I mean, I’m a hard determinist, so I don’t think anyone has free will, regardless of their belief system.
If god is omnipotent and all-knowing, then why would god need to plan?
Maybe he never needed to plan, but always had a plan. We can argue this follows from omniscience. You don’t have to do the planning when you already know what the plan will be before you start planning. You just have a plan.
If God is omnipotent and all knowing, why do children suffer?
And the “answer” to that is often “it’s God’s plan”. Which I don’t understand. I know this is an incredibly basic question, but I don’t have anyone to ask.
If its God’s plan for children to suffer then I don’t really like or respect him.
However, amazing as we are here on lemmy, we are not the first people to ask this question or similar. There’s tonnes of discussion on the ‘problem of evil’ from all sides, and it makes for interesting reading ng matter how athiest/agnostic/Pagan you are.
Irenaeus claimed that we were underdeveloped to face good, and had to be exposed to evil to mature (which I don’t hate as a concept because sometimes you do have to experience suffering to understand it, but it doesn’t work if god is all powerful and created us). The free will argument puts blame back on us horrid humans and off the Shiney happy god that created the…horrid humans. There’s the concept of natural evil, of evil being a lack of good, of trickster Satan etc. Worth a deep dive if you have time.
And I recommend Dostoyevski ‘The brothers Karamazov’. I butched that spelling. However, a monk brother and an athiest brother have a great conversation about the horrific things that have happened to innocent children and how god allowed it to happen. The whole books a mission, but the recommended chapter is…seven I think? It’s near the beginning.
I’ve heard of that book, but never knew that’s what it was about. Sounds interesting. Thanks!
Enjoy!
An overview about answers can be found in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil
I don’t see how those are mutually exclusive.
Church told me I should believe in an all-powerful, all-knowing god that’s benevolent and loving. If that’s not the standard you’re working from, then yeah, there would be issues.
My question is that if god knows everything, and has the power to do anything instantaneously, what’s the point of planning? There’s no need to use a clumsy tool like, say, an earthquake.
Don’t like the results of what you did? No problem. Rewind time and change it. It takes zero effort. From god’s perspective, that solves any problem you can think of. From a philosophical perspective, it creates a bunch of problems, though. I haven’t come across an explanation that makes sense.
Don’t like the results of what you did? No problem. Rewind time and change it.
That seems to assume they did not know the result in advance. This can be conflicting with the idea of omniscience. Some interpretations assume knowing everything includes knowing everything about the future. A perfect God makes no mistakes.
You’re right. I was thinking of omniscience only including the past and present, not the future.
Why are you assuming that an earthquake isn’t part of that plan? I agree that it if you believe in an all knowing god, it doesn’t make sense to clumsily solve problems like that. It doesn’t make sense for there to be problems in the first place, he would get it right the first time.
I’m assuming that because of omnipotence. Having fully unlimited power and knowledge would mean that problems could be solved in much more effective, subtle, and precisely targeted ways. Why cause mass destruction? Why use a nuke when all you need is a good sniper?
If you have unlimited power and knowledge, you wouldn’t make mistakes. You wouldn’t have problems to solve. If something went “wrong”, that would mean its supposed to go wrong.
Maybe that’s the answer, but it isn’t satisfying to me. Part of me recognizes that the universe is much more complex than I’m capable of understanding, and maybe that’s why things don’t seem to make sense. However, a larger part of me thinks that there’s a simpler answer: god can’t be as powerful as we’ve been taught, and maybe doesn’t exist at all.
I also think of a guy I used to work with, who we’ll call Eric. Eric lived and acted the way that I was taught a religious person is supposed to - he was kind, non-judgmental, and generally pleasant to be around. I have to constantly remind myself that the world is full of people like him, but they don’t draw attention to themselves because they’re just not like that. They don’t go on the news and yell. They don’t use religion as an excuse to be hateful.
Anyway, thank you for taking this Atheism 101 crap seriously, and for challenging my assumptions. I appreciate you taking the time.
I’m glad we could have a normal conversation about religion, that usually doesn’t happen on the internet.
I was an atheist for a long time but eventually I found a religion that actually made sense to me. The main thing that drew me to it was that I was encouraged to question things like this, and come to my own conclusions if I didn’t agree with others. Maybe there is belief system that works for you, maybe there isn’t; but regardless I think its important to try to figure those things out for yourself, so good luck.
Religion doesn’t assume that people have free will, nor does it assume that everything is part of god’s plan. This isnt agreed upon by every religion, its not even agreed upon by Christians specifically. What is your point?
Religion doesn’t assume that people have free will, nor does it assume that everything is part of god’s plan. This isnt agreed upon by every religion, its not even agreed upon by Christians specifically. What is your point?
I don’t think OP explicitly said what you complain about. I didn’t read the post as “all religion is like that”. But some of it is. So this post seems to be about the specific groups which make these assumptions and hold these beliefs. The combination of both beliefs is fairly common across many religions and sects.
