[ 3 / biz / cgl / ck / diy / fa / ic / jp / lit / sci / vr / vt ] [ index / top / reports ] [ become a patron ] [ status ]
2023-11: Warosu is now out of extended maintenance.

/lit/ - Literature

View post   
File: 47 KB, 330x456, Theancientofdays.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19412407 No.19412407 [Reply] [Original]

Retard who just got into philosophy and Christianity here. I am trying to find faith, but I'm not succeeding so well, as I have 2 burning questions I cant seem to find an answer for.
1. How free-will can exist if god knows everything
2. a subset of 1. How can god, who knows everything, create a person like Judas, knowing that Judas is going to be damned for eternity? wouldn't this contradict his absolute goodness?
are there any books that touch on these topics?

>> No.19412427

>>19412407
>1. How free-will can exist if god knows everything
Free will is self evident, doesn't matter if God knows what choices you make, you still make them.
>2. a subset of 1. How can god, who knows everything, create a person like Judas, knowing that Judas is going to be damned for eternity?
Judas chose to betray of his own will, you would prefer that he be strung up like a marionette so as to have no freedom.
>wouldn't this contradict his absolute goodness?
No, read Leibniz.

>> No.19412430

>>19412407
If you're a Christian you don't need philosophy, you only need faith.

>> No.19412451

>>19412407
>How free-will can exist if god knows everything
With God knowing the future that does not mean that He causes the actions that you freely choose to do. If you want to get hyper-autistic, look into Molinism.

>> No.19412452

>>19412407
God’s knowledge is not the cause of your choices. Judas chose freely to betray Christ, and to despair when he could have been forgiven.

>> No.19412461

>>19412427
Theodicy?

>> No.19412467

>>19412451
Molinism only works if you deny divine simplicity, and that carries its own set of problems.

>> No.19412552

>>19412407
The Consolation of Philosophy touches on this if I remember right
Mere Christianity states the problem and a solution very succinctly and readably (essentially, that since God is out of time, God’s knowledge cannot be said to be “of the future”)
you’ll see the problem touched on in a lot of places but those’re the two i remember really tackling it

>> No.19412562

>>19412407
>I have 2 burning questions
Really? Just 2?
All the rest just kinda jibes?

>> No.19412580

>>19412552
Thank you anon

>> No.19412597

>>19412407
Honestly if you're going to be procured with questions like that you're going in one of two directions:
1. Atheist/agnostic
2. Hardcore Calvinist

Or some sequence of the two. Religion isn't meant for people like you. It's meant for people who go on Sunday, smile and shake pastor's hand, enjoy the coffee and donuts, etc. Let them have their fun. Take your questions where they will be welcome and useful.

>> No.19412622

>>19412407
>1. How free-will can exist if god knows everything
Divine foreknowledge is distinct from divine will. God doesn't actualize your human will, which exists as a potentia in you only you can choose to actualize.
>How can god, who knows everything, create a person like Judas, knowing that Judas is going to be damned for eternity?
Why not? Judas was good by nature as all creation, and was given every chance to repent, he himself chose his demise. God created him so that Judas may choose to participate eternally in God's grace and love, not so that he would be damned. Judas failed to realize what he was created for and chose instead to disobey and live by his own rules, which have no basis in the Life and thus lead him eternally away from it.
>wouldn't this contradict his absolute goodness?
This assumes righteous punishment is not good. Also there is in fact no standard of "goodness" outside of the Holy Trinity.

>are there any books that touch on these topics?
Yes, St. John of Damascus Exposition on the Orthodox Faith.

>>19412597
>1. Atheist/agnostic
>2. Hardcore Calvinist
Both are demonic.

>> No.19412623

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/kevin-deyoung/can-god-know-everything-and-still-give-us-free-will/

>> No.19412634

>>19412467
>Molinism
>contemporary Molinists include William Lane Craig
lol

>noo Christ is fully human! but He didn't have a human soul!
Literal abstract nonsense, this is not the real Jesus Christ who incarnated and dwelt among us.

>> No.19412653

>>19412427
/thread

>> No.19412675

>>19412622
>Both are demonic.

