As stated above. I know the out-of-pocket answer is "pride", but I'm curious. The angels all had full knowledge of the choice and the resultant consequences, yet a third rebelled. Was it exclusively pride that led them to this decision, or something else? It seems a remarkably unwise decision for a being that knows unequivocally that it will result in eternal torment and separation from God. We can make the obvious argument that this is an awful lot like us, but the angels all had far more information than us. Angels don't need faith, they've all personally met God and know who He is without any doubt. They're timeless and never experienced moments of weakness. They made the decision in utterly ideal circumstances. Was it truly pride and pride alone that led to this?

According to dispensationalist theology, sin is not directly caused by Satan - though he plays a significant role in temptation and deception - but rather originates from humanity's free will. However, if Adam and Eve were created with free will and declared "very good" by God (Genesis 1:31), does this imply an inherent flaw in their design that free will itself be a vessel for sin? If so, how does Dispensationalism reconcile God's perfect creation with the capacity for rebellion embedded in it?

Me and a friend have been debating this topic and I'm a little stumped I must say. My friend believes in Hard Determinism where desires control us and our desires come from what he calls "life path". I tried refuting this by saying free will and desires are distinct but he simply brought up that our strongest desires determine our free will. So if you use your free will to go against your strongest desire, then you are still using a stronger desire to over come another stronger desire if that makes sense. So after doing some research I stumbled upon libertarianism and it seems like that is the view point I gave to him about free will and desires being distinct. But I'm not sure if libertarianism is the Biblical explanation. So how does God explain free will and desires being distinct? Can we really choose to not follow our stronger desire without a stronger desire causing us to do so? If so, then why would we choose to do something we do not want to do unless the desire to do that thing is stronger than the desire to not do it?

In the Reformed view of predestination and human will, could we say that human will consists of two inseparable parts — a detached will, as the capacity to deliberate or step back from objects, and an oriented will, as the capacity to unite with or choose an object apparently good? If so, would it be accurate to say that any exercise of the will that *chooses* something other than God represents a false or incomplete use of that will, since only God constitutes the true end that fulfills and rightly orients it as true freedom? In this view, God would be not merely one object of choice, but the very source and end of a properly ordered will. All other created goods—wealth, pleasure, ideologies—represent only *apparent* fulfillments. That would mean that, apart from union with God, human willing collapses into a kind of existential fragmentation: always active, but never truly free. This would imply that: 1. Human beings retain a capacity to will and choice (and thus remain morally responsible) *even in their fallen state*, but this will is fundamentally misoriented since *any* object is going to be a sinful one. 2. Only God's grace restores the true orientation of the will, reordering it toward its proper end in Him (= freedom). 3. Thus, God is not the author of our sin (since our willing as a capacity of abstraction from any object, though corrupted, remains our own), but He alone is the author of our salvation (since only He can rightly reorient the will). Would this framework be consistent with Calvinist theology? Or does it risk introducing assumptions that conflict with doctrines such as total depravity or monergistic regeneration?

Have you ever thought why you live? And the Bible says you have the free will to choose life or death (that can mean being with God or separated from Him) But have you ever thought of “did I ever choose to live?” Of course before you are made, you have no “yes, I want to live” or “no, I don’t want to live”. But let’s say that this world is a “testing ground” for the true life to come as it is held in traditional belief (that is having eternal life in heaven or hell). My question is, why can’t I choose death? And by that, I mean non-existence. Like not in heaven, nor hell. Just nothing. If I have free will, why do I not have that option?

