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]

God doesn't expect it of us. But God still wants to be in relationship with us. That's why God incarnates as Jesus, so that it can become a real possibility for us again.

What happens to us if we don't fulfill this relationship requirements?

I don't care. It doesn't change the fact that we unjustly inherit something negative. Adam messed up and now we have to all sit with a sin nature

I agree. But, if my understanding of original sin is accurate and original sin is true, it also doesn't change the fact that it would be good to get rid of this unjustly inherited negative sin nature.

Prevention is better than cure. If God designed us to not inherit sinful natures, he would have no need to fix it. It is his design flaw that now requires fixing

We are broken as a result of an unjust system designed by God

The possibility of the system becoming unjust is God's design. And without that design, we are robots (instead of beings with free will)

Wrong. If we were all given the same free-slate nature as Adam and Eve, we would not be robots. We would be as free as Adam and Eve were

But the system becomes unjust because of Adam and Eve.

Did Adam and Eve choose to make sin inheritable? No. They chose to sin maybe, but they didn't choose to genetically pass that sinful nature onto their children. God designed how inheritance works. He designed sinful natures to pass on from one generation to the next.

Why are those who do not have a relationship with God sent to hell? How exactly do you define hell? Is it a place of suffering?

I disagree with the most widely held traditional Christian view of Hell, that of eternal conscious torment from God.

I'm not exactly sure which alternative I hold, though. I think there is philosophical and biblical support for annihilationism

Ok why would those who do not have a relationship with God deserve to be annihilated?

Yes it does. If we are born with a clean slate then we aren't broken

Yes, but I said that we then have become broken through our own choices.

If every single one of us breaks ourselves with bad choices then this clearly suggests a design flaw

So, let me try to clarify the context. I'm saying God will transform our old nature into a new one with Jesus' human nature. This will result in us having a nature that can choose to be self-reliant, but doesn't.

But we still can choose to be self-reliant, so I don't see how this nature is in any way different. We can make the exact same choices, so what's the difference?

You asked why God didn't give us this new kind of nature to begin with. Because to give us this kind of nature from the beginning would negate free will.

How? The new nature can still choose to be self-reliant, right? So we still have freedom of choice. We still have free will

(2a) and (2b) are two different natures under the category of (2). They are both (2) only in the sense that they are free, as opposed to the determined will of (1). But (2a) and (2b) are different natures. (2a) freely chooses surrender. (2b) freely chooses self-reliance. (1) is determined to surrender. To jump to (2b) as the only possibility open to us is really just to give us a (1).

Yet we start with (2a) which is essentially (2b) in reverse. So why is it ok to have us start at (2a) but not at (2b)?

Let me see if I can explain the major flaw in this nature explanation of yours...

100% of us choose (2a) (that is of course before Jesus came along) but we supposedly still can choose (2b), right? Now what does it suggest if 100% of us chooses (2a)? It clearly shows us that (2a) is more attractive to us. Do people choose what is more attractive? No. Attraction is a natural process. This suggests that (2a) is naturally more attractive to us.

To illustrate: a tiger can choose to either eat meat (2a) or eat carrots (2b). 100% would choose to eat meat (2a), right? Of course they can still logically eat carrots. They can walk up to a bowl of carrots and choose to eat it, but they won't because it's not attractive to them. It's not in their nature.

So what your (2a) vs. (2b) illustrates is that God as designed us with a flaw in always choosing (2a) just as a tiger always chooses meat. Clearly, it is in our nature to choose (2a). (2a) for some reason is naturally more attractive to us. Why is that? If God designed us and he designed our nature, one would argue that he designed our nature to find (2a) more attractive just as he designed a tiger's nature to find meat more attractive. So basically, God is responsible for all of us choosing (2a) by making (2a) naturally more attractive to us. It is in our nature to choose (2a) and God designed it this way.

I don't think you are rightly noting the various distinctions. First, concerning the ability to surrender. I'm saying God gave us this ability at creation. And God gave us the knowledge of how to surrender. We can surrender. But we end up not surrendering. So, to now actually exercise this ability we need help actually surrendering.

Why do we need help actually surrendering? We have the ability! As with the analogy above, I have the ability to swallow. So why would I need help exercising this ability?

These analogies are throwing me because both breathing and swallowing are things we usually do automatically.

I don't know about you but every single time I swallow something, I do it willingly. See the difference between an automatic action and a manual one is we can stop performing a manual action at any time. I can choose to not swallow. Swallowing is a manual process. I cannot, however, choose to not pump blood. I can not choose to not grow hair.

God could have given the Holy Spirit this ability without Jesus surrendering 2000 years ago

What ability? To surrender? The Holy Spirit would have needed to take on a human nature to receive this ability.

Nope. God is omnipotent. He could have given the Holy Spirit this ability without first having it be human first.

How do you suppose this would have happened?

By God ticking the "has perfect ability to surrender" tickbox during his creation of the Holy Spirit. God can snap his fingers and just like that, the Holy Spirit has the ability to perfectly surrender. How you may ask? Omnipotence

[The Tanager]

When I said "can I choose to believe in the existence existence of Santa" I was not asking "is it logically possible to believe and not believe at the same time" so I have no idea where this is coming from.

It's not worth worrying about.

I asked is it possible to choose to change my belief into believing in Santa?

I think you could change your belief, if given new evidence/information that points into that direction. And I think you do, too, at least theoretically. As you say later, if someone introduced a compelling argument, they might trigger an automatic response and persuade you to believe something you don't at the moment. But we really seem to be differing on why such a change would occur. I think free will plays a role, you don't.

If I offered you $1000 to suddenly believe Santa exists, would you be able to choose to believe in him?

I wouldn't, no, because I choose (or, if you are right, am forced) to side with reason over bribes in questions of truth.

Because I am willing to bet that if I made the above $1000 offer, you would not be able to choose to believe Santa exists

That doesn't show that there is no choice involved. It only shows that we both believe that a bribe is not a sufficient reason to change one's beliefs, whether we have free will or not to change that belief.

It doesn't have to have the same reasons to be comparable. The comparability comes in that it deals in the belief in the literal existence of an entity

You said it was the best. I was trying to guard against the over-simplified "belief in God's existence is just as silly as belief in Santa's existence." I didn't know if you would take it that route or not. If you agree with me, then good, we can move on. If you disagree, then we can talk about that.

Do you want me to shift my analogy from Santa to fairies? Because I assure you there are people (adults) who believe in fairies

I don't think you have to as long as we both understand the point you are trying to make with the analogy. If you only meant it in the sense of they compare because we are talking about their existence in both cases, then I agree with that point. But if you are saying something like "belief in God's existence is just as silly as belief in Santa's existence" then I think we need to explore the credibility of that claim further.

The same way you can make people crave food. If I show you a picture of a delicious meal, I might trigger an uncontrollable automatic craving. Similarly, if I introduce a compelling argument, I might trigger an automatic response. This is known as persuasion. If someone gives me a persuasive enough argument, I literally cannot stop myself from agreeing with them.

There are different uses of various terms, so I don't think we should get bogged down there. Food cravings are not a kind of belief. You may be able to induce an automatic craving, but I think can choose what to do with that craving. I can choose to believe whether giving into to it would be beneficial or not. I have been able not to give into cravings in my life. Haven't you?

We are trying to decide if that was by choice or if I was compelled to do that. At times I have given into my craving and at other times I have not given the same craving. If the craving determines my 'choice,' how come I do different things with the same cravings?

