Special Pleading and the PoE (Part 3)

[Koldo]

You are committing the fallacy of appeal to personal incredulity.
Your inability to understand how it could work does not prove it's untrue.

You have not shown why it is logically necessary that we must conclude God had to intend for death to be in the world.

My point is completely unrelated to whether God intended for death to be in the world.
To be part of the design is not necessarily for it to be intended, but it remains part of the design nonetheless. And since it is part of the design, the designer, if he could foresee the consequences of his design, is responsible. His ability to foresee the consequences of his actions is sufficient to establish responsibility.

Logically it is perfectly possible for God to create a world that did not have death/corruption as part of the design.

Logically it is perfectly possible for death/corruption to enter the world in a way that God did not intend or want.

You have not exposed any logical fault with these possibilities for us to be able to dismiss them as impossible.

Therefore, you have no logical basis for claiming your conclusion is the only logical possibility left.

I accept both of those statements. None of which contradict what I have stated.
I won't even reply to the rest of the post, because the trend is the same all along.
Can you show how those statements contradict what I have stated?

 

[Rise]

My point is completely unrelated to whether God intended for death to be in the world.
To be part of the design is not necessarily for it to be intended, but it remains part of the design nonetheless. And since it is part of the design, the designer, if he could foresee the consequences of his design, is responsible. His ability to foresee the consequences of his actions is sufficient to establish responsibility.

...

I accept both of those statements. None of which contradict what I have stated.
...
Can you show how those statements contradict what I have stated?

Those statements do contradict your position. The second one in particular.

Because if God did not design death to be in the world, but death entered in as a consequence of someone else's free will choice, then God can't be held responsible because He gave them free will that was never subject to God's control.

So if that is even a possible explanation for what happened then you are unable to assume your conclusion (about God designing death into the world) is the only possibility.

The assumption you are operating under, which you cannot prove would be true. is the assumption that death cannot enter into creation without God creating it - but you have no reason to believe that must be the case.

There are other logical possibilities. And your inability to imagine other potential scenarios doesn't mean yours is the only possible one.

I won't even reply to the rest of the post, because the trend is the same all along.

You can't respond to the rest of the post because it disproved the foundation premise behind your claim.

You falsely tried to claim that God can't create anything that is able to act outside of the laws He creates.

Your claim is demonstrably false by pointing out that the Bible says God gave Adam a free will independent of God's control and ungoverned by any of the laws God created to govern other aspects of how the universe works.

So if God is capable of and willing to do that, then the theoretical possibility exists that something or someone else could have exercised a will uncontrolled by God to introduce changes into creation which don't reflect what God created originally.

And if that is even a possibility, then you have no logical basis for claiming we must accept your conclusion as the only possible one.

If you want to insist that your hypothesis is the only logical one, or the most likely one even, then you're going to have to offer some positive evidence in support of why we should conclude that must be the case or why you think other possibilities can't logically work

 

[Trailblazer]

You have not shown why it is logically necessary that we must conclude God had to intend for death to be in the world.

Logically it is perfectly possible for God to create a world that did not have death/corruption as part of the design.

Logically it is perfectly possible for death/corruption to enter the world in a way that God did not intend or want.

You have not exposed any logical fault with these possibilities for us to be able to dismiss them as impossible.

Therefore, you have no logical basis for claiming your conclusion is the only logical possibility left.

You have not shown why it is logically necessary that we must conclude God did not intend for death to be in the world.

Logically it is perfectly possible for God to create a world that had death/corruption as part of the design.

Logically it is perfectly possible for death/corruption to not enter the world just as God intended and wanted

You have not exposed any logical fault with these possibilities for us to be able to dismiss them as impossible.

Therefore, you have no logical basis for claiming your conclusion is the only logical possibility left.

 

[Rise]

You have not shown why it is logically necessary that we must conclude God did not intend for death to be in the world.

Your claims are all demonstrably false because I gave a great number of scriptures in more than one previous post to establish why I had reason to conclude that.

Posts #103, #104, and #115.

What's worse for you is that I already specifically pointed that out to you back in post #112 and you never made any effort to try to refute the logical arguments and scriptural evidence I gave to support my conclusion.

You are therefore outright lying by trying to claim I never gave reasons and evidence for my conclusion.

Logically it is perfectly possible for God to create a world that had death/corruption as part of the design.

Logically it is perfectly possible for death/corruption to not enter the world just as God intended and wanted

You have not exposed any logical fault with these possibilities for us to be able to dismiss them as impossible.

Therefore, you have no logical basis for claiming your conclusion is the only logical possibility left.

Your claims are again demonstrably false.
I pointed out already for you why those conclusions aren't supported by Scripture in posts 103, 104, and 115.
You ignored that and never tried to deal with any of it.

You have given no logical reason why there would be any fault with the Scriptures I used to support my conclusion.

You also haven't given any Scripture to support why your belief would be true.

All you've done is appeal to the authority of your religious leader whose opinions are contradicted by what the Bible actually says.

 

[Trailblazer]

Your claims are all demonstrably false because I gave a great number of scriptures in more than one previous post to establish why I had reason to conclude that.

Posts #103, #104, and #115.

This was not about scriptures, it was about logic.

You have not shown why it is logically necessary that we must conclude God did not intend for death to be in the world.

What's worse for you is that I already specifically pointed that out to you back in post #112 and you never made any effort to try to refute the logical arguments and scriptural evidence I gave to support my conclusion.

You are therefore outright lying by trying to claim I never gave reasons and evidence for my conclusion.

I never said that you never gave any reasons and evidence for your conclusion.
This was not about scriptures, it was about logic. Why are you mixing scriptures and logic?

No, I am outright busy on other threads so I can barely answer the posts on this thread, so I just respond to what I see in passing. I have all of the Alerts to all your posts, #s 112, 129, and 138 all saved in a Word document. I am very organized but there are only so many hours in a day,

My response to this post was not about scriptures, it was about logic.

Your claims are again demonstrably false.

Those were not claims, they were statements of what is logically possible.

• Logically it is perfectly possible for God to create a world that had death/corruption as part of the design.
• Logically it is perfectly possible for death/corruption to not enter the world just as God intended and wanted
• You have not exposed any logical fault with these possibilities for us to be able to dismiss them as impossible.
• Therefore, you have no logical basis for claiming your conclusion is the only logical possibility left.

I pointed out already for you why those conclusions aren't supported by Scripture in posts 103, 104, and 115.
You ignored that and never tried to deal with any of it.

