Featured Good vs Evil 2

His SELF self.

Define "free" because by that it seems that you mean the ability to make decisions without reasons for having made them.

If that is the case then you have people making unreasonable decisions.

That would be like saying, "You limit God when you say God could not create an eternal or an almighty being based on mystery as to HOW he could do it."

New theory. The Spaghetti Monster makes us choose what we choose.

That's every bit as good as NOTHING is the reason we choose what we choose.

For the umpteenth time, it is NOT the same thing because God is not us. Comparing the mystery involved in the eternal, almighty, everywhere present, all-knowing God to the mystery within a human being is terrible equivocation.

Because it is NOT a violation of his holiness and it is clearly revealed in Scripture.

God's independency is one of his incommunicable attributes. God can no more make a man with the ability to make things out of nothing than God can make a man who is eternal, almighty and exhaustively sovereign.

It is NOT a mystery how men make decisions. You SAYING there is this mysterious aspect does not mean that it is a valid assertion.

It is no more valid than saying the Flying Spaghettie monster makes people make decisions.

We know, and you admit, that there are a myriad of influential factors outside of the will that move the will. Why assume there is anything else besides those factors?

There is no reason. You just make it up because you don't like to think of a God who is in complete control of everything (or at least you are following somebody who made it up).

 

No, I am presuming it is a created self- a contingent being.

Everything we observe indicates that we are dependent beings. We depend on forces outside of ourselves to create ourselves and sustain ourselves.

Everything we have and do depends on things provided to us. That includes our wills.

There is no reason to assume the will is somehow independent. This is especially true since we know it depends on life (which is not self-sustained), the brain, the desires (which are not self-made), etc...

Now these are facts- no matter how much you dislike the implications of those facts (we are just puppets, God is the author of evil or whatever else you think they mean) they are reality.

The choose chooses BASED on reasons which the will did not create nor does the will sustain.

The REASON you choose a hamburger over a hotdog is because of your taste buds, past experiences, genetic make-up, environment in which your desires were formed, etc, etc, etc...

Those things DETERMINE what your choice will be.

That's as plain as the nose on your face.

You want what you want because you are what you are. You are what you are because that is what you were made to be. No matter how unpleasant the implications of that fact are, you don't get to INVENT impossible notionis and call them possible and when questioned how they are possible just say- IT'S A MYSTERY!!

There is no more reason to think that man can create choices out of nothing than to think that man can be God.

Choices are BASED on things. Those things (desires, environment, etc...) determine what the choices will be. Since you do not control those things, you really do not control the choices.

You continue with this equivocation.

You are not God. Not even close. The mystery level when it comes to God cannot be intelligently compared to the mystery level of men.

EVERYTHING about God is a mystery. Man is not that mysterious.

Then you don't understand omnipotence at all. Furthermore you don't understand theology proper and God's incommunicable attributes.

I would think so.

 

Those things- desires, intellect- you don't think they determine the choices one makes?

I desire a hamburger over a hot dog so I CHOOSE a hamburger over a hotdog.

The SO in that sentence indicates that my desires determined what my choice would be.

Now, it's not JUST desires, but the choice does hinge upon those things.

God made those things what they are, too. Yes.

It would not be the first time he has hardened someone's heart to serve his own purposes.

I did not say the will is nothing.

I am saying the will makes choices BECAUSE of things.

One can say, "My will chose the hamburger BECAUSE..."

The root word of "because" is "cause".

Something caused the will to choose the hamburger over the hotdog.

That thing or things may be desires, taste buds, intellect, or a number of other things that caused the will to choose what it chose.

We all KNOW that this is true. The only ones who deny it are the ones who DESPISE the implications of this truth (man is a puppet, blah, blah, blah).

Yes, I am equivocating your claim that man can create things out of himself without any cause outside of himself or reason outside of himself to do so with the claim that man can be God.

Yes, that is what I am doing.

So then you think the mystery level when it comes to man rivals the mystery level when it comes to GOD!?!!?