Similarly, someone might choose to pursue a relationship with God. I agree, this is a choice. What isn't a choice, though, is whether one believes God actually exists

I still think choice is involved in the complex process. Because we have equally gullible people looking at the same evidence and coming to different conclusions. I think people choose to give greater weight to different competing influences. I think some people choose to ignore certain arguments, or misunderstand an argument and then choose not to keep challenging their views. This goes for theists and atheists and agnostics, in my view.

Let's assume (b) to be the case. This would mean that even if God appeared to me as he did to Moses, I would simply reject him since apparently my disbelief in God is 100% my choice. Is that what you're saying?

What do you mean by 100%? I am only saying you could conceivably still believe that it was all a hallucination.

If I got "enough" proof of God yet still don't believe in him then surely getting more proof of God would be useless as I would still "choose" to not believe in him. If belief is just a choice then no amount of proof will ever be able to convince me

I don't understand why you seem to be acting like choice and proof (which I think you mean here in the sense of evidence/information) are opposites. You seem to me to be saying that choice cannot take into account the various pieces of evidence. I think it does take evidence into account. I think it also takes various competing desires into account.

I also don't see why your conclusion above would necessarily follow. If choice is involved, we are (hopefully) re-evaluating the evidence before us and new evidence that comes in or old evidence seen in a new light, assessing the various desires at play, etc. If choice is involved, we can change our minds even with the same amount of evidence before us.

The best proof I can give is to tell you that I can literally not choose to believe what I believe.

So, your proof for the claim "we don't have control over our beliefs" is that "I can literally not choose to believe what I believe"? That's just restating your claim. That's not adequate proof, even if true. And I don't mean that as an insult. It's equivalent to a theist saying their proof for the existence of God is that "God literally exists." That's not adequate proof, even if true.

The best I can to do prove this is ask you to sincerely change your belief and choose to believe in the literal existence of fairies. Can you do that for me? If you cannot, then you prove my point

No, that wouldn't prove your point. Choice is based on analyzing evidence, desires, etc. If you give me new evidence or help me to look over evidence I've looked at before in a new light or something like that, I could be confronted with another choice on the literal existence of fairies. I would say it would take radical new information, because there is a lot of good evidence that fairies do not exist.

Would they choose to think it's an hallucination? Or do they predict that they will probably think it's an hallucination?

I'm not sure this has come up in the context of our kind of conversation, so I can't say for sure in their specific cases. I know of atheists that believe in free will and reject free will, so I'm sure there would be atheists on both sides.

Speaking of hallucinations... many schizophrenics suffer from hallucinations that they believe are real. This belief in their hallucinations is ruining their lives. If belief is a matter of choice, as you say, then schizophrenics would be able to simply "choose" to not believe their hallucinations are real. Wow it looks like you just cured schizophrenia. If belief is just a choice then schizophrenics can just choose to not believe in those pesky hallucinations. It's that simple, right?

I never said it was that simple in every case. I do believe that conditions can impede our free will. We were talking about it in general, not these kinds of special cases, though.

No but the proof he gave me is "enough", right? So if he gave just as much (enough) proof to Paul then Paul would be a believer. He has enough proof to be so why wouldn't he?

Because I believe free will is involved. I think two things are involved: God giving us enough and us choosing to believe.

Either belief is a choice - in which case it wouldn't matter how much proof God gave Paul since it would all be Paul's decision, or belief is automatic - in which case it makes perfect sense why God would make sure Paul had enough reason to believe.

I don't get why you believe it's either compelled by evidence or evidence has nothing to do with it. I think the truth is in the middle.

I never said he had to. But if he gave your brother more money then you, it would be unfair by definition.

And I said I may not be using the best terms. If I just look at myself, getting money I don't deserve isn't unjust to me. I'm not failing to get something I deserve to get. Once we compare ourselves to others, yes, it may be unequal. But I still got something over and above what I personally earned. These are two different issues.

Bringing it back out of the analogy, the point we were discussing is whether God gives me enough information to believe in Him. What does anyone else have to do with that issue? It's just whether I have been given enough. If I have, then God is just in holding me accountable to that. If I haven't God is unjust to expect me to believe without enough reason to believe.

Whether someone else gets more or less than me is another issue. And I've also answered that I think unequal there can have good reasons to account for the difference.

I don't know what else there is to explain. What was unclear about my explanation?

So, I assume you would say the existence of Santa would be a radical claim, as well. Here are some evidences that, if true, could persuade someone to believe in Santa:

1. people I trust tell me Santa exists
2. people I don't trust tell me Santa exists
3. there are news reports of Santa sightings on the television
4. I hear Santa's voice or footsteps on the roof, cookies disappearing from a room and I've ruled out other causes for these things
5. I have a strong desire that Santa exists
6. I see a person resembling what I think Santa looks like in my house
7. I talk to Santa, see his reindeer, his sleigh, his bag of presents, see them fly off
8. perhaps you can name others?

If the existence of Santa is a radical claim, what constitutes a radical proof? Where is that line? What makes that piece of evidence(s) radical? And can you show that with belief in God's existence.

Can you elaborate on what personal experiences you've had?

So, there is the 'conversion' story, which would be similar to some Christians and far different than others. I didn't grow up a Christian. In high school I came to a point where I enjoyed certain things (pornography, being seen by others as the good boy, etc.). And those things promised better joys to come. Then I came to the point I realized they don't deliver on those promises. I wanted to be better. Then I came across Ben Franklin's moral checklist. I made a similar list of things I wanted to do differently and then worked at getting better. Like Ben I improved in some areas for short times and regressed in other areas.

I was in Christian America, my grandparents bought me a Bible years back, so I thought maybe the Bible had the answer on how to be more moral. I read almost all the way through for about a 1 and 1/2 years. I didn't become a more moral person. I doubted whether God was real. I told God He'd have to show me He existed, because I wasn't buying it.

The Sunday after HS graduation I got invited to church by a cute girl. I went. She invited me to her youth group. I went. Still doubted God, still morally unhappy with my choices. She invited me to a weeklong summer camp fixing up some houses in the mountains of North Carolina for people who couldn't afford to do that. And they talked about God.

There I first thought about the Bible, not as a moral rulebook, but as talking about a God that wanted a relationship with me. That He loved me in spite of what I felt was my moral mess. God wasn't this being wanting me to get my act straight before He'd have a relationship with me. I heard about what Jesus claimed to be and do. I prayed to God and told Him I wanted that kind of relationship. I felt loved and cared for and felt God there.

But all of this continued to be played out beyond those initial feelings. In times of Bible reading, prayer, church, and just about any situation I felt I had thoughts that were not mine. I would see things I didn't before. I prayed and felt God's presence. I felt clear, strong answers to some prayers that I didn't like (like waiting to marry my college sweetheart until after graduation). I attended a school that definitely intellectually challenged Christianity. I sought answers and I have felt strengthened in my beliefs about God's existence and aspects of God's being during those searches.

Those are the kinds of things I think of.

Like what?

That [the historicity of the Resurrection] would be a longer conversation. I think this should wait until the main issues we've been talking about are fully looked into.

Letting your child get abducted is an analogy for God letting people be deceived by Satan. When I spoke about God speaking to me directly, at one point you asked "how would you know it isn't Satan?". Well if God truly loved me and protected me, I would expect him to either tell me it isn't him speaking, or directly block Satan's voice from my head just as a parent would take their kid away from someone trying to abduct them.

And what do we mean by 'Satan's voice'? I think people usually mean being tempted to do this or that rather than hearing an audible voice. Blocking temptation from people's minds is determining them to always do good.