I was only talking about logic (what is logically possible) in the post you are responding to, I was not talking about scripture. Scripture is a whole different subject.

You have given no logical reason why there would be any fault with the Scriptures I used to support my conclusion.

You cannot support scriptures with logic. Scriptures are either true or false and then there is also a matter of interpretation. If you are going to insist that ther is only one correct interpretation and it is yours then there is no point going any further in a discussion. That there can be only one interpretation of the text is in itself illogical because people all read and process words differently. If you think YOU have the one correct interpretation you will have to give a logical reason why you are correct and others are incorrect in their interpretations. Did God appoint you as the official Bible interpreter?

You also haven't given any Scripture to support why your belief would be true.

All you've done is appeal to the authority of your religious leader whose opinions are contradicted by what the Bible actually says.

Just because I have not done it yet does not mean it is not on my docket.

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This discussion really needs to be streamlined because I cannot answer all those posts and address everything you wrote because I do not have the time.

I will start by saying that I consider Baha'u'llah an authority, as I believe He is a Manifestation of God equivalent to Jesus, who is also a Manifestation of God. The 100 dollar difference is that Jesus never wrote anything in His own pen as Baha'u'llah did. The gospels came to be written from oral tradition, so we cannot ever know what Jesus said as we can unequivocally know what exactly what Baha'u'llah wrote. That is true for the entire Bible, not only the gospels; the Bible was written by men and it is of unknown authorship and the Bible has many transcription errors and many different translations.

My beliefs do not contradict what the Bible says, they only contradict the Christian interpretation of what the Bible says.

 

[Koldo]

Those statements do contradict your position. The second one in particular.

Because if God did not design death to be in the world, but death entered in as a consequence of someone else's free will choice, then God can't be held responsible because He gave them free will that was never subject to God's control.

So if that is even a possible explanation for what happened then you are unable to assume your conclusion (about God designing death into the world) is the only possibility.

The assumption you are operating under, which you cannot prove would be true. is the assumption that death cannot enter into creation without God creating it - but you have no reason to believe that must be the case.

There are other logical possibilities. And your inability to imagine other potential scenarios doesn't mean yours is the only possible one.



You can't respond to the rest of the post because it disproved the foundation premise behind your claim.

You falsely tried to claim that God can't create anything that is able to act outside of the laws He creates.

Your claim is demonstrably false by pointing out that the Bible says God gave Adam a free will independent of God's control and ungoverned by any of the laws God created to govern other aspects of how the universe works.

So if God is capable of and willing to do that, then the theoretical possibility exists that something or someone else could have exercised a will uncontrolled by God to introduce changes into creation which don't reflect what God created originally.

And if that is even a possibility, then you have no logical basis for claiming we must accept your conclusion as the only possible one.

If you want to insist that your hypothesis is the only logical one, or the most likely one even, then you're going to have to offer some positive evidence in support of why we should conclude that must be the case or why you think other possibilities can't logically work

But either God designed that death could be a consequence of someone else's free will choice or death would not exist.

I am not saying that God can't create anything able to act outside of the laws he created. He can do that, but...

1) Why did the consequence of men's action had to be death? Since he is omnipotent, he could make it so by design that death would not be the consequence.

2) What determined the possible consequences of men's actions if not God? Assume that God creates a computer with a button that if pressed would cause the human race to be extinct and he gives it to you. He could have chosen not to create this computer with this button. He might not even intend for you to press the button. But isn't he still responsible for what happens even if it is you freely pressing the button? After all, it would be trivial to imagine that eventually this could happen even if unlikely.

 

[Ostronomos]

I have started quite a few threads about the PoE, but there is still more to talk about. Today I'd like to talk about this little issue: ostensibly, given the premises that God exists, that God is omnipotent, that God is omniscient, and that God created humans deliberately, then it is reasonable to conclude that God is responsible for our moral compasses: that evaluation that we perform when we feel something has morally good or morally bad implications.

For instance, perhaps this is the reason that we might feel guilty if we hurt somebody, even unintentionally.

Ostensibly, if God is benevolent and wishes for us to be morally good agents, God would endow us with functioning moral cognitive faculties: God would give us the ability to detect what is morally good and what is morally bad. (Now, obviously as a non-theist and moral non-cognitivist I don't believe any of this; just working within the framework of the premises).

Let us return again to the example given in the last couple of PoE posts: childhood leukemia. If we were to imagine a being giving or allowing a child to suffer horribly from leukemia and then die, most of our moral compasses tingle "this is bad."

But why? If we are to use the theodicy that this post series is about (that is, "God has an unknown, but benevolent, reason for causing/allowing physical suffering in the world"), why wouldn't our moral compasses register this as good even if we didn't understand why, if it was actually good?

In other words, we are between a rock and a hard place: if children with leukemia is actually congruent with God's benevolence, and God gave us functioning cognitive, moral faculties, why wouldn't this register as good to us?

If it is actually good, but registers on our moral compasses as bad, why did God give us malfunctioning moral cognitive faculties? Wouldn't that be an entirely new problem unto itself?

Given that God is deistic your premises would seem to be flawed. Death is no ordinary event and the laws of Physics do not apply to it as one might expect of an everyday event. In such an event God actually reaches out to the person in question only if thy are in a particular state of awareness while still alive. You miserably fail to comprehend this simple fact. Repeatedly. When a person dies they enter into a dimension where God resides. Or consciousness.

 

[Rise]

This was not about scriptures, it was about logic.

You have not shown why it is logically necessary that we must conclude God did not intend for death to be in the world.

I never said that you never gave any reasons and evidence for your conclusion.

This was not about scriptures, it was about logic. Why are you mixing scriptures and logic?

...

I was only talking about logic (what is logically possible) in the post you are responding to, I was not talking about scripture. Scripture is a whole different subject.

You are very confused, misconstruing what I said to Koldo with what I said to you.

There are two critical errors with your statement:

1. I never tried to make an argument that it was logically necessary, independent of Bible, for my conclusions to be true.

I said elsewhere in my responses to you, but not in my responses to Koldo, that it was logically necessary to conclude that based on reading the Bible.

You tried to dispute that by claiming I had misinterpreted the Bible - but you were never able to show with logic or evidence why we should believe your claim is true.

All you could do was fallaciously appeal to the authority of your religious leader even though his opinion about what the Scripture means is completely contradicted by what the Scripture actually says.

So that is why when you tried to argue with my conclusions again I believed you were continuing your previous argument of trying to claim the Bible supposedly supported your conclusion but not mine.


