Yes.
If the atheist does not change his ways, acknowledge his own disobedience toward his Creator, and ask God for forgiveness, he can expect to spend forever in the Lake of Fire (Revelation 21:8; cf Luke 12:46; Hebrews 11:6; Galatians 3:22; John 1:12, 3:3, 3:18, 8:24, 20:31; Acts 16:31; Romans 10:9; 1 Corinthians 1:21; 1 Corinthians 6:9-10; Revelation 20:15).
We owe our lives to our Creator. But we don't give Him His due.
Some people claim we can make it up to Him by paying Him back later, through good deeds or something like that.
But this is impossible. The math doesn't add up.
Other people, known as "atheists", try to get out of the problem by pretending God doesn't exist (Romans 1:21). In so doing, they deny all possibility of rational thought.
The Christian, like everyone else, recognizes that there is a God, that he ought to obey God, that he does not obey God, and that this is a problem.
The Christian, unlike everyone else, puts His trust solely and completely in God to resolve this problem (Acts 2:21; Hebrews 11:6; Romans 4:3; Isaiah 26:4).
The Christian rejoices to hear the good news of how God has resolved the problem of our sin. Our debt has been paid by One who had no debt! As God the Son, Christ, unlike us, does not owe His life to anyone. He has the moral justification to do whatever He wants with it.
And He has decided to sacrificially spend His eternal life obeying my Creator, paying my debt, in my place! (Philippians 2:6-8; Colossians 2:14)
What an amazing friend!
May God draw you to Himself through Jesus, His Son.
Comments
Your statement is inconsistent with your reformed theology, you should have said:
"Yes. If God does not change the atheists ways and cause him to acknowledge his own disobedience toward his Creator, and ask God for forgiveness..."
===========
"May God draw you to Himself through Jesus, His Son." - Timothy McCabe
Amen!
"Yes. If God does not change the atheists ways and cause him to say that God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator, and ask God for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
But God bless, mi amigo.
Here's the thing, I've listened to a lot of reformed theology (James White for example). They use words that strongly imply a choice, that strongly imply libertarian free will, but then claim that doesn't exist, it's misleading.
Lets not do what atheists do on a regular basis (redefine a word so that we can make statements that people will accept as rational because they haven't done any investigation into the manner in which the word was redefined)
you may consider these two statements equivalent, but I can assure that 99% of the world does not.
1) "Yes. If the atheist does not change his ways, acknowledge his own disobedience toward his Creator, and ask God for forgiveness..."
2) "Yes. If God does not change the atheists ways and cause him to say that God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator, and have God cause him to ask for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
We should have our statements unambiguously agree with our positions.
God bless.
But perhaps you could point out to me where James White "strongly implied" that God caused an uncaused will...? Or where I have?
Thanks.
I would affirm most of your statement as true, it all depends on the word "always".
If by "always" you eliminate the ability to choose wrongly, to do what we know is not the best thing for us, to go against our preference, then you're back to programming a robot, divine determinism.
There's a big difference between guiding a rat through a maze by putting road blocks in front of him at strategic points
and
guiding a robot rat through a maze remotely by programming him to turn at the right points
What I specifically said was that James White and other reformed theologians will say things like:
"God calls on all men everywhere to repent"
when they really mean
"God causes some men to repent and causes others not to repent, man has no choice either way"
The human can only guide the rat with roadblocks, but God created the rat's mind and everything in it, as well as the environment, the roadblocks, and the people who put them there. It is not possible for God to not be in complete and total control over every single decision the rat makes.
And those the human makes.
So, what's the difference between that and the robot rat example? The robot rat is "making" the decision in the sense that it is "his hardware" (mind) and it is his programming, but clearly he is not "making a choice" and in fact is not making any decisions at all.
The reformed theologian seems to view humans in the same way as the programmed robot rat. Deterministicly executing according to Gods direction. No choice, no free will. What we see around us in that view is God playing a chess match with Himself. He moves black and white pieces around and in the end one side wins because God caused it to win and one side loses because God caused it to lose.
If that's how the reformed theologian sees it, he makes God as much the loser as the winner. After all He moved the losing pieces as well as the winning, as there is no one else playing the game, He lost, and He won.
Ah. That's not what they mean. Man has a choice. But what he chooses is caused by God.