But, if you mean "speak to me audibly," we get in a loop. For all we know Satan could be disguising himself as God and saying, "this is God speaking." So, how could we trust an audible voice telling us it's from God? Because of this, it would seem a loving God would need another method/check. Christianity says we have that in the Bible, in the life of Jesus, in our moral conscience.

You're avoiding the question

I didn't avoid the question. I said I wouldn't just say "because the Bible said so." In the next part I said this brings us into another big discussion and I'd rather look at that after wrapping this one up or we will have too much to cover and I only have so much time. I've said that a couple of times. You haven't said you want to drop this conversation and move onto that one, so I haven't.

That's not the point. You would likely try to block the number. Yes you might fail, but you will probably try your best. The thing is, if God tried to block Satan from our minds, he will succeed as he is omnipotent.

And, analogically, I think God does His best for humanity without overriding free will by putting in us a moral conscience, by giving us reason, by giving us the Bible, by incarnating as Jesus, like I've been saying.

You repeatedly called it "the same thing". You repeatedly said "this is what surrender means"

In post 52 you said I used surrender to mean "being in a relationship with God." You then said "if 'surrender' simply means 'be in a relationship' then how is this 'not in God's nature'?

In that post you quoted me as saying "Surrender, as I'm using it, is equivalent to 'being in relationship with God, making decisions in concert with God." Your first understanding left off "making decisions in concert with God" and then you also left off "with God" in your second understanding. I don't think I ever said "being in a relationship" alone "is what surrender means." I've talked all along about us being in a relationship with God and us surrendering in that relationship, living life with God including the decisions we make.

If we naturally have it within us, why does Jesus need to teach us by helping us "form the letter"? What exactly is Jesus teaching us if we already have it within us to surrender?

Because I've been saying that this ability has been lost by human choices.

Then God is not omniscient

This is a question of ability, not knowledge. The use of "know" could be causing confusion, but I can say "I know how to hit a baseball" to mean that I have the ability of hitting a baseball. Perhaps it would be clearer to say "God [in His divine nature] cannot personally surrender to a being within a relationship." He doesn't know how to do it in the sense that He lacks that ability. That's not a question of omniscience.

That means we lost the free will decision to surrender perfectly. I cannot choose to do something if doing it is literally impossible. Ergo, I do not have free will to do that something

Yes, we would have lost the free will decision to surrender perfectly. That doesn't mean we lost all freedoms of the will.

1. Did the fact that Jesus was basically God not help him achieve this task? Or was it just one big coincidence that Jesus happened to be the one to successfully surrender?

Yes, it helped Him. What problem do you see there?

2. If literally 1 in billions of people have ever achieved this, it is still virtually impossible

If Original Sin is true, then it's 1 out of 3 (Adam, Eve, Jesus). That's not virtually impossible. The rest of us had a damaged or destroyed free will.

If Original Sin isn't true, then yes it's virtually impossible, but not actually impossible. It's very improbable that my kids and I rolled a 6 on two die about 10 out of 20 times playing Catan today, but we still did it.

We can follow Jesus on our own but we can't follow God on our own? Why?

So I can decide "I like this Jesus guy. I'm gonna follow him" but I can't decide "I like this God guy. I'm gonna follow him"?

Using your earlier terms as distinctions, I said 'follow Jesus' means realize we can't follow God on our own and ask Jesus for help to follow God. 'Follow God' means following God on our own. That these are opposite things (following God on our own versus realizing we can't/don't follow God on our own) is why we can do one without being able to do the other.

If Adam and Eve can take away (or severely limit) our free will, I can't see why it's so hard for God to simply restore it. Why can't God snap his finger and magically restore our free will as it was meant to be from the beginning before Adam and Eve messed up?

But what does this ask of God? It seems to me to wipe out who we are. I don't see giving us a new nature like changing a battery for a computer. You can change the battery and it remains the same computer. But to give humans a completely new nature is more like changing the computer. I think we are our human nature. It's not that we are a thing made up of a human nature and this other thing and that other thing and so on. So, for God to snap His fingers and start over is to make us a new human creature with no connection to our past choices.

And whether you agree with that or not, what if that person messes up again? You've got to hit reset again. What if God came up with a permanent fix? That would be a better plan, I think. God chooses to restore the nature we already have. He needs to get us to the point of freely choosing surrender. We messed our natures up. So, God transforms the one we have, without violating our freedom, into one that will freely choose surrender (my 2a). That happens through Jesus' nature (a 2a). If God just hits the reset button like you are asking, we have a (2) that is open to becoming a (2a) or another (2b).

The trinity makes absolutely no sense. How can one entity have three persons? Does God have multiple personality disorder or something?

No. An analogy that has helped me is from mathematics. Not to show that a thing must exist, but to see that it's not as non-sensical as it may first appear. Think about the difference between a line (1D) and a square (2D). Both are figures. But a line is comprised of one line, while a square is comprised of four lines. The square is similar to the line in some respects, but transcends it. The line is 1 figure in 1 line. The square is 1 figure in 4 lines.

Now we look at personality. God transcends us. God is super-personal. We are 1 being in 1 person. God is 1 being in 3 persons.

Ok let me phrase my question differently. From here on, I will refer to the entire trinity as the "One Being" as you mentioned earlier that the trinity is in fact one being.

Does the One Being have a human nature?

No, one of the Persons has a human nature.

Let me focus on this for a moment... is "human nature" imperfect by definition?

No.

[The Tanager]

What happens to us if we don't fulfill this relationship requirements?

What relationship requirements? Requirements to be in a relationship with Him, or just whether or not we are in a relationship with Him?

Prevention is better than cure

Not if you are talking about the level of we either get to be (1) a robot devoid of free, loving relationships or (2) a free creature that because of our choices, we will need a cure.

If God designed us to not inherit sinful natures, he would have no need to fix it. It is his design flaw that now requires fixing

Adam and Eve didn't inherit sinful natures, but God needed to fix theirs. So, what design flaw are you talking about? Remember that I said if Original Sin is not true, we are all starting off without a damaged nature, but history shows us all to mess it up.

And if Original Sin is true, why is a robot devoid of free, loving relationships that is morally perfect a better design than a free creature capable of free, loving relationships that could be morally perfect, but with a chance of not being morally perfect?

Wrong. If we were all given the same free-slate nature as Adam and Eve, we would not be robots. We would be as free as Adam and Eve were

Oh, yes, I agree with that. Many Christians believe that is the case, like I've already said. And they say history has shown us that we freely choose self-reliance anyway.

Did Adam and Eve choose to make sin inheritable? No. They chose to sin maybe, but they didn't choose to genetically pass that sinful nature onto their children. God designed how inheritance works. He designed sinful natures to pass on from one generation to the next.

If Original Sin is true, God designed natures (not sinful natures) to pass on from one generation to the next. Adam and Eve made their nature sinful. Natures are passed on, so their sinful nature gets passed on.

But God could design it so only good natures get passed on, you'll say. Okay, let's say God did this. Many Christians would agree. And they say history has shown us that we freely choose self-reliance anyway.

Ok why would those who do not have a relationship with God deserve to be annihilated?

This seems to me to be making the mistake I talked about last time. You are treating this as we do something and we either get a prize or a punishment. But I think this is the same thing in Christianity. The something we do is have a relationship with God (and because we are creatures, that one is surrender by nature), which is the prize. Not being in relationship is the 'punishment' because we were made to be in relationship. If a car is made to run on fuel to be what it was created to be, not having that fuel will cause damage.

