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?

[The Tanager]

2. Radical evidence for radical claims.

I'm not sure what you are asking here. Do I think the average person has enough reason to believe in God's existence?

Yes this is what I'm asking

Yes, I do think the average person has enough reason to believe in God's existence.

There is no historic evidence for the resurrection (outside of the Bible)

Even if that were true (and I don't think it is), why would collecting some documents into a collection take them away from being historical sources?

Yes because that is the most obvious example that I can think of. But let me rephrase: if God truly wanted me to believe, he would know exactly how to convince me.

I agree. The next question is whether God would do it. And using your definition of convince (as I see it) negates free will.

This scenario is far too subjective. You can think the God hypothesis is the best explanation while others would strongly disagree. You can be 90% certain while others are 10% certain.

I'm not talking about how certain we feel. I'm talking about where the evidence rationally points. Does it need to be 100% or just the best explanation?

Assuming the immaterial is an omnipotent entity, surely this entity can manifest itself in some sort of material way to show itself temporarily? Didn't Moses see God's backside at one point? Didn't Jesus appear to John in Revelations in some spectacular form?

I agree with you that this would be radical evidence of at least aspects of God.

Fair enough. But I would be far more likely to believe in God if he spoke to me than for him to be entirely silent. Could I rationalize it otherwise? Maybe. But it's far more likely that I would believe in him then than if he remained quiet entirely. I believe we've already been through this?

It still helps to clarify things.

How would I know this experience is almost certainly another being?

You could never be certain. I'm just saying if you had the feeling that it is almost certainly another being. Not because of something like wishful thinking, but because you've looked at alternative theories (like hallucination, others in your vicinity, etc.) and found them highly unlikely.

Then God can play operator. Satan can try to talk to me and just before he does, God can step in and say "oh by the way, that's Satan. Do you want to talk to him or do you want to hang up?"

So you are agreeing that God should not make it impossible for you to even hear Satan's voice? That was the claim you made that I was responding to.

You said "I think the point there was about wasting effort on something an omniscient God knew would not take place" implying that God knows when an atheist is a hopeless cause or not. If this isn't Calvinism then what is it?

Calvinists are not the only Christians who believe in God's omniscience.

In Jack's instance, God's revelation did nothing. God can now opt to cast Jack out. God revealing himself to Jack did no harm, but what harm was there in God revealing himself to Jack?...

In Bill's instance, God's revelation did a lot. God now has a relationship with Bill. God revealing himself to Bill did no harm and did a lot of good. What harm was there in God revealing himself to Bill?

I think the overall point here (and in the other parts of the 'improper relationship' section) is that God's revelation would not change that atheist's mind, so there is no reason for God to show Himself to that person. But, like you say, that doesn't cover everyone. So, we move on:

3. Some would abandon the relationship later in life. I don't buy this one, but we can talk about it if you want. If not, we'll move on.

[The Tanager]

3. The Effect of Sin

I don't really have much to say about that. Even if this isn't a reward system,

I think it matters because part of your critique rests on it being a reward system to go through. But if you want to drop that critique, I'm agreed and we can focus on the other critiques.

it still doesn't make sense for God to expect us to have a certain nature when he apparently designed us to have a completely different one

He didn't design us to have a completely different one than what God ultimately wants us to have.

So heaven isn't a place of eternal happiness?

Why would saying "surrendering to God relationally in every situation is heaven" mean heaven isn't a place of eternal happiness? Surrendering to God brings eternal happiness. It starts in this life and extends beyond death for all eternity in the 'new' earth.

I'm saying God should have made it easier for us to do this. As it stands, no one ever chooses this. Literally no one. This tells us that doing this is outside our nature. It is like a tiger eating carrots.

How does this follow? You seem to be making a jump from a description (we don't choose surrender) to a prescription (we can't choose surrender because of our nature). What is your argument for the validity of making this jump? You don't make that jump our choosing not to eat glass.

Why did both Jack and Bill like 2a but Bill did not like 2b? Why is 2a so much more attractive than 2b? Why is there not a single instance of someone repeatedly choosing 2b? My explanation is that 2a is more attractive to our nature. Can you provide a better explanation?