The problem of **theodicy** is the answer to the question of God's justice posed by the evil plainly observable in the world: If God is all-powerful, he has the power to prevent evil. If God is all-knowing, he knows that evil is happening and how to prevent. How, then, can God be just if he does not prevent evil when he could? It's very popular to answer this with the idea of of **free will**. God could prevent evil, but he allows people to do evil because our free choice to do or not do evil is necessary in order for us to genuinely do good. In particular for us to have genuine love for God we must have a free choice with the possibility of not loving him. I'm surprised by how commonly people find this an emotionally satisfying answer to the theodicy problem; to me it doesn't help at all. When I first heard it, it seemed strikingly hollow to me. And it still does today. (Please note I'm only talking here about the emotional appeal, not the intellectual appeal.) First of all, it doesn't seem relevant to the theodicy problem. "People have free will, therefore God is justified in not stopping evil" seems like an obvious non sequitur. Free will doesn't generally justify non-intervention in our day-to-day lives. For instance, a police officer who failed to stop an active shooter could not make the excuse that doing so would have interfered with the shooter's free will, nor could the officer defend his own justice by saying that the only way for people to freely obey the law is if they also have the free uncoerced option not too. While it's certainly desirable for people to freely choose to follow the law, I don't see why one would infer from that that it's better not to enforce the law. In the same vein, I note that loving parents regularly interfere with their children's free choice in order to protect them from harm. A father who allowed his child to walk off a cliff when he could have prevented it would be arrested, and couldn't defend himself by saying that he was respecting his child's free choice. Secondly, the claim that genuine love requires the real possibility of not loving seems artificial to me. I don't think I've heard love defined that way outside of this specific context, and it does not seem to apply anywhere else in Christian theology. For instance, we believe that the persons of the Holy Trinity are all mutually loving one another. We would surely never say that the Father's love for the Son is not genuine, nor would we say that the Father might possibly not love the Son. But if neither of those is true, then it cannot be the case that genuine love requires the genuine possibility of not loving. Similarly, isn't the future we look forward to in the Resurrection a future wherein we no longer have the possibility of sinning? But surely we cannot say that in the New Heavens and New Earth we will no longer have free will. And even in popular usage, we often talk about "love" without thinking about whether there is the possibility of not loving. E.g. when I tell my mom I love her, neither of us are thinking that it necessarily entails the possibility it could have been otherwise. I'm sure free will theodicists would say that that is implicit, but it certainly isn't close to the top of mind in most situations. It's not how I *normally* think about love. I am certainly aware that it's possible to philosophize your way out of those problems. This is not intended to be a refutation of free will theodicy, I am simply explaining why it's counterintuitive to me. The solutions to these problems require complex, sophisticated arguments which sacrifice the simple satisfaction that so many people find in free will theodicy. **My question is primarily psychological:** I want to understand why the free will theodicy is appealing. Is it that people generally don't consider these objections, which appear to me to be both obvious and catastrophic? I'm skeptical of that because I don't believe I'm that much smarter than average. Or are the philosophical answers to them actually obvious and straightforward? I'm skeptical of that too because I don't think I'm that much stupider than average. I'd like to believe there is some other explanation which I'm not thinking of. For instance, perhaps there is a better framing of free will theodicy which shifts the intuition such that my objections don't seem so severe. I could imagine that might be possible without requiring too much complexity to be easily understood. **I'm not asking for an explanation that is both airtight and simple**. That's too much to ask from any theological idea. Rather, I'd like to see a simple explanation that doesn't have *obvious* holes. Or if that's not possible, then I'd like to understand the psychology a little better of those who are satisfied by free will theodicy. Perhaps the objections that seem natural to me appear forced? Or perhaps they really do find the sophisticated philosophical defenses of free will theodicy emotionally compelling even though the simple explanation isn't (except as a summary of something more complex)? ---- I apologize if this sounds like a "gotcha" question, but it is a genuine concern for me. Many people I meet put a lot of stake in free will theodicy and I'd like to understand why a little better. Also, to be perfectly clear, I don't believe free will theodicy is a useless or anti-Biblical idea. But I see it as a minor plank or supplementary to a broader theodicy, not as the primary defense of God's justice.