2. What you quoted from me was my response to Koldo and not in response to you. Koldo was trying to insist on logical grounds alone that their conclusion was the only possible one. To which I pointed out why they had no logical grounds for asserting their conclusion was the only possible explanation.

I again made no attempt to establish by logic lone that my conclusion had to be the only right one - but only pointed out that logically as long as other possibilities were viable answers then his answer could not be the only possible one.

No, I am outright busy on other threads so I can barely answer the posts on this thread, so I just respond to what I see in passing. I have all of the Alerts to all your posts, #s 112, 129, and 138 all saved in a Word document. I am very organized but there are only so many hours in a day,

...

Just because I have not done it yet does not mean it is not on my docket.

You are not in any position to try to keep arguing against my points in this thread when you haven't been able to deal yet with the points I made to your earlier.
Because what I continue to argue has been built upon what I said previously in this thread.

So any attempt you make to argue against it is going to be futile because I can refute it based on what I have already said.

You would be better off to stop trying to argue with new things until you've dealt with the previous things first.

My response to this post was not about scriptures, it was about logic.

Those were not claims, they were statements of what is logically possible.

You don't appear to understand how logic works.

A "claim" is when you say something is true.
Text: Logical Arguments | Basic Reading and Writing: Cerritos College.

"Claim: a statement or opinion that is either true or false
Argument: a claim supported by premises
Conclusion: the main claim in an argument
Premises: claims that support and argument’s conclusion"

When you say it's true that something is logically possible, you're making a "claim" about what is true as opposed to what is false.

• Logically it is perfectly possible for God to create a world that had death/corruption as part of the design.
• Logically it is perfectly possible for death/corruption to not enter the world just as God intended and wanted

Logical fallacy, "irrelevant conclusion".

Your claims are not relevant to refuting what you were quoting and responding to.

You were responding to my arguments directed at Koldo.

Koldo was claiming that it was logically necessary for his conclusion to be true.

I was pointing out that he has no basis for claiming that because other valid possibilities exist

Therefore, your statements do nothing to refute what I originally argued and therefore your statements are not relevant.

• You have not exposed any logical fault with these possibilities for us to be able to dismiss them as impossible.

Logical fallacy, irrelevant conclusion.

My argument to Koldo never required me to prove those possibilities were logically impossible independent of the Bible, because I never tried to argue that claim was true on purely logical grounds.

Someone does not have the logical burden to prove things which they never tried to claim are true.

• Therefore, you have no logical basis for claiming your conclusion is the only logical possibility left.

Logical fallacy, strawman.
You are misrepresenting my conclusion.

I never tried to tell Koldo that my conclusion was the only possible logical conclusion we can draw using pure logic alone.

You are getting yourself in trouble by just trying to copy/paste my arguments to Koldo back at me without having any understanding of what was being argued, or why it was being argued, so you put your foot in your mouth by trying to wield the tool of logic when you don't even understand how that tool works.

I am not surprised you are having so much trouble using logic or understanding how it works when you originally tried to fallacious assert that logic has no application to understanding what the Bible says and the entire basis for what you believe about the Bible is based on a fallacious appeal to authority of what your religious leaders say is true.

You cannot support scriptures with logic.

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion.
You have given no logical reasons to prove your claim is true that Scripture supposedly can't be "supported with logic".

Merely asserting it is true doesn't make it true just because you assert it.

Scriptures are either true or false

You're making a logical claim about Scripture. Thereby refuting your claim that logic plays no role in understanding Scripture.

Yes, logically, Scripture can either be only true or false - that's called the logical law of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle.

It would be logically impossible for the Scripture to be both true and false at the same time. And there is logically no third middle option between the two.

and then there is also a matter of interpretation. If you are going to insist that ther is only one correct interpretation and it is yours then there is no point going any further in a discussion.

Your statement is hypocritical and self contradictory.

You affirm the logical truth that two contradictory interpretations of the Bible can't both be true.

Yet you have no logical way of determining which of those interpretations can be false and which can be true.

You commit the most egregious form of the logical fallacy of argument by assertion I have ever encountered because you quite literally overtly state, and don't just imply, that something is true just because you say it's true.
Or, more precisely, that something is true just because your religious authority says it is, and what they say is true just because you assert it is.
Which also makes you the most overt offender of the fallacy of appeal to authority I've ever come across.

Which then makes you a hypocrit because you claim the right to be able to assert what is true but you would never allow someone else to do the same in order to disprove what you believe.

You are bound by the same laws of logic that everyone else is. You can't use logic only when you think it suits your argument and then disregard it when you think it doesn't suit your argument. You are contradicting yourself by doing that. You can't have it both ways. Either the laws of logic are true or they aren't. And if they are then you are bound by them all the time - not just when you feel like it.

That there can be only one interpretation of the text is in itself illogical because people all read and process words differently.

You continue to logically contradict yourself.

You are trying to make a logical argument about the nature of the Bible to establish your claim that logic cannot be used to make truthful claims about the Bible.

Your argument is self-defeating because you can't use logic to prove your view of how to read the Bible is right when you deny that logic is a valid way of justifying someone's view of the Bible is right.

 

[Rise]

If you think YOU have the one correct interpretation you will have to give a logical reason why you are correct and others are incorrect in their interpretations.

I did already. Posts 103, 104, 115.
You haven't refuted any of my logical arguments or Biblical evidence for my conclusions.

You are the one lacking in any logical arguments or evidence for why your conclusion about the Bible is supposedly true. You haven't even tried to offer any logical support or evidence for your claims yet you feel entitled to continue asserting your claims are true anyway.

So far the only arguments you've given are fallacious appeals to authority and arguments by assertion. "Its true because my religious leader says it is, and what he says is true just because it just is".

Did God appoint you as the official Bible interpreter?

The premise behind your question is an unproven assertion on your part.

You claim that only people who have been appointed by God can properly understand and relate the truth of the Bible - but you can't prove your claim is true.

Merely asserting it's true without proving it's true makes you guilty of the logical fallacy of argument by assertion.
It's not true just because you assert it is. You need to give valid logical reasons to establish why we should believe it is supposedly true.

The gospels came to be written from oral tradition

You can't prove your claim is true.

Eusebius, Irenaeus, and Origin record in the few hundred years record, for instance, that the gospel of Matthew was written by the disciple Matthew himself. They do not say it was a later writing down of what had up until that point been just an oral tradition that was passed down.

The same writing will also tell you that the gospel of John was written by the disciple John himself, and that the gospel of Mark was written down contemporary with Peter's preaching in Rome as a record of what Peter preached (Mark being Peter's translator).