Free will. We are in a relationship with God. We can freely choose to remain in that relationship (surrender) or leave that relationship (self-reliance). If we choose self-reliance we are not in that relationship still. It makes sense to me that surrender (the relationship we left) is now harder to choose surrender than self-reliance. It's the same way with my wife.

If God wanted us to surrender to him, why did he not make our nature to desire it more? Why is our nature to desire self reliance over surrender?

Because we aren't just now being created. We've chosen self-reliance and tipped the desire scale towards self-reliance by our repeated free choices of self-reliance.

Why is it that there is not a single instance of anyone getting addicted to 2b after repeatedly choosing 2b? Why is 2a so addictive but 2b isn't?

It doesn't follow that it isn't as addictive. The only thing that follows is that self-reliance was chosen more. What's the extra reasoning for taking that extra step?

[The Tanager]

4. Analyzing One Theory of the Christian Solution

Why can't God be that help? Why did he need to become Jesus first? Let me just get this clear before we go back in circles again. And this point your argument is not that Jesus teaches us how to perfectly surrender. You said in post 106 that God already gave us that knowledge, so please don't go back to your "form the letter" example.

...Which you didn't understand because telling us how to form the letter ourselves is different than forming the letter with us...Aren't those two different things?

Good for him. What does that have to do with us?

Because we need a nature that freely surrenders in every single situation. We don't. We need a new nature. Jesus has one that does what we need it to do.

Did Jesus not rely on God? If Jesus is God (which he is apparently) then Jesus relying on God is self reliance. So apparently even Jesus failed this self-reliance dilemma.

Who did Jesus surrender himself to?

Jesus surrendered his humanity to God the Father.

Why can't God do the same? Why is it logically impossible for God to do the same?

Jesus is God doing it.

And God can take on a surrendered human nature without needing to become human.

Those are the exact same thing. Taking on a human nature is becoming a human.

Not that he ever needs to take on this nature as I explained above. A psychiatrist does not need to become an addict to help an addict.

No, but the psychiatrist needs to have what she gives to the addict to help them. Keeping with this analogy, the psychiatrist tells the addict everything he needs to do to get better, but does not have the ability to move her own hand. The addict understands what to do. The addict doesn't do it.

Another method for the psychiatrist is to physically hold the addict's hand with their permission and flush the drugs down the toilet with him. To do that the psychiatrist must be able to personally move her own hand. Without that ability the pyschiatrist could not use this second method.

Analogically, the first method is God imparting to us the knowledge of how to surrender without needing to surrender personally. But we don't follow through by our own choices. The second method is God actually helping us surrender in a hand-over-hand type of way. God can't do the second method if God doesn't have the ability to personally surrender.

Please explain why it is logically impossible for God to help us surrender without him surrendering himself, especially considering that God is omnipotent?

Omnipotence does not change the illogical nature of moving a hand with your hand if you don't have a hand.

I am not the one saying this is logically impossible! You are! You are the one telling me it is logically impossible for God to take on a surrendering nature without becoming human first!

In post 65 you said:

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?

That started this line of thinking from me. Christianity teaches God's nature does include the ability to take on a human nature. If you are critiquing my Christian view, then you either need to show this is incoherent (which means assuming it is true in your argument) or you need to argue that such a thing is logically impossible. If you aren't saying it is logically impossible, then I've misunderstood you and I would benefit from your clarification of what you are saying.

God gave us this nature in the first place. Why can't he just fix it without needing to become Jesus first? How did God give us this nature in the first place? Why is it that he managed to give us this nature the first time around without needing to become Jesus, but in order to fix the now-broken nature, he needs to "become human and impart a perfectly "surrendering human nature"?

We've been through this. To give us a new 2 (like he did at our creation) that can become either (2a) or (2b) God would be destroying who we are and replacing us. To keep us, to keep our identity in tact, God needs to renew the (2) that we freely turned into a (2b) and move it towards a (2a) also without negating our free will.

The he is not omnipotent, unless you can demonstrate why it is logically impossible.

Demonstrate why it is logically impossible for God to surrender in a human way without first becoming a human. This is what you are asking me, unless you misunderstood what I was initially saying. You are saying you think it is logically possible for a non-human thing to live a human way?

God does not need to have a trait himself in order to give that trait to others. Please explain why it is logically necessary for God to have a trait himself in order to give that trait to others

It's not giving a trait to someone that you don't have. It's personally doing something with us that God doesn't have the ability to personally do.

