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Goodbye Jesus

A Christian's inerrancy challenge


iprayican

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On God's foreknowledge, omnipotence, our free will, etc. - I think the whole topic leads to incoherence. I agree with Dibby yesterday that we can't talk about knowing free decisions that haven't been made yet. See final paragraph below for my opinion.

 

In the De Interpretatione, Aristotle argues that statements about the future are not true or false. Put another way, we could say that utterances about the future are not statements. He argues that when you say "there will be a sea battle tomorrow" you are not asserting anything in the realm of the true and false.

 

In the middle ages the Jewish philosopher Levi ben Gerson took this up and argued that God does not have foreknowledge. Foreknowledge is an incoherent idea of ours, said Levi. My take on Levi is that he meant that to deny that God can know the future isn't impious, any more than it is to deny that a triangle can have four sides. My prof in college was translating Levi. I didn't read Levi myself, so I don't know what the dude did with prophecy in the OT.

 

In the middle ages theologians debated the role of free will. Thomas Aquinas and others claimed that scripture teaches predestination of the elect and that God's prior causation of every event He foreknows follows from the nature of God as first mover and from the nature of foreknowledge. Others like Suarez and jesuits generally wanted to say that God's foreknowledge annihilates temporal sequences, so that predestination in the Bible refers to God's prior decisions that he makes based on knowing the creature's free decision before the creature even exists. Catholics today generally don't even worry about this, but Catholics can take either approach - the details of where free will fits in haven't been defined as dogma.

 

Protestants repeat these arguments, with Calvinists going even beyond St. Thomas to assert double predestination, i.e. God predestines the elect to heaven and predestines the wicked to hell. Arminians (Methodists, Assemblies of God, many Baptists, etc.) are like Suarez.

 

Frankly I think the whole problem is a pseudo-problem. A pseudo-question is a question that does not admit of an answer. Questions about predestination and foreknowledge in my view are pseudo-questions. That said, from the biblical point of view, though, I am convinced that any careful reading of scripture according to inerrantist presuppositions will show that God is claimed to cause all events AND to hold creatures responsible for their obedience. So it's really one of those paradoxes that theology gets away with because, when contradictions arise, believers start talking about God's ways are not our ways, it's all a mystery, blah blah. One of the most fundamental intuitions of any moral philosophy is that "ought implies can." The sovereignty of God as described in the bible denies that principle. This is a reason among many why I think christianity is not only a fraud, but positively harmful to genuine ethics.

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So it's really one of those paradoxes that theology gets away with because, when contradictions arise, believers start talking about God's ways are not our ways, it's all a mystery, blah blah. One of the most fundamental intuitions of any moral philosophy is that "ought implies can." The sovereignty of God as described in the bible denies that principle. This is a reason among many why I think christianity is not only a fraud, but positively harmful to genuine ethics.

 

Very true. It's this wiggle room that allows them not only to avoid reason in arguments, but twist their morals & justify anything from having a negative, superiority complex, to mass murder.

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I agree with ficino. As a Catholic, I was exposed to both the "Gawd causes everything" and the "we're responsible to obey out of free will" arguments, but had problems with those for years. For the longest time I had believe that Gawd didn't have foreknowledge, or else how could he justify damnation? But, as ficino said, a plain reading of the Babble reveals that both arguments are taught, that Gawd is the puppetmaster controlling everything that happens, down to human behavior, and that Gawd also will roast us for all time if we don't choose to obey and believe.

 

That's what's wrong with Xianity, and convinces me of its complete and utter fictionality, the fact that the Babble is so full of contradictions on virtually every single major point of the religion. Almost everything, including everything believed to be basic and necessary about Xianity, is contradicted in the very book that conveys such knowledge to us. Nothing the Babble says isn't undermined somewhere else in the book, and everything seems to cancle itself out. Hence, I cancel out Xianity in my heart, and I deny it ultimately not because of its cruelty or lack of wordly evidence or absurdity or anything else, but the fact that one half of the religion stands diametrically opposed to the other half. Nothing that contradicts itself can be true, and even as the Babble itself says, "A house divided against itself cannot stand."

 

Of all the crap that this "Jesus"™ character is supposed to have said, I'm glad this is true most of all, and that the card-house of Xianity is falling precisely becuase of it :58:

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest sub_zer0

Predestine...