God causes us to make the choices we make. When God causes something, it happens (men make choices only because God causes them to). The only way the-making-of-a-choice can exist is if God causes it to. That's the only way anything other than God can exist -- is if God causes it to.
You seem to be under the impression that the-making-of-a-choice can only exist if God DOES NOT cause it to exist. But perhaps I misunderstand you.
My understanding of our discussion is that "free will" at minimum means that God did not cause our will (our preferences and inclinations that determine our choices) to exist. (Otherwise, God causes our choices.)
However, the idea that "God gave us" this will seems to mean that God caused this will to exist.
So it seems to me that the idea that "God gave us free will" means that God caused to exist something that God did not cause to exist.
Further, if our will is really "free", then it is not only God that did not cause it to exist, but nothing other than me caused it to exist.
So either I caused it to exist, or it is wholly uncaused.
But if I caused it to exist, and God caused me to exist, then God caused it to exist by means of me, which still means God caused it to exist, which means it is not free. Therefore, if it is free, I myself did not cause it to exist. Which means it is completely uncaused.
So God gave us (caused to exist) a free will (an uncaused will).
He caused the uncaused.
Which is complete nonsense. What's more, it isn't Biblical in the slightest but rather runs contrary to what the Bible says both about God and about man.
So why would we insist upon it?
That's not the way I look at it, and I don't think you look at it that way if we change the players but keep the causal scenario.
If a novelist writes a book and puts a hero in it that is, for all intents and purposes, himself, then, in the context of the book, the hero can win while the villain loses. But the author, who is the hero, caused the whole thing. No one would say that the author both won and lost, but rather that the hero (who is the author) won and the villain lost.
As I asked on another thread, would you say that George Lucas both won and lost the fight between Vader and the Emperor? He neither won nor lost, because he didn't write himself into the plot. But he caused the whole thing! Surely, if he caused the whole thing, then he both won and lost!
No. That's not the way any of us see things.
God is the winner because He wrote Himself into the plot as the hero. Writing the plot doesn't make Him the loser.
I am saying He can't create the uncreated. He can't cause the uncaused. He can't make a "married bachelor". He is perfectly consistent and cannot deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). This is the only reason we humans can trust the laws of logic -- the only reason that reason itself is possible for us -- because God is not contradictory.
For Him to give us free will would be contradictory. It would be for Him to cause something that is uncaused.
[continued]
So He cannot create (cause) a free (uncaused) moral agent.
In addition to Him not being able to deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13), He also cannot lie (Titus 1:2). He cannot cease existing, He cannot make an exact duplicate of Himself (because it would be made, and He is not made, so it could never be a duplicate), He cannot be ignorant of any fact, etc.
There are many things He cannot do. He is "omnipotent" in that (1) He does whatever He pleases (Psalm 115:3); and (2) everything that happens is caused by Him (Ephesians 1:11; John 1:3).
This is what He claims, yes. (Proverbs 16:4; Isaiah 45:7; Revelation 17:17; Job 2:10; Deuteronomy 28:49-50, 32:39; Jeremiah 13:13-14; etc)
you seem to think that because God is omnipotent, that by definition He cant allow anyone to make any choices of their own. That would somehow diminish His omnipotence. Omnipotence doesnt mean all controlling it means all powerful.
=======
God wont act against His character, that's why he "cant" lie, not because He lacks the power to lie. I presume God could end His existence, the bible only says that He wont(no beginning and no end), the same with your other examples.
=======
"He's as much responsible for the 'wins and losses' of one as the other." This is what He claims, yes
Then, as I said, you paint a picture of a God that directly controls both sides and looses as much as He wins.
====
again:
1) Omnipotence doesnt mean all controlling it means all powerful.
2) All controlling means when He wins, He also looses.
so, your statement that "God can't cause the un-caused, is really just:
"God can't cause something that God doesn't cause", which is of course true, but it doesn't say anything, it's circular reasoning.
What you keep circling back to, is this notion that God is all controlling, and that simply is not true.
Your God plays both sides of the chess game, He moves all of the pieces, allowing no other players.
It would be irrational then, for God to call anything "evil" and worthy of condemnation, since He would be condemning His own actions, which is impossible to do.
That's the true dilemma of the reformed theologian :-)
God creates other wills -- I have a will and so do you. But they are created (caused) wills, so they are not free (uncaused).
It sounds to me like the "dilemma" of reformed thought in your mind is that authors condemn themselves when they calls their villains "evil". And the only way out of this "dilemma" is for the author to cause the villain to have an uncaused will.