I am not so sharp on Theology, but I want to present to you something that I have been thinking about. God clearly says when something is bad and we shouldn’t do it. But God also said He hates divorce, meaning its some kind of evil, because God hates evil. Now, if God hates evil, why would He approve of doing it? Not just “allow” it in the sense that He gave us free will, because in that, it makes sense. In that point, God doesn’t allow x but because of free will, He lets it happen. But in the case of divorce or polygamy, God hated these because they are evil in His sight. The thing is, He didn’t say “its wrong and you shouldn’t do it, but since you have a free will, you can choose to or not to do it. But regardless, its still wrong” He didn't say that in polygamy or divorce. He allowed a form of it (regulated) even if He hates it and sees it as evil. So when we do it, its like “it's okay, as long as you are following the regulations”. So that goes against Him that He can’t view evil, yet He allows it (meaning He doesn’t count it as a sin). However, I’ve seen some answers like: “God doesn’t approve of divorce nor of polygamy, but because it still persists, its better to regulate it to minimize harm” By that logic, why can’t we just allow sins altogether because we continually sin, yet God bans it outright? And if God doesn’t approve of it morally, yet continues to do it anyway (by actually stating that we can do it and there is no sin in us if we do), then is He immoral because He goes against what He deems evil?

I've often heard of the concept of Omniscience which is based on scripture that states God **knows all things.** > Isaiah 46:10 10 declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’ > 1 John 3:20 in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things. > Psalm 139:4 Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O Lord, You know it all. Does this quality of God include knowledge of everything that does not yet exist nor has yet occurred on the earth? More specifically: ***Does God already know every action and decision every human will choose to make in the future? How does this correlate with the objective truth that He has included free-will in the design of His creation?*** Please provide scriptural support.

This was originally part of [this question](https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/1478/do-we-have-free-will-or-is-it-an-illusion) However, it's really a separate line of logic (and therefore a different question, imo). If others prefer, I can remerge this into the original. ----- God is omniscient. He truly, literally knows everything. God knows whether or not I will sin. God can (and does) direct certain people to prevent them from choosing one way or another. [Exodus 4:21 (NIV)](http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%204:21&version=NIV) >The LORD said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. Clearly, this is an instance where God stepped in and prevent Pharaoh from making the decision. Since he controls decisions and knows what decisions I will make, do I truly have free will? Or do I only have free will in the inconsequential things (which isn't really free will, after all)?

> In short, open theism posits that since God and humans are free, > God's knowledge is dynamic and God's providence flexible. Whereas > several versions of traditional theism picture God's knowledge of the > future as a singular, fixed trajectory, open theism sees it as a > plurality of branching possibilities, with some possibilities becoming > settled as time moves forward. Thus, the future, as well as God's > knowledge of it, is open. Open Theism states that, while God knows everything that can be known, the future free-will choices made by individual persons do not fall in the knowable category. In Isaiah 46 we find the following: > Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure: (vs. 9-10) There are no explicit or implicit limitations on God's foreknowledge contained in this passage: He declares (and therefore must know in advance) the end from the beginning. Open Theism declares that human, free-will choices are unknowable in advance by God. However it appears that, since the inception of any future circumstance is laden with, and even produced by, a myriad of human choices, declaring from ancient times the things that are not yet done would necessitate intimate knowledge of future human choices. On what basis does Open Theism limit God's possible foreknowledge? Of interest is this peer-reviewed article from the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (entitled Foreknowledge and Free Will) arguing against the assumption that perfect foreknowledge eradicates free will.

Open theism posits that God possesses comprehensive knowledge of every possible future but is unaware of which particular future will be actualized due to human free will. Wouldn't this result in the same thing as Molinism? If God has exhaustive knowledge of every potential future, He knows precisely how each individual would act in any given situation. Thus, God would be aware of whether a person will ultimately be good or bad from the moment of their birth. Isn't this analogous to Molinism's concept of "middle knowledge"? One could argue that God's awareness of possibilities is so vast that He comprehends every conceivable outcome for an individual, not just every choice they might make. For instance, there exists a potential world where I become a terrorist, and another where I become a priest. God understands all these possibilities in perfect detail but is unaware of which one will unfold because it depends on my exercise of free will. However, wouldn't this contradict the Christian concept of the soul? This perspective seems to suggest that there is no inherent soul, and that a person's character is entirely contingent on circumstances. For example, if I had been born to strict Muslim parents, I might have become an extremist Muslim. If I'm not misunderstanding open theism, it appears to imply that a person's characteristics are solely determined by the random chance of their upbringing.

