Board index ‹ Free Will

[I.F. Jay]

First off, I'll save us the trouble of defining free will. We all know it's not really free, there are plenty of physical and mental limitations, not to mention known and expected consequences. Therefore, I see no reason we can't just call it choice.

Now if God has the ability to know the outcome of any action and his intentions are to do good, then I see no other option than for him to only do things which will provide the best possible result. God has no choice but to do what he knows is good by his own definition of himself to us.

[jimwalton]

You're right that free will isn't really free. It can't possibly be, and that is not what anyone means by free will. Free will doesn't mean we as humans can choose to fly to Saturn on a hot dog if we so choose, or that we are free to turn ourselves in armadillos. That's not what free will means. It means we have the capability to choose what is properly within my capabilities. Teleporting myself to the rings of Saturn is an option in contradiction to my capability, and is therefore impossible and not within the scope of possibilities for me. Free will always has limitations, or parameters.

God has free will, but he's not free to sin. He's not free to renege on His promises. He's not free to be evil. These are options in contradiction to his character, which is impossible, and therefore not within the scope of possibilities for Him.

But these don't change the reality of choice within the constructs of what is possible, which, of course, is the proper sphere of free will. Within the sphere of that which is a proper and non-absurd application of His will, God has freedom to make infinite choices, which, as you say, can only possibly include what is good. (Otherwise, God is just a self-contradiction.) But choosing among the imponderable number of good possibilities is not only verifiable free will, but the free exercise of it. Because God cannot indulge in the absurd doesn't mean he has no free will.

[Big Clocks]

> God has free will, but he's not free to sin.

He does, however, have the right to label whatever He wants to do as "good" so whatever He wants cannot be, by definition, sinful. No matter how bloody, terrible and devastating to innocents He is always right in your scenario.

Right and wrong simply have no meaning here.

All the firstborn of the Egyptians dead? That's fine.

Murdering children by bear attack for calling a man "baldie"? Also fine.

Killing a man for failing to impregnate his dead brother's wife? Terrific!

There is no compass in this world. All you need to do is say "it's what God would want", find a verse to at least semi-justify you - and you can pretty much justify anything if you read the Bible closely enough - and His and your behaviour will be fine.

When the English Puritans waged war on the Irish Catholics they used the OT to justify their terrible tactics. The Catholics did the same when they got in power around the world and it's this kind of thinking that allows the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS to commit atrocities to this very day.

[jimwalton]

Wow, lots of misunderstandings here. I'm glad we're talking, but I'm not sure I can deal with all of your toss-off accusations (one sentence each) with thorough answers (many paragraphs each). I'll see what I can do.

> He does, however, have the right to label whatever He wants to do as "good" so whatever He wants cannot be, by definition, sinful.

This is incorrect. God doesn't label what is good and what isn't. He *is* good, by nature; nothing needs to be labelled. It's like claiming you get to decide which parts of you are human and which aren't. That's absurd. You're human be nature. A = A; God is good. He doesn't define it; he didn't create it; he IS it.

> Right and wrong simply have no meaning here.

This is incorrect. Right and wrong *only* gave definition here. It is only with an objective standard that "right" and "wrong" make any sense.

> All the firstborn of the Egyptians dead? That's fine.

The plagues were directed at the religious system of Egypt, a showdown between YHWH and their panoply of deities. For instance, the 9th plague was a plague of darkness. The Egyptians worshiped the sun god (Ra or Re), and so the plague of darkness showed their god to be powerless against YHWH. The other eight plagues were continuances of this same showdown between the false deities of Egypt and YHWH. Regarding the 10th plague, the pharaoh was considered to be a god on earth, and when he died, it was believed that he became Osiris, the god of the afterlife, the underworld and the dead, as well as the god of resurrection and life. He was considered to be the grantor of all life.

After having rebuffed YHWH nine times, and having been on the losing end all nine times, Pharaoh is still stubborn against the request of Moses (and the command of God) to free the people. The ultimate challenge, which was a challenge to Pharaoh’s person, his kingship, and his "divinity," was a showdown about life and death, over which the pharaohs were believed to have ultimate control. The way to break the king, since the contest between every other divine notion of Egypt didn’t bring about the freedom of his people, was on the pivotal and supreme issue of life and death.

