Is forgiveness without a price a virtue?

[Justin108]

Is it a good thing to be able to forgive without any price?

If so, is God imperfect for being unable to forgive sin without Jesus' sacrifice?

[Justin108]

Are you saying I cannot hear God because I choose to not hear God?

Yes

That's simply not true. I never made any choice to deliberately not hear God

but probably in the sense that you don't hear because you don't believe

Belief is not a choice

If something was coming to you from God you would have another explanation for it because of all the other things you believe about reality.

What's stopping God from speaking to me directly? Why would he bother sending someone else?

Ignoring in the sense I said above

The sense you said above is not ignoring. Ignoring something is a deliberate action. Disbelief is not. Whether or not I believe in God, if God were to speak to me directly, it would be impossible for me to not hear it.

where what does come from God, you have a different explanation for it

If God spoke to me directly as an audible voice, I would not have any different explanations

Then how did God manage to communicate with Paul when Paul's sin would block God's attempt to communicate?

I didn't say, or at least never meant it to seem I was saying, that our sin completely blocks all of God's attempts to communicate with us.

I promise you that if God communicated with me the same way he did with Paul, I would have no way of ignoring him. I would have no alternative explanations. I would without a doubt believe God is speaking to me

No, what I said was Jesus had to die to have a completely, perfectly surrendered human nature. And he had to surrender his human nature to have a perfected nature to "put into us."

This is like saying that in order for God to make a shelf, he would need a hammer, nails, wood, etc. God does not need anything to make anything. God can add in whatever perfected nature into us without first "building" it by having Jesus surrender first.

Did God first have to have sex with Mary in order to impregnate her with Jesus? No. Clearly God does not need to follow certain procedures to achieve anything. If God wants us to have X, all he needs to do is snap his divine fingers. That's what omnipotent means

God could just do it (as you seem to be saying), replacing our previous nature, but then God is creating a completely different being

How is God using the Jesus-method any different? What's so different from the Jesus-method that it achieves it's goal without "creating a different being"?

Or God can transform the nature we already have, by actually helping us surrender.

Please be clear before we start going in circles. Did Jesus "help us surrender"? Or did Jesus "surrender for us"?

Not doing it for us, which negates free will, but helping us to do it since we are such that just telling us what to do doesn't work.

How does Jesus surrendering help us surrender? Is it just a demonstration on how to surrender?

But God cannot logically do this in His divine nature, since surrender is no part of that nature. So, logically, God must take on the human nature.

Why does God need to be able to surrender himself in order to help us surrender?

And I just said thank you for giving me the opportunity to clarify that I should not have said "for us," but rather "with us."

Why does God need to surrender with us?

Okay, I did and now I'm back with you. Where do you think I'm getting it wrong and what is your source(s) for that conclusion?

You keep saying "God needs to do X in order to achieve Y". Omnipotence allows God to do anything using any method he wants, unless it is impossible by definition. If it is impossible by definition, please provide the definition followed by an explanation for why it is impossible by definition

[The Tanager]

I've got two posts coming in response. The first responds to your various points, but the last one is kind of a large overview of the whole argument (based on the last thing you said in your post). Feel free to respond to both or just the last post. If you just respond to the second one, I think it may help focus our conversation better.

That's simply not true. I never made any choice to deliberately not hear God

I never said you made a choice to deliberately not hear God. I didn't just write "yes," I clarified in what sense I answered yes and it was not in this sense that you just took it in.

Belief is not a choice

Do you have support for that claim, because I think belief (at least) can involve choice.

What's stopping God from speaking to me directly? Why would he bother sending someone else?

I think God speaks to us through things we can see and reason through, through moral conscience and possibly in direct ways that we confuse for other things, so I wouldn't say something is stopping God from speaking to you.

The sense you said above is not ignoring. Ignoring something is a deliberate action. Disbelief is not.

I've seen many people use ignore in ways that do not denote deliberate action, but I'm fine using a different term.

Whether or not I believe in God, if God were to speak to me directly, it would be impossible for me to not hear it.

Yes, but it would not be impossible for you to misunderstand where it was coming from.

The sense you said above is not ignoring. Ignoring something is a deliberate action. Disbelief is not. Whether or not I believe in God, if God were to speak to me directly, it would be impossible for me to not hear it.

It wouldn't be possible for you to think you had gone crazy and the voices were just all in your head?

I promise you that if God communicated with me the same way he did with Paul, I would have no way of ignoring him. I would have no alternative explanations. I would without a doubt believe God is speaking to me

God doesn't communicate with everyone the same and I don't think we should expect God to.

This is like saying that in order for God to make a shelf, he would need a hammer, nails, wood, etc. God does not need anything to make anything.

What is your definition of a shelf? If it is something like a piece of wood attached to a wall by nails then for God to make a shelf, God would have to attach a piece of wood to a wall with nails in order for this to properly be called a shelf. By definition. If that is not what it means to be a shelf, then sure, God could make a shelf in other ways.

God can add in whatever perfected nature into us without first "building" it by having Jesus surrender first. Did God first have to have sex with Mary in order to impregnate her with Jesus? No. Clearly God does not need to follow certain procedures to achieve anything. If God wants us to have X, all he needs to do is snap his divine fingers. That's what omnipotent means

Omnipotence does not mean being able to do the logically impossible, as you've already agreed, I think. It's logically impossible to create a being with free will that is incapable of sinning, for instance. That is because the idea of free will includes the ability to choose to do the wrong action.