You have no valid reason to believe otherwise and no proof that your claim must be true.

This discussion really needs to be streamlined because I cannot answer all those posts and address everything you wrote because I do not have the time.

This isn't complicated.
I can streamline this for you by taking you back to the original claim you made:
You tried to claim your opinion about Genesis was the truth and that what Christians conclude from reading Genesis is not true.

So you made two claims there:
1. That your opinion about Genesis is the truth.
2. That what Christians say about Genesis isn't true.

The burden of proof is on you as the one making the claim to prove your claim is true by offering logical reasons and evidence to support why we should believe either of your claims should be true.


I also offered positive logical arguments and evidence in support of why my conclusions about what the Bile says are true - which thereby contradicts your original claims about what the Bible says.

Therefore, the burden of rejoinder is also on you to defend your claim by trying to raise counter arguments against mine in order to defend your claim from being refuted.

I will start by saying that I consider Baha'u'llah an authority, as I believe He is a Manifestation of God equivalent to Jesus, who is also a Manifestation of God. .

None of your statements about what you believe do anything to change the fact that:
1. You have given no logical reasons or evidence to prove your claim about what the Bible says is true.
2. You have given no counter argument against my arguments which have shown why it is logically impossible for your claims to be consistent with what the Bible actually says.

The 100 dollar difference is that Jesus never wrote anything in His own pen as Baha'u'llah did. The gospels came to be written from oral tradition, so we cannot ever know what Jesus said as we can unequivocally know what exactly what Baha'u'llah wrote

You are contradicting yourself again.

At first you tried to say your beliefs don't contradict what the actually Bible says.

But now you're changing your story and trying to claim that the Bible is in error in what it says - therefore your religious leader has to explain what the Bible is suppose to say even if what he says directly contradicts what the Bible actually says.

You can't have it both ways. Either the Bible is true or it isn't - you have already affirmed you acknowledge that it must logically either be true or false.

You can't say the Bible is true when it agrees with you but not true when it disagrees with you and then try to claim the whole Bible is true and supports what you believe.

You cannot affirm the Bible is true if you just cherrypick the parts that agree with you. You don't care about whether or not your beliefs are actually consistent then with what the Bible says because you just discard any parts that disagree with you and then tape in your own ideas over the top of them and call it a "reinterpretation".

My beliefs do not contradict what the Bible says,

Logical fallacy, argument by assertion and argument by repetition.

I gave you two posts full of logical reasons and evidence why your belief contradicts what the Bible says.

Your claim isn't true just because you assert it is.

And your fallacious argument by assertion doesn't stop being fallacious just because you repeat it.

what the they only contradict the Christian interpretation of what the Bible says.

Your opinion about what the Bible says doesn't prove anything in a debate - you need to back up why you think your opinion is true using logic and evidence if you want to try to claim it is true.

Otherwise it's just your unsupported opinion and it can be dismissed as such without any requirement to refute it.

Since I have given logical reasons and evidence for why my conclusion about the Bible should be regarded as true, and you have given nothing but your opinion, you have no basis to claim what I said isn't true and nobody here has any reason to believe what you say is true.

 

[Rise]

But either God designed that death could be a consequence of someone else's free will choice or death would not exist.

I am not saying that God can't create anything able to act outside of the laws he created. He can do that, but...

1) Why did the consequence of men's action had to be death? Since he is omnipotent, he could make it so by design that death would not be the consequence.

2) What determined the possible consequences of men's actions if not God? Assume that God creates a computer with a button that if pressed would cause the human race to be extinct and he gives it to you. He could have chosen not to create this computer with this button. He might not even intend for you to press the button. But isn't he still responsible for what happens even if it is you freely pressing the button? After all, it would be trivial to imagine that eventually this could happen even if unlikely.

Your position is based on false and/or unproven assumptions.

Premise 1; That death can only enter in the world if God designed it to be a feature of the world.
Premise 2: That death can only be in the world if God not only created the concept of death but also created a switch we could flip to turn it on.
Premise 3: That God could create a world in which death was impossible to experience without compromising things like free will.

I only need to provide one other logically possible alternative for your claim to be wrong that your conclusion is the only logical one possible. I don't even have to prove it is the truth - I just need to show it's a valid possibility for your claim to be wrong that you possess the only possible conclusion one can logically draw.

An alternative possibility:
-God is the source of life.
-Death is defined as being separated from God.
-God creates mankind to be abiding with Him.
-God gives mankind free will to choose whether or not to be with God.
-Sin is rebellion to God's instructions.
-God's instructions are a reflection of God's character and nature.
-God cannot lie and is unchanging. He cannot violate who He is or change who He is.
-That is why God cannot do something contradictory like call evil good or a lie truth. To do so would be to lie and violate his nature, which is impossible for Him.
-Therefore, sin breaks relationship with God by creating a disharmony and disunity between God's nature and man's nature so that man can no longer abide with God.
-God designed a world without desiring, intending, or requiring man to sin and enter into the realm of death set apart from God's life.
-Man therefore has free choice to reject God's life.
-The natural consequence of rejecting God's life is to experience death.
-This consequence cannot be avoided if man is to have true free will.
-It doesn't mean God created death. It means death is unavoidable consequence of simply rejecting who God is and what He has to give you.
-It would be a logical impossibility for God to give life to someone who rejected Him because He is the only source of life. That would be God forcing Himself on someone which would violate free will.
-God can't change Himself to accommodate your rebellious ways because that would violate who He is, which He cannot do.
-Therefore, if you aren't willing to be conformed to God's nature you can't abide with Him. And if you can't abide with Him then you can't access His life. And there is no other way for you to have life because He is the only source of it.

If that is possible, then it's impossible for you to claim that your conclusion is the only possibility.

 

[Koldo]

Your position is based on false and/or unproven assumptions.

Premise 1; That death can only enter in the world if God designed it to be a feature of the world.
Premise 2: That death can only be in the world if God not only created the concept of death but also created a switch we could flip to turn it on.
Premise 3: That God could create a world in which death was impossible to experience without compromising things like free will.

I only need to provide one other logically possible alternative for your claim to be wrong that your conclusion is the only logical one possible. I don't even have to prove it is the truth - I just need to show it's a valid possibility for your claim to be wrong that you possess the only possible conclusion one can logically draw.

Agreed.

An alternative possibility:
-God is the source of life.
-Death is defined as being separated from God.

Wait. I am going to stop you right here. No, I don't allow you to define death this way for this is not the way this word is being used in this discussion. For the sake of this topic, death is the cessation of all vital functions in an organism. You can continue your argument once you adjust this part.

