@Bo
Think your mistaken. Some original Hebrew scriptures weren't in capitol/lowercase and there were other ways of emphasis. Including separate words when referring to God. However this is an obvious case of Aces doesn't know how to read or pay attention to detail... or both.

Now the LORD God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.
Genesis 2:7-9 (according to Bo's source)

GEN2 7-9 actually says this.
7 And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.

Life in God’s Garden

8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:7-9 (KJV Bible)

I didnt bother checking your other source but im guessing your source is the problem.

I read the original Hebrew of Judges 1:19 it specifically refers to God "YahWeh" in the first part and not in the second part as I said there is no indication that the second part refers to God. YahWeh is not the subject as Judah is the last name mentioned before the second part.

@Fiona
Hebrew can't be capitalized in script. But it can and is capitalized when typed out phonetically in a language that uses capitalization such as English-Hebrew: Yah-Weh as opposed to yahweh

Here's the version I keep at home that capitalized He... the online KJV didn't capitalize he in "and he took one of his ribs" but the original Hebrew doesn't mention God there the sentence structure is quite different it is a verse that doesn't translate well to English. More accurately it establishes God as the acting entity who made Adam sleep then took part of his side to make woman. The sentence structure is completely different from what we see in Judges anyway they don't even use the same word for God. Jahova vs YahWeh

Genesis 2:20-22
New King James Version (NKJV)
20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.

21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.

I used two sources: NIV and KJV Bibles. So I would agree... my sources are very problematic. If you take a look at bible.cc/genesis/2-8.htm, you will see that 13 out of the 15 translations do NOT capitalize "He" when referring to God in this passage.

I think your comment to Aces...

is just incorrect.

@Bo
I could have worded it better and I will but your edit button has a short time limit. I should point out that it doesn't matter how many translations put it in lc that doesn't mean its not capitalized in the nkjv. Which I quote here the most frequently.
You're relying on technicalities. If one translation had God not capitalized in one place I would be incorrect (jebus). Its a red herring though because Its always referenced in some translations as a capitol. The verse in judges isn't capitalized in any translation I found. So my mistake it seems to be capitiolized when the Hebrew scripture used Yah-Weh or Jahove Elohim, etc.. but when He is added just to make the translation make sense in English its not capitalized in every translation to indicate that the original scripture doesn't reference God multiple times.. I really find this to be trivial and downright petty that you searched so diligently for a tangent exception just to point a finger rather than understand the point I was actually making but that's how red herrings work.

I am not relying on anything, Shawn. I simply demonstrated that you made a false claim. 13 out of 15 translations use the lowercase "he" to refer to God. "God/Jesus is always referenced with a Capitol letter." is just plain wrong.

Yes, you could have worded it better, but you didn't. So instead of attacking me to protect your pride, rephrase your argument to be more precise.

I went to bible.cc and typed in "Judges 1:19", I don't think that qualifies me for researcher of the year. If you want people to understand your point, make them accurately with no hyperbole, exaggeration, or deception.

So your argument is, because the New King James version does not refer to "He", it can't mean God? The online version of your chosen Bible reads:

So the Lord was with Judah. And they drove out the mountaineers, but they could not drive out the inhabitants of the lowland, because they had chariots of iron.

It uses "they", which appears to reference the Lord and Judah collectively. You can argue that Judah is plural, as it refers to a people and not a person, but then either the 12 other Bible versions are all wrong by using "he" or they are all referring to God. In any case, unless you have some unique version that says something different from all other online versions, then your argument fails. Your special verse that cannot be found anywhere online is like the "hot girlfriend from Canada" that kids have in high school.

I am confused here... do you think Hebrew has the same rules on English grammar? Before I prematurely explain how many ways this is wrong, perhaps you can rephrase and explain the grammatical rules that make your claim true.

@church

Ok fair enough on the whole definition thing. But do you honestly think the power to chose is taken away from you if God knows what you are going to do. That seems to be illogical. I understand how you arrived at your conclusion i just don't agree and you have yet to prove it or use scripture to prove it.

Yes there is no way for YOU to know the outcome, but God made the coin and all of the independent variables affecting the coin as it flys through the air so He would know what side it would land.

OkI agree these are the only two ways, or it could be both at the same time. He could both be able to see and be able to predict. but yes I see no other way.

Good luck I just do not see how you can possibly prove that foreknowledge takes away your power to decide, but I'm listening.
Before creation, many times in scripture we see the phrase before the foundations of the earth

Wasn't trying to appeal to your pride, I just really wanted you te explain your argument. And you must admit there was an apparent contradiction.