So, I agree that God could have done this. But I've shared why it would either come at the logical cost of negating free will or of creating a different person in our place. I don't think God wanted to pay those costs.

How is God using the Jesus-method any different? What's so different from the Jesus-method that it achieves it's goal without "creating a different being"?

Because God "holds our hand" and helps us transform our nature that is already there decision by decision rather than just replacing our old human nature with a new one incapable of sinning. It would be like the difference between replacing parts of a car throughout its entire life to keep it working and just buying a new car that works how you want it to.

Please be clear before we start going in circles. Did Jesus "help us surrender"? Or did Jesus "surrender for us"?

Jesus helps us to surrender.

How does Jesus surrendering help us surrender? Is it just a demonstration on how to surrender?

No, it's not just a demonstration like me writing an A and telling my daughter to make the same hand movements. It's like me putting my hand around her hand and we form the letter together.

Why does God need to be able to surrender himself in order to help us surrender?

In this analogy, my daughter isn't able to just look at my hand movements and always write the letter correctly. She needs me to hold her hand to form the letter. I could not do that unless I knew how to form the letter in the first place.

Surrender is equal to forming the letter in this analogy. Christianity, as I see it, says that humans are not able to just look at the Law and always surrender perfectly. We need someone to actually help us follow through on the surrendering, to 'hold our hand.' That being could not help us surrender if they didn't have the ability to surrender themselves just like I could not help my daughter physically form the letter if I did not have the ability to physically form the letter. That is why I say God needs to be able to surrender himself in order to help us surrender.

[The Tanager]

You keep saying "God needs to do X in order to achieve Y". Omnipotence allows God to do anything using any method he wants, unless it is impossible by definition. If it is impossible by definition, please provide the definition followed by an explanation for why it is impossible by definition

Tell me at what point you think I'm making the logical error and explain why it is a logical error. Or tell me which point you don't understand or follow exactly why I say what I do. I could definitely go into more detail on the various points, but I don't want to waste time on the places you already know why I get to what I get to. It would also be helpful to kind of just go step by step and, if you agree, say you agree so that I'm clear on what you agree with and what you don't.

Goal: God is trying to achieve humans who freely and perfectly surrender.

Part I:
(1) The 'freely' part logically requires, by definition, God to create human beings who can choose to be self-reliant and not surrender.

(2) Humans didn't have to, but we ended up choosing to be self-reliant and not surrender.

(3) God doesn't give up on what God was originally trying to achieve.

(4) Here are the methods I see:

(a) God replaces our fallen, self-reliant nature with an unfallen nature prescriptively incapable of becoming self-reliant. But this negates free will; it is giving us determined natures. It is logically impossible, by definition, for God to have free beings who are determined to perfectly surrender.

(b) God replaces our fallen, self-reliant nature with a nature that is a clean slate, but still with the ability to choose to become self-reliant.

(i) The biggest issue is that this replacement actually makes new beings in our place. It is no longer 'us' because we are our human nature. Getting a brand new human nature with no connectionto what we were before is really just being replaced. I don't see a logical incoherence if God wanted to choose this path, but it would be giving up on those who failed to surrender and starting over from scratch.

(ii) But even so, this makes it quite possible that God would have to just keep repeating this same cycle over and over again as these new natures become just like the old natures God was replacing.

(c) God transforms our fallen, self-reliant nature into a nature that freely chooses to surrender.

(d) I'm open to hearing other methods suggested so that we can analyze them.

(5) 4a is logically impossible, 4b is logically possible but doesn't seem desirable to me, 4c is logically possible and seems the best option so far. The fact that we've lived through not surrendering is actually what helps us become one that freely chooses to surrender. Being replaced would start that learning process all over again; we'd lose the knowledge of what it's like to not surrender which would make us more likely to choose in the future not to surrender.


Part II:
(6) If God is to do 4c, by definition, God cannot just replace our nature with a new one. God also cannot, by definition, negate our free will. So, God seems to be logically restricted here to helping us surrender. It must be us, not a brand new nature in our place and God cannot just completely do it for us, like we are some kind of robot.

(7) God has already tried giving us the Law, i.e., telling us how to surrender, but this didn't work for us. God showed us the hand movements to form a letter, but we don't do it correctly. God needs to hold our hand as we form the letter, then.

(8) By definition, God has to be able to form the letter to hold our hand and help us form the letter. Logically, if you don't know how to hold your hand when forming an A, you aren't going to form an A while holding your daughter's hand. 'Forming the letter' here means surrendering.

(9) By definition, as self-existent and creator of all, God does not have the ability to surrender, in God's divine nature.

(10) In order to have the ability to surrender God must take on a nature that can surrender, by definition.

(11) And in helping humans surrender in their specific way, God must take on a human nature.

(12) Once God takes on that human nature, God now has the ability to surrender in a human way.

(13) Human nature involves going through death, by its nature (by "definition").

(14) Taking on human nature, by definition, God logically had to undergo human death.

(15) But God needs to transform our human nature, so God must help us to surrender our human natures. Now God has actually surrendered human nature in every aspect and can teach us how to do it in every aspect, not just by giving us a Law of how to do it, but actually 'holding our hands' and doing it together with us. This happens through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

(16) Thus, we become people who can surrender perfectly and freely.