First, I don't see how the solution resolves the supposed "dilemma", and second, I don't see how the "dilemma" even exists in the first place.
But thanks for your thoughts, and God bless.
---> agreed that we have wills, and are created, but why are they not "free"? What is stopping God from creating a person with libertarian free will?
As I see it, your argument only works if you assume that God must be all controlling, or He cant be God.
--->correct, that is the dilemma as I see it (with the bracketed modifications).
If the villain was created with free will, then the creator isnt the one personally doing the evil, the evil is the result of God allowing the villains exercise of it's own free will.
If the villain has no free will, and the villains actions are merely the direct result of the author/creator then really there is no villain at all. We're back to the creator playing a chess game with himself. It's just the creator acting first in one role and then in the other.
"Created" means "caused to exist". "Free" in the context here means "uncaused". Using the words "created" and "free" instead of "caused" and "uncaused" simply obfuscates or hides the full meaning of the claim, and the meaning of the claim is that God caused something uncaused... and that meaning is meaningless.
My argument only takes your assumptions and comes to the conclusions you should be coming to based on your assumptions. I haven't added anything. It is a presuppositional argument, not a straw man. Here are the assumptions... if you disagree with any of them, let me know.
Assumption 1. Your claim is that God gave you free will.
Assumption 2. "Gave you", in this context, means "caused to exist as part of you".
Assumption 3. "Free", in this context, means "uncaused by God".
Conclusion: Your claim is that God caused to exist as part of you a will that is uncaused by God, ergo, God caused something that He did not cause.
Do you not agree with all of my assumptions? Because I believe those assumptions are exactly what you have been telling me. Does my conclusion not follow from them? Is the conclusion actually coherent, or is it completely meaningless as I claim?
In 2 Samuel 12, did Nathan give the rich man he created in his story free will? Or is the rich man only doing what Nathan causes him to do? Is Nathan condemning himself because he made the rich man evil?
In Matthew 21:38, did Jesus give the vine-growers He created in His story free will? Or are they only doing what He causes them to do? Is Jesus condemning Himself because he made the vine-growers evil?
Authors don't condemn themselves when they create evil characters, and claiming contradictions as solutions doesn't provide any benefit to anyone.
You keep circling back to the "God cannot cause something that He did not cause" which as I have repeatedly pointed out is fallacious, it depends on your assumption that to be God, He must be all controlling.
God can cause something to come into being that has its own libertarian free will. Omnipotence doesnt require God to be all controlling.
best
-chad
I stated what I thought my argument was a few comments ago, stating the three assumptions and the conclusion, and nowhere in there did I say that God was all-controlling. Certainly God IS all-controlling, and far from avoiding addressing that I actually explain why that rationally has to be the case in some detail here, both in the question and in the answers:
http://godcontention.org/christian/an-easy-way-to-demonstrate-that-atheism-is-false
Not to mention that it is all over the scriptures (Ephesians 1:11; John 1:3; 1 Chronicles 29:14; Psalm 119:91; Ecclesiastes 11:5; Isaiah 44:24; Acts 17:24 etc).
But the argument I am asserting to you is based on your assumptions, not mine... unless you are referring to some different argument...? So would you mind telling me which argument of mine you are refuting? Because, as far as I can tell, it doesn't appear to be the one above with three assumptions and a conclusion.
I assert that it is not necessary for God to be all controlling to be God.
I don't believe you have answered that question.
Assumption 2. "Gave you", in this context, means "caused to exist as part of you".
Assumption 3. "Free", in this context, means "uncaused by God".
Conclusion: Your claim is that God caused to exist as part of you a will that is uncaused by God, ergo, God caused something that He did not cause.
->agreed on points #1 and #2
->point #3 is incorrect, God caused you to have free will, its the actions that result from the exercise of that free will that are uncaused by God, not the existence of the free will to begin with.
The conclusion is incorrect, you have to differentiate between the creation of the free will(the caused thing), and the exercise of the free will(the uncaused thing).
Your statement "God cant cause something that He did not cause" is the same as saying "God can not direct your free will"
which I agree with, it's a contradiction in terms. It doesn't address the question of omnipotence necessitating all controlling
So the exerciser (person) is caused to exist by God, and the thing being exercised (will) is caused to exist by God.
What element of the exercise of free will is not caused by God in your view? The conjunction of the two? And what then is that ultimately caused by, if not God?
