God, justice, fairness and perfection

[Justin108]

For this debate, I need you to answer each of these questions in order.

1. Is God perfectly fair and just?

2. If God is not perfectly fair and just, does that mean God is by definition imperfect?

3. Does everyone have an equal chance in getting into heaven?

4. If everyone does not have an equal chance in getting into heaven, is God still perfectly fair and just?

[ttruscott]

I asked how are those born into Christianity responsible for receiving the truth, not how are they responsible for what they do with the truth. Your answer addresses what they do with the truth after receiving it.

No – everyone has some measure of truth that is innate given that they are created in God’s Image and Likeness – love your neighbor, the Golden Rule, defend the fatherless, etc. They don’t need to hear the Gospel to know that these things are virtues and their opposites are vices. It’s natural and intrinsic to being a human.

This has nothing to do with belief. If your interpretation is that "Gospel = innate morality" then it fails in context of Mark, John and Revelations as those books specifically command belief. So, again, those born in India and Iraq have a disadvantage as they live without revelation of the Gospel that is needed in order to believe.

Can you support this with scripture? Or is this more wishful thinking? Nothing in the Bible suggests that non-believers are given leeway in this regard.

To whom much is given, much is required in in Scripture. Go to an online Strong’s Concordance. As for the belief that those who are invincibly ignorant of the Gospel (people who are ignorant of the Gospel because they have not yet had an opportunity to hear it such as infants or some pagans), it isn’t explicitly mentioned in the Scripture but that’s only important to you. I’m Eastern Orthodox and we don’t believe that God stopped speaking w/the close of Revelation. Christ remains as Head of the Church so that She may expound upon those things not clearly articulated in Scripture. She delivers His opinion on such things.

What criteria do you follow in order to establish that someone has indeed received a revelation from God? If a man claims God spoke to him, do you immediately believe him?

Also, out of curiosity, is the "She" you are referring to Jesus? Or is this the term you use to refer to the Church?

Revelation 21:8 "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.�

Infants and righteous pagans who have never heard the Gospel are condemned in your theology. That is irreconcilable with the assertion that “God is love.�

Not my theology. I'm an atheist. This is the Christian theology at face value without any unjustified alternate interpretation.

When I see an example of immorality in the Bible, I conclude that the Bible is immoral. When you see immorality in the Bible, you pretend it isn't there by assuming that "why surely God would not do such a thing". My interpretation is objective and looks only at evidence. Your interpretation is biased, subjective and peppered with what you want the Bible to say. Can you give any objective support for your assumptions? Or are they nothing more than your subjective assumptions?

It's simple; if God did not plan on damning the unbelieving, God would not have mentioned it several times throughout the Bible. Ignoring this fact is simply dishonest.

Are you suggesting the Ecumenical councils and the Church Fathers received divine revelation somehow? Or is this just their interpretation of the text?

Yup.

So basically your "support" is "because my Church Fathers said so". This is nothing but an appeal to authority. Unless you can give me actual reason for believing that your Church Fathers received revelation from God, then you cannot use them as support. Otherwise what would be the point? If all I needed to make an argument was to claim that "X is true. I know this guy who spoke to God and he said so, therefore X is true" then there would be no point in arguing.

I don't consider scripture as the only valid evidence, but you have yet to provide any support for your position other than your opinion of what you expect God would or would not do.

I mentioned the Ecumenical councils and the Church Fathers, didn’t I.

Appeal to authority

What point have I not supported?

When you bail on a civil conversation for no reason other than you disagree with the person then that is indicative of inability to support your point.

I am not bailing because I disagree with you. I am "bailing" because you offer no actual argument other than your opinion and an appeal to authority.

[Elijah John]

Only your unique brand of Christianity (you know, the one with no support)

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[Justin108]

Even if Pre-Earth existed, and we have free will, and there were two levels of sin, you still need to support your claim that our earthy lives are the "RESULT of our free will choices made pre-conception". Please provide scripture and/or other support.

IF you are so interested in scripture, why don't you tell me what your interpretation of the quoted verses means so we can debate the meaning, hmmmm?

No one was thrown out of heaven until after the creation of Rom 1:20 For since/FROM the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has [ed: just] been made, so that they are without excuse.