I'm honestly open to being wrong in these points. At which point am I making an error, in your view? At which point is there another option open for an omnipotent being, in your view?

[Justin108]

Belief is not a choice

Do you have support for that claim, because I think belief (at least) can involve choice.

If I told you I was the pope, could you "choose" to believe me?

What's stopping God from speaking to me directly? Why would he bother sending someone else?

I think God speaks to us through things we can see and reason through, through moral conscience and possibly in direct ways that we confuse for other things, so I wouldn't say something is stopping God from speaking to you.

You're not answering my question. I didn't ask what are the various ways God speaks to us. I am asking why God doesn't speak to me directly and audibly as though I was conversing with another person?

The sense you said above is not ignoring. Ignoring something is a deliberate action. Disbelief is not.

I've seen many people use ignore in ways that do not denote deliberate action, but I'm fine using a different term.

If I'm not ignoring God, then what's preventing God from effectively communicating with me directly as he did with Moses for example?

Whether or not I believe in God, if God were to speak to me directly, it would be impossible for me to not hear it.

Yes, but it would not be impossible for you to misunderstand where it was coming from.

I promise you that if a booming voice spoke to me from the heavens I would understand that it came from God. As a Christian, I would sometimes ask God directly to speak to me. That would have been the opportune moment for him to do so. If I said "please God, speak to me" and I immediately heard a powerful voice from the sky, I would be an idiot to not understand where it's coming from.

It wouldn't be possible for you to think you had gone crazy and the voices were just all in your head?

Are you saying that God is avoiding talking to me just in case I might think I'm going crazy?

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and allow the possibility that I might think I'm crazy if I heard voices now. But rewind to 15 years ago when I was a dedicated believer, if I had heard God's voice then, I would have been convinced beyond a doubt that he exists and I would have stayed a believer. During my transition to atheism, I was desperate to find signs that God exists. I couldn't. If God spoke to me back then, it would have absolutely convinced me beyond a doubt.

If God spoke to me now and for whatever reason I doubted it and thought I was going crazy, there are several ways for this voice to prove itself as God. The voice could say something like "a pigeon will land on your head in exactly 5 seconds" followed by the pigeon then landing on my head. Going crazy would not explain how the voices can predict the future.

God doesn't communicate with everyone the same and I don't think we should expect God to.

Then God cannot expect us all to believe in him. If God refuses to provide sufficient evidence for his existence, then it's his fault I don't believe in him. You seem to be suggesting it is somehow my fault

What is your definition of a shelf? If it is something like a piece of wood attached to a wall by nails then for God to make a shelf, God would have to attach a piece of wood to a wall with nails in order for this to properly be called a shelf.

Yes but he would not have to actually hammer it in. All he needs to do is make matter appear out of nowhere to suddenly take up the shape, form and substance of a shelf. God would not physically need to pick up a hammer to hammer in the nails. He can snap his fingers and the shelf will just exist

It's logically impossible to create a being with free will that is incapable of sinning

No it isn't. If God for example removed our sex drive, we would still have free will, but we will not be able to commit the sin of lust. if God removed our natural anger response, we would still have free will but we will be unable to commit the sin of wrath. If God removed our hunger drive, we would still have free will but we will not be able to commit the sin of gluttony. I can go on but I'm sure you see my point.

But anyway, unless you're saying that God is trying to make us incapable of sinning, then this is somewhat off topic. What exactly is it God is trying to do with us? Does God want us to be incapable of sinning? You keep telling me God is trying to get us to surrender but why?

Because God "holds our hand" and helps us transform our nature that is already there decision by decision rather than just replacing our old human nature with a new one incapable of sinning.

Are you saying this new human nature that we get from Jesus is incapable of sinning?

It would be like the difference between replacing parts of a car throughout its entire life to keep it working and just buying a new car that works how you want it to.

Why can't God "replace our parts" without Jesus' death?

No, it's not just a demonstration like me writing an A and telling my daughter to make the same hand movements. It's like me putting my hand around her hand and we form the letter together.

I've been through this. This analogy does not work. Jesus died 2000 years ago and we are left reading about it. Jesus is not "with us" forming the letters, he "formed the letters" 2000 years ago. How is us reading about Jesus' life the same as him "forming the letters" with us? At best, the analogy is us reading an instruction manual that happens to be 2000 years old.

Why does God need to be able to surrender himself in order to help us surrender?

In this analogy, my daughter isn't able to just look at my hand movements and always write the letter correctly. She needs me to hold her hand to form the letter. I could not do that unless I knew how to form the letter in the first place.

We've been through this. God is omniscient. He knows everything

Christianity, as I see it, says that humans are not able to just look at the Law and always surrender perfectly

But Christians can read about Jesus surrendering and suddenly surrender perfectly?

We need someone to actually help us follow through on the surrendering, to 'hold our hand.'

I simply cannot wrap my head around how Jesus surrendering helps us surrender. In order for someone to "hold my hand" and help me "form the letters", that person needs to to it with me in real time and at the same time. Furthermore, he would need to do it with my hand.

What Jesus did happened 2000 years ago, so already it's failing the first requirement of doing it with me. And secondly, he did it using his own body and his own self. My hand wasn't there. At best what Jesus did was a demonstration. Your analogy simply cannot apply to what Jesus did. The two occurrences are just too dissimilar

[Justin108]

Goal: God is trying to achieve humans who freely and perfectly surrender.