AMAZING!!!

Who said little??

I said man is not THAT mysterious linking to my previous statement that God is infinitely mysterious.

I can at least say that love is OF God and so is the power to create and that he is the well spring of all hope.

There is no reason to think that choices are not fully reliant upon God as well.


What you are reduced to is this.

Either man makes decisions BECAUSE of things or for no reason whatsoever.

If he makes decisions because of things (yes, things God made and ordered),those things determine his choices.

If he makes decision for no reason, not based on desires which he does not create or "self-cause", not the intellect which is the culmination over time of information and knowledge which is external to him, and not for any other external reason- then all of his decisions are unreasonable.

The answer to the question, "For what cause did you choose that?" is "For NO CAUSE WHATSOEVER."

 

That's never been a matter of contention.

Men make billions of things. But they don't make them out of nothing and they don't make them based on nothing.

They use things that are there to make them and there are REASONS why the make what they make.

He determines based on WHAT?

Exactly. And you choose which ever one you desire the most. So a man is bound by his desires. Where do the desires come from?

Because everything that makes God mysterious is his Godness- his "I am-ness"- his absence of contingency, his independency, his ability to exist and do things without anything to do them with- that is the very thing that identifies him as transcendent above all created beings.

You are trying to take attributes, incommunicable attributes, that only God can have and that are the essence of what God IS and make man have them, too.

Are there REASONS why man choose what he chooses?

Where do those reasons come from? (forgive the ending of sentences in prepositions)

What compels man to choose what he chooses and when you say he compels himself- how? With what does he compel himself?

Why assume he DOES compel himself when everything about us indicates that men make decisions based on desires that they did not create and that they do not sustain?

What is different about what you are claiming and the claim that the Spaghetti Monster causes our choices? In other words, why should we think your claim is any more credible?

Finally, is this not just one tremendous exercise to deny the facts because you don't like the implications of those facts?

 

You ignored a whole lot of questions and arguments and, seemingly, cherry picked the ones you thought you could handle.

I try to be thorough in responding to your posts. I think you ought to do the same.

Perhaps you might go back and respond in a more thorough manner.

 

That's because you keep saying it is based on itself.

Only GOD is based on himself. NOTHING else in the universe can be based on its self.

You have YET to acknowledge that God has incommunicable attributes.

 

And what does the chooser BASE his choice upon?

I am saying that independency is an incommunicable attribute of God. It is the pith and marrow of his I Am-ness.

I am saying that you are trying to make that an attribute of man.

This is only about responsibility in your mind. What it is about is whether or not man can conjure up of his own self something not contingent upon anything else.

This is about you trying to make man God and claiming God is powerful enough to do things that he is in reality TOO POWERFUL to do- namely to communicate his incommunicable attributes.

 

Got it. You believe man is God.

Got it.

Man's self is not contingent upon anything so his decisions are based on that which is not contingent.

So... Man is God.

Got it.

So you need me to give you chapter and verse that declare that God's independency is unique to GOD??

What? You must believe God is too weak to create a creature to do exactly what God determined him to do and still hold that creature fully accountable at the same time.

You believe God is too WEAK to do that, right?

 

No, you believe you are as independent as God. You, like God Almighty, can make decisions based on yourself- a self which you see as, Like God, not contingent upon anything.

Everything in the UNIVERSE is contingent upon something but your WILL (or yourself).

Your will (or yourself) has the primary characteristic of Godness. You will (or self) can say of itself, "I am that I am."

When your will asks yourself, "Who shall I tell has sent me with this decision?" yourself responds, "Tell them I AM has sent you because mySELF is self-existent."

Or your WILL is self-existent- whichever one is not contingent upon anything.

 

You're so cute! Thanks for that wonderful contribution. Skandelon does not think I am trolling. He went to great lengths just one DAY ago to defend our conversation.

Yet, what is IRONIC is that this VERY POST OF YOURS is the TEXTBOOK definition of trolling.

Hypocrite! LOL!