are real. That rather breaks human agency, though, so multiverse interpretations tend to be disagreed with. I'd explain it by saying that He sees the entire timeline at once, but allows us our freedom in the creation of parts of it affected by us through our material existence.