And you say it is hard to prove we have free will. I don't necessarily agree. While I agree we might not have as much as we believe, I believe we still have a good bit. You just aren't willing to concede that God's knowledge of independent variables and knowledge of the depth of our character doesn't mean He makes the decisions for us. As long as the power to decide lies with us then so does free will

Yeah you are. You knew what I meant but you found a loophole. This has nothing to do with my pride, I admitted I could have worded it better. Either that or I am giving you too much credit and you are unable to discern meaning in context... so either you are dishonest or you can't comprehend a sentence at a high school level. I know the latter isn't true.
Doesn't follow. So NO translation says "He" "God" or "YahWeh" "Jahova" "Elohem" the original Hebrew most importantly doesn't but somehow I'm wrong and our default position is that the bible contradicts itself. That isn't how you interpret writing in any format. IF you don't think they is the group of people your also mildly delusional because you think 1 person defeated thousands... that is of course assuming you read Judges... so I guess I'm delusional for that assumption. Clearly we shouldn't read something before saying its a contradiction afterall.

Or perhaps you could have worded it better, and you need to work on communicating your ideas so people understand what you write, not what you "meant" -- and stop creating false dilemmas.

I am still curious as to what you meant here:
.

@Bo
biblos.com/judges/1-19.htm
You can see Judah is the subject not God.
I've done my best to preserve the meaning in English while keeping the Hebrew sentence order in tact.
God was with Judah. -with me so far?
he took possession of the hill. Right here we can see the subject being discussed is Judah not God as we are talking about possessing land for strategic purposes and other grammatical reasons for one Judah was established as the subject earlier in the Chapter and throughout. This is a statement that because God was with Judah he took the hill. Could be understood as well leading you to the conclusion that God was not with Judah when he fails in the next part.
he could not drive out inhabitants of the valley because they had iron chariots. - There is no reason to assume that we are talking about God here when Judah was the last subject.


As for They possibly meaning the Group of people it certainly means that.
The LORD was with the men of Judah. (NIV) follows with they
The LORD was with the men of Judah (GW) follows with they
The LORD was with the people of Judah (NLT) follows with they

Judah (person) is the fourth son of Jacob
Judah was also a Kingdom
Judah was also a tribe of Israelites

And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron. - KJV

Now, to be clear, I am not making the argument that God can't stop iron chariots -- this was not my argument. My personal take on the passages, within context of the book, was that God abandoned them because "of sin". Although I can certainly see how through poor writing and translation, the ambiguity causes confusion, yet also allows for multiple interpretations (as made clear by the dozens of different Christian explanations of this same passage).

My argument, that we seem to be passed now, is that the vast majority of Bible translations do not capitalize "he" or "him" in the OT when referring to God (unless starting a sentence). The versions that do, translate Judges 1:19 to use "they" instead of "he" or "He", therefore, unless I am completely missing your point, the entire capitalization argue is a red herring.

Now to your next claim with which, unsurprisingly, I have a problem. First, I don't think that the Judah is the subject -- "God" is the subject of the passive verb "was". But this does not even really matter -- you seem to imply that we can know what the pronoun refers to in a new sentence, or independent clause, if we do know the subject of the previous sentence/clause. As far as I know, there is no such grammatical rule. Again, another red herring -- because of the ambiguity in the lazy writing style, we cannot be sure to whom the pronoun refers.

"Bo was with Shawn. He is a moron". Who is the moron? It is unclear -- poor grammar.

If I am wrong (which it is possible), and there is a definite grammatical rule that states we can know for certain in the above example to whom "He" refers, then please do point me to the source. But if I am right and we cannot know, we can only assume based on what we think the author means, then this idea that grammatical structure of the verse can tell us anything useful, is a red herring.

@Bo
While I agree there are limits with the original language that can cause confusion to someone who only reads a part of the scripture this isn't how scripture was intended to be read. Those who read Hebrew scripture in ancient times were to be educated in the context of scripture as Rabbi there also weren't verses as we have them divided today the scripture was on scrolls or codex and read in full context.

So while small verses and snippets can be useful for quoting scripture, relaying a concept,or encouraging someone who already understands the context, they aren't very useful if you are trying to make a point that it contradicts a universally understood theistic concepts such as the "God is all powerful".