If my exercise of my will is caused by me, and I am caused by God, then the causal chain of the exercise of my will still begins with God, and is therefore still caused by Him.
What is the immediate cause, in your mind, of the exercise of one's will, and how is God NOT the uncaused first cause of that immediate cause?
-->God can create a being with the ability to freely choose a course of action, to have it's own libertarian free will, free to act.
Surely that isnt a complicated notion? yes, God was the cause of the creation and the vesting of the creation with free will, but God doesnt control the being after that, so isnt directly causally responsible for the actions of that being. He doesnt cause the actions.
I'm not claiming that he DID at the moment, merely that He COULD.
Do you agree that He could? Please dont revert to "God can't cause the uncaused", we've already shown how that is the same as saying "God can not direct your free will", which we both agree is true, but it doesnt at all address the question of whether or not God can create a being with libertarian free will.
Question: Can God create a being with libertarian free will?
No, not if "libertarian free will" entails something happening that is not ultimately caused by God.
If the free action, the free choice, was made by me, and I am made by God, then God is still the uncaused first cause of the action. The only reason that I made the choice was because of the preferences and inclinations that God gave me (He created me), and the circumstances that God put me into (He created everything else as well). He caused the action by means of me.
[continued]
Every choice is caused by something or somethings, and if you follow all the causal chains back far enough, you will find God.
Nothing else exists that can originate a causal chain. If God wanted to create something that can originate a causal chain, that thing still would not be able to originate a causal chain because it is not self-existent. It would at best be a second link in the chain, not a first link, by virtue of it being created and therefore caused.
The reason He cannot do it is because He would have to cause something uncaused in order to create a being with libertarian free will.
======
"Every choice is caused by something or somethings, and if you follow all the causal chains back far enough, you will find God."
-->no, then it's not a choice, you are misusing the word. Choices can be guided, but not caused, if they are caused they arent "choices", you'll need to find another word. Please dont be like atheists that serially redefine words to fit their whim.
libertarian free will is precisely having that ability to make an unconstrained choice, that's the definition.
======
you're arguing like a naturalist, but in place of matter operating under the natural laws, you swap in God as the determinist. In both cases there is no such thing as human consciousness.
"The Christian, like everyone else, recognizes that there is a God, that he ought to obey God, that he does not obey God, and that this is a problem."
which is a gross misrepresentation of your beliefs, you dont believe a man knows he ought to obey, you believe God causes one to do one thing, and another to do a different.
Instead you should say what you mean: "The Christian and the atheist do what God causes them to do. We must praise the evil and the good, as all come from God". See how crazy that is?
Libertarianism: "is an incompatibilist position, argues that free will is logically incompatible with a deterministic universe and that agents have free will, and that, therefore, determinism is false"
Without libertarian free will, it's impossible to "make a choice". That's not an argument for or against any position, it's simply the definition of the terms.
Like the naturalist, you argue for a deterministic reality.
I only ask that you consider keeping your statements inline with your belief system, and when your response is "that's unnecessary" ask yourself why you think that? When has being clear ever been unnecessary? When is being clear ever a bad thing that should be avoided?
=====
dont say: "We owe our lives to our Creator. But we don't give Him His due."
say instead what you mean: "We owe our lives to our Creator. He causes us not to give Him His due."
=====
dont say: "Yes. If the atheist does not change his ways, acknowledge his own disobedience toward his Creator, and ask God for forgiveness..."
clearly state what you mean: ""Yes. If God does not change the atheists ways and cause him to say that God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator, and have God cause him to ask God for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
After reading your review, it seems clear to me that you have misunderstood my position and what follows from it, as well as your own position and what follows from it.
I could easily assert that you should be more clear in your own statements. For example, when you say He is "omnipotent", what you appear to really mean is "some things are completely out of His control". When you refer to Him as "Creator" you don't mean that He created the world we live in, with murderers plotting murders, liars telling lies, thieves stealing, etc. God didn't create this world -- our free will did.
And He is powerless to stop it.
However, I accept on your word that you love Jesus the Christ and have trusted in His sacrifice for your forgiveness. I know that we will both eventually understand God and man better, and we will probably both be embarrassed by many of our own conclusions.
I look forward to getting to know you better in the resurrection.
God bless!