The relationship between God's foreknowledge (or omniscience) and the free will of humans seems to be a complicated topic where multiple positions exist. Regardless of my position (which you can read about here: https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/101932/how-do-non-open-theists-reason-a-basis-for-free-will and https://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/101985/how-would-an-open-theist-explain-that-gods-exhaustive-foreknowledge-would-lead) I think it would be helpful to have an overview of all the various positions that arose (including Open Theism). The main questions I have for each position would be: - How do they imagine God's foreknowledge works? - Is God's foreknowledge exhaustive or limited? - What are the biggest biblical arguments they put forward? - Do humans have "free will" and if so, how does it work? - Do they avoid Fatalism/Predeterminism? If so how?

I believe God did not coerce the thief to the right to confess that Jesus is the Messiah, he did it because he loved the truth and out of his free will, the thief to the left also did not mock Jesus because the devil incited him but most probably because he wanted to appease the crowd. The actions of these two thieves , one in repentance and the other in rebellion caused them to go to different places in the afterlife. How do Calvinists who say God has already chosen the elect and our free will doesn't matter defend this? Also if God interferes with your free will to achieve a result where you go to heaven, then the race of salvation is not fair, or if He interferes with your free will to make you go to hell, makes him a crucial factor in your condemnation, which is not the case .

The Bible does state very many times that God already knows our earthly and eternal destinies. Jesus chose Judas Iscariot because he knew his destiny was to betray him. Jesus knew Paul would try to persecute the church in Damascus and intercepted him on the way. Jesus also knew the thief to his right will confess and they will be re united paradise the same day. My question is, if God already knows who gets to be saved and who doesn't, why should anyone make an effort to be saved when an individual's destiny is already known to God?