 

[Trailblazer]

An alternative possibility:
-God is the source of life.
-Death is defined as being separated from God.

That is what I believe. Spiritual death is being separated from God.

Physical death is nothing. It is just like walking into another room.
The following is what I believe about physical death and what happens after that. I am not a Christian per se but what he wrote it mirrors my religious beliefs.

421. When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit’s thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense “death” signifies resurrection and continuation of life. Heaven and Hell, p. 351

I will get to your posts in a little while. I try to answer posts in the order in which they were received and I save the longer posts for last since they take a long time to answer.

 

[Rise]

One of the issues I should point out with your original post was that you did not establish what theological viewpoint of God you were trying to show a contradiction with.

Without identifying what theological viewpoint you are trying to show is in contradiction it renders any argument you give null unless you can provide a frame of reference to determine if your conclusion could be true or not. (Ie. You need to identify exactly what belief system you're trying to show is supposedly in contradiction).

I assume from the context of what you are talking about that you are taking issue with God as seen in the Christian Bible.

Therefore I am approaching this from the perspective that your complaints about the Christian idea of God need to be consistent with what the Bible actually says about God.

Otherwise you’re in a strawman fallacy where you’re claiming Christians need to believe things about God that aren’t actually required of them to believe based on what the Bible says about God.

But if you're going to try to expose contradictions in what Christians believe then you need to be able to deal what they actually believe.

And that is where you get into logical trouble by inventing ideas about what you think are the constraints upon God and his acts of creation and his involvement in the world - Ideas which Christians don't necessarily belief and aren’t required by the Bible to believe.

If Christians don't believe what you assert they do then you can't show a contradiction with what they believe.

For instance I assume we're using another premise God intends for there to be free will (rather than finding some number I'm going to call this P), if you will grant that premise with me.

Starting from the premise that the Bible is true, we can conclude it is true that God gives mankind the genuine free choice between whether to embrace God or sin. Which is another way of saying right or wrong, good or evil.

Then we have to make some stipulations about (1), because we can find an example where (1) bumps into (P) in a messy way: God may not want something like broken friendship, but because of P, God must allow it.

But this has been covered in my past posts in this series. I will recap. Given (P), even God's omnipotence and omniscience can't prevent a world in which things like broken friendship, lies, unrequited love, and insults exist: this is because of (P). I do not think these things run afoul of the PoE for this reason: God is not culpable for them, simply put.

However, even given (P), something like leukemia doesn't need to exist: a state of affairs where it is incapable of existing would not be equivalent to (¬P) in the same way that the nonexistence of broken friendship strongly implies (¬P). God could create a world without physical suffering while still satisfying (P), but God could not create a world without emotional suffering while still satisfying (P), at least under reasonable stipulations like that the world has more than one agent in it and so on.

You are trying to defend your original unproven presumptions by using more unproven presumptions.
Premise 1: Leukemia doesn't need to exist.
Premise 2: Emotional pain needs to exist.
Premise 3: God needs to create a world where emotional pain exists or is possible.
Premise 4: God doesn't need to create a world where physical pain exists or is possible.
Premise 5: God created the world with the intent for emotional pain to be part of the design.
Premise 6: God created the world with the intent for physical pain to be part of the design.

We’ll go over why these premises are either untrue or unnecessary as I respond to other parts of your post.

So all we need to do is realize we needed to tease out a little more about (1) when we were trying to make it explicit in the first place:
1'. In terms of the physical rules and laws of the universe and while preserving (P), what God wants is the same as what God allows.

There is no logical connection between the two concepts you are trying to link.

It is perfectly possible for God to give people the choice to reject Him without actually wanting or requiring them to do so.

So what we'd be saying here is that if leukemia is possible because of the way the physics and chemistry and biology of the universe exists, God is culpable for all of the consequences of how that stuff runs. Since leukemia is a consequence of how that stuff runs, God is culpable for leukemia; and since God had to have known it would be a consequence, it means God wanted it to exist. Now, I know you have an objection where you blame it on The Fall, but see below for a response to that.

You are basing your premise on unproven assumptions. Assumptions which the Bible says are false.

Your assumption: That leukemia is the natural consequence of the physics of how the universe was built.

And that assumption is built upon many other assumptions, including:
1. That nothing has ever changed about creation to make leukemia exist where previously it was impossible to exist.
2. That if something was changed, it would have to be God making the change because it’s what he wants.

But the Bible tells us those assumptions are false.

As I already showed with the previous Scriptures: God created a world where man was not subject to death or disease and we see that God never wanted man to have to go through that.

Which takes us back to your original argument: The reason we don’t feel good about being subject to these things is because God doesn’t feel good about us being subject to them either, because it was never god’s desire or intention that we be subject to them. Which is why He entered into His creation to save us from it.

(I think you can see that we would follow a similar process to arrive at a more precise (3') as well, preserving (P) while distinguishing physical suffering that God is culpable for from emotional suffering that God is not culpable for).

Your attempt to differentiate the two is based on unproven assumptions that aren’t consistent with what the Bible shows us.

You are assuming there is no logical requirement for physical suffering to exist if God is going to honor free will.

But this is based on an assumption about what the nature of death and suffering is that is not consistent with what the Bible shows us.

There are other possible explanations for this, which means there is no reason for you to assume your conclusions are the only right premise.

For instance, we could say:
God has given us the choice to freely be connected to Him or not. Since He is the source of everything, to disconnect from God has natural consequences.

Consequences which don’t necessarily require God to do anything negative to someone. But merely by consequence of them choosing to disconnect from the source of life do they start to experience the effects of God honoring their desire to disconnect from life.

There is logically no way for God to give of Himself the things you need without you being willing to receive from God. To force you to accept that would be to violate your free choice.

Proverbs 21:16
Isaiah 64:6-7
Isaiah 59:2
Romans 6:23
Romans 5:12

This response does not work. We can't blame leukemia on the Fall as if it's not God that changes the world to include leukemia. Are you saying that Adam and Eve had godlike powers to alter the fabric of reality?

You have given no logical reason why that response wouldn’t work.

You only think it doesn’t work because it goes against what you presume to be true. But your presumptions are neither proven to be true nor logically required to be true.

Your presumptions:
1. You assume it had to be God who changed the world to introduce leukemia.
2. You assume God intended for that to happen and therefore wanted it to.
3. You assume Adam had no power to bring about such a change by his independent choice.

But none of those presumptions are logically required to be true.

The Bible tells us your assumptions #1 and #2 are not true, as per the Scripture evidence I already gave.