My point exactly.

>> No.19412685

>>19412407
don’t call yourself a retard for one. Stop with the negative self talk. And stop with negative talk in general. Don’t insult yourself or others. be loving and trust in the lord

>> No.19412690

>>19412597
>>Atheist
>le all is material! so knowledge is too! so it changes into its opposite!
Self refuting.
>>agnostic
>le we cannot know is truth exists, but we do know that though!
Self refuting.
>>Calvinist
>le the Father creates through the Son something evil, namely a human who sins as the only goal of his being, so evil has eternal existence in the divine mind!
Self refuting.

>> No.19412692

>>19412623
I think he's wrong. Free will and foreknowledge are not related. God knows the choice you'll make, but that does not influence in any way how you'll choose. Just because He knows what you pick, doesn't mean you didn't pick it yourself through your own will.

>> No.19412699

Making God dualisticlly "good" is the chink in Christianity's armor.

>> No.19412717

>>19412679
This.

God's free will - uncreated.
God's foreknowledge/providence - uncreated, but only beginning with creation.
Human free will - created, subject to foreknowledge/providence, but there is no tyranny of the divine will over the human will.

Christ is human so we can understand human will if we understand it in Christ. Jesus did freely choose with His human will to not make the stones into bread, it was not a predetermined event and yet there was zero possibility of Him making the opposite choice.

>>19412699
There is no dualistic good, only the eternal goodness of God. If something falls away from it, it becomes closer to nonexistence than to something existing.

>> No.19412733

>>19412692
>>19412717
reckon the first is giving me a (You)? Had to fix it.

>> No.19412749

>>19412407
The first question is retarded. The second question is based on the "retardment" of the first question, thus, even more retarded.
I hope I've helped you.

>> No.19412758

>>19412430
You're a retarded pseud. You can't love something you can't comprehend.

>> No.19412773
File: 317 KB, 1010x1330, 84c56f5edb7aaca2d5a15c925c714ebcd772cc23954dbc403b5b8920efd5cdfd.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19412773

>>19412430
>philosophy
>love of wisdom
Our Lord literally is Wisdom incarnate.

>> No.19412793

>>19412407
>1. How free-will can exist if god knows everything
it doesn't
>2. a subset of 1. How can god, who knows everything, create a person like Judas, knowing that Judas is going to be damned for eternity?
hes' just having a laugh

>> No.19412795

>>19412758
Define “comprehend.” Do you comprehend everything about your mother? Do you love your mother?

>> No.19412824

>>19412795
How can you love your mother if you do not understand how much she loves you? Do you just trust empty words of that?

>> No.19412839

>>19412795
My mother I can see directly, with God reasoning is also required to know that you are not fooling yourself into mindlessly worshipping an idol. Asking proper questions about God is part of knowing Him for those who don't directly see Him.

>> No.19412857

>>19412839
Also this. No way of discerning what you're doing if you're absolutely clueless.

>> No.19412879

>>19412839
>>19412857
This is why heresy is so dangerous. If I think Christ is a creation of the Father, not really of the same essence then I am fooled into worshiping a creature or denying the divinity of Christ altogether, which is a serious sin. Falsehood removes you from communion with God who is Truth.

>> No.19412913

>>19412407
Lean not unto thine own understanding. FAITH. Faith is not an intellectual formulation. Just walk in faith, as a willed decision, and TRUST in the Lord who is good and knows what He is doing to handle all of how everything works out. Read the Bible and see where one comes into His kingdom as a child, which requires humility, humbleness, the WAY of he SAINTS. May God bless and keep (You).

>> No.19413497

>>19412407
>How free-will can exist if god knows everything
God's knows every possibility and allows us to choose from amongst them. He knows all the possible results and effects of our actions and still loves us and guides us to Him. I think about it in terms of God having complete knowledge of all the possible alternate realities but His power allows us to choose freely within that seemingly infinite mass of possibilities.
2. God did not force Judas to betray Jesus. He chose to do that bc we have free will.
If you want faith you should pray and talk to a catechist from the Church Jesus founded about it. Only Ortho-Catholic churches have authentic transmission of the Holy Spirit.