 

1. (of God) destine (someone) for a particular fate or purpose.

2. determine (an outcome) in advance by divine will or fate.

 

OH LOOK! THAT STOPS YOU FROM BEING ABLE TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICE BECAUSE GOD'S WILL HAS ALREADY DECIDED WHAT YOU WILL DO!

 

Do you understand yet? Predestined means THE CHOICE HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE AND YOU CANNOT CHANGE IT!

 

God only predestines on the basis of either accepting His will or not. That predestination is based off of your free will to accept His will or not.

 

Here's a real problem for you... God creates some people in the knowledge that they will never believe in him... free will means they can make the choice TO believe in him.

If that happens, then GOD WAS WRONG!

 

Now you have a problem, God doesn't create people in the knowledge that they will never believe in Him.

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I think this conversation suffers from subbies inability to grasp exactly what predestine means.

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God only predestines on the basis of either accepting His will or not. That predestination is based off of your free will to accept His will or not.

 

Oh I get it, God's will takes over after your accept his free will. So in other words you become robots for Jesus, whereby you are following what he says.

 

Too bad, the scriptures don't agree with u. There is nothing in those verses we discussed which says that's God "predistines" based on the either accepting his will or not. The bible clearly states that he pre-determined their fate even before they are born.

 

 

 

I am sure you must be facing the story of the Abdul Rahman, the christian convert in Afghanisthan.

 

Here is an article I found about him. check out the comment of the judge.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Rahman_(convert)

The judge further noted that "The Prophet Muhammad has said several times that those who convert from Islam should be killed if they refuse to come back" and that even while this is so, "Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, kindness and integrity. That is why we have told [Abdul Rahman] if he regrets what he did, then we will forgive him."[11] The judge added more: "If [he] does not repent, you will all be witness to the sort of punishment he will face."[12]

 

What does this option remind you of?

 

Does Mr Kalam have "freewill" in deciding his fate?

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Predestine...

 

1. (of God) destine (someone) for a particular fate or purpose.

2. determine (an outcome) in advance by divine will or fate.

 

OH LOOK! THAT STOPS YOU FROM BEING ABLE TO MAKE YOUR OWN CHOICE BECAUSE GOD'S WILL HAS ALREADY DECIDED WHAT YOU WILL DO!

 

Do you understand yet? Predestined means THE CHOICE HAS ALREADY BEEN MADE AND YOU CANNOT CHANGE IT!

 

God only predestines on the basis of either accepting His will or not. That predestination is based off of your free will to accept His will or not.

Once more Subby...

 

Predestined means the choice is made BEFORE you reach the point you can make it. Understand yet?

Free will means you can CHANGE THE CHOICE AT ANY TIME. Predestined means THE CHOICE IS UNCHANGABLE.

 

You can have predestiny OR free will... not both.

Here's a real problem for you... God creates some people in the knowledge that they will never believe in him... free will means they can make the choice TO believe in him.

If that happens, then GOD WAS WRONG!

 

Now you have a problem, God doesn't create people in the knowledge that they will never believe in Him.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

 

Do you have any idea what you're really talking about lad? Do you realise that you're arguing that God isn't God?

Honestly... God doesn't create in the knowledge that people will never believe in him? Then God isn't all knowing, is he?

 

You've just argued that the Bible is in error, that what you believe is wrong, that what you've been trying to explain to us is wrong...

 

 

 

 

What a freaking tool.....

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Sub, I agree with CT. You imagine that the God of Christianity is neither omniscient (He does not create with the knowledge of what the creature will do) nor omnipotent (your decision controls what God predestines).

 

Do you ever recite the Nicene Creed? "I believe in one God, the Father, the almighty..."?

 

Your view is that there are places in the universe, i.e. the recesses of creatures' minds, where God's sovereignty is not in control; rather, the creature's will controls God's sovereignty.

 

I think you're a decent chap and you can't bring yourself to believe what the Bible actually says about God. It assaults your sense of decency to believe that God punishes when the creature does not have an autonomous choice. In this you are right.

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Did sub_zero decide he's been refuted?

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Did sub_zero decide he's been refuted?

I think Sub_Zero is not living up to his/her name. When something is less than zero, it ceases to exist!

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