Part I:
(1) The 'freely' part logically requires, by definition, God to create human beings who can choose to be self-reliant and not surrender.

(2) Humans didn't have to, but we ended up choosing to be self-reliant and not surrender.

Could we have chosen to perfectly surrender (without God's intervention through Jesus), given that we are free?

(2) Humans didn't have to, but we ended up choosing to be self-reliant and not surrender.

Did every single human on earth make this choice?

(c) God transforms our fallen, self-reliant nature into a nature that freely chooses to surrender.

Can this new nature only choose to surrender? If not, in what way is this new nature different from the original nature that could either choose to surrender or be self-reliant?

When you say the self-reliant nature changes into a nature that chooses surrender, you make it sound as though the new nature can only choose surrender. Is this true? Or can the new nature still choose to be self-reliant?

(8) By definition, God has to be able to form the letter to hold our hand and help us form the letter. Logically, if you don't know how to hold your hand when forming an A, you aren't going to form an A while holding your daughter's hand. 'Forming the letter' here means surrendering.

God is omniscient. God knows how to "form the letter". God knows how to surrender.

(15) But God needs to transform our human nature, so God must help us to surrender our human natures. Now God has actually surrendered human nature in every aspect and can teach us how to do it in every aspect, not just by giving us a Law of how to do it, but actually 'holding our hands' and doing it together with us. This happens through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
(13) Human nature involves going through death, by its nature (by "definition").

What's stopping God from simply implanting the knowledge of how to surrender into our mind?

For example: babies know how to breathe. One would say that God "implanted" this knowledge into our mind" Even though God himself cannot breathe, he still managed to implant knowledge of how to breathe into all of us. Similarly, God can implant this same kind of knowledge into our mind on how to surrender.

(16) Thus, we become people who can surrender perfectly and freely.

Why didn't God design us to be able to perfectly surrender from the start?

[The Tanager]

If I told you I was the pope, could you "choose" to believe me?

Absolutely someone could choose to believe your claim. Would they? That depends on how well you resemble the pope (not just physically), what they would allow as evidence, what they feel the pope is like, etc.

But I'm also not saying every single belief must be a cognizant choice. I think many clearly are, though. I can choose whether to trust my friend is clean and sober. This is based on past experiences, but in their past there have been times they weren't clean and sober. Still, I can choose to believe my later experiences with them (where they have been clean and sober) over the earlier ones. Or I can choose to believe the friend has fallen back in their earlier ways. I have a choice there. I can even ignore pieces of evidence and choose to believe against the evidence. I can choose a stronger desire over what reason would tell me. I can choose to brush aside reason. I can even try to intellectually convince myself why that piece of evidence that he is now not sober isn't probable.

You're not answering my question. I didn't ask what are the various ways God speaks to us. I am asking why God doesn't speak to me directly and audibly as though I was conversing with another person?

I answered that later in the post when I said "God doesn't communicate with everyone the same and I don't think we should expect God to."

If I'm not ignoring God, then what's preventing God from effectively communicating with me directly as he did with Moses for example?

There are only a few examples of God speaking with people directly like that. It's people like Moses and Paul who, if the stories are true, filled very particular roles, specific purposes for a much wider society. God, in the Christian literature, communicates with the large majority of believers in a different way than this. I don't see why we should expect this direct and audible way for everyone.

I promise you that if a booming voice spoke to me from the heavens I would understand that it came from God. As a Christian, I would sometimes ask God directly to speak to me. That would have been the opportune moment for him to do so. If I said "please God, speak to me" and I immediately heard a powerful voice from the sky, I would be an idiot to not understand where it's coming from.

There I was talking more about misunderstanding God in the other ways God may be trying to speak to you, but that wasn't directly answering the comment you made. I should have been clearer in the switch in my thought there because that was confusing. Even so, I do still think even that COULD be misunderstood (not that it would necessarily be), but the bigger point I'm making is that God isn't claimed (by Christian literature) to speak to most people in this way and I don't see why this should be the expected standard.

Are you saying that God is avoiding talking to me just in case I might think I'm going crazy?

No.

If God spoke to me now and for whatever reason I doubted it and thought I was going crazy, there are several ways for this voice to prove itself as God. The voice could say something like "a pigeon will land on your head in exactly 5 seconds" followed by the pigeon then landing on my head. Going crazy would not explain how the voices can predict the future.

But why do you think God owes you this kind of jumping through hoops? And why think that this being is automatically God? Why couldn't it be a different spiritual entity, like the devil?

Then God cannot expect us all to believe in him. If God refuses to provide sufficient evidence for his existence, then it's his fault I don't believe in him. You seem to be suggesting it is somehow my fault

I'm questioning why you think sufficient evidence must be God saying something like "a pigeon will land on your head in exactly 5 seconds." Why isn't the level of sufficiency below this?

Yes but he would not have to actually hammer it in. All he needs to do is make matter appear out of nowhere to suddenly take up the shape, form and substance of a shelf. God would not physically need to pick up a hammer to hammer in the nails. He can snap his fingers and the shelf will just exist

I agree. But in making a shelf God isn't dealing with keeping free will intact. That choice by God would change the situation and limit the things God could logically do. If God determined that all shelves had to be hammered in to be a shelf, then God could not make a shelf without hammering it in, just by logical necessity.