P3 pretty much demonstrates my earlier point that it is outside of our nature to perfectly surrender

If taken out of context, sure. But not if P2 is read. Because then P3 means that if humans don't do it, it must come from outside humans. It doesn't say humans couldn't do it.

God doesn't need to gain this nature. We do. God gaining this nature serves no necessary purpose.

But God can't personally impart that nature to us if God doesn't have that personal ability. Not in a vacuum, but this only comes in the context of saying God tried another method that we just don't follow, but could.

No one ever chooses surrender, suggesting that it is outside our nature to choose surrender just as it is outside a tiger's nature to eat a carrot rather than meat.

No, for the reasons I gave above. Description doesn't mean prescription unless you have a good argument to believe it does.

If we define free will as having the ability to choose, and we define perfectly surrendered as not having the ability to choose, then R3 does not merely conclude that it is impossible for such a nature to be created. R3's conclusion would be that it is impossible for such a nature to exist at all. This nature, going by how you define them in R1 abd R2 is impossible and cannot exist.

Let's be careful. It wasn't define 'perfectly surrendered' as not having the ability to choose. It was define 'perfectly surrendered (at time of creation)'. Yes, at the time of creation, it is impossible for a nature to be both free and perfectly surrendered. That's the whole point. Because at the time of creation we are talking about a prescriptively perfect nature not a descriptively perfect one.

As explained, it is not merely that God cannot create such a nature. Such a nature cannot exist so there is logically no means for God to gain such a nature. Such a nature cannot exist.

No. The nature being talked about is one that is free and perfect. The argument, at this point, has only said that a free and perfect nature cannot be created, not that it cannot exist.

I probably don't have to argue the rest of your argument since I've already demonstrated that such a nature cannot exist, regardless of God's method. So the rest of your argument falls flat. There is no means to achieve this nature because this nature cannot logically exist

Hopefully you will see your confusion above (or show me mine) and then you will need to find another critique.

[The Tanager]

5. On the Trinity.

In post 106, you said "it directly comes out of being the Creator and not having anyone above Him to surrender to". So no one is above the Creator, right? So who is above Jesus? Who did Jesus surrender to?

Jesus surrenders His created human nature to God. The Divine nature is 'above' the human nature.

[Justin108]

Not sure that I am. I think we can choose what to consider and to choose what we believe after that consideration if the consideration shows multiple uncertain possibilities.

You can. I can't

False dilemma. You could also be honestly thinking you are incapable of choosing your belief, but just be wrong.

Ok. Please show me how I can choose my belief? Because I sincerely don't know how.

We already talked earlier about how someone just saying something is the case isn't a rational reason to come to that conclusion ourselves.

Which is why I introduced the option of "I am lying"

Do you have an argument that shows this consideration leads you to an intrinsic conclusion for me to rationally consider?

I am merely explaining how I function. Since we are discussing thought processes, I literally have no way of demonstrating my claim. I can not take a picture of how my though processes work. So you can either
a) Accept you and I process information differently and that my beliefs are based on uncontrollable intrinsic conclusions
b) Believe I am a liar

Then it is not a choice. Literally any choice can be made without any requirements. I can choose to eat glass, drink poison, punch a cat, whatever... in none of these examples do I have to have a certain criteria to be met in order for me to possibly choose these actions. They are all possible choices without the need for anything. The fact that you need evidence in order to believe in fairies means belief in fairies is not a choice.

We obviously disagree on what choice means. Merriam-Webster defines choice as 'the act of choosing' and defines choosing as 'to make a selection'. There is nothing in there about one only making a selection without evidence or just with evidence. I think one can make a selection both with and without evidence.

Ok then make the selection (without evidence) that fairies exist.

Your definition of choice begs the question

What exactly is my definition of choice according to you?

...unless you can share a rational reason why I should be agreeing with your definition where choices can only be made in the absence of evidence?

When did I ever say choices can only be made in the absence of evidence?

What does that mean? Define "live option"

I'm using it to mean plausible options. A square circle is an option, but it's a dead option because such a thing is logically impossible. 490 BC is a live option for the Buddha's historical birth, but 1315 AD is a dead option.

Fairies are not logically impossible so why did you call belief in fairies "not a live option"?