So, with that context, not being in a relationship with God is to cut us off from our source, the fuel we were made to run on. God is said to be existence. To cut yourself off from that seems to point to ceasing to existence.

If every single one of us breaks ourselves with bad choices then this clearly suggests a design flaw

And the alternative design is to not allow the possibility of bad choices. This is determinism, doing away with our free will. I find that a greater design flaw.

But we still can choose to be self-reliant, so I don't see how this nature is in any way different. We can make the exact same choices, so what's the difference?

Because we aren't just making the choices on our own. We are having our hands held by a Person who has already made the perfect choice in every situation. If I'm holding my daughter's hand and she's following my lead, she isn't going to make a mistake.

How? The new nature can still choose to be self-reliant, right? So we still have freedom of choice. We still have free will

We still have free will, yes. The nature technically can choose self-reliance, but it won't. Because it is being guided by someone who never chose self-reliance during His whole human life.

Yet we start with (2a) which is essentially (2b) in reverse. So why is it ok to have us start at (2a) but not at (2b)?

No, we don't start with (2a) in my scenario. We started with 2 (which could become 2a or 2b) and we chose (2b) and then that (2b) gets transformed into a (2a).

In your scenario, you were asking God to make us free beings who will only choose surrender from the get go. That means starting not with a (2), but with a (2b) which is really just starting with a (1) because you are saying God should have made it so we couldn't become (2a)s.

100% of us choose (2a) (that is of course before Jesus came along) but we supposedly still can choose (2b), right? Now what does it suggest if 100% of us chooses (2a)? It clearly shows us that (2a) is more attractive to us. Do people choose what is more attractive? No. Attraction is a natural process. This suggests that (2a) is naturally more attractive to us.

Well, if Original Sin is true, then really only 2 out of 3 people have freely chosen (2b).

But if it's not, then you need to prove this relationship between attraction and what we choose. Like I said earlier, I can be physically attracted to someone, but not choose to pursue a relationship with them. So, I don't agree with your above reasoning.

To illustrate: a tiger can choose to either eat meat (2a) or eat carrots (2b). 100% would choose to eat meat (2a), right? Of course they can still logically eat carrots. They can walk up to a bowl of carrots and choose to eat it, but they won't because it's not attractive to them. It's not in their nature.

I agree with this in tigers, but I don't think they have free will. Meat and carrots are attractive to me in different ways. I like the taste of meat better, but like the health benefits of carrots and like them more now than I used to. Carrots fit in our family budget better than meat. I am attracted to having a balance diet. Carrots are one of the most liked vegetables by my kids. I have to take all of those attractions into account and choose to side with different ones at different times.

So, I don't think this follows:

So what your (2a) vs. (2b) illustrates is that God as designed us with a flaw in always choosing (2a) just as a tiger always chooses meat. Clearly, it is in our nature to choose (2a). (2a) for some reason is naturally more attractive to us. Why is that? If God designed us and he designed our nature, one would argue that he designed our nature to find (2a) more attractive just as he designed a tiger's nature to find meat more attractive. So basically, God is responsible for all of us choosing (2a) by making (2a) naturally more attractive to us. It is in our nature to choose (2a) and God designed it this way.

Surrender (and the various examples of how to do this in actual human situations) and self-reliance (and the various examples there) are both attractive in many ways. We take these actions into account.

Why do we need help actually surrendering? We have the ability! As with the analogy above, I have the ability to swallow. So why would I need help exercising this ability?

Because we lost the ability. If you forgot how to swallow (became incapable of swallowing) you would need help exercising this ability again.

I don't know about you but every single time I swallow something, I do it willingly. See the difference between an automatic action and a manual one is we can stop performing a manual action at any time. I can choose to not swallow. Swallowing is a manual process. I cannot, however, choose to not pump blood. I can not choose to not grow hair.

I was trying to think through that yesterday. I was thinking I do swallow sometimes without noticing it. But maybe I'm wrong there (I did and still am questioning it).

Regardless, I think I get the point you used that analogy for. You didn't respond to that part of my post, so I'm not sure if I'm correct there or not. You seemed to be saying that God should have given us the ability to freely surrender to God on our own. I said God did. But then we eventually lost this (either because of Adam and Eve or because of our own choices). So, we need to regain that ability through the help of someone who has it and can help us exercise it every time.

Nope. God is omnipotent. He could have given the Holy Spirit this ability without first having it be human first.

How so? God cannot surrender by nature. The Holy Spirit is God and, therefore, cannot surrender by nature. You seemed to be asking God to give the Holy Spirit the ability to surrender without giving the Holy Spirit a nature that can surrender (i.e., a created nature).

And even moreso, it's a human nature that God needs to fix, so it must be a human nature. Receiving a human nature makes you a human, by definition. You seem to be, but are you asking God to give the Holy Spirit a human nature, without making it a human?

By God ticking the "has perfect ability to surrender" tickbox during his creation of the Holy Spirit. God can snap his fingers and just like that, the Holy Spirit has the ability to perfectly surrender. How you may ask? Omnipotence

Christians don't believe the Holy Spirit is a created being. You must be a created being to have the ability of surrendering to the being that created you.

[Justin108]

I asked is it possible to choose to change my belief into believing in Santa?

I think you could change your belief, if given new evidence/information that points into that direction.

If it relies on new evidence then it isn't a choice. Choice is internal. Evidence/information is external. If evidence (external) resulted in you changing your belief, then it was not a matter of choice.

If I offered you $1000 to suddenly believe Santa exists, would you be able to choose to believe in him?

I wouldn't, no, because I choose (or, if you are right, am forced) to side with reason over bribes in questions of truth.

I didn't ask if you would. I asked if you would be able to? Or would it be literally impossible to change your belief?

The same way you can make people crave food. If I show you a picture of a delicious meal, I might trigger an uncontrollable automatic craving. Similarly, if I introduce a compelling argument, I might trigger an automatic response. This is known as persuasion. If someone gives me a persuasive enough argument, I literally cannot stop myself from agreeing with them.

There are different uses of various terms, so I don't think we should get bogged down there. Food cravings are not a kind of belief.

I never said they are. I said belief is like a craving in that it is automatic. I don't decide to get cravings just like I don't decide what to believe

Similarly, someone might choose to pursue a relationship with God. I agree, this is a choice. What isn't a choice, though, is whether one believes God actually exists

I still think choice is involved in the complex process.

Very well. Can you give me a step-by-step guide to believe in God? What choices will I need to make to believe in God? Because I honestly don't know

Because we have equally gullible people looking at the same evidence and coming to different conclusions..

How can you tell when two people are equally gullible? It's not like gullibility can be measured with a thermometer

If I got "enough" proof of God yet still don't believe in him then surely getting more proof of God would be useless as I would still "choose" to not believe in him. If belief is just a choice then no amount of proof will ever be able to convince me

I also don't see why your conclusion above would necessarily follow. If choice is involved, we are (hopefully) re-evaluating the evidence before us and new evidence that comes in or old evidence seen in a new light, assessing the various desires at play, etc. If choice is involved, we can change our minds even with the same amount of evidence before us.

Re-evaluating evidence is a choice. Belief itself isn't. I can choose to investigate God, look for evidence, read the Bible, etc., but I cannot choose to believe. If belief was just a choice, then evidence would not matter

The best proof I can give is to tell you that I can literally not choose to believe what I believe.

So, your proof for the claim "we don't have control over our beliefs" is that "I can literally not choose to believe what I believe"? That's just restating your claim.