No it isn't. If God for example removed our sex drive, we would still have free will, but we will not be able to commit the sin of lust. if God removed our natural anger response, we would still have free will but we will be unable to commit the sin of wrath. If God removed our hunger drive, we would still have free will but we will not be able to commit the sin of gluttony. I can go on but I'm sure you see my point.

And I think it's missing the forest for the trees. I didn't say incapable of one kind of sin, I said incapable of sinning. Every time you are taking something away you are limiting our free will more and more. Eventually you will get to no free will. A will incapable of any sinning is not free, by definition.

But anyway, unless you're saying that God is trying to make us incapable of sinning, then this is somewhat off topic. What exactly is it God is trying to do with us? Does God want us to be incapable of sinning? You keep telling me God is trying to get us to surrender but why?

God wants us to be in relationship with God making decisions in concert with God (instead of being self-reliant and making decisions on our own and instead of determining our actions/decisions to be perfectly what God sees is best for us). Making decisions in concert with God results in the best life for us, a life where we don't sin, where we willingly don't sin. Giving us a nature incapable of sinning (or, incapable of being self-reliant and making decisions on our own which will inevitably lead to wrong actions or sins) is determining our actions for us, negating free will.

Are you saying this new human nature that we get from Jesus is incapable of sinning?

Not incapable of sinning, but has proven itself to freely choose not to sin in every situation. It's a descriptive perfection rather than a prescriptive perfection.

Why can't God "replace our parts" without Jesus' death?

What is God replacing our parts with? With a completely new nature incapable of sinning? Then God negates free will. So, not that one.

With a completely different nature like the one we had before? This isn't replacing parts, but buying a new car. It's replacing us with a different person. It's just hitting the reset button with a different person. So, not that one.

With a nature that has shown itself to be freely and perfectly surrendered that we must freely decide we want? Yes, that one. It's something that has to occur at every situation, not just a one time thing. Because the one time switch is one of the above, either negating our free will or just replacing us completely with a new car. Okay, where is God going to find that nature? It's going to take a being that will do something perfectly, a divine being. But it's going to take a being that can surrender, and in a human way, a human being. That's the incarnation.

Freely and perfectly surrendered in every aspect of human life? Then it must include death.

I've been through this. This analogy does not work. Jesus died 2000 years ago and we are left reading about it. Jesus is not "with us" forming the letters, he "formed the letters" 2000 years ago. How is us reading about Jesus' life the same as him "forming the letters" with us? At best, the analogy is us reading an instruction manual that happens to be 2000 years old.

It's not. Christianity teaches that God is now "forming the letters" in us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not through us reading about what Jesus did. What Jesus did presents us with a choice to follow that God or not. God gained the ability and formed the letters in Jesus' incarnation. Just like earlier in my life I gained the ability of physically forming the alphabet's letters. God helps us form the letters via the Holy Spirit, just like I can now hold my daughter's hands and we can form the letters together.

But Christians can read about Jesus surrendering and suddenly surrender perfectly?

No. It's the process of sanctification that brings us to the point of surrendering more and more until we will one day freely and perfectly surrender. That's through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not just by reading about Jesus surrendering.

I simply cannot wrap my head around how Jesus surrendering helps us surrender. In order for someone to "hold my hand" and help me "form the letters", that person needs to to it with me in real time and at the same time. Furthermore, he would need to do it with my hand.

Exactly. That's why Christians talk about sanctification and the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us.

What Jesus did happened 2000 years ago, so already it's failing the first requirement of doing it with me. And secondly, he did it using his own body and his own self. My hand wasn't there. At best what Jesus did was a demonstration. Your analogy simply cannot apply to what Jesus did. The two occurrences are just too dissimilar

Jesus' incarnation isn't helping us surrender, it's the part that is gaining that ability for God to surrender and doing it perfectly. The "holding our hand" part comes after that, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the believer that Jesus promised would come. This doesn't fail the first requirement. And secondly, it involves our body, our hand. Jesus still has His nature, Jesus is alive, according to Christianity and through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, God is "putting" a bit of Himself (Jesus' freely and perfectly surrendered nature) into us...holding our hand with Jesus' "hand" in the here and now through every situation we find ourselves in.

[The Tanager]

Could we have chosen to perfectly surrender (without God's intervention through Jesus), given that we are free?

Remember that I'm saying surrender means making our decisions in concert with God. We were created to live in a relationship with God and trusting God to give us truth on what is best for us in every situation. So, we can't chose to perfectly surrender without God's intervention, in that way.

But, yes, I think that Jesus' incarnation would not have been needed if humans never "fell". But we did and so Jesus' incarnation became logically necessary to fix the problem, at least if God was going to avoid negating our free will or avoid just starting over with new people and getting rid of us.

Did every single human on earth make this choice?

They didn't all make the original choice, but yes they have all chosen this since then. We didn't have it as easy as those who made the original choice (for we have to deal with the human history that has gone on before us, a history of self-reliance, what Christians call having a sinful or fallen nature), but we still have made those choices.

Can this new nature only choose to surrender? If not, in what way is this new nature different from the original nature that could either choose to surrender or be self-reliant?

When you say the self-reliant nature changes into a nature that chooses surrender, you make it sound as though the new nature can only choose surrender. Is this true? Or can the new nature still choose to be self-reliant?