>> No.19413759

>>19412407
God sits outside time so putting that constraint on god and understanding how god sees time is impossible. But as an anon pointed out it’s like having every frame of every movie on your computer screen all at once, so things are occurring will occur and have already occurred all at once. But again no real way to know.
For the second part for one Judas chose out of fee will and his betrayal led to god being able to forgive the sins of mankind. God is both Omni just and Omni benevolent so his justice demands punishment for sin, while he took sin upon himself by becoming man through Jesus Christ and thus allowing man to be forgiven of sin. Another aspect is god is 3 parts the Father who we classically consider god, the son Jesus Christ who is also known as the word of god, and the Holy Ghost which is basically gods influence over all creation.

>> No.19413764

>>19412427
Was there free will before the fall, and would there be free will if there hadn't been a talking snake in the tree of knowledge?

>> No.19413772

>>19412407
At some level nearly every faith requires some rationalizing over some logical incoherence. Usually this will end at some point of saying God operates outside of human reason and beyond reality as we can know it. There's almost no bottom to the debate over free will and predestination when you look at medieval Christian theology, and it continues through all the way to the Protestants.

At some point a leap of faith has to be made to accept something transcendental.

>> No.19413981

>>19412427
fpbp

>> No.19414017

>>19413759
>God sits outside time
What does God's ass look like?

>> No.19414057

>>19412427
I don't get what's the point in being so dismissive of people who are asking genuinely complex questions. Do you really think you're going to convince anyone in this way? You've probably just made OP more confused on these matters

>> No.19414062

>>19412407
Read Zarathustra

>> No.19414189

>>19414057
I wasn't dismissive, I answered the questions and gave a reading recommendation (which he asked for).
>>19412461
Theodicy or Discourse on Metaphysics which touches on the problem of evil and Judas but would bring you into some of his other ideas as well if you've never read him before.

>> No.19414218

>>19412427
>Free will is self evident
A self-evident illusion

>> No.19414272

>>19414218
It is by free will that you typed up and posted this cringe pseudbabble. Read some Descartes.

>> No.19414288

>>19414272
It is by pure mechanism of motivation that we both posted. Read Kant.

>> No.19414364

>>19412597
This is not true. The problem of evil is a deep and long lasting problem that affects all Christians at some point. You are not doomed to atheism or calvinism.

>> No.19414375

>>19412634
Craig is the reason Paul wrote verses such as Colossians 2:8. His hyper philosophical / analytic autism was bound to lead him into heresy

>> No.19414378

>>19414364
The POE is exclusively a problem of christianity (and to a smaller degree islam and judaism), because it's ontology conflict with it's soteriology.

>> No.19415710
File: 260 KB, 1828x778, 1605421748839.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19415710

>>19412407
1. People have different interpretations and there are even notable heterodox figures in Church history who actually did not believe in free will (namely st. Augustine). That being said, the way I see it is imagine life/universe as a book, where we are the authors and once it gets written, God will "read" it, however as God exists at all times at once, he has at the same time read it in the future while existing at a time as the book is being written.

2. Well they all had free choice to do what they would, Judas had free choice to betray Jesus or not, God created him with free will to betray Jesus or not although eventually he did choose to do so. Jesus knew he would do it as Judas has technically already done it and so knew he would betray him, but he still had the option to not do it.
Perhaps you could look at it this way, your future is already set in stone and you cannot change it, however it is you yourself who have chosen that future for yourself in the future.

I hope that makes sense and I recommend you read about the Church Fathers as their teachings are very insightful.

>> No.19415721

>>19413764
Yes, Eve chose to (aka got conned into) eat the fruit.

>> No.19416785
File: 81 KB, 259x377, 1367990299570.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19416785

>>19413759
>god is 3 "parts"
>Holy Spirit is basically gods influence over all creation
...
So the Holy Spirit did not exist before creation?

>> No.19416800

>>19413764
Free will is defined as choice between multiple goods. Otherwise even Jesus Christ wouldn't have it. There was no free choice for pre-fall Adam, or for Jesus, in the sense of thinking up blatant evil and acting it out, this only occurred in the fall. Before the fall Adam could only be tempted into evil by deception based on choosing natural goods like Jesus was in the desert.