Ok. Prove to me that you can't fly (that is, without the aid of an aircraft). If you simply come back to me and said "I tried but I can't", wouldn't that be proof? At the very least, it's proof that you can't fly (or at least that you don't know how yet).

I tried to change my beliefs. I failed. So either...
a) I can't
b) I don't know how

If you think it's b) then can you please be so kind as to tell me step-by-step how to make myself believe in God?

The best I can to do prove this is ask you to sincerely change your belief and choose to believe in the literal existence of fairies. Can you do that for me? If you cannot, then you prove my point

No, that wouldn't prove your point. Choice is based on analyzing evidence, desires, etc.

Analyzing evidence is a choice. Belief isn't. I can choose to analyze something but I cannot choose to believe something.

If you give me new evidence or help me to look over evidence I've looked at before in a new light or something like that, I could be confronted with another choice on the literal existence of fairies.

If you rely on this external evidence then you cannot call this a choice.

To illustrate: If my above question was "if you had a choice between eating insects and eating fried chicken, could you choose to eat insects?"

Surely you would answer "yes". You can choose to eat insects. You probably wouldn't but you can. This is the same for virtually any choice example I can think of. You can choose to stab yourself (though you probably wouldn't), you can choose to eat broken glass (though you probably wouldn't) but you can't choose to believe in fairies, regardless of how much you want to.

So, I assume you would say the existence of Santa would be a radical claim, as well. Here are some evidences that, if true, could persuade someone to believe in Santa:

1. people I trust tell me Santa exists
2. people I don't trust tell me Santa exists
3. there are news reports of Santa sightings on the television
4. I hear Santa's voice or footsteps on the roof, cookies disappearing from a room and I've ruled out other causes for these things
5. I have a strong desire that Santa exists
6. I see a person resembling what I think Santa looks like in my house
7. I talk to Santa, see his reindeer, his sleigh, his bag of presents, see them fly off
8. perhaps you can name others?

If the existence of Santa is a radical claim, what constitutes a radical proof? Where is that line? What makes that piece of evidence(s) radical? And can you show that with belief in God's existence.

1,2,5 - certainly not what I would call radical proof
3 - better, but not quite. These are still nothing but claims
4 - that depends how many other causes you have ruled out
6 - I have seen a lot of people resembling Santa in my life so no...
7 - bingo. This would constitute radical proof

So, there is the 'conversion' story, which would be similar to some Christians and far different than others. I didn't grow up a Christian. In high school I came to a point where I enjoyed certain things (pornography, being seen by others as the good boy, etc.). And those things promised better joys to come. Then I came to the point I realized they don't deliver on those promises. I wanted to be better. Then I came across Ben Franklin's moral checklist. I made a similar list of things I wanted to do differently and then worked at getting better. Like Ben I improved in some areas for short times and regressed in other areas.

I was in Christian America, my grandparents bought me a Bible years back, so I thought maybe the Bible had the answer on how to be more moral. I read almost all the way through for about a 1 and 1/2 years. I didn't become a more moral person. I doubted whether God was real. I told God He'd have to show me He existed, because I wasn't buying it.

The Sunday after HS graduation I got invited to church by a cute girl. I went. She invited me to her youth group. I went. Still doubted God, still morally unhappy with my choices. She invited me to a weeklong summer camp fixing up some houses in the mountains of North Carolina for people who couldn't afford to do that. And they talked about God.

There I first thought about the Bible, not as a moral rulebook, but as talking about a God that wanted a relationship with me. That He loved me in spite of what I felt was my moral mess. God wasn't this being wanting me to get my act straight before He'd have a relationship with me. I heard about what Jesus claimed to be and do. I prayed to God and told Him I wanted that kind of relationship. I felt loved and cared for and felt God there.

The part in bold seems to be where your conversion officially starts. What strikes me is the fact that it seems your conversion was solely based on desire. They talked about a God that wanted a relationship, that loves you despite the fact that you're a moral mess, etc. You liked the idea and figured "yes, I'll believe in this God". No offence but if this is your reason for converting then it is entirely irrational. Believing in something just because it sounds nice is not a good reason to believe in it.

I felt loved and cared for and felt God there.

Can you describe this sensation? How is it you know this sensation was in fact God? Are there literally zero other explanations for what you felt?

I would see things I didn't before.

Like what?

Letting your child get abducted is an analogy for God letting people be deceived by Satan. When I spoke about God speaking to me directly, at one point you asked "how would you know it isn't Satan?". Well if God truly loved me and protected me, I would expect him to either tell me it isn't him speaking, or directly block Satan's voice from my head just as a parent would take their kid away from someone trying to abduct them.

And what do we mean by 'Satan's voice'? I think people usually mean being tempted to do this or that rather than hearing an audible voice. Blocking temptation from people's minds is determining them to always do good.

If you trace this conversation all the way back, you'll see I am talking about God audibly talking to me. At one point you asked "how would you know it wasn't the devil?". Since we are talking about God audibly talking to me, 'Satan's voice' would be an audible voice. Not a feeling of temptation, not a nasty thought or an urge to do something evil. I mean a literal, audible voice as though you were talking with someone

But, if you mean "speak to me audibly," we get in a loop. For all we know Satan could be disguising himself as God and saying, "this is God speaking." So, how could we trust an audible voice telling us it's from God? Because of this, it would seem a loving God would need another method/check. Christianity says we have that in the Bible, in the life of Jesus, in our moral conscience.

Then God could simply block Satan's voice completely so that we cannot hear his voice

Because I've been saying that this ability has been lost by human choices.

I have made many choices yet I have never lost the ability to read, write, ride a bike, drive... why would choices lead to me losing the ability to surrender perfectly? Especially if God made it an innate ability. You cannot unlearn an innate ability

This is a question of ability, not knowledge.

No problem. God is omnipotent. He can do anything as well

Perhaps it would be clearer to say "God [in His divine nature] cannot personally surrender to a being within a relationship." He doesn't know how to do it in the sense that He lacks that ability.

The fact that he personally lacks that ability does not mean he cannot teach it.

Suppose I had a pet dragon. I want to teach my pet dragon how to breathe fire. I cannot breathe fire myself, but I am very very smart so I know how dragons do it. I go about and make a dragon robot that can breathe fire. I then let the dragon robot teach the real dragon how to breathe fire. My lack of firebreathing did not stop me from teaching my pet dragon how to breathe fire.

If I was really really really smart, I could perhaps invent a machine that directly sends information to my pet dragon's brain that instantly teaches him how to breathe fire.

I don't see how God could not do any of the above two things I suggested.

That means we lost the free will decision to surrender perfectly. I cannot choose to do something if doing it is literally impossible. Ergo, I do not have free will to do that something

Yes, we would have lost the free will decision to surrender perfectly. That doesn't mean we lost all freedoms of the will.

The point is, if God allowed this to happen, then he is unjust. Why would he allow Adam and Eve to take away our freedom to choose to surrender perfectly?

1. Did the fact that Jesus was basically God not help him achieve this task? Or was it just one big coincidence that Jesus happened to be the one to successfully surrender?

Yes, it helped Him. What problem do you see there?

The fact that he was God means he was not completely human. That means that the score is down to zero. No (absolute) human has ever successfully surrendered perfectly.

2. If literally 1 in billions of people have ever achieved this, it is still virtually impossible

If Original Sin is true, then it's 1 out of 3 (Adam, Eve, Jesus). That's not virtually impossible. The rest of us had a damaged or destroyed free will.