Your exampleDoesn't follow. Bo was with Shawn does not seem to imply the same thing as God was with Judah(as far as the meaning of with) It can mean the same thing but it also can mean you were physically with me because you are a physical entity. God being with someone means that God was on their side, God showed them favor, or their wills were aligned. So the subject in this verse is much more clearly the men of Judah and not God. In fact, the assumption God was with Judah is reactive to the fact that the people of Judah took the hill even though the odds seemed to be against them. So I don't see how explaining the significance of the sentence structure is a red herring other than the fact that its keeping alive a dead point that Aces tried to make. But my point is actually that Aces seems to be ignorant of scripture so I don't appreciate him attempting to interpret it and assert his translation is correct over biblical scholars.

@Brandon
Ok, I think you can see why god can’t predict the entire future if we really have free will, but I will explain why anyway. If you agree then I’ll move on to why God can’t also “view” the entire future.

So let me first point out that I think god is infinitely better at predicting the future then humans. When I say that God knows most of the future I base it on his ability to predict. Because of his ability to know all independent variable, the depths of our character, ect he is able to make precise and detailed predictions of what will be.

The problem comes when free will enters the scene. In your example of predicting that your friend would not go work out, I think we agreed that your “prediction” was based on things that were highly unlikely to change(his character, work ethic, devotion, time of day, etc). This is why you were able to make an accurate prediction. Now what if someone asked your friend to pick a number between 1 and 10? Since his pick would be random and solely based on free will (instead of character), you wouldn’t be sure at all what number he was going to pick. In fact you would have just as difficult of a time predicting his choice, as you would with a perfect stranger. Knowledge does not help you predict freewill decisions. Simply because freewill is “random” or the opposite of determined there is no why to predict it. This is why God can’t predict freewill decisions either. All predictions are based on things that are determined, so by definition if it is truly a freewill decision then it is also unpredictable.

Hopefully, you agree but if not let me know and I’ll try to clear up any confusion. If by chance you don’t agree and come up with a way that god could predict a freewill decision (By knowing your favorite number) make sure that god’s prediction isn’t based on something that actually limits the chooser’s freewill. (people who always pick number 7 don’t have the ability to pick another number)

@church

I do want you to understand that I fully understand your logic and points , but that I most certainly disagree with the conclusion that God cannot and doesn't know all of the future. And you can continue with your argument, I will think and withhold any further comments until you are finished

@ Brandon
Ok cool. So here’s why I think it’s contradictory for god to know the entire future by “viewing” it, if we still have freewill. If God knows the entire future then he must also know it in its objectively true final form. Let’s say you could travel to the future and see what happens tomorrow. While in the future you see yourself lock your keys in the car. Then you come back. Now, since the future is already known (by you) can it still be shaped? Well it depends. If what you “saw” during your visit to the future was objectively true then the outcome can necessarily not be any different. If you use your knowledge to shape a different future (one where you don’t lock your keys in the car) then what you “saw” was certainly not objectively true. Once something is objectively known then that thing by definition cannot be any different. So in the case with peter’s denial… what where the chances that he wasn’t going to deny jesus…. They were exactly the same chances as god being wrong! If god knows the future, then the future cannot be any different… or else god would be wrong. So as soon as the future is knowable, then it is also unchangeable. If god knows your future before you exist then the idea that your freewill had anything to do with shaping it is illogical. In your view the future was shaped(in its final objective form) long before the shapers existed…this is not possible.

by the way here's a website that list some of the verses that support my view of god not knowing the entire future( some are better than others)
openviewtheology.net/95_verses.html

@Church

I appreciate your argument.

I have a lot of thoughts here is a few:

Ok so Jesus told Peter that he was going to sin (deny Jesus). Now by your view, this had to be already set because it was already known. But if God had set this (because I'm assuming that we agree that if the future is set then God is the only one who could do it) and taken away his free will, that means that God made him sin. And how can this be the case? We know from scripture it is a sin to cause a brother to stumble. So if God forced Peter to sin, God would have sinned.


And what about all of the verses saying that seemingly say that Jesus was crucified before the foundation of the world? (1 Peter 1:20 for example)
If this is so, then God would have had to have known Adam and Eve would sin, and therefore made them sin because they had no free will in the matter

Ok but while you are in the future, would you say: Dang I had absolutely no free will in anything that happened in the day I was gone?
Didn't have the free will to avoid locking your keys in your car? Or to have dressed the way you did?

And as for stuff being completely random, is that even possible? I'm not sure that it is. I mean even the whole number picking thing is influenced by something, whether it be favorite number, girlfriend's softball number, how old your niece is, etc. Can anything really be completely random?


