Biblical descriptions of the nature of the Christian God and free will are contradictory.

=========== Introduction: =========== Highest accolades to my opponent for a great debate! He can rest assured that I will not use this round for making any new arguments. I will, however, reiterate what has already been said and offer my analysis as to why I believe I am the victor in this debate. ======================== Regarding Biblical Descriptions ======================== My opponent is correct in discerning that this not a central point of my argument – indeed, it is not at all part of my argument. Since my opponent suggested that he was going to perhaps formerly present this case, I thought it important for him to know that traditional ascriptions =/= biblical descriptions. As a Bible student myself, now in my seminary years, I can authoritatively assert that the aforesaid traditional ascriptions are far from being universally accepted. Moreover, my opponent's assertion that the KJV and the original Greek are both Bibles is, in fact, inaccurate. The KJV is a translation OF the Bible, while the original Greek is, for all intents and purposes, THE Bible. For the purpose of this debate I have assumed the accuracy of the traditional ascriptions (and I must admit, they quite nearly mirror my own beliefs) and have only brought them up as a tangential reminder for my opponent's future attempts. ============== Evil Abounds ============== Here my opponent sets up a syllogism that lacks a necessary third proposition. We have agreed that (E) evil exists and that an (B) omni-excellent God exists. However, when these two premises are jointly asserted, there is no necessary or apparent contradiction. My opponent was tasked with the arduous burden of creating a third, necessarily true proposition, that when asserted alongside E & B, creates an insurmountable contradiction. In this subsection of the debate, we have determined that evil exists, though we have no ability to know or determine what is evil (this point is used more for what is referred to as "natural" evils, or evil that is, supposedly, not the result of free action). So we can summarize our progress thusly: 1.Evil Exists 2.An Omni-excellent God exists ======================== REGARDING FREE-CHOSEN ACTIONS ======================== "My opponent asserts that only free chosen actions are evil or good but fails to provide any sort of evidence, logical or otherwise. I cannot respond to this point by fault of having nothing substantial to negate; my opponent has not asserted any reason why this is true, and I thus cannot refute his lack of an argument on this point." My opponent, with due respect, may have forgotten a very important point. My contentions need not be plausible or even true; they need only be possible for my opponent to fail in fulfilling his burden. My opponent has made the absolute claim that God and freewill cannot exist simultaneously– he asserts that there is a necessary and explicit contradiction. If I can, at bare minimum, show that it is POSSIBLE for there to be no explicit contradiction then my burden is fulfilled and my opponent fails – for my opponent cannot say that what possibly can be, cannot be. Furthermore, if I force someone to love me, can that reasonably be called love? Inherent in the definition of love is the necessary stipulation of free will. Any action, not freely chosen, is forced or determined. Love not chosen is not love at all. The ONLY way for love to be possible is for nonLove to also be possible. The logic was quite clear; it is too bad my opponent saw it unnecessary to refute it. We can now summarize our progress thusly: 1.Evil Exists 2.Free will Exists 3.An Omni-Excellent God exists My opponent has yet to provide a proposition that makes these three premises, when jointly asserted, necessarily contradictory. ====================== The Free Will Contradiction ====================== Here we are, at the meat of the issue. My opponent correctly asserts that a being cannot be both all-loving and malicious. Such a proposition can be granted. He then asserts that passively propagating evil is malicious. But here we are at an impasse. My opponent has not shown – off-mark analogies notwithstanding – that God is passively propagating evil nor that what he defines as passively propagating evil is necessarily malicious. As long as it is possible that a world that contains free creatures is more valuable than a world that contains no freedom at all, then my opponent's point cannot stand. He likens it to bioterrorism; the very fact that there will be casualties makes it evil. But this a disanalogy. This makes anything, where failure is possible, inherently evil. Since nothing GOOD can come from bioterrorism, there is no point in comparing it to God given free will. Since more good is possible with free will – insofar as good is impossible without it, it stands to reason that the allowance of free will is, well, good. Of course, my opponent's analogies also fail because he is, again, presupposing a metric of morality that was neither proven nor distinguished in this debate. He cannot merely make a plea to emotion by creating an analogy and saying, "SEE, ain't that evil!" Unfortunately for my opponent, it ain't evil till he proves it as such. God could very well have a morally sufficient reason for NOT intervening. The first one being that interference would negate free will and thus make are good actions forced ones – insofar as we would not be capable of bad action due to constant divine impediment. Also, and secondly, our failures could be to foster the growth of our souls. This life was never meant to be a perfect one, but one for growth towards something better. "Both passive and active propagation of evil are still evil actions and are thus contradictory to omnibenevolence," My opponent has, quite humorously, tried to make God morally at fault for the mere creation of beings capable of acts that displease him. Will he has soon indict the mother of a murderer for the action of birthing such a loathsome scoundrel? Shall we throw into prison all the car makers responsible for the death of millions of people via drunk-driving? Shall we not also throw stones at those loathsome road makers that made it possible for the cars to crash at all – certainly they KNEW there would be accidence! Or is it a morally sufficient reason to create something that causes more good than bad? If it is not, then out with modern medicine, cars. Science, technology, and all – for all things are accessories to evil! ========== Conclusion: ========== My opponent is without a syllogism or an argument to stand. He entered into this debate with an unfulfilled burden, and has ended this debate with a heavier one still! He has created no necessary contradictions. He has given me nothing to ACTUALLY refute. The final progress can be summarized thusly: 1. Evil Exists 2. Free Will Exists 3. Omni-excellent God exists 4. It is possible for God to have a morally sufficient reason for not intervening (in fact there is good logical reasons for believing this to be true)