If this is true, then God is unjust for allowing Adam and Eve to damage our free will

If Original Sin isn't true, then yes it's virtually impossible, but not actually impossible. It's very improbable that my kids and I rolled a 6 on two die about 10 out of 20 times playing Catan today, but we still did it.

The odds of rolling a 6 on two die is 1/36. The odds of surrendering perfectly is 1/billions. You simply cannot compare the two. In fact, since Jesus was not absolutely human, you could hardly call it 1/billions. So far the score is 0/billions

If Adam and Eve can take away (or severely limit) our free will, I can't see why it's so hard for God to simply restore it. Why can't God snap his finger and magically restore our free will as it was meant to be from the beginning before Adam and Eve messed up?

But what does this ask of God? It seems to me to wipe out who we are.

1. Did Adam and Eve "wipe out who we are" when they changed our nature?
2. If God fixed this the moment Adam and Eve messed up, then we would all be born with a clean slate just like Adam and Eve. If God did this before we were born, then he would not need to "wipe out who we are". Prevention is better than cure. If God "prevented" us from being born with a broken free will, then he would have no need to "cure" us. God can snap his fingers and fix our broken free will before we are even born. Problem solved

And whether you agree with that or not, what if that person messes up again?

Then at least they had the same chance as Adam and Eve did. As it stands, we are born at a major disadvantage. We don't have a fair chance like Adam and Eve did

The trinity makes absolutely no sense. How can one entity have three persons? Does God have multiple personality disorder or something?

No. An analogy that has helped me is from mathematics. Not to show that a thing must exist, but to see that it's not as non-sensical as it may first appear. Think about the difference between a line (1D) and a square (2D). Both are figures. But a line is comprised of one line, while a square is comprised of four lines. The square is similar to the line in some respects, but transcends it. The line is 1 figure in 1 line. The square is 1 figure in 4 lines.

Now we look at personality. God transcends us. God is super-personal. We are 1 being in 1 person. God is 1 being in 3 persons.

That does not explain anything. All you've basically said is "we can't comprehend it".

If you say God is one being has 3 personalities then you are literally saying God has multiple personalities just like someone with multiple personality disorder.

The fact of the matter is that if one being has a thousand different personalities, it does not change the fact that they are all the same being. Therefore, a being cannot be perfect and imperfect at the same time. A being cannot be human (Jesus) and not human (God) at the same time without breaking the law of non-contradiction.

No, one of the Persons has a human nature.

Define "person" and define "being", then tell me how it is that one being can be several persons

[Justin108]

I agree. But, if my understanding of original sin is accurate and original sin is true, it also doesn't change the fact that it would be good to get rid of this unjustly inherited negative sin nature.

Prevention is better than cure. If God designed us to not inherit sinful natures, he would have no need to fix it. It is his design flaw that now requires fixing

Not if you are talking about the level of we either get to be (1) a robot devoid of free, loving relationships or (2) a free creature that because of our choices, we will need a cure. [/quote]
Who said anything about being robots? I said God could have prevented us from unjustly inheriting a negative sin nature.. Where do robots come in all of a sudden? You agreed with me that it would be good for God to get rid of it. I am simply saying it would be better if God prevented it from ever happening

If God designed us to not inherit sinful natures, he would have no need to fix it. It is his design flaw that now requires fixing

Adam and Eve didn't inherit sinful natures, but God needed to fix theirs. So, what design flaw are you talking about?

Did we or did we not inherit Original Sin from Adam and Eve?

If Original Sin is true, God designed natures (not sinful natures) to pass on from one generation to the next. Adam and Eve made their nature sinful. Natures are passed on, so their sinful nature gets passed on.

1. God could have added a clause that "if the nature is sinful, don't inherit it"
2. Since when can our choices alter our nature?

If every single one of us breaks ourselves with bad choices then this clearly suggests a design flaw

And the alternative design is to not allow the possibility of bad choices. This is determinism, doing away with our free will. I find that a greater design flaw.

An alternative design is to make us more durable. That is, a single mistaken choice should not break us so easily. As it stands, we need to be absolutely perfect in order to not break. That's like designing a car that falls apart the moment you shift gears too soon. Would you consider this car to be flawed if it breaks due to a simple error in gear shifting?

Because we aren't just making the choices on our own. We are having our hands held by a Person who has already made the perfect choice in every situation.

And what if we start to waver? What does the Person do?

If I'm holding my daughter's hand and she's following my lead, she isn't going to make a mistake.

I fail to see why God couldn't do the leading. Why he needed Jesus

We still have free will, yes. The nature technically can choose self-reliance, but it won't.

What's the difference between "it won't" and "it can't"? If you confidently say "it won't happen" then how is this not determinism?

Unless you mean to say "it is less likely to happen but still might"? Is that your claim?

Yet we start with (2a) which is essentially (2b) in reverse. So why is it ok to have us start at (2a) but not at (2b)?

No, we don't start with (2a) in my scenario.

And then everyone migrates to (2a) so clearly our nature is virtually forced to choose (2a). There is something about (2a) that attracts everyone. (2a) is like meat to a tiger. It is in its nature to crave (2a) above (2b).

In your scenario, you were asking God to make us free beings who will only choose surrender from the get go.

No I am asking (2a) and (2b) to be equally attractive to our nature. Using the tiger analogy again, I want (2a) and (2b) to be more like deer meat(2a) or goat meat (2b). The tiger is equally as likely to choose either one because it's in its nature to crave meat. As it stands, however, (2a) is deer meat while (2b) is a carrot. The tiger will never choose the carrot because it's not naturally attracted to the carrot.

Well, if Original Sin is true, then really only 2 out of 3 people have freely chosen (2b).

I'm just going to ignore this "if Original Sin is true" portions until you actually tell me if Original Sin is true or not. You are making responding twice as much work as it needs to be

But if it's not, then you need to prove this relationship between attraction and what we choose.

What's there to prove??? Are you denying a relationship between the two? It's a fact of life. People choose what is more attractive to them.

- People choose to eat food instead of broken glass because food is more attractive
- People choose to drink water instead of bleach because water is more attractive

What exactly do I need to prove here? At this point it just looks like you're deliberately trying to prolong this argument

Like I said earlier, I can be physically attracted to someone, but not choose to pursue a relationship with them. So, I don't agree with your above reasoning.

I said there is a relationship between attraction and choice. I never said attraction forces choice. I said it influences choice. Yes, I can choose to eat broken glass, but I am influenced by my attraction to food and my repulsion to pain.

Surrender (and the various examples of how to do this in actual human situations) and self-reliance (and the various examples there) are both attractive in many ways.

Then why is it that no one has ever chosen to surrender?

Nope. God is omnipotent. He could have given the Holy Spirit this ability without first having it be human first.

How so? God cannot surrender by nature. The Holy Spirit is God and, therefore, cannot surrender by nature. You seemed to be asking God to give the Holy Spirit the ability to surrender without giving the Holy Spirit a nature that can surrender (i.e., a created nature).

Ok let me get this straight... God cannot have the ability to surrender. Jesus and the Holy Spirit can (despite the fact that they are both God). Already you have a logical contradiction

God = Jesus = Holy Spirit

but...

- God cannot surrender
- Jesus can surrender
- Holy Spirit can surrender

This is like saying x = y = z

but

x = 1
y = 2
z = 2

Your entire argument fails already but let's go on...

God cannot surrender, but he can turn into a human (who can surrender). Is being human in God's nature? No. Then how can God even become human in the first place if being human is outside his nature?