I actually haven’t gotten into #3 with Scripture because we first need to establish what we do and do not know to be true about God and creation based on Scripture before we start talking about what Scripture suggests could have happened.

If you enter into trying to figure out what happened with Adam based on having obviously false premises about God and creation then it’s going to confusion your ability to understand why these other possibilities make sense.

 

[Rise]

Finite, created beings follow laws;

Whoa there, hold on – major and critical unchecked assumption.

Who says man is governed only by physical laws?

You assume man is because you ascribe to the philosophy of materialism.

But the Bible says otherwise.

And if we are talking about supposed inconsistencies in the Christians worldview then we need to deal with what Christians actually believe based on the Bible. You’re trying to force Christians to accept your philosophy of materialism is true and then demand they explain their worldview based on your unproven presumptions that come out of that materialist philosophy.

But you can’t prove materialism as a philosophy is true. Therefore, you have no logical basis for assuming Christians must reconcile their Biblical view with your own philosophical beliefs.

How does the Bible say otherwise?
1. The Bible says we have free will choice, which by definition can’t exist in a materialist worldview.
2. The Bible says objective morality exists. Which is an abstract concept that can’t exist in a materialist worldview.
3. The Bible shows the people of God and God Himself doing miracles that don’t conform to a materialist’s belief of how the laws of physics govern the universe and those in.

So on that basis alone your point falls, but I can take it further:
We have reason to believe materialism cannot possibly be an accurate understanding of reality because our self evident experience shows us things exist which would be impossible under materialism or things which materialism has no explanation for:
1. Free will
2. Consciousness
3. Objective morality.
4. Supernatural miracles that go against known laws of casual physics.

The later you might dismiss as not believing actually do happen if you haven’t been witness to it – but the first three are where the materialist has a problem because they are self-evident truths common to everyone so they can’t be denied to exist.

What do those three have in common? It deals with mind.

Minds don’t logically have to be governed by the laws of physics - nor could minds even exist if we only were governed by the laws of physics (ie. Materialism) because you’d just be a robot without even self awareness of your actions much less a free choice to go against the dictates of physical determinism.

Minds are in the realm of the abstract.

Free choice can never exist if bound by the deterministic laws of physics. Only a mind that transcends the laws of physics can make decisions and take actions unbound by the laws of physics.

Abstract things are not subject to the laws of physics because they don’t exist as physical realities but only as abstract concepts in a mind. Only a mind can create an abstract concept like objective morality because only a mind can give intention behind creation. Morality is a statement of intention (ie. How things are suppose to be, and not merely a description of how they are). Only a mind as the source of creation could provide an answer for the question of how things are suppose to be. A universe dominated only by the laws of physics, without a mind behind those physics and creation, can never be said is “suppose to be” one way or another – it just is the way it is and it wouldn’t matter if it was another way.

and within theism-land, God is the arbiter of those laws. If the law is "if you sin, death happens," guess who wrote the law? God would still be culpable for having made it that way, and intending for the law to be that way.. Plus that gets really hairy and goes into injustices like punishing descendants for the crimes of ancestors, punishments being disproportional to crimes, we would be parsing that one out for a very long time.

For instance, let me recall a Star Trek: TNG episode where Wesley steps on some grass on a planet where all laws carry the death penalty. We can say that Wesley had a part in the culpability for that death (if it happened), but the lawmakers are not exempt of culpability for an unjust law causing undue suffering that otherwise did not have to exist.

So even if we try to blame the Fall, it is God that set the world's physics to be the way it is, and God that caused leukemia to be possible, and God would have known this would be the case. Can't escape God intending leukemia to exist if it exists. We can perhaps say God didn't like doing it, but not that God didn't intend to do it (but then we still have all the problems with disproportionate justice, etc.)

So, the premise that God intended leukemia to exist if it exists still obtains.

Going to have to complete the rest in another post.

Your position is based on a few unproven presumptions:

1. The assumption that God could create a world in which people could sin and have it not result in death.
2. The assumption sin resulting in death is the result of some kind of physical law that God created.
3. The assumption that death is a punishment meted out for the original sin.

But you can’t logically prove your assumptions have to be true.

There are other valid ways of explaining the situation that don’t require your assumptions.

Your assumptions come out of other assumptions you have about what the nature of death and sin is. Assumptions which aren’t consistent with the Bible.

Biblically, “death” is to be separated from God. That’s how death is defined. (2 Thessalonians 1:9, Numbers 15:31) That is why God said Adam would die on the day he disobeyed God. He became separated from God. Physical death could be said to merely be an outworking of the natural consequence of being separated from God who is the source of life (Genesis 2:7, Deuteronomy 30:20, John 1:1-4).

Sin is defined as disobedience to God’s command (ie. Lawlessness). 1 John 3:4 Romans 3:20,
God’s law is what is righteous - Psalm 119:172.
Righteousness is by definition that which is right as opposed to that which is wrong.
Rightness (objectively what is moral) can logically only be defined by what intent was behind the mind of the designer when he created something.
Therefore, another way of saying something is sin is to say it is that which goes against God’s intention and design for us.

Sin creates disunity that separates us from God because He cannot violate who He is by allowing something contrary to his nature to be united to Him. (John 15, Isaiah 59:2, Joshua 7:11-12, Poverbs 8:36)

God doesn’t change and doesn’t lie (Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19, James 1:17, Hebrew 13:8, Romans 11:29, Hebrews 6:18). God therefore cannot violate who He is by changing Himself to accommodate being united to man who has chosen to rebel against God’s ways. Nor can God lie by doing something which would be a contradiction (like calling evil good, or vise versa).

Romans 3:23. All have sinned. Which is why all are separated from God without accepting the intervention of Christ on their behalf. (John 14:6)

Your are falsely assuming that God could create a world in which you could have all the benefits of life and love without having the only source of life and love that exists - but that would be a logical contradiction.

And if God were to force you to accept the life and love He offers you then it would be a violation of your free will to choose to reject Him.

The only thing God has no control over is whether people decide not to be friends with each other anymore, or insult one another, etc.

Everything else about the universe God has control over. So, sure, maybe God would know that one day Bill & Ted might no longer be best buds and be helpless to stop it (to maintain (P)), but anything dealing with the physical universe and Bill & Ted God has absolute control over.

...

Now, I've already said that emotional suffering is different. Obviously we wouldn't be free if we couldn't break off a friendship with someone (the example I keep using, sorry for its overuse)

As I pointed out above, your conclusion is based on a false premises of what the nature of death, sin, God, and life are, according to the Bible.