In addition, when it comes to just retribution, we need to understand that all Egypt was complicit—guilty—of infanticide of the Israelites. The king had given an order to the whole population to kill Israelite children (Exodus 1.22). In Exodus 1.9-14, all Egypt treated the Israelites cruelly and oppressed them harshly (look at Exodus 4.22, where God says that Israel is his firstborn son). God’s judgment on the children of Egypt was simply an eye for an eye—let the punishment fit the crime—no more, no less.

While a superficial impression might be that it was Pharaoh who sinned and not the Egyptian people, the people were not innocent bystanders. The Egyptians were part of the enslavement of the Israelites. Don't they share responsibility for the persecution of them? We indict the German people, and even the German church, for standing passive while Hitler exterminated Jews in WWII. Isn't failure to do what is right a sin?

Regardless of how you evaluate the use of nuclear weapons at the end of WWII, dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was designed to send a message to the Japanese government that assassination of their emperor and prime minister would not have accomplished. The judgments of YHWH (again, characteristic of all 10 plagues) had to affect the whole nation or they wouldn't mean anything. The only way to speak to the deception and fallacies of their mythologies and the national nature of their murderous sin was to act in a way that included the entire nation. Because the king and the nation had demonstrated their cruelty, we understand the fairness of the sentence.

It might also help to understand that in the ancient Near East they viewed corporate (national) entities as indivisible unities. They were a community of people together, sharing the blessings of one as the blessings of all, and the cursing of one as the cursing of all. Their perception is that they rose and fell together as a clan or community. Despite the fact that a one-year-old in our mindset is an innocent baby, in their mindset a one-year-old was part of the community, subject to divine blessings and divine judgment as much as anyone else. In their mindset, a strike at the children was not a strike against innocents (as it seems to us in our modern mentality), but a strike against the core perceptions of the community (the firstborn were the family priests) and the depravity of their religious system (Pharaoh as the giver of life to babies).

In all of these cases, additionally, we must recognize theologically that there is no such entity as an innocent person. As much as we look at babies and emotionally consider them to be pure and unimpeachable because they haven’t yet done anything wrong, theologically they are just as "dead in their sins" as you and I. In each of these cases above (the Flood, Canaan, and Egypt) the children are born separated from the life of God, with their nature locked into sin, and they are being raised in a thoroughly toxic environment. We look at them as innocents, but God sees them as they are. While this grates against our emotions because don't perceive them as worthy of judgment, theologically they have already been spiritually sabotaged and they will be raised in rebellion against God.

> Murdering children by bear attack for calling a man "baldie"? Also fine.

It was a dark time in the spiritual situation of Israel. Ahab, one of the most godless men ever to sit on the throne of Israel, and his wife Jezebel, even to this day an archetype of evil, were dragging the country into child sacrifice, destructive religious practices, and immorality of every kind. The people were following, like sheep. God sent Elijah to confront the king and the false religion he championed (1 Ki. 17.1). Jezebel went on a killing spree, butchering prophets like beef (1 Ki. 18.4). The Lord wouldn't let go of his people and the covenant he had made with them, and commissioned Elijah to anoint a new king over Israel and recruit a partner, Elisha, to help set the nation back to rights. He sent prophet after prophet to confront Ahab with his evil (1 Ki. 20.35-43; 22.1-28). Ahab is killed in battle (1 Ki. 22.29-38), and the country has a chance, now, to turn around and be saved from the moral and spiritual cesspool.

The successor, Ahaziah, is not much better than Ahab. He's evil to the core. Elijah confronts him too, and he dies. Any judge that ignores evil isn't much of a judge. To let anybody get away with anything they want isn't justice, it's anarchy.

Elijah is taken away, and Elisha is his successor. Within the time of about a week, Elisha heads to Bethel, the house of God, where Abraham had met with the Lord and where Jacob had his vision of the stairway to heaven. He is minding his own business, or should I say the business of the Lord, when he is accosted by a group (unknown number; "42" is a generic term in their culture for a large group) of teens who, as members of covenant families ought to have been taught that cursing God's servants (prophets) was tantamount to cursing God, an action punishable by death. But remember, the country was depraved.