[The Tanager]

Sorry for the long delay in my response. For my good (and maybe it will help you as well) I organized my responses into different issues we've been talking about. So, there will follow a series of posts.

Issue #1: What is the cause of our beliefs?

Part A: Your view.

It seems to me that you have been saying that we arise at our beliefs automatically based on evidence presented to us.

At one point you said the evidence you have for me is that you literally cannot change your beliefs. I said this wasn't good evidence, because you are simply restating your claim. And in response you said:

Ok. Prove to me that you can't fly (that is, without the aid of an aircraft). If you simply come back to me and said "I tried but I can't", wouldn't that be proof? At the very least, it's proof that you can't fly (or at least that you don't know how yet).

Do you really think my word is a good reason to accept a claim I'm making? If so, why aren't you compelled to believe in God's existence? If you don't think my word is enough, then you are saying that me saying "I tried to disprove it, but I can't" isn't proof.

I tried to change my beliefs. I failed. So either...
a) I can't
b) I don't know how

If you think it's b) then can you please be so kind as to tell me step-by-step how to make myself believe in God?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean by trying to change your beliefs. It seems that you are asking me to go against what I believe to be the case. I believe Santa doesn't exist. And you seem to be asking me, given that, could you choose to go against that belief. But that means believing what i don't actually believe (for whatever reasons I hold that belief), which is the logical impossibility I talked about earlier. Of course I can't believe what I disbelieve.

But you said you didn't mean that. So, don't you have to be talking about reassessing why you believe what you believe? Doing so, I think, in some beliefs can open up the possibility of changing your belief. Why do you think that is ruled out? Saying 'because I can't believe otherwise' may be true, but that isn't proof of why it is true. It's simply restating the claim you think is true. What is the support for that belief?

So, you have actually presented a false dilemma. Perhaps you failed in changing your beliefs because (c) you ended up choosing to remain in the same belief.

In organizing your last two posts, I'm not trying to leave anything out that you have offered as reasons to believe our beliefs are automatic. Feel free to remind me how something you've said fits in here and proves your belief is true. Do you have other positive reasons that show beliefs are automatic?

[The Tanager]

Part B: My view that SOME choices involve free will.

I believe that even our beliefs about things like the existence of God have various factors that we take into account. I think we can just mindlessly follow family/culture/wishful thinking, but I don't think we have to. I think that there are various competing factors and that the uncertainty provides space for choice in the midst of the various factors or evidence or information.

The part in bold seems to be where your conversion officially starts. What strikes me is the fact that it seems your conversion was solely based on desire. They talked about a God that wanted a relationship, that loves you despite the fact that you're a moral mess, etc. You liked the idea and figured "yes, I'll believe in this God". No offence but if this is your reason for converting then it is entirely irrational. Believing in something just because it sounds nice is not a good reason to believe in it.

I don't think that is accurate. The camp opened me up to even considering the idea that God might want a relationship with me (as opposed to just wanting me to be good). That this kind of God might exist. Part of me was really hoping that kind of God existed, but I didn't believe it was true because of that hope. I needed it to be backed up further. Some people choose to believe based only on their hope, I didn't. And how can we come to different beliefs if evidence determines beliefs automatically?

I still had doubts, I prayed for God to show up, and I feel God did respond. And I feel God has responded clearly at other times.

Like what?

There I was thinking new insights into Bible readings, philosophical issues, etc.

Can you describe this sensation? How is it you know this sensation was in fact God? Are there literally zero other explanations for what you felt?

No, there are other explanations. That is why I think choice is involved. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe it was indigestion. Maybe it was wishful thinking and I've deluded myself. Maybe I just can't go against the new culture I've entered into (since my family and childhood was not religious, but I am now). I now weigh all of these things and choose to believe a certain way. I have doubts at various times. There is uncertainty among the various influences on this belief. That opens up the possibility of choosing my belief, within those influences.

Very well. Can you give me a step-by-step guide to believe in God? What choices will I need to make to believe in God? Because I honestly don't know

You are still working from the assumption that belief is just a mechanistic formula. Have evidence A, B, and C and you must believe D. I don't think it is like this. People hold this belief (or the belief that God does not exist) out of various influences on that belief.

One line of reasoning to support my view is that people looking at the same pieces of evidence come to different conclusions. If beliefs automatically followed, I don't see why we come to different conclusions. You say one side is just more gullible. I don't see how you can back that claim up. I know atheists and theists that, in other areas I know them in, are no more gullible than the other.

How can you tell when two people are equally gullible? It's not like gullibility can be measured with a thermometer

It can't be measured. But I'm not going to say the other side is more gullible, simply because they disagree with me. If your view is true, then yes, one side is more gullible than the other. But we are asking if your view is true. To just assert one side is more gullible is to beg the question. You need to prove gullibility through a separate argument. I'm open to that. If not, then how does two people seeing the same evidence and coming to different views support (or not contradict) your view that evidence determines beliefs.?

If it relies on new evidence then it isn't a choice. Choice is internal. Evidence/information is external. If evidence (external) resulted in you changing your belief, then it was not a matter of choice.

That doesn't follow. If choice involves freely picking from live options, the introduction of a new live option or new information on an already live option, wouldn't change the need for a choice to be made.

If you rely on this external evidence then you cannot call this a choice.

I'm taking that evidence into consideration, but this doesn't mean it is necessarily forcing my belief. What is your argument that evidence doesn't matter when talking about choice? It doesn't compel, but it still matters.

I didn't ask if you would. I asked if you would be able to? Or would it be literally impossible to change your belief?

In order to change my belief due to a bribe, I would first have to change my belief that bribes can be a source of truth. And, even if I did change that belief, we would still need to analyze why I changed that belief to address our disagreement.

But let's say I was compelled to have the belief that bribes are a good reason to change one's beliefs. Would it follow that all beliefs are like this? Not at all. Am I now compelled to change my belief that Santa exists? No. It would be logically possible for me to try to hold out for more money before changing my belief about Santa's existence.

And if you are just going to say, "you could never think money is a reason to change your beliefs" then you are just begging the question. And even if your begging just happens to be true, this still doesn't mean all beliefs are like this. I still could conceivably choose to keep my belief in Santa's non-existence until you give me more money.

[The Tanager]

2. Radical claims require radical evidence

1,2,5 - certainly not what I would call radical proof
3 - better, but not quite. These are still nothing but claims
4 - that depends how many other causes you have ruled out
6 - I have seen a lot of people resembling Santa in my life so no...
7 - bingo. This would constitute radical proof

And could you spell out what radical evidence would mean in the case of the existence of God? It seems that you think this means directly speaking to you.

Then God could simply block Satan's voice completely so that we cannot hear his voice

But you want to hear God's voice audibly, right? How do we know for certain that Satan's voice is blocked and that the audible voice you hear would actually be God's?

I also came across a debate on Unbelievable (not sure if you are familiar with that radio show/podcast) between a theist and an atheist over the issue of why God doesn't just reveal Himself to everyone. The theist also has a website that seems to share the same info, from which I'm pulling these points (https://beliefmap.org/god-exists/divine-hiddenness/). I haven't had time to listen to the whole session or reflect on these points much to see if I would accept/reject them, but I wanted to get a response to you, since it has already taken me so long to post. And these seem pertinent to one of the questions you've asked. If true, they would seem to show that God could have good reasons to not reveal Himself to everyone.

1. Some non-theists, upon coming to belief, would immediately reject a loving relationship with God.

2. Some would have an improper relationship with God. That is, the person may not recognize God as Good, reject moral transformation, lacking the right desire for God (instead just wanting gifts, experiences, to escape punishment), being jealous of God's power, considering himself an authority in the formation of the relationship.

