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 claims require radical evidence.

The evidence for some kind of God is about 50/50. An indifferent God would be fine with 50/50, but a God who wanted me to believe in him would give me more evidence.

How do you come up with that percentage?

And as I have clarified before, there is reason to believe in a god but not good enough reason to believe in the Christian God. I'm guessing Yahweh wants us to believe in him specifically. If he wanted me to believe in him specifically, then he has not given me nearly enough evidence to do so. Back to my Jabba the Hutt analogy. God has given me enough evidence to consider the possibility that aliens exist, but he has given me absolutely no evidence that Jabba the Hutt exists.

Okay, so what are the characteristics of this god (as you see it) that come out of this "50/50" evidence? I need to know what you see the starting point being.

[The Tanager]

3. The Effect of Sin

Either self-reliance is naturally more attractive to our default nature (which is why we all end up choosing self-reliance over surrender) or it is just a massive coincidence that we all end up choosing self-reliance over surrender. Which is it?

If determinism is true, I would agree with you. It would be a massive coincidence (in the sense of 'chance') for a dice rolled to end up a 3 even 50 times in a row, much less millions of times. But you are critiquing a worldview that believes there is free will. That changes the picture.

In every single case, the direct efficient cause of whatever was chosen (and at this point it doesn't matter what is chosen) is the free will of the individual. Yes, the reasons free will was exercised in that specific way are different (because we have multiple attractions), but whatever is chosen is not explained by chance.

Neither is it necessarily due to self-reliance being more attractive to our default nature. It could be, but it doesn't have to be. Because description of choices does not necessitate prescription of choices. You keep acting like it does, but it doesn't when free will is involved. By definition, free will means that what we choose is not simply due to our natural attractions.

Therefore, your dilemma is a false one. There is a third option. The explanation for why we all choose self-reliance is neither that it is more attractive and therefore we have to choose it nor that it is due to chance.

You can't say 3. "free will" because we already know they have free will. That's what makes them having a choice possible to begin with. What I'm asking is why, despite having a free-will choice, they always prefer choosing flavor A? Most would say "well flavor A is obviously tastier (more attractive) than flavor B". But not you. What would your explanation be for flavor A's success?

No. You are assuming that both flavors are equally attractive. We have no idea what each flavor tastes like. Free will is not the explanation for why A did so much better than B. The most rational explanation would be that A simply tasted better than B. It was more attractive to everyone.

If you are saying they are only attracted to one flavor, then of course free will does not play a role. But you are critiquing a view as incoherent that says free will does play a role. We aren't only attracted to self-reliance, so this analogy is not apt to the worldview you are critiquing. Unless you can prove that description necessitates prescription. If free will exists (which you are assuming to try to show an incoherence in the worldview) then by definition description does not necessitate prescription.

Point out the flaws.

My view (that you are critiquing as incoherent) is that God created us with self-reliance and surrender being equally as attractive. Your analogy says the relationship between these two is like the relationship of human attraction to meat/vegetables versus sand/dry leaves. Those are not equally as attractive. Therefore, the analogy is flawed.

Because everyone, literally everyone ends up choosing self-reliance over surrender. This is why I did not use meat vs. vegetables as an example because there is a balance between how many people choose meat vs. how many people choose vegetables. There are some people who prefer meat and there are some people who prefer vegetables. Some choose A, some choose B.

I needed to find an example where everyone chooses A and no one chooses B. That is why I went with food vs. sand. In fact, there are people with eating disorders who eat sand so ironically, it is more in our nature to eat sand than it is to choose surrender.

Which is an improper thing to do here because by definition free will means that a description of choices does not mean a prescription to where it had to be that way. But how you view the natural attractions of self-reliance versus surrender depends upon description meaning prescription.

But we are more attracted to self-reliance. This is evident in the fact that we all end up choosing self-reliance.

Not at the beginning. We all choose self-reliance and surrender at different times. As we choose self-reliance more and more the attraction then becomes lopsided because of our own choices, not because of our initial natures. Only then do we reach the point where we can no longer choose surrender.

[The Tanager]

4. Analysis of one analogy of the Christian solution

Do you have scripture to support this claim?

First off Christianity is not just the Bible. There are also things like creeds. But these come out of what is revealed in the Bible and do not contradict it. The Bible talks about Jesus being with God before being a human, which means he could not have had a human nature at that point. But he had to have some kind of nature. John 1:1, 14 talks about Jesus being divine and then being made human. Col. 2:9 talks of the Divine being joined with humanity. But it's not a philosophical treatise.

Please state where in the Bible it says that
- God needed the ability to surrender to help us surrender
- Jesus sacrificed himself to his own second nature
- God gained the ability to surrender in a human way by becoming Jesus

All of these are ad hoc explanations from you. Not from scripture.

They are not ad hoc, they come about through thinking about events and descriptions in scripture, logic, philosophy which is perfectly fine for any worldview to use. That's how everyone makes sense of reality.

The burden of proof is on the initial claim. If Christianity made the claim that beings can have two natures, it is up to Christianity to prove it.

That isn't how this thread started. You made the initial claim, so isn't the burden of proof on you? Your initial claim was that the Christian God was incoherent given what it teaches about forgiveness. I have corrected what I see as your misunderstanding of what Christianity teaches about forgiveness and you are still critiquing that my Christian view is incoherent given those beliefs.