Since no one in all of the world's history has ever found YHWH and bowed to HIS divinity and power by the study of nature, (in fact, most of the world interprets nature to mean that they are gods and never ever even think of YHWH) I contend that this refers to our witnessing the creation of the physical universe as proof of HIS divinity and power so no one has an excuse for not accepting HIM as their GOD.

- Did we witness God himself create the universe BEFORE making our supposed "free will decision" to follow him? You have said before that God did not prove himself until AFTER we made our decision. If this is the case then we have a very good excuse - which is God proved himself too late.
- You'd be surprised how many Theists have this mentality that "we must have come from somewhere, therefore God (the God of the Bible) did it. Yes, this is a flawed mentality, but if otherwise intelligent people have this mentality today, it is quite likely the author had this mentality as well. Remember, the author only accepts the notion of One God. To him, saying "God did it" is the same as saying "YHWH did it". Ask random people on the street "do you believe in God" very few if any would respond with "which God"? - and this being in the 21st century where people are far more accepting of diverse culture. A basic interpretation of Rom 1:20 is that the existence of the universe is proof of God's power.

Backup: Job 38:7 proves people were there at that occasion so why not us as I have said.

Job 38:7 "while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"
How does this prove that people were there on that occasion?

Sheol and Tartarus, the place of the waiting spirits (often called the dead because they have no bodies), were built into the earth in its depths.

Scripture?

The single most important thing to notice about this verse is found in the understanding that no one is guilty for sin against GOD's divinity, that is, rejecting HIM as a false GOD and HIS promises of election and salvation as lies, as long as they can change their minds by their free will...!...so it was only after seeing the proof of HIS divinity and power in the creation of the universe that their sin was set into their character because they could no more change their minds by free will because they knew the proof and so would be changing their minds by a will forced by fear of hell.

You are again taking a giant leap of assumption. There is still not a single verse of support for your belief that we all stood before God prior to creation, were given the choice to follow him without proof, then after denying him he cast us down to earth as punishment. You have fragmented arguments for a possible pre-Earth existence but the specifics of this interaction keeps coming out of nowhere.

You also need to demonstrate why it is that believing with proof is somehow being robbed of free will.

Another hole in your theology that I'm picking up is your belief that we suppress our own memory. You have said yourself that it is not God but ourselves that cause us to lose our memory. Isn't that a bit convenient? Suppose we somehow did not suppress our own memory, we would know that God created the universe and (as you claim) we would be "forced" to follow him. So do we repress our own memory or is it God's doing? Why would we even suppress our own memory if we knew it would spell our doom as accepting God is detrimental to our post-earth salvation? You claim that we would be "forced" to follow God if we were given proof, yet the moment we get that proof you claim we willingly ignore it, suppress our own memory and fall in love with sin? The only way this part could make a grain of sense is if you at least claimed that God is the one responsible for us losing our memory.

Only now could GOD begin to eradicate evil from all of creation by the redemption and sanctification of HIS sinful elect and the banishment of the eternally evil reprobate to the outer darkness.

This part I don't get at all. You claim that our rejection of God's claim to have created the universe (this is prior to his proving that he did) somehow gave birth to evil. How? I can't imagine this happening.

God: "...and so that's how I created the universe"
Man: "I don't know...sounds a bit far fetched. Woah! Anyone else have this sudden urge to sin?"

How exactly did this birth sin?

Satan was forced from heaven for his sin by Michael and the holy angels

What sin is this? Did he also not believe God's claims?

Rev 12:7 And there was war in heaven, Michael and his angels waging war with the dragon. The dragon and his angels waged war, 8 and they were not strong enough, and there was no longer a place found for them in heaven.…9 The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, [to Tartarus in Sheol] and his angels with him.

We RETURN TO SHEOL so it is implied we came from Sheol or return doesn't mean return: Psalm 9:17 The wicked shall return to Sheol ... Kiel - Delitzsch(#16) - Yea, back to Hades must the wicked return... sealing up where Satan was hurled.

Is Sheol heaven or earth? Rev 12:7 suggests, as you place Tartarus and Sheol in brackets next to "Earth", that Sheol, Tartarus and Earth can be used interchangably. So it suggests we go "back to Sheol" that is "back to Earth" in an ashes-to-ashes sort of way.