This is the difference between prescriptive perfection and descriptive perfection. It wasn't prescriptively determined to only choose that. But it went through the various situations that presented choices to it and always chose surrender. So, the new nature can choose to be self-reliant, but doesn't.

God is omniscient. God knows how to "form the letter". God knows how to surrender.

We've been through this. God is omniscient. He knows everything

I know what hand movements my daughter should be making to form a letter. I've told her what hand movements to make. She still doesn't get it. So then I must actually take her hand and form the letters, and DO the hand movements for her to get it. If I don't have hands, I can't do that. Someone with hands will have to help her.

Knowing what hand movements need to be made and actually performing the hand movements your self are two different things. The first is knowledge. The second is ability. I can know what hand movements my daughter should make without having hands myself. I cannot hold her hand to make the hand movements if she is having trouble doing it herself, though, unless I have hands, the ability to make these hand movements I know about in my mind.

God can't DO the "hand movements" unless God has the ability to do the "hand movements." God can know what "hand movements" humans should be doing (i.e., surrendering or making decisions in concert with their Creator). God can teach that because, as omniscient, God knows that. Christians call that the Law. But God must have a nature that has the ABILITY to make the "hand movements" or "form the letters" (i.e., surrender), if God is going to "hold our hand" to help us form the letters.

What's stopping God from simply implanting the knowledge of how to surrender into our mind?

For example: babies know how to breathe. One would say that God "implanted" this knowledge into our mind" Even though God himself cannot breathe, he still managed to implant knowledge of how to breathe into all of us. Similarly, God can implant this same kind of knowledge into our mind on how to surrender.

Babies just breathe. They don't know how to breathe and then choose to follow the needed steps. God made bodies that automatically breathe and so they breathe. Knowledge of what it means to breathe or how we breathe is not necessary to this process. Free will is not a part of the process of breathing. We can choose to try to stop ourselves from breathing, but that's different.

So, are you asking God to have implanted in us knowledge of how to surrender or implanting in us the will that actually surrenders every time without the ability to fail? I agree God did the first. The second, however, negates free will.

Why didn't God design us to be able to perfectly surrender from the start?

In which way do you mean? Determine that we would perfectly surrender? That negates free will. Design us with the ability to where we could actually choose in every situation to surrender perfectly? Christianity says God did, but that we didn't actually choose to surrender perfectly.

[Justin108]

If I told you I was the pope, could you "choose" to believe me?

Absolutely someone could choose to believe your claim.

Then me and that someone are wired differently because I literally cannot choose what to believe. I cannot choose to believe you if you were to tell me you're the pope. It would be absolutely impossible for me

Would they? That depends on how well you resemble the pope

No but if it's a choice, none of this should matter. Can you choose to look at a duck and believe it's a giraffe? No. It is simply impossible to make this choice.

But I'm also not saying every single belief must be a cognizant choice. I think many clearly are, though.

Is belief in God and the Bible such a choice?

I answered that later in the post when I said "God doesn't communicate with everyone the same and I don't think we should expect God to."

Then it's God's fault that I don't believe in him

I don't see why we should expect this direct and audible way for everyone.

It's simple. If God truly wants me to believe in him, then this direct audible communication (or something equally convincing) is required.

But why do you think God owes you this kind of jumping through hoops?

1. He cannot expect me to believe in him yet refuse to give me good reason to believe in him
2. It is unfair that God communicates directly to some and proves himself to them while others are forced to go on faith. Why did Thomas get to ask for proof but I don't?

And why think that this being is automatically God? Why couldn't it be a different spiritual entity, like the devil?

I would expect a benevolent God to either stop the devil from tricking me this way or otherwise warn me that the devil has spoken to me. What loving parent would allow their children to be deceived by such an intruder?

I'm questioning why you think sufficient evidence must be God saying something like "a pigeon will land on your head in exactly 5 seconds." Why isn't the level of sufficiency below this?

Well honestly, God just speaking to me directly would be enough. I am merely introducing this pigeon scenario in response to your "what if you continue to doubt God?" question. I probably would not doubt God if he spoke to me directly in a clear and audible way. I do not consider myself a radical skeptic

If God determined that all shelves had to be hammered in to be a shelf, then God could not make a shelf without hammering it in, just by logical necessity.

Why would God determine that in the first place?

Every time you are taking something away you are limiting our free will more and more.

Did God take away our free will when he decided to not design us with wings? I mean what about my free will decision to fly? What about my free will decision to breathe fire? If God took away our sex drive, hunger, anger, etc. we would still have free will. The only thing is we wouldn't have the ability to do that which is evil because we will never want to do that which is evil.

A will incapable of any sinning is not free, by definition.

With that logic, a will that is incapable of flying is not free either

But anyway, unless you're saying that God is trying to make us incapable of sinning, then this is somewhat off topic. What exactly is it God is trying to do with us? Does God want us to be incapable of sinning? You keep telling me God is trying to get us to surrender but why?

God wants us to be in relationship with God making decisions in concert with God (instead of being self-reliant and making decisions on our own and instead of determining our actions/decisions to be perfectly what God sees is best for us). Making decisions in concert with God results in the best life for us, a life where we don't sin, where we willingly don't sin. Giving us a nature incapable of sinning (or, incapable of being self-reliant and making decisions on our own which will inevitably lead to wrong actions or sins) is determining our actions for us, negating free will.

Where does surrender come in in all of this?