When the nature of these things is properly defined by the Bible, your claim ends up being disproven.

Going to disagree on this point: free will doesn't require the ability to "choose wrong." If I set two doors in front of you and behind one is kittens and behind the other is a nice beverage or something, you're still making a choice. You're not less free somehow than in another universe where instead I put a face-eating monster behind one of the doors. We do not have to be able to physically suffer in order to be free.

Your reasoning is fallacious.
The fact that one choice is bad and another is good doesn't change the fact that you still have a genuine choice about which one you want.

You might not think it's fair and you might not like it but that doesn't mean it's not a genuine free choice that you get to make.

You also have the choice to jump off a cliff or not when you walk near it - it doesn't logically cease to be a choice available to you simply because you don't find one of the options disagreeable to your desires.

The only thing that adding a "wrong choice" does in terms of physical outcomes is cementing the potentiality that the choice-giver is malevolent.

You have no logical basis for claiming such an action would be malevolent.

As a philosophical materialist you have no objective basis for morality from which to put a value judgement on God's actions.

Even if you approached this from a Biblical standpoint, recognizing God exists and created all things and there is no other above Him or like Him, then you still have no logical basis for claiming God could be malevolent because by admitting He is the sole source of creation above all else you have necessarily admitted He is the only source of objective morality that can exist. So by definition you still lack any alternative standard by which to accuse God of immorality.

 

[Trailblazer]

One of the issues I should point out with your original post was that you did not establish what theological viewpoint of God you were trying to show a contradiction with.

Without identifying what theological viewpoint you are trying to show is in contradiction it renders any argument you give null unless you can provide a frame of reference to determine if your conclusion could be true or not. (Ie. You need to identify exactly what belief system you're trying to show is supposedly in contradiction).

I established myself as a Baha'i so that is my theological point of view.

I assume from the context of what you are talking about that you are taking issue with God as seen in the Christian Bible.

Therefore I am approaching this from the perspective that your complaints about the Christian idea of God need to be consistent with what the Bible actually says about God.

Where did I say I took any issue with God as God is presented in the Bible?

Otherwise you’re in a strawman fallacy where you’re claiming Christians need to believe things about God that aren’t actually required of them to believe based on what the Bible says about God.

But if you're going to try to expose contradictions in what Christians believe then you need to be able to deal what they actually believe.

Christians are anything but a uniform group of believers who all believe exactly the same things.

And that is where you get into logical trouble by inventing ideas about what you think are the constraints upon God and his acts of creation and his involvement in the world - Ideas which Christians don't necessarily belief and aren’t required by the Bible to believe.

Where did I ever say that God was constrained? I never said that God is constrained.

If Christians don't believe what you assert they do then you can't show a contradiction with what they believe.

Christians do not all have the same beliefs, so you cannot talk about Christians as a uniform group of people.

 

[Rise]

Wait. I am going to stop you right here. No, I don't allow you to define death this way for this is not the way this word is being used in this discussion. For the sake of this topic, death is the cessation of all vital functions in an organism. You can continue your argument once you adjust this part.

There are two fatal flaws with your response:

1. Biblically speaking, physical death and separation from God are the same thing. Physical death is a natural consequence of choosing to separate from God as the source of life.

Therefore, you're attempt to draw a false distinction between physical death and separation from God is pointless and doesn't logically undermine the Christian position at all.

You can see my latest posts responding to meowmix (#153 and #154) for the scriptural and logical basis for that conclusion.


2. You are engaging in a type of strawman fallacy.

In order to understand why you are guilty of a type of strawman fallacy you have to back up and remember what you're trying to argue and from what basis you are trying to do it from.

You're trying to argue that the Christian Biblical worldview is logically contradictory with itself.

The only way you could show an actual logical contradiction in the Biblical Christian worldview is by using what Christians actually believe against itself.

But you're not doing that.

You are, instead, trying to insert your own philosophical materialist presuppositions and definitions into the Bible and demand that Christians define death the way you define it as a materialist instead of looking at how death is actually defined in the Bible.

You are no longer at that point showing any contradiction in the Biblical Christian worldview - but merely arguing that their worldview disagrees with your philosophical materialism worldview.

Which doesn't prove Biblical Christianity is in logical contradiction with itself as you originally tried to argue.

 

[Rise]

That is what I believe. Spiritual death is being separated from God.

Physical death is nothing. It is just like walking into another room.
The following is what I believe about physical death and what happens after that. I am not a Christian per se but what he wrote it mirrors my religious beliefs.

421. When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit’s thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense “death” signifies resurrection and continuation of life. Heaven and Hell, p. 351

I will get to your posts in a little while. I try to answer posts in the order in which they were received and I save the longer posts for last since they take a long time to answer.

Your belief about what happens after physical death is not consistent with what the Bible says.
Mark 9:47-48, Matthew 5:30, Matthew 8:12, Matthew 13:42, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 25:41, Matthew 25:46, Luke 16:19-31, Revelation 14:9-11, Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:13-15.

You can't continue to claim your beliefs are in harmony with the Bible when what you believe is contradicted by the Bible.

Believing something different and being upfront about it being different is one thing - But you can't be intellectually honest and continue to claim the Bible doesn't contradict what you believe when you can't answer for all the ways in which the Bible logically does contradict what you believe.

I established myself as a Baha'i so that is my theological point of view.

Where did I say I took any issue with God as God is presented in the Bible?

Christians are anything but a uniform group of believers who all believe exactly the same things.

Where did I ever say that God was constrained? I never said that God is constrained.

Christians do not all have the same beliefs, so you cannot talk about Christians as a uniform group of people.

The post you are responding to was not directed at you.

 

[Koldo]

There are two fatal flaws with your response:

1. Biblically speaking, physical death and separation from God are the same thing. Physical death is a natural consequence of choosing to separate from God as the source of life.

Therefore, you're attempt to draw a false distinction between physical death and separation from God is pointless and doesn't logically undermine the Christian position at all.

You can see my latest posts responding to meowmix (#153 and #154) for the scriptural and logical basis for that conclusion.


2. You are engaging in a type of strawman fallacy.

In order to understand why you are guilty of a type of strawman fallacy you have to back up and remember what you're trying to argue and from what basis you are trying to do it from.

You're trying to argue that the Christian Biblical worldview is logically contradictory with itself.

The only way you could show an actual logical contradiction in the Biblical Christian worldview is by using what Christians actually believe against itself.

But you're not doing that.