If theism were true, it would be more beneficial for me than if theism were untrue. If a perfectly moral, all-powerful God existed that offered eternal life and happiness to the good and just while punishing evil, I would sleep much better at night. Atheism promises none of this. So if belief was a choice, why on earth would I choose atheism?

What if you did unjust and evil things? That person would not sleep better at night and might want to choose atheism.

Unless you believe this hypothetical person is me, I fail to see how this applies. Are you suggesting I am such an atheist?

A feeling of rationality, whether well-informed or not, could be a reason. A belief that an immoral act was better than the moral acts could theoretically be a reason to be an atheist. I'm sure there are others.

Can you perhaps think of a reason that does not automatically assume the atheist in question is evil? Can you think of a reason why a moral atheist would choose atheism over theism?

Belief in fairies isn't a choice. This doesn't mean all beliefs are not a choice.

What is the difference between belief in fairies and belief in God?

Fairies are a dead option, not a live option.

What makes fairies a dead option?

I'm saying we choose beliefs when there are multiple live options, multiple plausible options. That isn't the case with fairies. It is the case with God.

Oh so because you personally believe fairies to be absurd, you immediately reject them as "dead options"? To me, the Christian God is just as absurd as fairies. Can I now go ahead and call the Christian God a "dead option"?

[Justin108]

Yes, I do think the average person has enough reason to believe in God's existence.

Can you name a few reasons why the average person ought to believe int he Christian God? The reason you gave me for why you believe in him was a personal experience. But not everyone had this personal experience. So personal experience aside, what reason does the average person have to believe in the Christian God?

There is no historic evidence for the resurrection (outside of the Bible)

Even if that were true (and I don't think it is), why would collecting some documents into a collection take them away from being historical sources?

If you're suggesting we use the Bible as evidence for the resurrection, would it also be ok to use the Quran as evidence for Islam?

if God truly wanted me to believe, he would know exactly how to convince me.

I agree. The next question is whether God would do it. And using your definition of convince (as I see it) negates free will.

So God negated the free will of Moses, Paul, and everyone else he appeared to/spoke to in the Bible?

I'm not talking about how certain we feel. I'm talking about where the evidence rationally points. Does it need to be 100% or just the best explanation?

As long as you don't consider the argument from ignorance or the god-of-the-gaps as the "best explanation", then yes.

How would I know this experience is almost certainly another being?

You could never be certain.

That's why I said "almost certainly" and not "certainly"

I'm just saying if you had the feeling that it is almost certainly another being.

You're not answering my question. You're just repeating yours. How would I be almost certain that what I'm feeling is another being? I cannot answer this if I cannot even imagine it.

Then God can play operator. Satan can try to talk to me and just before he does, God can step in and say "oh by the way, that's Satan. Do you want to talk to him or do you want to hang up?"

So you are agreeing that God should not make it impossible for you to even hear Satan's voice? That was the claim you made that I was responding to.

I said in post 116 "he should make it impossible for me to even hear Satan's voice if I did not want to". My position did not change.

You said "I think the point there was about wasting effort on something an omniscient God knew would not take place" implying that God knows when an atheist is a hopeless cause or not. If this isn't Calvinism then what is it?

Calvinists are not the only Christians who believe in God's omniscience.

No but Calvinism is the belief that his omniscience leads to some being destined to be damned, regardless of what they do. If God would be "wasting his effort", trying to convince someone because he knows that someone will go to hell, then that someone is damned regardless of what he does. This is Calvinism

3. Some would abandon the relationship later in life. I don't buy this one, but we can talk about it if you want. If not, we'll move on.

Me neither. We can move on

[Justin108]

it still doesn't make sense for God to expect us to have a certain nature when he apparently designed us to have a completely different one

He didn't design us to have a completely different one than what God ultimately wants us to have.

God wants us all to choose surrender, yet literally everyone of us chooses self-reliance. Yes, God wants us to have a completely different nature. He designed us to find self-reliance more attractive yet he wants us to choose surrender

So heaven isn't a place of eternal happiness?

Why would saying "surrendering to God relationally in every situation is heaven" mean heaven isn't a place of eternal happiness?

Because, according to your definition, heaven isn't a place at all. Heaven is an action. The action of surrendering to God relationally in every situation is heaven.