>> No.19416821
File: 92 KB, 658x1000, Saint-Maximus-the-Confessor-Hand-Painted-Orthodox-Icon-03.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19416821

>>19413772
>when you look at medieval Christian theology, and it continues through all the way to the Protestants.
Free will was already solved by St. Maximus way before prots were even on the horizon. The West just lost the teachings.

>> No.19416839

>>19412407
1. Free Will exist because you are presented with choices and your choices depend on you. It's just the probability of you choosing one thing over another is high but there's still a chance.

2. God probably makes himself forget shit or otherwise, does not get involved. Kind of like natgeo, when they watch animals.

>> No.19416840

>>19413764
Existence of the fruit (you don’t think it was created by Satan - Satan does not create anything just damage something God already created) is of course free will .

>> No.19416924

>>19412407
I used to wonder about this. Then I had a kid and it all made so much more sense. I can predict almost everything he ever does. I can even predict almost everything he says. I can even successfully guess what he is thinking most.ofnthe time. I'm just a regular human. The difference is that I have 30+ years of observation, prediction skills and roughly two and half times the intelligence. I know when we get the park he is going to run for the playground first, I know when he gets to the playground he will climb the jungle gym and not go for the swings, I know when he climbs the jungle gym he will go down the smallest slide first, then the next largest, and finally the largest slide. I know that only after he has used all the climbing equipment at least once will he want to use the swings. I know what he will say when I suggest it's time to go home. And when we get home I know he will ask for a water to drink. And so on the whole day. It's usually pretty obvious because I know all his programming. I have seen every moment of his life since he is born. I know every stimulus that I forma his every reaction. I know ever book he has read and every movie he has seen. I know exactly the number of times I have hugged him when he fell down, I remember every time I told him I love him. I know every word and thought that has gone into and out of his head, every noise, every color, every song and sunset I showed him. I created him and formed him. He has free will but nothing he does or thinks or feels is hidden from me. That will change when he gets older and I no longer have a god like status in his cosmos. He will seek other gods and his thoughts and actions will be a mystery to me.

I think if there is a God, and we are his children, it must be as so. We are just very simple and obvious creatures who have free will but are unable to use it in any way that could shock or surprise an observer who has seen every moment of every humans life since the beginning of time.

>> No.19416932

>>19416840
Wait, what? Adam and Eve willed the fruit into existence? That makes no sense at all. Did they will the snake into existence as well?

>> No.19416948

>>19416800
>There was no free choice for pre-fall Adam
How did the fall occur in the first place then, if they didn't choose to eat the fruit? Is Christianity actually wrong then? Did free will not cause death and suffering to come into the world?

>> No.19416966

>>19415721
How do you choose to get conned into something you're ignorant about? Do babies also choose the HIV they get from their parents?

Also, would this have happened if the talking snake hadn't conned her?

>> No.19416989

>>19416932
God created everything including fruit. It he didn’t create fruit, primeval paradise would have been totalitarian utopi with robots not humans.

>> No.19417024

>>19416948
By deception, free choice (deliberation) is different from the natural human will, which can only choose good things even though it is free in choosing them. Ignorance and deliberation is what causes free choice, which does not exist in Christ's human will for example. If you define free will as ability to choose good or evil, then evil becomes eternal and will exist in the eschaton somehow so there will be eternal falls, like the heretic Origen said.
Adam choose the good of becoming God, but without obeying God himself, plunging himself into a separation from God, corrupting His will and introducing deliberation into every action he does. The difference between Christ and Adam is that Adam has the potential to introduce corrupted will by disobeying and falling away from grace, since he is a creation who does not have grace by nature.
See St. Maximus the Confessor's teaching on gnomic will. Also St. John of Damascus writes about Christ's will, this is the model for all of our will in the eschaton.