On another note in Acts 1, when Jesus is about to be taken into heaven, the disciples asked Him whether the kingdom would be restored (which means the final salvation of Israel end times etc.). He responded in verse 7 saying "It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has SET by his own authority". Would this not imply that He has set the time and date for the end times?

One of the best books I’ve read on the topic of free will, was R.C. Sproul’s (Willing to Believe). You can also hear some good summaries by Professor Philip Carrie in his lectures on the (History of Western Philosophy).

There are two kinds of causality…Primary and secondary. Primary is God’s causality, and secondary is (of course) mans causality.
Mans causality never subverts or effects God’s Causality. So you can infer from that concept that mans will is limited and not Absolute like God’s, yes we seemingly have free will, however it’s finite.

R.C gives a good illustration, and I paraphrase, if you put a dog in a fenced in yard, the dog can only make choices with in the confines of the yard, and experience the consequences with in the boundaries of the fence. The choices he makes have no effect whatsoever on things that happen outside the fence i.e. God’s providence. In other words man does not have Absolute free will.

@BrandonYes, but can something be objectively known and not set?
This depends on when the future was set (knowable). If god knew the entire future before creation, then yes that leaves only him to be the “setter”.
If he didn’t have free will or the ability to choose differently than yes, whatever/whoever made the decision that brought about the sin would be responsible.
First, the rules of god “sinning” are different then they are for us( he can judge, we can not). But anyway, I view this as a prediction based on peter’s character/circumstances. Peter had freewill he just didn’t have the character needed to hold up under the circumstances that he going to be in. Therefore god was able to make an accurate prediction based on things that were already set. If peter had made “better” decisions earlier on in his life then he probably wouldn’t have denied Jesus. But at the time Jesus made the prediction… it was too late for peter to change his character.
Very few scholars think the phrase “before the foundation of the world” meant before creation. It might have actually meant before god gave the torah. But anyway let’s take it literally for the sake of discussion. There’s a big difference between having a back up plan in case humans sin, and not giving humans freewill. God didn’t necessarily know when, where, how, and why they would sin, but he of course knew that they might.
Sorry I’m not sure what you’re asking here.
Um, yeah I know the problems that arise with the word random and that’s why I put it in quotation marks, and said let’s assume we have lots of freewill. When I use the word “random” I’m referring to an uncaused cause…. Not an effect without a cause. So this means “random” is the opposite of determined/predestined. So without “randomness” in this sense you can not have any freewill… even if you are God.
Time and date is probably a misleading translation. If you read commentary about this phrase time probably refers to a long duration. Such as the end TIMES which we have been in for 2000 years now. And date would be better translated as a season which is an adequate period for doing something. So this verse never implies that god has something specific picked out like: Dec, 21, 2012 at 3:00 pm. Also the disciples aren’t even asking about the end of the world! However, ignoring everything I just said, I still think we can have freewill and god could still set a specific date to end the world. This is a statement about what and when god is going to do… our freewill doesn’t really need to come into play. He can use his omnipotence to guide us to be in the right alignment with his timing.

@Church

Ok well I'm just going to assume ((and if I am wrong please tell me) that if the Bible says it is a sin, and sin is evil/opposition to God/eternally damning then God cannot do those things (as it would be illogical because it would be against His nature). Now it says causing someone to sin is a sin, so if God ever caused someone to sin that would mean He himself sinned.

Now you say it was a prediction, but if God makes a prediction its fact. So basically it was objectively known that he was going to sin. If something is objectively known and the result of it being objectively known means that free will is gone, then Peter had no free will in choosing to sin or not (following your logic). Now if this is the case, God would have caused Peter to sin, and this is not possible. And just because God knew His chatacter etc, doesn't change the fact He knew he would sin and that by knowing it, it was set, and by it being set Peter had no free will, if we are to stick with your flow of logic. (unless, of course, I am missunderstanding)


Ok but if we are taking this verse literally, it says He WAS crucified before the foundation of the Earth, not that it was God's backup plan. How can God be completely sovereign if He has backup plans?
If we take this verse literally then there is no way (as far as I see it) to derive that God had another plan. It seems that God knew we would sin, and knew He would have to send Jesus.

You pointed out that if something is known for 100% sure that it is going to happen then you had no free will in the decision. So if you didn't go back in the past and try to change what happened, would you look at all the decisions you made in that day you jumped forward and conclude that you had no free will in those decisions? That seems to be illogical to do. But it seems like that is what you are saying would have to be the logical assumption if something is foreknown.