3. Some could just abandon the relationship later in life (because of disbelief in God's goodness, jealousy of God, hatred of God's allowing suffering, a love of sin) which may result in the short time of relationship having no or even negative value to God and the person.

4. Greater goods of relationship would obtain with divine silence. These may include a greater total number of everlasting relationships, more quality in those relationships.

5. More goods around the world could obtain from God's hiddenness (relationship goods, justice, mercy, moral knowledge, seeking of God, uncoerced moral choices).

6. God can still have a relationship with someone during their disbelief.

[The Tanager]

3. The Effect of Sin

The odds of rolling a 6 on two die is 1/36. The odds of surrendering perfectly is 1/billions. You simply cannot compare the two.

Well, it would be harder odds to roll a 6 on two die 10 out of 20 times in a row, but I never said the odds were the same. My point was that improbable and actualy impossible are two different things.

Did Adam and Eve "wipe out who we are" when they changed our nature?

We weren't anything before we were born, so how could they wipe out who we were?

The point is, if God allowed this to happen, then he is unjust. Why would he allow Adam and Eve to take away our freedom to choose to surrender perfectly?

I don't think allowing original sin to impact future humans is necessarily unjust, but to narrow our conversation let's say it is. Many Christians would agree and they still say history tells us that we are the cause of our own choices for self-reliance.

No I am asking (2a) and (2b) to be equally attractive to our nature. Using the tiger analogy again, I want (2a) and (2b) to be more like deer meat(2a) or goat meat (2b). The tiger is equally as likely to choose either one because it's in its nature to crave meat. As it stands, however, (2a) is deer meat while (2b) is a carrot. The tiger will never choose the carrot because it's not naturally attracted to the carrot.

But Christianity says that both surrender and self-reliance are attractive.

An alternative design is to make us more durable. That is, a single mistaken choice should not break us so easily. As it stands, we need to be absolutely perfect in order to not break. That's like designing a car that falls apart the moment you shift gears too soon. Would you consider this car to be flawed if it breaks due to a simple error in gear shifting?

But, what does 'break' refer to, analogically? Remember that I'm saying our choice for self-reliance is the exact same thing as having a broken relationship with God. You haven't seemed to respond to the quotes where I've said that.

It's not that we make this choice for self-reliance and it breaks some separate thing. Our rightful relationship with God is to live life in concert with Him. Choosing self-reliance is the exact same thing as not living life in concert with Him. It's not saying one choice can break us easily, it's saying becoming broken can break us.

I have made many choices yet I have never lost the ability to read, write, ride a bike, drive... why would choices lead to me losing the ability to surrender perfectly? Especially if God made it an innate ability. You cannot unlearn an innate ability

Certainly you are aware of people who have had an accident and had to relearn how to walk or talk?

If you were a mistreated orphan and have had no positive adult role models in your life, you would have a very hard time learning to trust people. Someone who is trustworthy would probably need to come into your life.

Since when can our choices alter our nature?

What do you mean by 'nature'? Our choices change who we are. Hitler's choices turned him into a very bad person, altering who he was. That's what I mean there. Our many choices of self-reliance turn us into a self-reliant person. We need help to untrain all of that.

[The Tanager]

4. Analyzing One Analogy of the Christian Solution

If God fixed this the moment Adam and Eve messed up, then we would all be born with a clean slate just like Adam and Eve. If God did this before we were born, then he would not need to "wipe out who we are". Prevention is better than cure. If God "prevented" us from being born with a broken free will, then he would have no need to "cure" us. God can snap his fingers and fix our broken free will before we are even born. Problem solved

Assuming original sin isn't true, history still shows us we mess ourselves up. So, we still need a cure. Do you maintain that God would be better off having prevented our need for a cure under this scenario?

Okay, but you say God could cure us by just teaching us what we need to do. But if it's teaching us what to do God can, logically, only show us what the cure is, not make us cured.

The fact that he personally lacks that ability does not mean he cannot teach it.

Suppose I had a pet dragon. I want to teach my pet dragon how to breathe fire. I cannot breathe fire myself, but I am very very smart so I know how dragons do it. I go about and make a dragon robot that can breathe fire. I then let the dragon robot teach the real dragon how to breathe fire. My lack of firebreathing did not stop me from teaching my pet dragon how to breathe fire.

If I was really really really smart, I could perhaps invent a machine that directly sends information to my pet dragon's brain that instantly teaches him how to breathe fire.

I don't see how God could not do any of the above two things I suggested.

And I've said multiple times that I agree. The Law is God teaching us what it means for us to surrender. What it looks like to be cured. But we don't do it, for whatever reasons. We aren't being cured simply from being told what to do, because we aren't following through.

What happens when your pet dragon just doesn't get it and isn't breathing fire? If you were a dragon you would have the best chance of teaching your pet dragon how to breathe fire, because you actually intimately know what is involved in that process. So, God did the first thing you suggested...and we still don't do it.

The second thing is either the same thing as the first (teaching the dragon how to do it, but not making it do it) or you mean that this machine actually makes the dragon breathe fire (no matter what it wills to do). If it's really just a restatement of the first, then God did it and we still don't breathe fire. If it's the latter, then this would involve overriding free will. God doesn't want to do that, although God could.

Then why is it that no one has ever chosen to surrender?

I don't mean to imply that we never get things right. No one (besides Jesus) has ever chosen to surrender as a way of life, in all instances.

And, thus, we need God's help to do something He's taught us how to do, but we don't do it. We need help actually doing it.

I fail to see why God couldn't do the leading. Why he needed Jesus

Because to lead, to hand hold us, God must be able to surrender. God can't in a Divine nature alone. God must take on a human nature in order to do this. This is what Jesus is, God taking on a human nature. To say God could do it without Jesus is to then say God could take on a human nature without taking on a human nature.

God cannot surrender, but he can turn into a human (who can surrender). Is being human in God's nature? No. Then how can God even become human in the first place if being human is outside his nature?

The ability to take on a human nature is in God's nature. But God can't surrender until He takes on that human nature.

The fact that he was God means he was not completely human. That means that the score is down to zero. No (absolute) human has ever successfully surrendered perfectly.

Why does it mean He was not completely human? What is your argument for that?

A being cannot be human (Jesus) and not human (God) at the same time without breaking the law of non-contradiction.

This is true if it is logically impossible for one kind of being to take on a different nature. Do you have an argument for that for me to consider? We can't assume that being God means the inability to take on a human nature.

Ok let me get this straight... God cannot have the ability to surrender. Jesus and the Holy Spirit can (despite the fact that they are both God). Already you have a logical contradiction

That's not what I claimed. God, as God, cannot have the ability to surrender. This is a Triune God, one being in three persons (more on that in the next post). God must take on a human nature to gain the ability to surrender. God does through one Person taking it on because humans are only one Person. This is Jesus. The Triune God can now transform our nature with this one through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, a second Person of the Triune God. The Holy Spirit doesn't have a human nature itself, it is redeeming ours with Jesus' human nature.

Assuming God fixes us, you ask:

And what if we start to waver? What does the Person do?

He allows us our choice. But the more we let God hold our hands, and we see how things go, the more we trust the hand-holding and the less we waver.

What's the difference between "it won't" and "it can't"? If you confidently say "it won't happen" then how is this not determinism?

To say it can't means we don't sin, but we don't reach that freely. To say it won't means we have reached it freely.