>Nor in the case of the soul of the Lord do we speak of counsel or choice, seeing that He had no part in ignorance. For, although He was of a nature that is not cognisant of the future, yet because of His oneness in subsistence with God the Word, He had knowledge of all things, and that not by grace, but, as we have said, because He was one in subsistence. For He Himself was both God and Man, and hence He did not possess the will that acts by opinion or disposition. While He did possess the natural and simple will which is to be observed equally in all the personalities of men, His holy soul had not opinion (or, disposition) that is to say, no inclination opposed to His divine will, nor aught else contrary to His divine will.

>> No.19417056

>>19416966
Adam and Eve were not ignorant of God's commandment, nor of the fact that they would die. They were conned into accepting the snake's suggestion anyway, it was their person which chose it thereby corrupting their nature.
HIV is different, because it's just a result of inherited corrupted nature. Adam did not have it and was the first one to become mortal and corruptible.
I think yes, there is potential even if Satan didn't fall. St. Gregory of Nyssa speaks about it iirc, that Adam still had the potential to fall if he got high on pride and tried to eat the fruit anyway. Satan did somehow fall without external temptation. So it seems potential to fall is necessary for a creation to be able to freely love God, even when it's created with a good will by nature which does not choose evil.

>> No.19417069

>>19417024
To add to it, the choice of eating the fruit itself is the fall of Adam as per St. Maximus. The moment it was conceived in Adam that he could truly disobey God and eat the fruit, he had fallen from grace.

>> No.19417738

>>19412407
>1. How free-will can exist if god knows everything
God can grant us free will, yet know everything we're going to do. Perhaps we are just that predictable.

>2. a subset of 1. How can god, who knows everything, create a person like Judas, knowing that Judas is going to be damned for eternity? wouldn't this contradict his absolute goodness
The Christian answer is that we don't fully understand God's plan. He has a bigger picture that none of us are privy to, and He doesn't need to share it. He tells Job as much in the Book of Job. It may seem like a cop out, but it makes sense. After Jesus died on the cross, his apostles were probably wondering how God could let His son be murdered. Well, two days later, they got their answer.

I think there could also be an argument that Judas was forgiven for his sin via grace. But you would need to be a Christian Universalist to believe that, and that's opening a whole new can of worms. Not saying that's a bad thing, though.

>> No.19417761

>>19417069
>>19417056
>>19417024
why do you cathniggers always sound like high fantasy larpers lol. Oh wait, it's because you are.

>> No.19417920

>>19417738
>Judas was forgiven for his sin via grace
Acceptance of grace requires cooperation otherwise it is just tyranny. Even repentance isn't enough if you want to keep sinning afterwards, which Judas did - he repented of betraying Jesus and immediately killed himself, showing that he did not cooperate with God's will.

>> No.19417922

>>19417738
>Christian Universalist
pick one.

>> No.19418038

>>19412407
Many persons find it difficult to reconcile belief in the "ruling of the stars" with belief in free will. At first sight it appears unjust and arbitrary that certain lines of life—even vicious ones—should be indicated by the "rulers of nativities" as the only lines in which the "native" will prosper; and they ask incredulously whether it can be rationally supposed that the "accident" of the day and hour of birth, is, by Divine Providence, permitted to direct and dominate the whole career of an intelligent and responsible being. But this objection is superficial, and the result of incomplete knowledge. For the difficulties of astrological science, if viewed in the light of Karmic Predestination or Fate, not only disappear, but give place to the unfoldment of a most lucid and admirable system of responsible causation. There is but one hypothesis capable of solving the enigma of Fate, and that hypothesis is a doctrine common to all the greater schools of thought—Vedic, Buddhist, Kabbalistic, Hermetic, Platonic,—the hypothesis, to wit, of multiple existences, or the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. Destiny, in the view of these philosophies, is not arbitrary, but acquired. >Every man makes his own Fate; and nothing is truer than the saying that "Character is Destiny. For that which in one existence is Will, becomes in the next Fate. By the hands of men themselves, then, are their natal lines cast, whether in pleasant and virtuous, or in painful and vicious paths. For in what manner soever an ego conducts itself in one existence, by that conduct, by that order of thought and habit it builds for itself its destiny in a future existence. And the ego is enchained by these pre-natal influences, and by them irresistibly compelled into a new nativity at the time of such conjunction of planets and signs as oblige it into certain courses, or incline it strongly thereto. Hence "Destiny," or Karma, is said by Hermes to "determine the position of the stars." And if the course so defined be evil, and the ruling such as to favour chiefly vicious propensities, the afflicted ego, even though assuredly reaping the just effects of its own demerit, is not left without a remedy. For the ego may oppose its will to the stellar ruling, and heroically adopt a course opposed to the direction of the natal influences. Thereby, indeed, the ego may bring itself under a curse for such period as those influences have power, for, as Hermes tells us, "no man can escape from Destiny, nor preserve himself from the action of the stars"; but at the same time, the will thus exerted will reverse the planetary affinities acquired, and give a new "set" to the current of the Karmic predestination, so that the ruling signs of the next nativity will be favourable to virtue and to a loftier state. (The Virgin of the World, trans. by Anna Kingsford, pp. 142–43)
https://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/vow/index.htm