In Catholic doctrine, both Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition teach that Jesus Christ died specifically for the expiation of our sins. Historical Christianity professes that God became a man by way of Incarnation to restore man's fallen nature to full communion with the Godhead. > Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all > people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life > for all people. (*Romans 5:18*) > > > > > For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that > whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."For > God did not send the Son into the world to judge the world, but that > the world might be saved through Him.… (*John 3:16*) > The Nicene-Constantinopalitan Creed professes: > ...for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was > incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.. The current Catholic Catechism states about man's specific responsibility for "nailing" Jesus to the Cross with our sin: > **All sinners were the authors of Christ's Passion** > > **Paragraph 598** In her Magisterial teaching of the faith and in the witness of her saints, the Church has never forgotten that "sinners > were the authors and the ministers of all the sufferings that the > divine Redeemer endured." Taking into account the fact that our > sins affect Christ himself, the Church does not hesitate to impute > to Christians the gravest responsibility for the torments inflicted > upon Jesus, a responsibility with which they have all too often > burdened the Jews alone: > > *We must regard as guilty all those who continue to relapse into their sins. Since our sins made the Lord Christ suffer the torment of the > cross, those who plunge themselves into disorders and crimes crucify > the Son of God anew in their hearts (for he is in them) and hold him > up to contempt. And it can be seen that our crime in this case is > greater in us than in the Jews. As for them, according to the witness > of the Apostle, "None of the rulers of this age understood this; for > if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory." We, > however, profess to know him. And when we deny him by our deeds, we in > some way seem to lay violent hands on him*.(1) > > *Nor did demons crucify him; it is you who have crucified him and crucify him still, when you delight in your vices and sins*.(2) > > 1. Roman Catechism I, 5, 11; cf. Heb 6:6; 1 Cor 2:8. > 2. St. Francis of Assisi, Admonitio 5, 3. The Church *also* teaches that God gave man free will...beginning with Adam. > **MAN'S FREEDOM** > > **Paragraph 1730** God created man a rational being, conferring on him the dignity of a person who can initiate and control his own actions. > "God willed that man should be 'left in the hand of his own counsel,' > so that he might of his own accord seek his Creator and freely attain > his full and blessed perfection by cleaving to him."(1) > > Man is rational and therefore like God; he is created with free will > and is master over his acts.(2) > > **MAN'S FIRST SIN** > > **Paragraph 397** Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's > command. This is what man's first sin consisted of.(3) All subsequent > sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his > goodness. > > **Paragraph 398** In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against > the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his > own good. Constituted in a state of holiness, man was destined to be > fully "divinized" by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to > "be like God", but "without God, before God, and not in accordance > with God".(4) > > > 1. GS 17; Sir 15:14. > 2. St. Irenaeus, Adv. haeres. 4,4,3:PG 7/1,983. > 3. Cf. Gen 3:1-11; Rom 5:19. > 4. St. Maximus the Confessor, Ambigua: PG 91,1156C; cf. Gen 3:5. ---------- **However, paradoxically speaking...** Scripture *also* explicitly teaches that Jesus Christ is God - who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. > In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word > was God. He was with God in the beginning. (*John 1:1-2*) > > Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. *(Hebrews > 13:8*) The Miaphysite heresy - **which holds that the human nature and pre-incarnate divine nature of Christ were united as one divine human nature from the point of the Incarnation onward** - was officially denounced at the Council of Chalcedon. The Confession of Chalcedon provides a clear statement on the human and divine nature of Christ: > We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach > people to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the > same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood; truly God and > truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body; consubstantial > [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and > consubstantial with us according to the Manhood; in all things like > unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according > to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our > salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to > the Manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be > acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, > inseparably; (ν δύο φύσεσιν συγχύτως, τρέπτως, διαιρέτως, χωρίστως – > in duabus naturis inconfuse, immutabiliter, indivise, inseparabiliter) > the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, > but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring > in one Person (prosopon) and one Subsistence (hypostasis), not parted > or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only > begotten God (μονογεν Θεόν), the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the > prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the > Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy > Fathers has handed down to us. **Considering all this...it seems to me that, although the Incarnation is a temporally necessary for Man's salvation, it ultimately is eternal in essence since the essence of God eternally transcends time.** **Question:** If Adam, by exercising his free will, had chosen *not* to partake of the forbidden fruit (a.k.a. Original Sin), **would the Incarnation still have taken place due to God's omnipresence?** I'm looking for authoritative Catholic/Orthodox teaching about this subject.