@BrandonYeah probably, but I also think a lot of his “predictions” in the bible are more warnings than they are statements about what IS 100% going to happen in the future.
Nope. Hopefully I can clear this up with an illustration, but what I am saying is that as a result of peter’s prior freewill decisions he was now going to be in a situation where he was going to fail. So imagine someone driving a car near a cliff. If at some point they steer the car towards the cliff and accelerate too much it will be too late to stop from driving off the cliff. So the driver certainly has freewill to not drive off the cliff. But once you get 3 feet from the edge and are going 100mph it is certainly too late for freewill. You WILL fall off the cliff. Now, I actually think Jesus was warning peter when he made the statement, but if you look at peters reaction it was prideful. He told jesus that he was wrong, instead of asking for help and advice. So then it became too late to turn away from the cliff. In this case Peter is the one who set the conditions for “falling off the cliff” not god. But if god ALWAYS knew peter was going to drive of the cliff, then peter certainly never had the ability to not drive off of it.
Um, I think you must be referring to Rev 13:8 with the way you worded this. First I don’t think you are using the best interpretation of this verse, but in case you are. It’s quite possible that god knew humans would sin before he created them on earth. But knowing that humans were going to sin at some point and knowing each person’s actual sins are quite different.
Depends on what you mean by sovereign, but god can’t really be sovereign over the things that he made humans to be sovereign over. So by giving us freewill we have the ability to “mess up”. If we mess uo enough to where we are no longer able to do what we were made for, then god needs a “backup plan”, to save us from our mistakes. Unless you think our mistakes are part of the original plan, the backup plan is necessary.
Hopefully I cleared this up. But if you are asking a question about being able to tell whether or not something has freewill…. There is no way to tell by looking! The only reason I used that example was to illustrate what it means if the future is objectively known before it happens. Keep in mind that 100% of the past is also objectively known….and we all still had freewill to shape the past. However now that it is in it objectively known final form it is too late to shape it. So if the future is shaped in the same way the past is already shaped…. Then it’s too late for our freewill to shape it.

@church

Ok, how do you see this as a warning? Nowhere in those passages does it say you might do this, or be careful this will happen if. He said i tell you the TRUTH you WILL disown me. To me it seems as if Jesus is telling Him this is going to happen not warning Him. And Warning implies that measures can be taken to avoid this, but being worded the way it is I do not see that, and if it did not happen then the entire Bible would be void because we would see an example of Jesus lying or being wrong. You yourself stated that the chances of it not happening were the same as Jesus being wrong which is 0% which means that what He said was 100% going to happen.

Now my original question stands, did he have free will to not make those decisions to deny, to sin against God?

You state:

Ok but here is the thing. You said the driver certainly had free will not to drive off of the cliff. Regardless of whether he had the ability to stop or not he had free will right? I mean I understand your analogy, but Peter was given three chances to not sin. He chose not to correct? By his own free will, sure the chances of him (based on his past) chosing the right thing is slim, but do we conclude from that that he had no choice? I don't think so. Even the driver driving incredibly fast at the cliff still has the split second free will to jump out of the car before flying off of the cliff.

If Peter had free will at all in these three situations, then it seems like your entire argument comes apart. You say that if something is objectively known and set then it is unchangeable, therefore free will is absent. But here we see that Peter had to have some measure of free will, otherwise God would have set (made) Him sin by taking away even the slightest option or chance from him. Yes I know he was going really fast toward the cliff, but to say he had no free will to jump out at the last possible second is to say that God locked the doors to the car where he couldn't possible get out.

All of the predictions the Bible makes come true, either they have or they will. This must mean they are objectively known, this was another prediction. Peter had to have free will, unless you can show me how he could have not had free will and the fault not been on God. Despite all of his past decisions, he still had the opportunity to not do it, however slight that opportunity was. Jesus knew that he wouldn't capitalize on that. He knew what situations he was going to be in and the depths of Peter's heart, and therefore knew what Peter was goin to do.

And the amount of time Peter's denials were known before Peter did it is really not relevant, because if we can see that He knew even one minute before, then we can show that something being objectively known does not mean that free will is void.


But if it was objectively known that humans were going to sin, did we have free will not to sin? Unless I am drastically misunderstanding your points it seems like if God at anytime before we sinned, that we were going to sin, the we had no choice in the matter, it was set.

Is not the boss of my boss still my boss?

No I am saying that God has always had one plan because he knew everything that was going to happen and all He would need to do in oreder for His glory to be preserved and displayed, and therefore only needed one plan, not multiple.