Matt 13:38-39 tells us that we are sown into the world by the Son of Man or the devil according to whether we are sinful people of the kingdom or sinful people of the evil one. Since it is reasonable to assume the sinful good seed are in sheol also, it suggests they are in one part of sheol and the demons, Satan's angels, in another called Tartarus.

It is not reasonable to assume this. You are assuming far too much detail for what is presented. This is my biggest problem with your theology. You are given an ounce of information and assume a ton from it. Why are you assuming they are held in different compartments? What suggests this? And what suggests your claim that Tartarus is the angel/demon part of sheol?

This parable also tells us that the good/ elect seed must live with the reprobate tares until they are mature enough to be harvested. Since the only maturity that saves people from being pulled up by the judgment and cast into the fire is a mature holiness, it is easy to see that that is the reason they are born on earth, to redeem them from their choice to be sinners pre-earth.

I fail to see how a stay here on earth would achieve this kind of maturity. I fail to see why any of this is needed if our only wrongdoing was not believe the claims of a man who said he was God.

That they must spend their time on earth with the reprobate tares tells us that the presence of the tares is important to the redemption of the elect implying that their sin had to do with their idolatry of the evil of the tares above their GOD, that is, when GOD called for their judgment, they rebelled even though they had accepted HIM as their GOD. They rebelled against the judgment and so became evil in his sight needing HIS promise of election and salvation to be fulfilled in them to become holy, that is, accepting the necessity of the judgment and standing firm with HIM on that issue. Because this is not what we experience on earth I am convinced that it fits the contention that we are working out our pre-earth sins which are forgotten as repressed memories as the rest of Rom 1 tells us is the effect of sin upon a soul enslaved to sin.

Again, what sin is this exactly? And how exactly does a stay on earth lead us to redemption?

[ttruscott]

Anyone who ends in hell started by making a choice against that which they knew someone who claimed to be their GOD said would end badly, believing that if HE were GOD, they were indeed doomed.

I never made such a choice and I never knew someone who claimed to be God. This claim is false unless you can demonstrate otherwise

As with all my contentions, I do not claim to be making true claims about reality but about Christian doctrine, expressing my or orthodox Christian doctrine. I do not always add that this is my Christian opinion nor do I always call others on their personal opinion unless their opinion is a doctrinal fallacy stated as a truth.

As for the content of my claim, it is written that everyone did in fact make choices and decisions about GOD and HE did prove HIS divinity and power but the grip of evil upon sinners caused them to repress that proof because they loved sin more than the truth. Rom 1... proves the basis for this claim. Therefore no memory of seeing the proof isn't proof you don't have a repressed memory.

No one ends in hell by mistake but by the desire to be their own god and take their chances with an unproven (therefore probably, even hopefully false) real GOD.

I have no desire to be god. You cannot tell me what I desire any more than I can tell you what you desire. Would it be fair if I claimed you believe in god only because you fear death?

It is not fair to say that to me??? Wow I got a lot of people to tell off, eh! I wrote "the desire to be their own god" not to be GOD, and it means that in rejecting GOD you want to be independent in all things, free of judgment.

I'm not sure what you mean by taking our chances with an unproven god? Are we going to hell for actually BELIEVING in an unproven god? Isn't it the other way around?

My point is that no one rejected YHWH in HIS Glory but by faith, an unproven hope that (if they accepted HIM as GOD) HE is who HE claims to be or (for those who have put their faith /hope that HE is not GOD) that HE is in fact a liar and a false god.

The proof of HIS divinity was held in abeyance because proof before we chose to accept or reject HIM would have coerced our choices, destroying our free will. No one would go against proof so no proof was offered until after our choices about what we most wanted (a GOD or no GOD so we are our own god), were finished. This proof is the proof that was repressed in every sinner due to the enslaving nature of evil.

And don't worry about those going to hell not remembering why...Christians believe all memories will be restored at the judgement seat of GOD, along with all our memories of every instance of our whole lives will be there for every person to see:Matthew 10:26 "So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. and Ecclesiastes 12:14 For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing…

[Justin108]

Job 38:7 "while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?" There is no mention of sheol here so I'm not sure what you mean

What does that matter? My point is that people were singing GOD's praise for the creation of the physical world implying the spirits were created before the universe so they could see it.