I guess the point is the apparent contradiction. It is a prominent topic in religious philosophy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_determinism#Free_will_and_theological_determinism
Yes, I believe that’s what they meant. My problem was more that it wasn’t specified. This community is mostly for arguments against theism, if this doesn’t apply to all theism then its just an argument against a specific belief and should be presented as such. I think the default here should be all religion as the topic, and it should be specified if its not.
If Christians believe in hell but not free will, it follows that god creates billions of people just to torture them forever in hell.
I mean. It does seem to state that directly, yes. The whole thing about God hardening hearts and stuff. Not a thing he’s supposed to be doing if choice is on the table.
No, it does not state this directly. It says that god has the power to do this, which why wouldn’t he? It doesn’t say he does this for every decision that people make.
That one part with the pharaoh? While there is an argument for a mistranslation in meaning and I usually err on the side of those, I don’t consider the linguistic nuance to have a huge difference in result here. Whether his heart was hardened or only reinforced, it was still a thing that God is heavily implied to have done to affect someone’s emotional decision-making.
A little birdy tells me Pharaoh was already pretty set on this course, and the only way to avoid impacting someone’s free will is to never interact with them at all (I don’t actually believe in free will for this reason). But some of what God is said to have done sounds more direct than a mere suggestion, and the presence of a plan and purposeful action toward that plan are acknowledged.
Romans 7:17 - 21
17 For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.”
18 Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.19 One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?”
20 But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’”
21 Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?A plan without a known end goal is not a plan, no? It’s barely a hobby. He says He has a goal. Either we have the freedom to fuck up the plan and are therefore dangerously close to equality on God’s own turf, or we don’t.
Yeah it says he does this to the pharaoh, not every person for every decision. Just because one person wasn’t in control of their decisions in one specific instance does not imply that no one is in control of their decisions ever. It demonstrates that this is a power that god has, which is obvious considering he’s supposed to be all powerful. This does not mean anything when it comes to free will.
It is a good point that the ability existing isn’t the same effect as the ability being used. Presuming He leaves most people alone, you do have a strong case for individual free will.
I would argue that God’s endgame existing at all does mean quite a bit in terms of how “free” a predictable chain of events can actually be, but it’s easy to get lost in the weeds there and I don’t know if that angle is something either of us is likely to be swayed on. At the very least, this is probably the nicest disagreement I’ve ever had on anything religious.
I return my ticket to heaven (if I get let in…). Hell is where people will need help. Christians can be content to turn their backs on people rather than give them a few hundred more years to learn what ‘good’ is. I don’t think God allowing suffering of innocents at the hands of ‘evil’ people is justifiable.
I’m not sure why you are so insistent on finding ways to make god look bad. It comes off as petty and childish considering you are presumably an atheist.
I’d say they’re just pointing out some of the contradictions most religious belief systems have, which is a reasonable thing to do in an atheist com, no?
No, they are pointing out a potential contradiction in a specific christian belief. This isn’t an in depth critique of christian philosophy, this is a meaningless jab at Christians for no reason other than it made them feel smarter than all the Christians. The atheist community is known for being childish, I don’t see any reason to believe this is different.
Yah because Christians aren’t known for being childish at all.
They aren’t. Many of them are childish, but they aren’t known for that the way atheists are.
I’m just making a basic factual statement. If you have an emotional reaction to it that’s not something I’m part of.
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theological_determinism#Free_will_and_theological_determinism and https://www.theopedia.com/compatibilism:
The answer is theological compatibilism. The idea that people actually have free will, while some fate or divine plan exists.
people will always choose what they want-- and what they want is determined by (and consistent with) their moral nature. Man freely makes choices, but those choices are determined by the condition of his heart and mind […]. God’s involvement: God is said to influence our desires, and thus is able to have exhaustive control of all that goes on.
The paragraph about moral responsibility was interesting:
In general, people agree that the one with uncaused action is held responsible for an action. Not the ball that was caused to roll, but the person who was not caused to push is held responsible for the rolling of the ball. However, according to this worldview, the same does not apply to humans. Although a man is considered unable to choose against his desires, which are caused by his sin nature or God’s intervention, the moral responsibility of sin lies with him. He chose to do it, therefore he is held responsible. Not what caused him to choose, but he that chooses is held responsible.
This understanding of moral responsibility absolves God of authorship of sin; man, as caused by fall, is naturally “inclined to all evil” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q.7).
I guess in the end it does not have to make sense anyways, because belief.
That’s not an actual answer though, it’s just a politician’s “answer” and then pretending afterwards that the question was answered. Free will means you can change your mind. If you can change your mind, it’s possible that you would change your mind at the very last second. However, if it’s possible to know ahead of time with 100% certainty what someone will do, then they don’t actually have the ability to change their mind at the last second, and any concept of choice is an illusion.
The second quote only addresses why god isn’t at fault if free will exists, and therefore doesn’t address the issue
Don’t let the riches keep on richer, or delete currency as a whole, then we may have free will. Religion is just a part of the Problem.