>> No.19418096
File: 125 KB, 940x936, 1634798993900.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19418096

>>19418038
>Many persons find it difficult to reconcile belief in the "ruling of the stars" with belief in free will. At first sight it appears unjust and arbitrary that certain lines of life—even vicious ones—should be indicated by the "rulers of nativities" as the only lines in which the "native" will prosper; and they ask incredulously whether it can be rationally supposed that the "accident" of the day and hour of birth, is, by Divine Providence, permitted to direct and dominate the whole career of an intelligent and responsible being. But this objection is superficial, and the result of incomplete knowledge. For the difficulties of astrological science, if viewed in the light of Karmic Predestination or Fate, not only disappear, but give place to the unfoldment of a most lucid and admirable system of responsible causation. There is but one hypothesis capable of solving the enigma of Fate, and that hypothesis is a doctrine common to all the greater schools of thought—Vedic, Buddhist, Kabbalistic, Hermetic, Platonic,—the hypothesis, to wit, of multiple existences, or the doctrine of the Metempsychosis. Destiny, in the view of these philosophies, is not arbitrary, but acquired. >Every man makes his own Fate; and nothing is truer than the saying that "Character is Destiny. For that which in one existence is Will, becomes in the next Fate. By the hands of men themselves, then, are their natal lines cast, whether in pleasant and virtuous, or in painful and vicious paths. For in what manner soever an ego conducts itself in one existence, by that conduct, by that order of thought and habit it builds for itself its destiny in a future existence. And the ego is enchained by these pre-natal influences, and by them irresistibly compelled into a new nativity at the time of such conjunction of planets and signs as oblige it into certain courses, or incline it strongly thereto. Hence "Destiny," or Karma, is said by Hermes to "determine the position of the stars." And if the course so defined be evil, and the ruling such as to favour chiefly vicious propensities, the afflicted ego, even though assuredly reaping the just effects of its own demerit, is not left without a remedy. For the ego may oppose its will to the stellar ruling, and heroically adopt a course opposed to the direction of the natal influences. Thereby, indeed, the ego may bring itself under a curse for such period as those influences have power, for, as Hermes tells us, "no man can escape from Destiny, nor preserve himself from the action of the stars"; but at the same time, the will thus exerted will reverse the planetary affinities acquired, and give a new "set" to the current of the Karmic predestination, so that the ruling signs of the next nativity will be favourable to virtue and to a loftier state. (The Virgin of the World, trans. by Anna Kingsford, pp. 142–43)

>> No.19418385

>>19417920
read about Christian Universalism before responding next time

>>19417922
you have no idea what that term means but ok

>> No.19418511

>>19412427
>Free will exists because it exists
A profound analysis from a complete retard.

>> No.19418921

>>19418096
>if you dont believe christian dogma youre automatically some new ager

>> No.19418956

>>19412407
>a subset of 1. How can god, who knows everything, create a person like Judas, knowing that Judas is going to be damned for eternity? wouldn't this contradict his absolute goodness?
are there any books that touch on these topics?
Gospel of Judas

>> No.19418984
File: 465 KB, 1500x1500, 1630306830928.png [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
19418984

>>19418956
>Gospel of Judas

>> No.19419109

Uhh read the Bible and start going to Church