I don't know if this was directed at my last comment, but just in case - I'm not arguing against free will.  I'm saying that Christians say that because man has free will, then man is responsible for his choices.  They use this entirely fallacious argument to absolve God of the responsibility of man's choices, but they never reach back far enough to ask "Ok, so who gave man a free will?"  First Cause Boy did it!  THAT was a choice of free will, too. (Assuming God has free will).  And that choice preceeded any choices made by man.  So saying man has free will doesn't absolve God of the responsibility of how his creation turned out.

God is the Creator; we are the created.

Why did God create mankind?

Mankind is created to praise, reverence and serve God and by this means to save his soul.

Other things on the face of the earth are created for man that they may help him in prosecuting the end for which his is created.

From this it follows that man is to use them as much as they can to help him on to his end and ought to rid himself of them so far as they hinder him as to it.

For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created things in all that is alllowed to the choice of our free will and is not prohibited to it; so that on our part, we want to desire and choose only what is most conducive for us to the end for which we are created.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TEXAS WAHINE POSTS:

As a mother, did you get it right when your children were born? (I'd say yes.) When you brought them into the world did you know beforehand that throughout their life they would do things against your wishes, in other words disobey you? (Again I would say yes.) Since you knew this would be the end result, are you an idiot or incredibly cruel?

That God's omniscience and man's free will are two facts known both by reason and Revelation. The relationship between these 2 facts is a mystery insofar as the compatibility of the 2 facts is above reason, but not against reason. And the facts stand, despite the inability of man to solve to his own full satisfaction the problem they present to the human mind.

In the case you presented and in the case I presented back to you, hopefully you can see that it is a fallacy to think knowledge of an event as the cause or responsibility  of that event. If I know that the sun is shining it is not shining becasue I know it. My knowledge of it does not make the sun shine. Nor does knowledge possessed even prior to the event cause the event to occur.

An astronomer's knowledge of an eclipse of the sun next week doesn't cause the eclipse. Knowledge as such is conditioned by the event, the event is not conditioned by the knowledge of it. But even that analagy is poor and cannot strictly apply to God's knowledge since He is outside time, there is nothing really future to His intelligence. 

 

   

 

 

Your argument is false for a couple of reasons.

First of all, I am not omniscient and omnipotent. I also didn't "create" them. They (like all of us) are the result of biology. I didn't pick and choose traits and features and desires and dislikes. I carried them, and I raise them, but I did not CREATE them.

I also don't tell them, "You have free will and you can do as you please. I WANT you to pick up your room, do your homework in a timely manner, bring me flowers you picked in the yard, etc., etc., but the choice is yours. You are free to do as you like. If you do what I want, I will feed and clothe you and give you hugs and cookies. If you don't do what I want, and you certainly don't HAVE to, I'm going to beat you and make you miserable every single day for the rest of your life (hell)."

Not much CHOICE in that, is there?

You are right about that...there are some things in life we don't have to teach them per se...that they have free will is one of them....take the moment the 2 year old says "No", he intuitively knows he has free will and is acting upon his choice.

I'm not sure how that refutes my argument.

Here's a little something I wonder about.

If God knew and knows what will happen.  Why did he regret our creation?  So much so that he killed almost all of us off.  To KNOW that was going to happen at the very beginning and still allow for it to happen, I find is messed up.

How can a perfect being that is omniscient and omnipotent regret something that he made and furthermore KNEW it beforehand?  That either implies that God is imperfect and makes mistakes, He's a total dick, or He doesn't exist.

Our free will has nothing to do with it because God knows the choices we make...he knew what would happen and yet did nothing to prevent the most horrible things in history.

~Zoo 

It's quite valid based turning your own scenario and

I've said that God created Adam and Eve and hold that the human race came originally from one pair. All the rest of us born after them co-operates with God's creative power...we furnish the "Biology" the flesh and blood, He furnishes the breath of life....and whether you like it or not, believe it or not, that's exactly what you were doing when you delivered your baby...cooperating with God.

 

 

 

My babelfish just conked out.

God is not responsible for man's sinful nature. God made man; man made himself a sinner. If man were not a responsbile being, God would not have set down precepts for him to follow; nor would God have warned him to do and not to do this, that and the other thing through commandments and otherwise:

Ecclesiasticus 15:14-18 "God made man from the beginning, and left him in the hands of his own counsel. He added His commandments and precepts....He hath set water and fire before thee, stretch forth thy hand to which thou wilt. Before man is life and death; good and evil; that which he shall choose shall be given him."

Let's view this in a simple way....

God made the fly. Being Omniscient, He is able to see where the fly would fly and how its existence would end. But this foreknowledge doesn't mean that God determined beforehand just where the fly would land or caused it to land in a flame. God made man in His Image and Likeness with intelligence and free will, of which the fly is devoid. God was able to see the wars, murders, etc. though He may not be held to have determined or be responsible for them. God did not forecasue the war or murder.

The blame falls squarely upon man; upon his misuse of the power to determine the course he must follow and not upon God. That man has the power of choosing between commiting good and evil is beyond a question of reasonable doubt, for all our domestic, economic, and social relations are based upon that principle. If man were not endowed with free will then he could not merit, as did Saint John, or demerit as did Judas.

God's foreknowledge does not interfere with man's use of his free will. The actions of man do not take place becasue God has foreknowledge of them. Again, the blame lies in man's misuse of GOd's gift of liberty of action, the principle that made man a human being instead of an irresponsible being such as are animals.

St.Augustine says, "God wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of truth, but not in such a manner as to take away their free will according to the good or bad use of which they will be most justly judged."

Bottom line: We can't blame God who created man to be with Him eternally in Heaven for freely taking the road that leads to perdition.   

Thank you for that, I can't write quite so eloquently.

Can't write it OR recognize it, in my opinion.

All I see here is God gives man power, and he abuses it...but my problem is that God knows that he will do so.

That's like me giving a gun to a killer and knowing he's going to use it to murder someone, but somehow no blame rests on me. I believe the court would say I'm an accessory to murder in that case. Why isn't God?

~Zoo

Ha, you got me on that one.  

Using your scenario, the blame rests upon you for your part in the deed. God comes into the picture is that He gave you free will and the commandment to love our neighbor as we love ourselves.

The will itself is the cause of its own elective activities and its choice is self caused, not GOd caused. Yes, God has given us the power of volitional activity, but He doesn't compel us to use it in this direction or that. Here, you misused your free will by giving a gun to someone you know is going to use it to murder. Here you break both God's and man's law and both have just punishment.