From: chrisa@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (C. G. Albone)
Subject: Re: Changing nature of God
Organization: /etc/organization
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1992 07:53:43 GMT

In article <1992Oct1.234637.18522@bain3.bain.oz.au> callum@bain3.bain.oz.au (Callum Gibson) writes:
>C. G. Albone (chrisa@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU) wrote:
>> > Sin is not part of God's plan, God has
>> 
>> If this is the case, explain why there is sin, and keep in mind that God is
>> all knowing and all powerful, and i guess not particularly prone to mistakes.
>
>Sin exists because of choice and free-will.  Yes, if there was no sin then
>there would be no free will but what fun would that be?  You'd be back to the
>old robot situation again.  I guess the reason I believe in free-will is
>because I believe in sin.
 There exists sin, hence there exists free will. But it would appear that in
accepting any notion of sin, you commit yourself to a belief in free will. The
result of this is effectively that you believe in free will because you do. Hmm
not particularly much ground to stand on really is it? It might seem a little
simpler rejecting a notion of sin, but hey, Occam's razor is not guarrenteed
to shave as close to reality as we would like, and i guess when it comes to this,there is no getting one's money back.

>  That's not a problem for James, of course.  But
>I assume you believe that sin exists and that we have a choice in what we do
>(follow God or not).  Are you asking me how God could have done it another
>way?  Well, I fall a bit short of all-knowing I'm afraid, but I know that
>if God made us so we couldn't sin then we would have no choice in whether
>we followed him or not.  It stands to reason doesn't it?  Sin means disobeying
>God - take away sin and you _must_ obey God.  God created us so that we
>could follow Him, but not so we'd _have_ to follow Him.  You may say if we
>knew no different then it wouldn't matter to us.  That may be so in a way,
>but from God's perspective He may as well not created us at all if that was
>the case.  It would only be like me making a tape recording saying how great
>I am and then playing it back to myself over and over.  There is much more
>sense in getting others to tell me how great I am by showing them how great
>I am and giving them a choice to decide for themselves.

Does God need to be told how great God is? At times i wonder whether this God
suffers from insecurity problems. But then, I guess i should not confuse what
is said of God by fallible human beings with what God is, which is pretty much
unknown to fallible human beings.>
>> >the answers for whatever situation arises according to the choices that we
>> >make.  He happens to know what those choices will be but His purpose doesn't
>> >rest upon those particular choices.
>> God has always known what choises I or you will make? From the beginning of
>> time?
>
>Yes.  You said He was all-knowing didn't you?
So, while there is free will, God knows how we are going to act anyway? In which
case how free are we? In which case it would seem that your God has defeated his
own purpose in that he already knows that joe smith will worship him and that
freddy will not.
>
___
Chris.
Newsgroups: aus.religion