No no no, ANGELS were singing God's praise, not people.

Why not us?

Because the text doesn't say anything about us.

To Sow does not mean to create since the devil does it also and no one thinks he can create people so it must mean to move from a place of storage to a place of growth.

Storage? Not necessarily. If anything, the fact that souls were sown onto Earth suggests, or rather clearly indicates, that the Earth was already there. Whether the souls came before earth or whether the earth came before the souls is a chicken-or-the-egg debate.

Your version
Creation of souls > Creation of Earth > Sowing
...Is just as likely as
Creation of Earth > Creation of souls > Sowing

Just because God "sowed" the souls after making them does not mean that he necessarily made them prior to the existence of the Earth. All it suggests is that God made the souls in heaven, and then placed them on the Earth afterwards as opposed to directly creating us on earth.

If a farmer sows seeds, does that mean he had the seed before he owned the land? Or could he just as well have owned the land and later sown the seeds? The verse is neutral on this issue. It does not suggest one over the other.

Support for our free will: it is a necessary concept to keep GOD at arm's length from the creation of evil, to ensure the true guilt of sinners and to be able to fulfill the heavenly marriage since without free will both love and marriage are denied.

Support for two levels of sin, one eternal and one temporary: GOD's love necessitates that if a person can be saved they will be saved from the consequences of choosing to be evil in HIS sight. Therefore if someone is not saved it must be because they cannot be saved implying that their choice to be evil cannot be corrected by grace

This does not support this...

Ambiguous references in this no debate one liner...

You misunderstood. I'm not saying "no you don't have support for free will or two levels of sin". I'm saying that free will and two levels of sin does not support the paragraph I posted after my elipses. Go back to where you quoted me on this. Following the elipses, I quoted your initial claim. The paragraph quoted here does not support the paragraph quoted following the elipses. In other words, claiming we have free will and that there are two levels of sin is not enough support for your claim that we rejected God after an interaction with him in which he made a proposal to us

[Justin108]

All are born as sinners means that only self chosen sinners are born on earth

There's a giant leap. Why does being born a sinner automatically mean we chose to be sinners?

Answered post #24...

Maybe I'm blind or just otherwise ignorant, but could you highlight the part where being born a sinner automatically means you chose it yourself?

Support for our pre-earth creation: people were there at the creation, Job 38:7 why not us, we return to sheol at death implying we came from there and we are sown, not created into this world by the Son of Man and the devil, Matt 13:38-39.

Support for our free will: it is a necessary concept to keep GOD at arm's length from the creation of evil, to ensure the true guilt of sinners and to be able to fulfill the heavenly marriage since without free will both love and marriage are denied.

Support for two levels of sin, one eternal and one temporary: GOD's love necessitates that if a person can be saved they will be saved from the consequences of choosing to be evil in HIS sight. Therefore if someone is not saved it must be because they cannot be saved implying that their choice to be evil cannot be corrected by grace.

[Justin108]

Here we go again dept:
to implant a morality in us would deny us free will which would destroy HIS chances of ever having a loving relationship with us or a true marriage. A free will must be able to decide on all the options of a choice or it is forced to chose one over the others and therefore is not free.

So instead... we have to guess what is right and what is wrong?

Nope - you got to choose which unproven version of right or wrong suited you as your best choice to gain the most happiness in your lifetime...and once you chose, you put all your faith, all your unproven hope, into this choice, either for YHWH or against YHWH, creating your eternal relationship with HIM forever.

But without an implanted moral compass, how should we know what is actually right and what is actually wrong? On what can we possibly base our decision if we have no moral compass? Without a moral compass, choosing between right and wrong becomes guesswork.

[Justin108]

So what you're saying though God is not fair, his lack of fairness is not an issue due to his entirely different morality? Or are you saying "fair" means something different to God? The latter makes as much sense as saying God has a different concept of green than our own. Fair is fair. Unless you can actually demonstrate that having an unequal chance is still somehow fair, your argument is nothing but special pleading.