They mocked the prophet for his baldness. In those days, long hair was the mark of a true prophet. Also, the ritual cutting of hair is prohibited by the law. Now, Elisha was naturally bald, apparently, but the taunt was unmistakable: you're a fake and a fraud, and YHWH is both impotent and false. Everything about your God is illicit.

Elisha turned and rebuked their blasphemy, calling down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Was YHWH real? Was Elisha his true prophet? Did YHWH take any actions to preserve his people, keep them on the right path, and judge rebels? Would God do nothing to maintain the right, and just watch the country go down the toilet?

You'll notice that Elisha doesn't specify the curse. He rebukes them for their blasphemy. God is the one who takes the action. For all we know, all Elisha said is, "May God curse you for your blasphemy," and then to his surprise and that of the teens, 2 bears attack them.

Now, let's look at that attack a little closer. First of all, you know how bears attack. You've seen it on youtube. They're not fast like leopards. Let's be realistic—if two bears attack 10 kids, the 10 kids are going to run in 10 different directions; 42 kids are going to run in 42 different directions. Two bears are only going to get two kids. The rest are going to be GONE with the wind. And it doesn't say any of them are killed. So it's impractical to assume that all of them were mauled. The boys would run for their lives. But the effect would be the same: the Lord will not allow his name to be blasphemed without impunity. Now, I may have also already said that ravaging wild beasts were often seen as punishment sent from God. The point is clearly made even if only two boys are injured.

Now let's talk about blasphemy a little bit:

1/. If God is not real, blasphemy is merely insulting the God I have manufactured in my mind, and you have offended me. But if God is real, blasphemy is profaning the creator and sustainer of the universe—whole different offense.

2/. Blasphemy is not just "insulting God," but it's cursing him and assuming to oneself his rights. It's not just an act of grave offense, but of deep evil.

3/. In the Bible, as opposed to Islam, people don't judge others for the "crime" of blasphemy; God does. Humans are not to go around killing other people for blasphemy. God is the one who defends the honor of his own name. It doesn't make God impotent any more than it made your parents or teachers into terrorists when they demanded that your respect their authority. Authority, respect, and honor all have their place, especially when the person deserves it.

> Killing a man for failing to impregnate his dead brother's wife? Terrific!

This is a rebellion against the covenant. He is refusing to perpetuate the line of his brother, cheating his sister-in-law out of her social and legal right to an heir. It was a despicable act of selfishness, greed, and meanness, and it was a sin against God in repudiating marriage and the blessing of childbirth.

> All you need to do is say "it's what God would want", find a verse to at least semi-justify you - and you can pretty much justify anything

This is also incorrect. The Bible has to be studied properly, and therefore cannot be used (if studied properly) to justify "anything." Only people who pervert what the Bible is saying can conclude this.

[I.F. Jay]

My point was that God knows how any action will ultimately affect the rest of time. If humans knew the consequence of every action they would still have a choice to do right or wrong, but God couldn't choose wrong, so his choices are merely inconsequential.

> God has free will, but he's not free to sin.

What sin is God not free to commit?

> He's not free to renege on His promises.

Technically he already knows he will keep them, so he just wouldn't promise something he would reneg on.

> He's not free to be evil.

Again, what would count as evil? Not being smart, just trying to understand since those labels typically are used in reference to humans.

[jimwalton]

> God couldn't choose wrong, so his choices are merely inconsequential.

This is a flaw of logic. Because you can't choose to snap your fingers and cure all the diseases in the world in an instant doesn't mean that the choices you do have are inconsequential. It merely means that there are some things that are beyond the capability of you as a person. As I explained, God is also bound by his nature. He can't act against his nature (by sinning, for instance) any more than you can act against your nature (by transporting yourself to the rings of Saturn, for instance). We are bound by who we are. But it doesn't follow, then, that the decisions within our scope are merely inconsequential. It's a non sequitur.

> What sin is God not free to commit?

God cannot commit any sin. It is beyond the boundaries of his nature. Sin is defined as going against the character and will of God; God cannot be self-contradictory in nature.

> Technically he already knows he will keep them, so he just wouldn't promise something he would reneg on.

It's not a matter of knowledge. God cannot contradict his own nature, and so cannot go against his own nature and exist in absurdity.

> What would count as evil?

At its purest, evil is the outworking of a conscious and personal will in opposition to an objective standard of "good" and "right." That objective standard is the nature of God.