From [SEP](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/theodicies/#FreeWillTheo) : >#### 6. Free Will Theodicy > >With respect to the question of the justification of pain, cruelty, and other evils in relation to God, it is important to acknowledge the significant role played in theistic thought by appeal to the power of human free choice. We have seen above that many of the theodicies on offer rely on it. One prominent way to defend the goodness and other perfections of God in response to the evils of the world is to point out that, after all, God did not bring about the Rwandan genocide or the Holocaust or someone’s sexual assault. Instead, these were caused by human actions, which the theist may suggest were freely chosen by perpetrators. On the free will theodicy, God remains an absolutely perfect being even in light of the suffering in the world, because it is created beings who freely choose to harm each other (and non-human animals and the environment), and none of this is God’s direct doing. What goes wrong in our world is not the fault of God but rather the fault of the wrongdoers who use their power of free will to act badly. The free will theodicist holds that it is a great good that God gave us free will and allows us direct the course of our lives by way our own free choices (Swinburne 1998). The result of the gift of free will to the billions of people on the planet is a whole lot of bad consequences from evil choices, which God is justified in allowing because of the greater good of the gift of free will. > > Several problems face the line of thought that lays all the blame for the pain and suffering in the world on the bad free choices of created beings. One problem is this: even in cases of free actions that cause harm, if God is in control of the universe, then God at least allows the harm to be freely done to the victims by the perpetrators. God’s omnipotence indicates that God could have intervened to prevent a bad choice and could have intervened after the choice to prevent its most harmful consequences. God could cause someone who intends to rape to twist his ankle and fall to the ground, for instance, or to get violently ill, or faint, preventing the intended victim’s assault. In answer to the question of why God did not do that, there must be some good reason. Preserving the stability of natural laws is a good that is sometimes suggested here. (For relevant discussion see Swinburne 1998 and for a contrary view see Sterba 2019.) > > Another problem for the free will theodicy is that not all cases of suffering are brought about intentionally by human free choices, such as damage in the wake of hurricanes and the ravages of inherited diseases. Bad medical outcomes in surgical cases, too, do not always result from malicious intent or professional negligence. When a tornado rips through a town destroying some homes and not others, no human being freely chose for certain houses rather than neighboring ones to be destroyed, and no human being freely brought about the tornado in the first place. > > Another difficulty facing the free will theodicy is this: whereas some philosophers think that free will would be ruled out by the truth of causal determinism (the hypothesis that at each moment there is exactly one future, given the laws of nature and the events of the past), other free will theorists believe that we can act freely even if causal determinism is true. **Arguably it is crucial that the free will appealed to by a free will theodicist must be indeterminist (libertarian) in nature**. (For exploration of indeterminist accounts of free will, see Clarke 2003; Ekstrom 2000, 2019; Franklin 2018; Kane 1996; Mele 2006; O’Connor 2000.) **The free will theodicist thus must maintain that all compatibilist accounts of the nature of free agency, including those provided by Frankfurt (1971), Watson (1975), Fischer (2012), Nelkin (2011), and Wolf (1990), among others, are implausible accounts**. In citing the free will of created beings as the greater good that justifies God in permitting instances of evil or the facts about evil, the free will theodicist also needs to hold that causal determinism is, in fact, false and that we human beings do have **libertarian free will**. Without maintaining these positions, the free will theodicist lacks an explanation for the violence and cruelty in the world that shields God and preserves God’s goodness, since God could have established the initial conditions of the universe and decreed that deterministic natural laws govern all events, so that the events in the world unfolded to include none that are painful, harmful or wrong. **God could have done this even in worlds in which he created free (in a compatibilist sense) rational beings**. > > Here is an additional problem for the theodicy according to which God’s allowance of suffering is due to God’s desire to create beings with **libertarian free will** and to allow creatures to carry out their evil intentions as well as their good ones: such morally significant libertarian free will (in Alvin Plantinga’s (1974) terms)—or what Swinburne (1998) calls serious free will, which is **libertarian free will** with respect to seriously good and seriously evil potential actions—must have immense positive value, in order for it to be sensible to think that a perfect being would decide to create beings with that power. The claim that such serious **libertarian free will** is worth it stands in need of convincing defense. (This issue is addressed in detail in Ekstrom 2021.) Notice that there is a difference between a proposed causal explanation of evil and a divine justification for allowing evil. If the causal explanation for a vast range of cases of evil in our world is human free will, then still, in order to serve as a God-justifying reason for permitting those evils, it has to be a very great outweighing good for God to create beings with serious morally significant free will and not to intervene to prevent the consequences of their wrong choices. My understanding of [Calvinism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will_in_theology#Calvinism) is that Calvinists believe in *predestination*. But predestination seems to invalidate libertarian free will, which is a key premise in the Free Will Theodicy. **What is the Calvinist take on the Free Will Theodicy?**