"What's fair is fair" is literally circular reasoning and actually an appeal to common sense. Both of those are fallacies. Special pleading is only a fallacy if there is no significant difference. If you will look back, you might notice that I addressed your appeal to morality and justice. I am specifically questioning whether all morality and justice must be egalitarian. Do you contest the fact that what is moral for a dog is different than what is moral for a man, or is that a special pleading?

The unfortunate reality is that morality is not objective. A dog would have a different morality, yes, but this is a result of a secular world view. A world view in which morality is supposedly objective, which is the typical theistic position, there would be no different morality. Right and wrong would be set in stone.

Again, however, this is not a debate on morality. This topic addresses fairness specifically. In the case of fairness, it is the same for a dog as it is for a man. If one dog is killed off for being weak, it would not be fair. From a natural morality stance, it might not be immoral within the pack to kill off the weakest member but it would still not be fair. Fair is far more universal than morality in general.

Again, this debate isn't whether God is moral in general, it is whether God is fair.

Suppose God did have a different concept of morality, why would God deliberately give us an entirely different sense of morality? Whether God does have a different sense of morality is, however, off topic. If you argue that God's morality is different from our own then so be it. The OP discusses specifically fairness and not morality in general.

If you are asking why Adonai would require us to have a morality that does not apply to Him, I think I made that clear. It is the same as us not only recognizing that dogs have a morality that is different than our own, but requiring it.

The difference is that we did not implant a dog's moral understanding. In the theistic world view, our moral understanding comes from God. God placed a sense of instrinsic moral understanding within all of us. That is the origin of guilt and why most would agree that murder is wrong. This is all implanted into us by God (within the theistic paradigm of course). If God implanted in us a sense of fairness and an understanding that fair is good, why would he do so if he himself did not agree that fair is good? Why would he have us believe in a false moral principle?

If you are asking why egalitarianism is not part of the morality that Adonai applies to man, I would say that you are incorrect regarding that being a universal human morality. Many moral codes do not accept egalitarianism. Does that make them unjust or imperfect? You seem to think so, but that does not make it so.

I gave up debating morality years ago. It's a lost cause. There simply is no pure rational argument for why ANYTHING is immoral that does not either come down to appeal to common sense or circular reasoning. This is, however, true for everything in the larger scheme. How can I even argue for the existence of reality without circular reasoning or appeal to common sense?

It is a lost cause. Arguing why fairness is moral to you is about as useless as arguing why murder is wrong to someone who worships a murderous, sadistic god. Your world view is that what god says, goes.

That is why, again, I am NOT debating morality as a whole. I am debating fairness. Your position here is clear: God is not fair but he doesn't have to be. Okay great. If you believe that fairness is not a good thing then no amount of reasoning would persuade you otherwise because morality is simply not a reason-only topic. If fairness is not intrinsically evident to you as a moral good then we simply speak a different moral language that cannot be bridged by rational discussion.

I hereby conclude our debate; God is not fair. Do we both agree on this point?

[jgh7]

For this debate, I need you to answer each of these questions in order.

1. Is God perfectly fair and just?

2. If God is not perfectly fair and just, does that mean God is by definition imperfect?

3. Does everyone have an equal chance in getting into heaven?

4. If everyone does not have an equal chance in getting into heaven, is God still perfectly fair and just?

1. By definition He must be.

2. That would be correct in my opinion.

3. It is possible. But then comes the extremely complicated part. How do you judge someone as worthy or not worthy of Heaven and set up life so that every single person from every walk of life has an equal chance to get into heaven? I certainly have no clue how to do that.

4. I would have to concede that he's not. It's unfair for those who have been brainwashed their entire lives to do something bad, and then God therefore judge them to Hell.

So my final answer, and probably the one that rings true for everyone is that only God knows who goes to heaven or who doesn't. It's your choice to worry about that or not with respect to the actions you choose to make in life.

[Justin108]

I never made such a choice and I never knew someone who claimed to be God. This claim is false unless you can demonstrate otherwise

As with all my contentions, I do not claim to be making true claims about reality but about Christian doctrine, expressing my or orthodox Christian doctrine. I do not always add that this is my Christian opinion nor do I always call others on their personal opinion unless their opinion is a doctrinal fallacy stated as a truth.