Surrendering to God brings eternal happiness. It starts in this life and extends beyond death for all eternity in the 'new' earth.

Are atheists welcome in this new earth?

I'm saying God should have made it easier for us to do this. As it stands, no one ever chooses this. Literally no one. This tells us that doing this is outside our nature. It is like a tiger eating carrots.

How does this follow? You seem to be making a jump from a description (we don't choose surrender) to a prescription (we can't choose surrender because of our nature).

I never said we can't. I said it's outside our nature. There's a difference. Tigers can eat carrots, but they don't because it is in their nature to prefer meat. Similarly, humans can choose surrender, but they don't because it is in their nature to prefer self-reliance. If literally every single human chooses self-reliance, how can you say this is not our nature?

Why did both Jack and Bill like 2a but Bill did not like 2b? Why is 2a so much more attractive than 2b? Why is there not a single instance of someone repeatedly choosing 2b? My explanation is that 2a is more attractive to our nature. Can you provide a better explanation?

Free will.

No. "Free will" would result in a scenario where some people choose option 2b over 2a. The fact that literally everyone ends up choosing 2a over 2b tells us 2a is more attractive.

We are in a relationship with God. We can freely choose to remain in that relationship (surrender)

Then why does no one ever choose this?

or leave that relationship (self-reliance).

Why does everyone choose this?

If we choose self-reliance we are not in that relationship still. It makes sense to me that surrender (the relationship we left) is now harder to choose surrender than self-reliance.

Why is the reverse not true? Why is it not harder to choose self-reliance once you've chosen surrender?

It's the same way with my wife.

I beg to differ. If a man still lives in his mom's basement after 30, it would be very hard for him to suddenly move over to "self-reliance". If a man lived in the city where he relied on grocery stores, builders, etc., it would be very hard for him to choose self-reliance and live in the wilderness where he will need to hunt, build his own shelter, etc. This is a two-way thing. If you start off choosing surrender, it should be just as hard to move to self-reliance than the other way around.

If God wanted us to surrender to him, why did he not make our nature to desire it more? Why is our nature to desire self reliance over surrender?

Because we aren't just now being created.

I am talking about when he created us... If God wanted us to surrender to him (when he created us), why did he not make our nature to desire it more (when he created us)? Why is our nature (when he created us) to desire self reliance over surrender?

Why is it that there is not a single instance of anyone getting addicted to 2b after repeatedly choosing 2b? Why is 2a so addictive but 2b isn't?

It doesn't follow that it isn't as addictive. The only thing that follows is that self-reliance was chosen more. What's the extra reasoning for taking that extra step?[/quote]
Not just "more", it was chosen always.

If surrender and self-reliance are equally attractive and equally addictive then why is it that literally everyone chooses self-reliance?

Either
a) one HUGE coincidence
b) self-reliance is more attractive/addictive to our nature
c) other (please specify)

[Justin108]

...Which you didn't understand because telling us how to form the letter ourselves is different than forming the letter with us...Aren't those two different things?

Why does he need to do it with us? Why can't he help us do it without doing it with us?

Because we need a nature that freely surrenders in every single situation. We don't. We need a new nature. Jesus has one that does what we need it to do.

Jesus has that nature. Not us. How does it help us that Jesus has this nature?

Jesus surrendered his humanity to God the Father.

But Jesus is God. How can Jesus surrender to himself? How is this any different from self-reliance?

Why can't God do the same? Why is it logically impossible for God to do the same?

Jesus is God doing it.

And Jesus is God, right? So then earlier when you said "Jesus surrendered to God", that would mean that Jesus surrendered to himself... which is self-reliance

Jesus walks us through the decision, by our side and helps us actually choose surrender.

Why can't God do the same? Why is it logically impossible for God to do the same?

Jesus is God doing it.

Ok let me be more specific. Why can't God do it without becoming Jesus first? Why can't pre-Jesus God walk us through the decisions, by our side and help us actually surrender?

And God can take on a surrendered human nature without needing to become human.

Those are the exact same thing. Taking on a human nature is becoming a human.

Is God human now? Does God currently have a surrendered human nature?

Not that he ever needs to take on this nature as I explained above. A psychiatrist does not need to become an addict to help an addict.

No, but the psychiatrist needs to have what she gives to the addict to help them.