This is not my own question. I just copied and pasted this question from someone else, which that person should have asked here. https://philosophy.stackexchange.com/questions/120705/are-swinburne-like-free-will-rebuttals-to-divine-hiddeness-arguments-inconsisten > For me, the biggest reason to doubt God's existence is that he is so non-obvious/hidden in comparison to his power and performance of highly obvious and visible acts in scriptures (always "a long long time ago..."). > > I asked a philosophically-minded Catholic friend about this, wondering why if God wants us to have a relationship with Him and to act in morally correct ways, why does he make it so hard to even arrive at a conclusion that he exists, let alone whether we should follow and worship him. > > They responded with what is called a "greater goods" argument (similar to responses for Evil), in that "If God made it obvious he existed, then we'd be coerced into being good, which would subvert our moral free will. Coming to believe is in itself a greater good." > > Putting aside my disbelief in "libertarian free will" (of the kind that is supposed to make us theologically responsible for our choices), it seems odd to explain lack of evidence by appealing its impact on free will - if our will is free, then no matter what we know we will always have the capacity to do otherwise -- we just make choices with more or less information. > > I found a nice snippet from an IEP article that summarized my friend's point nicely (with citations to greats like Swinburne): > > > Several goods have been proposed as the reason (or part of the reason) that God allows undesirable nonbelief phenomena. One such good is morally significant free will. The idea here is that the greater awareness one has of God, the greater the motivation one has to act rightly (due to a desire to please God, a fear of punishment for doing wrong, and so forth), and therefore if God were too obvious, we would have such a strong motivation to do good that it would cease to be a true choice. This has been defended by Richard Swinburne (1998). Helen De Cruz also addresses this question, examining it through the lens of cognitive science of religion. She suggests that there is some empirical evidence for the claim that a conscious awareness of God heightens one’s motivation to do good (De Cruz 2016). > > In particular, the following line is borderline incoherent in light of broader Christian views on the nature of free will and moral responsiblity: > > >...if God were too obvious, we would have such a strong motivation to do good that it would cease to be a true choice. > > This flies in the face of much of Christian doctrine. For example, St Andrews Encyclopedia of Theology states (emphasis mine): > > >... God’s goodness and providential control over creation form a very powerful problem of evil: if God is the creator of the world and has providential control over it, it seems that God is also the source of evil and death in the created world. One attractive way to solve these tensions is to assume the existence of a robust human free will. **If humans have free will, God cannot determine what humans freely do in moral and spiritual matters**. Humans are morally responsible because they make their own choices. God is not responsible for evil and sin, because they are the doing of **humans, whose actions are not forced by God**. > > This directly contradicts the statement that there needs to be "epistemic distance" or murkiness to the reality of God for our choice to be a "true choice" -- all choices are true choices according to this theological encyclopedia. > > I also found a discussion by Trent Horn on this in relation to the reality of Hell and its relation to free will: > > > One of my arguments for why I believe Hell is eternal is that the damned make it eternal by continually sinning and rejecting God. **They just double down on their sins and continue to wallow in them and routinely choose them over God for all eternity**. And you probably know people like this who are stubborn, who are malicious, that even when they’re offered mercy and grace, they turn it down and they double down on their own sins and they find almost a sick kind of pleasure in their own sins and in their own stubbornness. And I think that that’s what Hell is, that Hell, it has a lock, but the lock is on the inside. That people choose to not unlock it, that **if you took someone out of Hell and place them into Heaven, they would curse God and march right back into Hell and consider it to be better**. > > Again, this Christian apologist is basically saying that our free will is so strong that even after learning of the true, awful reality of Hell, those people would *still* choose to sin and separate from God. > > In the same article, Trent Horn makes another telling remark: > > > So that’s true. God wants all people to be saved. But just because God wants something, it doesn’t follow that’s going to happen. God wants me to not ever commit a sin in my life. Now, that makes sense, right? Does God want Trent Horn to sin? No, he doesn’t want me to sin. In fact, Jesus says, “Be perfect like your Heavenly father is perfect.” God wants me, from this moment going forward, to not commit a sin. Am I going to commit a sin? You bet I’m going to. In fact, James 3:2 says that we all stumble in small ways. So, there are many things that God wants, and that represents his perfect will for us, but he understands that we are not puppets on a string, we are not marionettes. And so, there are things God wants for us, but **we can choose to not go along with his plan**. > > ---- > So, **Are Christian's trying to have it both ways?** > > They like free will because it (permanently) puts the responsibility on us, not God, for the evils that happen and choices we make. God cannot be held liable *no matter what he does* -- that is a key point apologist answers to God's apparent impotence in the face of evil and disbelief/skepticism. They claim that we should not sin because God wants us not to sin, but if we know he wants this "too well" then we are being compelled?! > > So much of Christianity is geared around fostering a deep feeling of the reality of God, and also a healthy "fear/respect" of him and of the possibility of hell. If freely choosing God is such a greater good, so great that God puts up with all the negatives of free will, why are churches working so hard to undermine that freedom? > > Overall, it seems like free will defense to Divine Hiddenness is a dead end, as it relies on a lack of free will that we are supposed to have according to the exact same theologians.