The lack of supporting scripture for your claim that I made a choice prior to my existence on earth, a choice that I later forgot or suppressed, makes this fall outside of Christian doctrine and inside the realm of your baseless opinion. The fact that you also claim to have confirmation from the Holy Spirit on this matter makes it a truth claim.

As for the content of my claim, it is written that everyone did in fact make choices and decisions about GOD and HE did prove HIS divinity and power but the grip of evil upon sinners caused them to repress that proof because they loved sin more than the truth. Rom 1... proves the basis for this claim. Therefore no memory of seeing the proof isn't proof you don't have a repressed memory.

Rom 1 mentions nothing of memory loss

I have no desire to be god. You cannot tell me what I desire any more than I can tell you what you desire. Would it be fair if I claimed you believe in god only because you fear death?

It is not fair to say that to me??? Wow I got a lot of people to tell off, eh! I wrote "the desire to be their own god" not to be GOD, and it means that in rejecting GOD you want to be independent in all things, free of judgment.

Okay...I don't want to be my own god either. I don't want to be a god at all. In fact, if I could, I would believe in God. I would love the idea of a perfect being who looks over us, grants us what we deserve and punishes injustice. Unfortunately, my desire for this to be true has no baring on reality.

I'm not sure what you mean by taking our chances with an unproven god? Are we going to hell for actually BELIEVING in an unproven god? Isn't it the other way around?

My point is that no one rejected YHWH in HIS Glory but by faith, an unproven hope that (if they accepted HIM as GOD) HE is who HE claims to be or (for those who have put their faith /hope that HE is not GOD) that HE is in fact a liar and a false god.

And why is this lack of faith evil? If I knew a man who wanted to save the world but honestly believed he was not able to do so, my lack of faith is not a reflection of some evil motive. It is merely my honest reaction to a lack of evidence.

The proof of HIS divinity was held in abeyance because proof before we chose to accept or reject HIM would have coerced our choices, destroying our free will. No one would go against proof so no proof was offered until after our choices about what we most wanted (a GOD or no GOD so we are our own god), were finished.

Our choices may have been coerced, true. There may be some who follow God out of cowardice instead of desire for justice, but wouldn't an omniscient god be able to tell the difference between the sincere and the cowardly? If I follow god only because I fear him but not because I seek justice, god would know and judge me for it. But if I truly seek justice, god would know.

Your version, however, allows for the justice-seeking skeptic to be punished for his skepticism. Why? Why is simply not believing a claim evil?

Your version also allows for the gullible coward to be rewarded for his gullibility. What if someone who does not seek justice but who is still too afraid to go against the claims of this god decides to follow him?

Your theology suggests gullibility is the ultimate good while rational skepticism is the ultimate evil. I simply cannot agree with that.

This proof is the proof that was repressed in every sinner due to the enslaving nature of evil.

I find this leap from skepticism to a desire for evil to be inconceivable. Why would our skepticism for God's claims suddenly turn us all into evil, murderous, sadistic savages? How does this process work? How does "yes I believe you" turn us into saints while "no, I don't believe you" turn us into sin-enslaved monsters?

I also find it hard to understand why a concept such as evil can even have a complex nature as the one you suggest. Evil, apparently, enslaves us as it is its nature. But how did evil even get to have a nature to begin with? Isn't the Christian paradigm that all that exists is from God? Some have bridged the issue of evil by claiming that evil is simply the absense of good, thereby absolving God of having created evil. In your theology, however, evil has its very own nature. Where does this complex nature come from? Did God design it? Did it evolve on its own? Has it always existed? I don't see how evil can have such a complex effect on our psyche

And don't worry about those going to hell not remembering why...Christians believe all memories will be restored at the judgement seat of GOD, along with all our memories of every instance of our whole lives will be there for every person to see

Wait I thought our memories were repressed by our own doing? That it is the result of our guilt/love of sin/enslaving nature of sin. Why do we suddenly get our memories back? Do we stop loving sin all of a sudden? Does sin stop being so enslaving? As I mentioned before, the only way this makes a grain of sense is if God wiped our memories himself instead of some Freudian defense mechanism