God has everything. He is omnipotent. He already has what he needs to help the addict.

Keeping with this analogy, the psychiatrist tells the addict everything he needs to do to get better, but does not have the ability to move her own hand. The addict understands what to do. The addict doesn't do it.

Another method for the psychiatrist is to physically hold the addict's hand with their permission and flush the drugs down the toilet with him.

And the psychiatrist can do this without needing to become an addict first, so why can't God "hold our hand" without surrendering first?

To do that the psychiatrist must be able to personally move her own hand. Without that ability the pyschiatrist could not use this second method.

God is omnipotent. He has this ability

The second method is God actually helping us surrender in a hand-over-hand type of way. God can't do the second method if God doesn't have the ability to personally surrender.

So the psychiatrist can't help the addict recover unless the psychiatrist get's hooked on drugs first? Because that's exactly what the analogy implies. The entire point of my analogy is that the psychiatrist (God) does not need to recover from addiction himself (surrender) in order to help the addict recover from addiction (surrender). That is the whole point of my analogy. Recovering from addiction is "surrender" in my analogy. Why does God need to recover from addiction first in order to help others recover from addiction? Why does God need to surrender first in order to help others surrender?

Please explain why it is logically impossible for God to help us surrender without him surrendering himself, especially considering that God is omnipotent?

Omnipotence does not change the illogical nature of moving a hand with your hand if you don't have a hand.

Of course it is impossible to move a hand with your hand if you don't have a hand, but it is not impossible to move a hand using other methods if you don't have a hand. So let's apply this analogy to God

So
moving our hand = surrender
God moving our hand = helping us surrender
God moving our hand with his hand = helping us surrender through Jesus
God moving our hand using something else = helping us surrender using not-Jesus

If God's goal is to help us "move our hand" (surrender), then he does not need to use his own hand to achieve this. He can move our hand through other means. He is omnipotent.

That started this line of thinking from me. Christianity teaches God's nature does include the ability to take on a human nature. If you are critiquing my Christian view, then you either need to show this is incoherent (which means assuming it is true in your argument) or you need to argue that such a thing is logically impossible. If you aren't saying it is logically impossible, then I've misunderstood you and I would benefit from your clarification of what you are saying.

Ok read carefully... in post 118, I asked "Can you show a Divine being taking on a surrendering nature as logically impossible?". I never said it is logically impossible. I asked if YOU can show ME that it is logically impossible.

God gave us this nature in the first place. Why can't he just fix it without needing to become Jesus first? How did God give us this nature in the first place? Why is it that he managed to give us this nature the first time around without needing to become Jesus, but in order to fix the now-broken nature, he needs to "become human and impart a perfectly "surrendering human nature"?

We've been through this. To give us a new 2 (like he did at our creation) that can become either (2a) or (2b) God would be destroying who we are and replacing us.

I never said "replace it", I said "fix it".

Demonstrate why it is logically impossible for God to surrender in a human way without first becoming a human. This is what you are asking me, unless you misunderstood what I was initially saying.

Yes that is what I'm asking. If I were an omnipotent wizard, I would be able to breathe fire in a dragon way without becoming a dragon, so why can't God surrender in a human way without becoming human?

Not that this is important since you have yet to explain why God needs to have this surrendered nature in the first place in order to help us. Again, this is like saying a psychiatrist needs to become a drug addict in order to help addicts fight addiction. This necessity makes no sense, especially since we are talking about an omnipotent God.

You are saying you think it is logically possible for a non-human thing to live a human way?

Yes

God does not need to have a trait himself in order to give that trait to others. Please explain why it is logically necessary for God to have a trait himself in order to give that trait to others

It's not giving a trait to someone that you don't have. It's personally doing something with us that God doesn't have the ability to personally do.

Why can't God help us surrender without doing it with us? Again, a psychiatrist can help us recover without them becoming addicts first.

Because then P3 means that if humans don't do it, it must come from outside humans. It doesn't say humans couldn't do it.

Saying "it is in our nature to choose self-reliance" is not the same as saying "it is impossible to not choose self-reliance". All I'm saying is that self-reliance is more attractive to our nature (like meat to a tiger).

God doesn't need to gain this nature. We do. God gaining this nature serves no necessary purpose.

