Danmac
Well-Known Member
It could be a majority opinion.
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Is there Free Will in Heaven?
- Thread starter Deicidal Maniac
- Start date
It could be a majority opinion.
Danmac
Well-Known Member
There will be no sin in heaven, but free moral agents will always be capable of choice. S
On the contrary.
PolyHedral
Superabacus Mystic
So why does sin exist at all? The concept must have originated somewhere.
Danmac
Well-Known Member
There can be no love without hate. There can be no love or hate without free will. In order for love to exist, there must be the potential for hate. The moment that God created a free moral agent He knew He would have to deal with hate. That was the price He had to pay if He wanted companions that were capable of loving Him back. God is love.
Cordoba
Well-Known Member
That an incorrect "restatement"
What God knows is unknown to us, therefore our free will is independent from God's knowledge, as we will never know in this life what He knows
God knows because He is Eternal and He is The Creator of time. He gave us free will, and He can "see" how we "will" use this free will, as there is no past, present and future for God
God is never wrong nor is He ever unjust
jonman122
Active Member
You still don't seem to understand the concept of "free will" at all. If he is timeless, eternal, the creator of all that we could possibly understand, and he can see our futures pasts and presents on a whim, then we only have the ILLUSION of free will, we don't actually have it at all. Does that make sense to you now?
Cordoba
Well-Known Member
No it doesn't because we simply don't know what God knows
His knowledge is independent from our choices and actions
What you also need to add to the formula is God's Justice: He would not hold us accountable on the Day of Judgment if we had no free will
Makes sense?
jonman122
Active Member
how can you say we simply don't know what he knows, but then RIGHT after that, make a statement claiming you know something that only god himself would be able to answer?
You just defeated your own argument.. If you say we cannot know what he knows, then you can't even say if god is good or just. That's claiming to know of knowledge that only god himself would know.
Cordoba
Well-Known Member
God informs us in the Qur'an in many verses that He is never unjust, including this verse:
And the record [of deeds] will be placed [open], and you will see the criminals fearful of that within it, and they will say, "Oh, woe to us! What is this book that leaves nothing small or great except that it has enumerated it?" And they will find what they did present [before them]. And your Lord does injustice to no one.
(18:49)
Thief
Rogue Theologian
Allow me a guess at this one.
It doesn't refer to what you did....it refers to the result.
I think it rather notable, the Spanish language has the word 'sin' as a preposition...'without'...and would be linguistically better than the English noun.
In more 'undeveloped' times.....while pondering the loss of loved ones...
the aggrieved would consider the question of dying in terms of 'why'.
Making the assumption that a transgression causes people to die...and the immediate dead having lead good lives....
then the transgression must have been performed by an ancestor ...and the result of that transgression would be transfered from one generation to the next.....original sin.
Unable to accept death a natural result of breathing....
spiritual causes were given to the event.
Even today, that old logic still prevails in the minds of many religious people.
To live in sin means to live without.....without what?....
without God.
jonman122
Active Member
God did not write the Qur'an or the Bible.
Cordoba
Well-Known Member
God revealed the Qur'an to prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, through angel Gabriel, and the scribes of the Prophet wrote it down. The Qur'an has been preserved intact for 14 centuries, with no man-made changes, as it is His Guidance for all generations till the end of this world
IslamBasics
It is God's final Divine revelation for all mankind, and from the Qur'an we know what God informed us of which is Him being Just, in addition to His other attributes (All-Knowledgeable, The First, The Last, The One and Only Creator and Sustainer of the universe, ...)
Deicidal Maniac
Member
Well, since my last post got lost in your arguments with Jonman, I'll just respond to this post. You see, this entire argument rests on the authority of the Qu'ran. You believe it is divine revelation whereas we do not. So you just believe that God is always just because the Qu'ran says so. You also think what it says about free will makes sense even though it doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Have you ever even question any of it or are you just blindly believing it?
How do you KNOW that Muhammad was being truthful about having a divine revelation told to him through Gabriel? I mean, we kind of just have to take his word for it, don't we? Why doesn't God give all of us his divine revelation so that there's no question about who's right? Why only give it to one man and trust that it will all be successfully transmitted? I highly doubt that it hasn't been altered in 14 centuries and I highly doubt that Mahummad was being truthful about his message. Don't you see how much power someone has to gain by claiming to speak to God. There's just too many benefits to being God's spokesman...
I'm getting off-topic now. In short, everything you said about free will doesn't make any sense and I think you just blindly believe it because you've been conditioned to think that it's true without question and you've never really questioned it as a result. If you did then you might realize how bizarre and obviously invented it is.
Cordoba
Well-Known Member
OK, let's keep on topic and try to think of the matter in a logical way
If this amazing universe has a Creator, then it is very logical to conclude some of His attributes, including the following:
- A Creator of such an immense universe must have a lot of power (All-Mighty)
- He must be very knowledgeable (All-Knowing)
- If He is The Creator of all what exists, including time, He must not be constrained by time (Eternal)
So as a starting point, and in view of our insignificant size compared to the universe (smaller than an ant or a grain of sand in a vast desert, or a drop of water in a vast ocean), would an All-Knowing, All-Mighty, Eternal Creator bring us into existence and be unjust towards us?
Does it make sense that He would hold us accountable on The Day of Judgment for our actions if we had no free will?
Does that make sense to you?
Beaudreaux
Well-Known Member
Then why can't it be that way here on earth? Why can't we all have free will and yet none of us sin? Then, no one would need to burn in eternal flame, right?