I've been through this. This analogy does not work. Jesus died 2000 years ago and we are left reading about it. Jesus is not "with us" forming the letters, he "formed the letters" 2000 years ago. How is us reading about Jesus' life the same as him "forming the letters" with us? At best, the analogy is us reading an instruction manual that happens to be 2000 years old.

It's not. Christianity teaches that God is now "forming the letters" in us through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not through us reading about what Jesus did.

Then you cannot call Jesus' death him "forming the letter". The Holy Spirit is God "forming the letter". So if the Holy Spirit is God "forming the letter", then what is Jesus' death?

Let's fill in the analogy

teaching us to surrender = teaching us to write
Holy Spirit = holding our hand and forming the letter
Jesus' death = ???

What Jesus did presents us with a choice to follow that God or not.

Didn't we already have this choice?

God gained the ability and formed the letters in Jesus' incarnation.

God gained that ability? So God can surrender now? (and by "now" I don't mean 2000 years ago, I mean now. Can God surrender now?)

No. It's the process of sanctification that brings us to the point of surrendering more and more until we will one day freely and perfectly surrender. That's through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, not just by reading about Jesus surrendering.

Then all we need is the Holy Spirit, not Jesus dying

[Justin108]

Could we have chosen to perfectly surrender (without God's intervention through Jesus), given that we are free?

Remember that I'm saying surrender means making our decisions in concert with God. We were created to live in a relationship with God and trusting God to give us truth on what is best for us in every situation. So, we can't chose to perfectly surrender without God's intervention, in that way.

Then you can't say we had the free will choice to surrender. If we cannot choose to perfectly surrender, then we cannot be said to have the free choice to surrender. Yet earlier you said...

(2) Humans didn't have to, but we ended up choosing to be self-reliant and not surrender.

So which is it? Did we have the choice to surrender or not?

But, yes, I think that Jesus' incarnation would not have been needed if humans never "fell".

How and when did humans "fall"?

They didn't all make the original choice, but yes they have all chosen this since then.

Who made the original choice?

We didn't have it as easy as those who made the original choice

That's simply not fair. Why didn't God give all of us this same choice?

Can this new nature only choose to surrender? If not, in what way is this new nature different from the original nature that could either choose to surrender or be self-reliant?

When you say the self-reliant nature changes into a nature that chooses surrender, you make it sound as though the new nature can only choose surrender. Is this true? Or can the new nature still choose to be self-reliant?

This is the difference between prescriptive perfection and descriptive perfection. It wasn't prescriptively determined to only choose that. But it went through the various situations that presented choices to it and always chose surrender. So, the new nature can choose to be self-reliant, but doesn't.

Why did God not give us this new nature originally? Why didn't he create us with a nature that can choose to be self-reliant but doesn't?

I know what hand movements my daughter should be making to form a letter. I've told her what hand movements to make. She still doesn't get it. So then I must actually take her hand and form the letters, and DO the hand movements for her to get it. If I don't have hands, I can't do that. Someone with hands will have to help her.

I suppose this is where the Holy Spirit comes in. And the Holy Spirit could help us "form the letter" without Jesus ever needing to come to earth and dying

Babies just breathe. They don't know how to breathe and then choose to follow the needed steps. God made bodies that automatically breathe and so they breathe. Knowledge of what it means to breathe or how we breathe is not necessary to this process.

The ability to breathe is instinctive, so why isn't the ability to surrender instinctive as well?

So, are you asking God to have implanted in us knowledge of how to surrender or implanting in us the will that actually surrenders every time without the ability to fail? I agree God did the first. The second, however, negates free will.

God can do the first. Then we will never need to "learn" how to surrender. Isn't that what Jesus did? Teach us how to surrender?

Why didn't God design us to be able to perfectly surrender from the start?

In which way do you mean? Determine that we would perfectly surrender? That negates free will. Design us with the ability to where we could actually choose in every situation to surrender perfectly? Christianity says God did, but that we didn't actually choose to surrender perfectly.

So we knew how to all along? Then why do you keep telling me that God is "teaching us how to surrender"? If we already have the knowledge and ability, then what exactly is God teaching us?

[The Tanager]

No but if it's a choice, none of this should matter. Can you choose to look at a duck and believe it's a giraffe? No. It is simply impossible to make this choice.

But not everything is like this. Choosing to pursue a relationship with someone, for instance, is very different than determining what kind of animal you see.

Is belief in God and the Bible such a choice?

I think they can be cognizant choices, or they can be automatic beliefs. Some accept the beliefs they grow up in, some don't. Why we believe something doesn't determine whether that belief is actually true or not. I could choose to stop looking at further challenges to my belief or choose to believe that other beliefs must be lies and things like that. I could have chosen to trust my parents in their worldview without ever questioning it. Or I could choose to look into it myself, to choose to keep challenging my views, etc.

Why do you think we necessarily have no control over any of our beliefs?

Then it's God's fault that I don't believe in him

How do you get from "God doesn't communicate with everyone the same" or "God doesn't directly communicate with everyone by audible voice" to "therefore, it's God's fault that I don't believe in Him"? What's the second premise in that argument?

It's simple. If God truly wants me to believe in him, then this direct audible communication (or something equally convincing) is required.

Why? What's the connecting premise that makes this necessarily true?

1. He cannot expect me to believe in him yet refuse to give me good reason to believe in him

This I agree with.