=====
I would say this captures your position clearly, please let me know if not: "Yes. If God does not change the atheists ways and cause him to say that God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator, and have God cause him to ask God for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
=====
"He is "omnipotent", what you appear to really mean is "some things are completely out of His control""
-->correct, omnipotence doesnt require all controlling.
====
"God didn't create this world -- our free will did. And He is powerless to stop it. "
-->yes and no:
God created the world, it's current fallen state is the result of our free will. (Gen 4, Rom 8)
He was never powerless to stop it, He could have brought the entire thing to a close when Eve bit into the apple, but he didn't. He chose to allow it to continue.
I completely agree, looking forward to meeting you to!
"Yes. If God does not change the atheist's ways and cause him to say that God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator, and have God cause him to ask God for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
Actually, no, that is not my position. First, this part:
"cause him to say that God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator"
The atheist, to be right with his Creator, does not need, as far as I can tell from scripture, to acknowledge that God has caused him to be disobedient. God has caused him to be disobedient, yes, but the atheist does not need to acknowledge this to be made right with God.
Whatever God causes to happen, happens. So, if God has caused him to be disobedient toward his Creator, then he has been disobedient toward his Creator. Acknowledging the effect of that cause is all that is necessary for confession of sins.
[continued]
So we have now changed the claim to:
"Yes. If God does not change the atheist's ways and cause him to say that he has been disobedient toward his Creator, and have God cause him to ask God for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
Now this part:
"and have God cause him"
You probably meant to have it say "if God does not cause him", or something like that. I'm not a grammar nazi, but that sentence just didn't sound right to me.
So now we have:
"Yes. If God does not change the atheist's ways and cause him to say that he has been disobedient toward his Creator, and if God does not cause him to ask God for forgiveness for what God caused him to do.."
[continued]
I don't think you'll really bicker with those first two changes. So now I wholly agree with that statement in entirety. That is definitely my position.
However, it was definitely NOT what I meant to say.
So let me explain the paradigm shift that will dramatically alter the sentence to what I meant (and said) in the first place -- the changes that led you to voice your concerns to begin with.
The focus of my statement was not on the uncaused first cause. It was on the atheist. I wasn't talking about God. I was talking about the atheist. Therefore, he was the subject of my sentences, not God. Just because I believe that God is the uncaused first cause of everything, and just because I believe that He sustains things in our universe like an author does in a work of fiction, that doesn't mean that everything that I say about anything needs to have Him as the subject.
[continued]
For example, a man uses a bat to hit a ball and when the impact occurs, the bat splits. How would we descibe this? We might say:
"when the bat hit the ball it split in two!"
Are we being deceptive? Surely what we meant to say was:
"when the man caused the bat to hit the ball, the man caused the bat to break in two!"
Actually, no, that's not what we meant to say. It may be true, and we may agree with it, but it was most definitely NOT what we meant to say.
[continued]
Consider your own take on the atheist scenario. I assume you would find the following answer to be factual, at least for the most part:
"Yes. If the atheist does not, of his own libertarian and uncaused free will, change his ways, and freely, without God causing it, say that he has been disobedient toward the one who Created most of him (but not the part of him that makes choices), and if he does not, of his own free and uncaused will, ask God for forgiveness for what he did via his wholly uncaused free will..."
But I would never tell you that you had to say all of that just to be clear about what you REALLY MEAN.
[continued]
The atheist needs to repent. If he does it because God caused him to, or if He does it without cause in some sort of quasi-atheistic-like-randomly-generated-irrational-and-uncaused-fashion through a created-uncreated free-will... none of that really has to do with the conversation. That's not what the conversation was about. We're talking about the atheist and his role. His role is... he needs to repent.
Since my subject was the atheist, the answer now becomes, "Yes. If the atheist does not change his ways, acknowledge his own disobedience toward his Creator, and ask God for forgiveness..."
...like I originally said. It was no more deceptive than "when the bat hit the ball it split in two!" Someone, even many someones, may interpret that to mean that there was no batter involved, because "the BAT hit the ball -- so it must have done it without cause!" But they would be wrong.
I hope this at least clarifies my position a little.
God bless, my brother.
What reason did the big bang have for causing you to say that? Or was your statement ultimately without reason, and thus ultimately irrational?
It always amazes me when atheists remove all possibility of reason behind their own conclusions and then pretend that their conclusions are rational.
https://www.godcontention.org/christian/does-ezekiel-33-11-teach-free-will