Beaudreaux
Well-Known Member
But....you just said that in heaven there would be free will and love, but no hate, right?
Beaudreaux
Well-Known Member
There is nothing at all inaccurate about that restatement.
My question to you:
Your answer to me:
Again, you are CLEARLY saying that it is possible for someone to "pass the test" even if God knows right now that they will not. That means that God's knowledge would be incorrect.
It does not matter if we know what he knows. It is HIS knowledge, not ours, that is deterministic.
Beaudreaux
Well-Known Member
This is getting sidetracked. Cordoba, if God knows what you will do tomorrow, then that's what you are going to do even if you don't know what God is thinking and even if it FEELS like you are making a choice. If your future is foreknown with 100% certainty then it cannot change. You are locked into doing what God knows you will do.
Deicidal Maniac
Member
Okay, I'll grant you the starting point that there was a Creator to our Universe.
So to begin with: he wouldn't necessarily be all-mighty, he would just be powerful enough to create a universe. He wouldn't necessarily be all-knowing, he would just be knowledgeable enough to create a universe. And he wouldn't be Eternal, just outside the bounds of our universe's space-time. I say all this because it's possible, according to modern science, that there are many universes. So I'm only granting that he's the Creator of ours as you haven't specified otherwise. Also, according to Occam's Razor, the simplest solution is most likely the correct one. If we're positing a Creator, then the attributes of being all-mighty, all-knowing, and eternal are excessive and unnecessary. You posited them not from logic, but from your holy book. The attributes I've stated would be the minimal requirements for any Creator of our Universe.
Besides all that, they're completely unrelated to morality anyway for several reasons. We know from psychology, sociology, and philosophy that basic morality arises from social interactions and co-dependence. We behave morally to one another, for the most part, for three reasons: 1) survival, 2) prosperity and 3) happiness. Without morals, society would never advance and would most likely crumble completely. Most of us would die off and the rare isolated survivalists would be incredibly miserable. As social animals, we need each other. WE DON'T KNOW OF MORALITY DEVELOPING SCIENTIFICALLY NOR LOGICALLY IN ANY OTHER MANNER. From basic morality evolved the concepts of equality, liberty, and fairness. From these concepts comes our contemporary ideals of justice.
Now we're ready to look at our Creator. He is singular, right? So he did not evolve in a socially-dependent fashion (among other beings of equal attributes) and so would not have developed a basic morality. The Creator would be an amoral being (completely devoid of moral beliefs). Without a basic morality, it's highly unlikely that he would possess concepts of equality and liberty. Again concepts of equality, liberty, and fairness comprise our modern ideals of justice. He would certainly not grant us equal-liberty with Him, which a truly just Creator would grant us.
He would most likely follow the dictum of "might makes right" with any lesser beings of his own creation. He would be an authoritarian dictator without any respect for human rights or advancement. Any views of justice he might have would not be based on fairness. His views would be completely self-serving and solely based on forwarding his own glory. In short, any Creator of the Universe would not be a worthy judge of human justice.
In conclusion, the Creator would be very unjust from a scientific, philosophical, and humanistic perspective. It is only from a blindly religious and/or morally-outdated perspective that the Creator could appear to be just. It from this perspective that I posit you make all of your arguments. Once again, it all comes down to blind obedient faith parading as logic.
Cordoba
Well-Known Member
Interesting post
I won't go into an argument with you on whether The Creator is only "mighty enough" to create this universe rather than All-Mighty, or whether He is "knowledgeable enough" to create this universe rather than All-Knowledgeable, or whether He is only "outside the bounds of our universe's space-time" rather than Eternal, as you can't prove the claim that other universes have other creators.
Logically-speaking The Creator must be One, or else if there are other "creators", they would be a power-struggle and wars for the dominion over the different universes, which we have no proof of. Not only that, but having One God who is Eternal and the cause of all creation makes sense, while having several "creators" means that they can't all be eternal, only one of them is the source of all creation and is not constrained by time, all the rest are created not creators.
In any case, if He has the might to create our universe, then He is very Mighty. If you don't want to describe Him as All-Mighty, that's no problem, as we are talking logic not faith.
Scientists calculate that our universe is around 14 billion years old, and if you were describing the universe as something which is "finite" in our human knowledge, you may be right, but till now we have not been able to reach the limits and the outer boundaries of our universe, so in reality we don't really know how vast our universe really is. The knowledge and might needed to create this universe is way beyond our human imagination, and as the distance between us (our planet earth) and these outer boundaries of the universe are so vast, we will never know as it takes billions of years for information to travel and reach us, and when it reaches us it is "old data" which is billions years old, not the current reality of the universe. Also, it is impossible for our knowledge to go beyond the Big Bang to "see" what was there, as how can you go beyond the original singularity of creation?
But to go to the main issue of whether The Creator is Just or unjust as regards human free will:
By all measures, our size, our power and our human knowledge is insignificant compared to that of The Creator, so why would He be unfair to us?
Let me give you an example: Assume you have a cat at home who keeps you good company, would you be unfair to your cat whom you feed each day and who thanks you for it and obeys you?
Same here. We are insignificant in size compared to our Creator, who brought us into existence for a purpose (to know Him and love Him, as He loves us - according to faith) so why would He be unfair to us? Logically-speaking it makes no sense.
To confirm this point, God says in The Qur'an,
" What would Allah do with your punishment if you are grateful and believe? And ever is Allah Appreciative and Knowing" (4:147)
If He gave us free will, and the freedom to choose between belief and disbelief, do you really think that such a Creator would be unjust to us and would hold us accountable by not giving us true free will?