I see your point, but my point is that if we teleported to the future we would not be ticked and say that we didn't have free will in out decisions. So if we wouldn't be mad or come to that conslusion, then why would we come to that conclusion when we say God knows? You said yourself that we had free will in the past, but now we can't change it. You are exactly correct, we cannot change it but we still had free will to sahpe it. The only way for you to change what you are going to decide in the future is knowing that you need to change the decision. The only way that happens is if you know whats going to happen as a result of it. That isn't possible so you are not going to change your free will decisions, the decisions you will make are the decisions you were always going to make because of everything you experience in your life and all of the other components of decision making.

You seem to really want to be able to have the ability to change the future, but we can't. It isn't in existence for us to change. Every one of our decisions shape the future, but we cannot change the decisions we are going to make, they aren't in existence yet. We will make the decsions based on a lot of different things that we can't change either. So my view is, what's going to happen was always going to happen, that is not to say that we have no free will, it is to say that the decisions we are going to make by our own free will, we were always going to make, because unless we know to change them we won't.

That's my view and I feel that is is very logical. But if you see flaws please point them out

church 27 wrote;
Brandon Howard wrote;
This is another example of how you can interpret the bible to say what you want it to say. Or I might be wrong, it might be a translation error or out of context.

The biggest problem that plagues the church today (especially factions that fall under the Methodist umbrella) is biblical illiteracy.

All I am saying is that when read in context and looking at the Greek, it seems to be the case that Jesus told him that he would deny him, using the words verily, i tell you the truth, and you will etc.

Sure I guess we could say that this was a warning of what WAS going to happen, but it doesn't seem to be the type of warning of what could possibly happen unless this or that is done.

So maybe I spoke to strongly, but nowhere in the statement Jesus made could we conclude that there was any chance of that not happening. I am just trying to establish this case of the future being objectively known and that Peter still had free will.

@Greg

And I would agree that biblical illiteracy is a big problem, along with being stagnant and apathetic, and disobedient.

We just don't do what it says anymore, and it is heartbreaking

@Brandon H,
Just so you know, I think you are reading the passage correctly.

@BrandonSorry! I left out a part. I meant to say: I actually think jesus was warning peter when he made the statement about the sheep being scattered.
Which in case you are wondering: when jesus told the disciples that they would all fall away (matt 26:31). The word used is referring to stumbling not necessarily rejecting god completely. Which judging by the way jesus refers to this, it seems unavoidable and yet not that big of all deal to him. And no, I don’t think he was giving them a warning in the sense that they could avoid stumbling he was just telling them what was GOING to happen and trying to help them respond to it in the proper way. Hopefully this doesn’t take us too far off topic though!
First just like the driver in the car it’s important to remember that there is never any loss of freewill. It’s just at some point you don’t have enough ability to save yourself from destruction, using will power alone. So if peter ever had the ability to turn from denying jesus 3 times …. By now it was too late. But this doesn’t mean god forced him to sin. Just like god never forced the driver of the car to drive towards the cliff at 100mph. People are slaves to their sinful natures and when put in extreme circumstances your true nature comes out. Peter was not as brave as he thought he was so this is why he denied jesus. He still had freewill but not enough control over his sinful nature keep from denying Jesus. Addicts have just as much freewill as non-addicts but they are slaves to their addiction. So If they are put in the wrong situation they don’t have the ability to say no. This just means that their addiction is stronger than their willpower… not that they don’t have freewill.
If they were known before creation… that is certainly different than if they were first known an hour before it happened. In one case humans could have had an impact on the outcome, in the other humans weren’t around to have any impact….. leaving god to be the only cause
Nope. Just like driving the car off a cliff. Knowing that the driver is going to drive off the cliff doesn’t in any way mean it wasn’t his fault. The problem is that if it is known before creation then your freewill obviously isn’t what determined the outcome.
Do you think it would be illogical to shape the past now? In your view the past and future are no different to god. And yet somehow we can shape the future but not the past?
So Adam and Eve had no way to make a better decision?
Don’t they exist to God? If so then all of your decisions do exist already. Which means you CAN”T make different ones
That’s exactly what it means to not have freewill. No offense but judging by this statement, I’m not sure you know what freewill really means. You seem to have an emotional attachment to your idea of god being in complete control and that nothing negative ever happens to him. It seems that you believe that if God has to deal with any of the opportunity costs that arise from giving freewill, then he would not be god. What exactly do you think it means if humans have freewill. Do you think that god is in control of our freewill