You are, instead, trying to insert your own philosophical materialist presuppositions and definitions into the Bible and demand that Christians define death the way you define it as a materialist instead of looking at how death is actually defined in the Bible.

You are no longer at that point showing any contradiction in the Biblical Christian worldview - but merely arguing that their worldview disagrees with your philosophical materialism worldview.

Which doesn't prove Biblical Christianity is in logical contradiction with itself as you originally tried to argue.

Allow me to remind you there isn't just a single Christian view for there are as many as there are Christians.

I am arguing against a specific stance on God: that he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. And by every one of those words I mean, more or less, something specific. I don't intend to argue against every single Christian perspective on what is God, but rather a quite specific one.

Back to my criticism of your definition: You completely skipped over the physical death when you defined the term 'death'. I wouldn't have had much of a problem if you were merely expanding upon the regular meaning of the term by saying it involves the separation from God, but the fact you have completely ignored the regular usage was extremely problematic.

 

[Trailblazer]

Your belief about what happens after physical death is not consistent with what the Bible says.
Mark 9:47-48, Matthew 5:30, Matthew 8:12, Matthew 13:42, Matthew 18:9, Matthew 25:41, Matthew 25:46, Luke 16:19-31, Revelation 14:9-11, Revelation 19:20, Revelation 20:13-15.

Isn’t it rather ironic that Christians are all reading the same Bible yet they do not agree about what will happen to them when they die? Logically speaking, what that means is that the scripture has to have more than one interpretation. Do you think that only you have the correct interpretation? If so why? Why are you right and the other Christians such as the Christian who wrote what I posted from the book Heaven and Hell wrong?

I looked at all those verses and all I got from reading them is that there is a hell. As a Baha’i I also believe in hell, which is eternal separation from God. Hell is not a geographical location; it is a state of the soul that is separated from God. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that hell is a geographical location, an actual fiery pit. The lake of fire is just an allegory for the horrendous suffering one will endure if they are separated from God.

421. When the body is no longer able to perform the bodily functions in the natural world that correspond to the spirit’s thoughts and affections, which the spirit has from the spiritual world, man is said to die. This takes place when the respiration of the lungs and the beatings of the heart cease. But the man does not die; he is merely separated from the bodily part that was of use to him in the world, while the man himself continues to live. It is said that the man himself continues to live since man is not a man because of his body but because of his spirit, for it is the spirit that thinks in man, and thought with affection is what constitutes man. Evidently, then, the death of man is merely his passing from one world into another. And this is why in the Word in its internal sense “death” signifies resurrection and continuation of life. Heaven and Hell, p. 351

The quote I posted as noted above is completely consistent with what Paul says in the Bible.

Our physical bodies will die and we will be raised as spiritual bodies. Paul says that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God and that means they cannot exist in heaven. When Paul says these dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever, he is referring to the spiritual world (heaven), which will last forever.

Paul said that there are two different kinds of bodies:

--- The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.
--- For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

Paul says that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God, and the Kingdom of God is in Heaven. When Paul says these dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever, he is referring to the spiritual world (Heaven), which will last forever. Our physical bodies will die and we will be raised (resurrected) as spiritual bodies that will be suited to go to Heaven and last forever. That is where every believer goes when they die, Heaven. There are absolutely no scriptures that say we will be resurrected in physical bodies and live forever on earth.

1 Corinthians 15:40-54 New Living Translation

40 There are also bodies in the heavens and bodies on the earth. The glory of the heavenly bodies is different from the glory of the earthly bodies.

44 They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

50 What I am saying, dear brothers and sisters, is that our physical bodies cannot inherit the Kingdom of God. These dying bodies cannot inherit what will last forever.

51 But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed!

54 Then, when our dying bodies have been transformed into bodies that will never die,[c] this Scripture will be fulfilled: “Death is swallowed up in victory.[d]

Read full chapter

 

[Rise]

Allow me to remind you there isn't just a single Christian view for there are as many as there are Christians.

...

I am arguing against a specific stance on God: that he is omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent. And by every one of those words I mean, more or less, something specific. I don't intend to argue against every single Christian perspective on what is God, but rather a quite specific one.

You are trying to backpedal out of what you originally tried to argue.

Let's go back to your first question to me in post #105:

Why did God create a world where children could eventually get Leukemia, rather than a world where this wouldn't have been possible?"

You were responding to and quoting post #63, in which, I outlined a logical Bible based conclusion of why we don't have to conclude God created, intended for, or is responsible for death being in the world.

Therefore, you are specifically trying to take issue with the Biblical worldview that I am presenting. Not some other worldview. But the worldview I specifically am presenting at this time.

I responded by pointing out the false and unproven premises that underlaid your question.

You tried to argue with it unsuccessfully.

I demonstrated for you why the original Biblical worldview I presented was a Biblically, logically, and theologically consistent way to understand God and creation as not responsible for death.

You haven't been able to dispute that.

Back to my criticism of your definition: You completely skipped over the physical death when you defined the term 'death'. I wouldn't have had much of a problem if you were merely expanding upon the regular meaning of the term by saying it involves the separation from God, but the fact you have completely ignored the regular usage was extremely problematic.

I didn't skip over anything - you simply failed to read past the second sentence to discover how physical death factors in.

I will repost it for you to read:

An alternative possibility:
-God is the source of life.
-Death is defined as being separated from God.
-God creates mankind to be abiding with Him.
-God gives mankind free will to choose whether or not to be with God.
-Sin is rebellion to God's instructions.
-God's instructions are a reflection of God's character and nature.
-God cannot lie and is unchanging. He cannot violate who He is or change who He is.
-That is why God cannot do something contradictory like call evil good or a lie truth. To do so would be to lie and violate his nature, which is impossible for Him.
-Therefore, sin breaks relationship with God by creating a disharmony and disunity between God's nature and man's nature so that man can no longer abide with God.
-God designed a world without desiring, intending, or requiring man to sin and enter into the realm of death set apart from God's life.
-Man therefore has free choice to reject God's life.
-The natural consequence of rejecting God's life is to experience death.
-This consequence cannot be avoided if man is to have true free will.
-It doesn't mean God created death. It means death is unavoidable consequence of simply rejecting who God is and what He has to give you.
-It would be a logical impossibility for God to give life to someone who rejected Him because He is the only source of life. That would be God forcing Himself on someone which would violate free will.
-God can't change Himself to accommodate your rebellious ways because that would violate who He is, which He cannot do.
-Therefore, if you aren't willing to be conformed to God's nature you can't abide with Him. And if you can't abide with Him then you can't access His life. And there is no other way for you to have life because He is the only source of it.