But God can't personally impart that nature to us if God doesn't have that personal ability.

I can give a robot infrared vision. This does not mean I need to have infrared vision myself. God, as our creator, can impart that nature without physically having it himself.

Let's be careful. It wasn't define 'perfectly surrendered' as not having the ability to choose.

You literally said an perfectly surrendered nature (at time of creation) means one does not have the ability to choose self-reliance.

It was define 'perfectly surrendered (at time of creation)'. Yes, at the time of creation, it is impossible for a nature to be both free and perfectly surrendered.

Ok so now you're moving the goalpost. Logical fallacies are a clear sign of desperation. I would recommend you rephrase your entire argument and fix the wording this time. If R2 is as you defined it in post 123, then the logical conclusion would be that a freely and perfectly surrendered human nature is logically impossible. Fix your wording and get back to me

[Justin108]

5. On the Trinity.

In post 106, you said "it directly comes out of being the Creator and not having anyone above Him to surrender to". So no one is above the Creator, right? So who is above Jesus? Who did Jesus surrender to?

Jesus surrenders His created human nature to God. The Divine nature is 'above' the human nature.

Please point out which of the following premises are incorrect

P1 - it is impossible to surrender if you do not have a higher being to surrender to
P2 - God has no higher being to surrender to
P3 - Jesus is God
C1 - Jesus has no higher being to surrender to (from P2 and P3)
C2 - it is impossible for Jesus to surrender (from C1 and P1)

[The Tanager]

1. Do we have some control over our beliefs?

You can. I can't

You think you can't. You may be right. You may be wrong. I am not being reasonable if I simply take your word for it, though.

Ok. Please show me how I can choose my belief? Because I sincerely don't know how.

Do you mean you don't even understand what it means? If so, what it means is that you have considered an issue and there is more than 1 plausible alternative. You then select one of those plausible alternatives to believe as true amidst the uncertainty.

Or do you mean that I need to show you why you are wrong? If so, then this is shifting the burden because you made an argument that Christianity is incoherent and that argument rested on your claim that 'we have no control over our beliefs' being true.

I am merely explaining how I function. Since we are discussing thought processes, I literally have no way of demonstrating my claim. I can not take a picture of how my though processes work. So you can either
a) Accept you and I process information differently and that my beliefs are based on uncontrollable intrinsic conclusions
b) Believe I am a liar

Or (c) Believe that you are honestly wrong. You are explaining how you think you function. For me to agree with you I need to know why you think you function that way. And if it is for rational reasons, I would like to hear those reasons so that I can rationally consider them.

Ok then make the selection (without evidence) that fairies exist.

Why? We are talking about choice. Why limit choice to mean making a selection without evidence. Choice means making a selection and can be done with/after looking at the evidence OR without looking at the evidence.

What exactly is my definition of choice according to you?

Making a selection without looking at the evidence.

When did I ever say choices can only be made in the absence of evidence?

Here was one of the latest:

The fact that you need evidence in order to believe in fairies means belief in fairies is not a choice.

Here you seem to say that if evidence is involved, it can't be a choice. What am I missing here?

Fairies are not logically impossible so why did you call belief in fairies "not a live option"?

Because logical impossibility is not the only thing that kills an option. People that tell us information about fairies don't even believe they existed. Among many other things. If you think there is actual evidence worth considering, let me know and I'll consider it.

Unless you believe this hypothetical person is me, I fail to see how this applies. Are you suggesting I am such an atheist?

Of course not. I don't know you at all. I didn't know you were expecting me to know you in this kind of way, so I had to bring up general reasons.

Can you perhaps think of a reason that does not automatically assume the atheist in question is evil? Can you think of a reason why a moral atheist would choose atheism over theism?

You mean like "a feeling of rationality" that I gave in that last post? Most humans seem to see such a feeling as being beneficial.

What is the difference between belief in fairies and belief in God?

Fairies don't have thousands of years of debate on their existence. They don't have cosmological, teleological, ontological, moral, historical, etc. arguments for them.

Oh so because you personally believe fairies to be absurd, you immediately reject them as "dead options"? To me, the Christian God is just as absurd as fairies. Can I now go ahead and call the Christian God a "dead option"?

If you really think they are absurd in the same way than you have simply ignored the history of philosophical debate for the past thousands of years.