Do all Christians believe in predestination? If not, for those who don't, how do they explain Romans 9:14 - 9:24? > 14 What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15 For He says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I raised you up, to demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.” 18 So then He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires. > > 19 You will say to me then, “Why does He still find fault? For who resists His will?” 20 On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, “Why did you make me like this,” will it? 21 Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use? 22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction? 23 And He did so to make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, 24 even us, whom He also called, not from among Jews only, but also from among Gentiles. The passage says some are "vessels of wrath prepared for destruction," and others are "vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory..." Also when it says "He hardens whom he desires," the implication is that when a person's heart becomes hardened, it is hardened by God in which case they did not do so of their free will. Both of these support the idea of predestination (the former more than the latter) and I want to know how a Christian who doesn't believe in predestination (or one who somehow harmonizes predestination and free will) would interpret this passage, particularly the things I mentioned.

I've been studying the topic of Open Theism in comparison to other perspectives on God's sovereignty, omniscience, and man's free will. As I understand it, on a scale spanning from full on deterministic fatalism to fully libertarian freedom, Hyper-Calvinism is on one extreme end and Pelagianism is on the other extreme. Since Calvinism allows for a form of free will, it is obviously not deterministic fatalism, but it's obviously close by. Also, as I understand it, Augustinianism is very similar to Calvinism (or, rather, vice versa since the former came first chronologically), and Semi-Pelagianism is approximately halfway between Augustinianism and Pelagianism. My question, therefore, is two-fold: 1. Does the above scale provide an accurate structure from which to understand the perspectives listed above? 2. Where does Arminianism, Molinism, and Open Theism fall in comparison to the things listed above? In particular I've heard people effectively say that Arminianism is halfway between Calvinism and Semi-Pelagianism. Is that true, or is it closer to one than the other? I've also heard people describe Molinism as a variant of Arminianism. If true does it shift it towards Calvinism or away from it? Finally, it seems like Open Theism and Pelagianism are similar in that they exclusively focus in on either the nature of God or nature of man in ways fundamentally contrary to Scripture, and make vague statements on the nature of man or God. Ultimately, I'm trying to get a big-picture overview of all these things and how they relate to one another, so if part of all of my understanding above is way off base, I'd appreciate an explanation of where I went off the rails, and how you would explain the relationship between all these things.

A) Scripture says no force or power can separate us from the Love of God. > "For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 8:38-39 B) Some Christians are more separated from the love God (i.e. they love God less than others). If nothing can separate us from God, then why are some Christians more separated from God's love? What is the deciding factor in how much we love God? I suppose the non-Calvinist response would be "our will": Our own love of sin / self-will is what separates us since God's love for us does not change. ### Possible answer(?) Some people have a different level of Faith (from God) > "as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith. - Romans 12:3 and more/less Sin > "He who is forgiven much loves much" Luke 7:47 However, scripture says faith comes by hearing: > "So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. - Romans 10:17 This seems to put the burden back on people to decide to "listen" or "sin more" which isn't inline with Reformed theology.