2. It is unfair that God communicates directly to some and proves himself to them while others are forced to go on faith. Why did Thomas get to ask for proof but I don't?

But that doesn't mean you don't have enough reason to believe. It just means a few people who filled very specific roles in societies (like leading the Hebrew people out of slavery or being largely responsible for the early spreading of Christianity), possibly had more than they needed as individuals in a vacuum.

I never claimed God treats everyone the same, nor do I think God needs to because we are different kinds of people. I don't treat all of my children the same, because they are individuals with different personalities and such. I do think God provides all that is needed for each person to make their choice. Whether you have already had that in your life or it's coming in the future, I don't pretend to know. And I could be totally wrong about all of this, so I continue to challenge my beliefs and change if I believe I should.

I would expect a benevolent God to either stop the devil from tricking me this way or otherwise warn me that the devil has spoken to me. What loving parent would allow their children to be deceived by such an intruder?

First, it assumes God hasn't warned humanity what God is like and what the devil is like. Christianity would say God has done that, best in the person of Jesus and has been recorded in various events and teachings in the Bible. But that God has also implanted a conscious in us that would help us discern whether a voice was from God or not. If the voice tells you to kill your child, it's not from God, for instance.

You obviously don't feel good reason to trust the best sources we have of Jesus' life and the Bible as a whole. That doesn't mean there aren't good reasons. I'm just saying you don't have to just jump to the belief that these are true. I'm not a fideist. Nor am I saying you haven't looked into these before. I don't think we should ever stop challenging our beliefs, though.

Second, this line of thinking seems to me to be the same as thinking a loving God couldn't possibly allow evil to happen to God's creatures. But that means no free will. And then we are saying a computer program that is devoid of true relationship and love is better than free will creatures who can have those things, but are also opened up to being deceived and experiencing hurt, etc. I think free will is better than robotic moral perfection.

Well honestly, God just speaking to me directly would be enough. I am merely introducing this pigeon scenario in response to your "what if you continue to doubt God?" question. I probably would not doubt God if he spoke to me directly in a clear and audible way. I do not consider myself a radical skeptic

I understand that. I'm not focusing on the pigeon, but the principle behind it. I agree direct audible speaking to us would be enough for most people. I'm questioning why you think anything less isn't enough.

Why would God determine that in the first place?

That's not the point. The point is a broader one spoken through a specific example. The larger point is when God makes a specific choice (like being determined to keep our free will or "that shelves, by definition, must be hammered into the wall with a hammer and nails to be rightly called a shelf"), that this will put logical limitations on what God can do. Yes, God can negate our free will (or choose not to limit the concept of a shelf to being placed in a wall by hammer and nails). But not if God is determined not to negate our free will for whatever reason. Once God decides our free will will stay intact (or that shelves must involve the use of a hammer), then one option is logically off the table: determining our actions (or building a shelf without the use of a hammer).

You have been arguing that an omnipotent being can do anything it wants (that is logically possible to do). Yes, but once it makes certain decisions certain things may become logically impossible.

Did God take away our free will when he decided to not design us with wings? I mean what about my free will decision to fly? What about my free will decision to breathe fire? If God took away our sex drive, hunger, anger, etc. we would still have free will. The only thing is we wouldn't have the ability to do that which is evil because we will never want to do that which is evil.

If what you mean by free will is completely unlimited abilities in any way, then yes. But that is not what is usually meant when talking about free will. Hardly anyone means complete freedom to do anything we can think of. We aren't talking about not limiting our abilities. All creatures have limited abilities. Some can fly, some can't. Free will, is talking about the freedom to make choices within our physical abilities and limitations. And it's usually talking about the ability to choose some action/thought on the spectrum of evil-->good. That's what I'm saying God can't take away without taking away our free will.

Where does surrender come in in all of this?

Surrender, as I'm using it, is equivalent to "being in relationship with God, making decisions in concert with God." Rebellion is making decisions without God's input, without trusting that God has our best interests in mind.

Then you cannot call Jesus' death him "forming the letter". The Holy Spirit is God "forming the letter". So if the Holy Spirit is God "forming the letter", then what is Jesus' death?

Let's fill in the analogy

teaching us to surrender = teaching us to write
Holy Spirit = holding our hand and forming the letter
Jesus' death = ???

Jesus' death was God "forming a letter" of surrendering human nature to God in death (let's call it the letter Z). This is God forming a letter in the same way that I form the letter Z.

The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is God holding our hand to "form the letter" of surrendering human nature to God in every situation, including our upcoming death. This is God helping us to surrender in every human situation (i.e., form the letters A-Z) in the same way I am helping my daughter by holding her hand to form the letters A-Z.

Didn't we already have this choice?

We had the choice to surrender to God or not, yes. On our own we choose not to. Jesus' death opens back up the possibility of restoring our relationship. Jesus doesn't force that on us, though, we have a choice in the matter.

God gained that ability? So God can surrender now? (and by "now" I don't mean 2000 years ago, I mean now. Can God surrender now?)

Jesus still has a human nature and, yes, Christians would say is still surrendering that nature perfectly.

Then all we need is the Holy Spirit, not Jesus dying

No, because the Holy Spirit would have no freely, descriptively perfect human nature to transform us with. But He could just create one from scratch, because He is omnipotent, right? Yes, but this would negate our free will and really just replace us with a new, different person.