But now you want to switch your critique and say that it's not incoherent, but that a belief it is based on is not proved true. And now that is the initial claim. That looks like a bait and switch. I've been analyzing your argument of incoherence. This is not just honing your argument, but switching to a different argument. If you want to switch to discussing that, then I will take it as you are admitting that you can't show the view is incoherent given what it teaches. Or we can keep with why you initially started this thread.

I never said it was impossible. But it is an ad hoc explanation to justify the absurd notion that God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself.

Well, I haven't made the notion that God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself (that's a misunderstanding I've already addressed), so I can't be performing this ad hoc justification you are speaking about.

All your rebuttals assume truths about Christianity.

Because we have been analyzing your initial claims that Christianity is incoherent. You didn't start this thread by saying one of the premises of Christianity was untrue.

Most likely because no one has ever claimed that an omnipotent being cannot urinate. The only things philosophers have ever objected to regarding omnipotence is the ability to do that which is logically impossible. An omnipotent being urinating is not logically impossible and so philosophers would assume an omnipotent being could do this.

It is logically impossible for an omnipotent being without a body, so philosophers would not assume any omnipotent being could do this.

Does it logically require a body? Or does it just so happen that every being you have ever seen urinate just so happens to have a body? I see no logical contradiction in the statement "and then the ghost peed in the soup".

What is pee? Is it something material? Yes. Being immaterial means you don't have material things about you. Therefore, by definition (and not ad hoc) an immaterial being cannot urinate. Urination logically requires a body.

Let me give it a shot
- in order to speak, one by definition needs a physical mouth
- God does not have a physical mouth
- Therefore, God never spoke to Moses, Abraham, or any of the prophets

If God cannot urinate because he lacks a physical body, then God can also not speak as that requires a physical body. God can also not listen, as that requires physical ears, nor can he think as that requires a physical brain.

God cannot do these things in a bodily way (well until the Incarnation). Foul! Special pleading! No, because urine is a material substance. Communicating, understanding, thinking are not material things. God can do those as an immaterial being would. We use the terms speaking/listening/thinking as analogically.

Right. Reason allows that the author of Luke did not consider logical impossibilities. But I'm sure the author expected God to be able to do all things logically possible. If not, why would the author blatantly lie and say nothing is impossible for God when some things clearly are?

And it is illogical for a being without ability A in its nature to exercise ability A. My nature does not have the ability to fly. Therefore, I cannot exercise that ability.

By the definition that you've given it? So you've resorted to redefining words in order to support your arguments?

Not at all. From the beginning you have been critiquing the Christian solution to forgiveness as being incoherent given what it teaches. Your critique above is a totally different argument than the one you started with and the one I've been responding to.

I don't care about God having the ability to surrender, I care about God helping us surrender. He does not need to have the ability to do it himself in order to help us do it successfully. Please explain why it is logically impossible for God to successfully help us surrender without him surrendering first? A man who cannot swim can help someone else swim. Why can't God who cannot surrender successfully help us surrender?

Free will. For the help to be successful we have to cooperate or it becomes God controlling our actions to make us do our part. You can help someone else swim only if they do their part. Otherwise you are just swimming for them.

Yes. But I just want to stress the fact that person A does not need to be able to swim himself in order to help person B swim. Similarly, God does not need to be able to surrender himself in order to successfully help us surrender.

Yes, if the other person cooperates. But the problem with sin is that we don't cooperate on our own, so God must resort to another option.

That is why I specifically said I can help her successfully swim. Can God help us successfully surrender without himself surrendering?

As I've said before, yes. This is the Law I've talked about so many times. The problem is that we don't cooperate. God could leave us unsuccessful or try another method. God tried another method.

No. God failed. God tried to successfully help us surrender but he failed. Ergo, he could not successfully help us surrender. The fact that God later succeeded by changing his method tells us it was God's failure, not ours.

He failed because He didn't want to negate our free will. He could have succeeded by forcing us to do our part against our will. He didn't want those type of humans. How is that a bad thing?

Ok God goes inside us and helps us surrender. Why can he not do this prior to becoming human first? What exactly (try to be specific) does he do when he helps us surrender? Don't just say "he surrenders with us". I want to know what it means to surrender. Is it a thought? Is it a physical action? What does one do when surrendering and what exactly does God do to help this along?

It's thought and action. He can't perform an action (human surrendering) without having a nature with the ability to perform that action (human nature). He guides our thoughts that are wrong and selfish, shows better alternatives, we agree that is what we want to do and God is the power of us then performing that action just like my ability to form a letter is the power of my daughter forming her letter. Without it she won't form the letter even though she wants to and was taught how to do it. Without it we won't surrender in all respects like we should even if we want to and now what we should do.

Do you mean the case with the homeless drunk? I've already explained why God did not first need to become Jesus in order to help us surrender in that instance.

He doesn't need to do that for everyone because some people listen to that Law without God's help. They fail in other ways.

[Justin108]

I either do not have the ability or do not know how to use the ability to choose my belief. I am like a child who cannot or does not know how to swim. God damning me for my disbelief is like God throwing me in a pool and me drowning. Why is God rejecting us for our inability and/or lack of knowledge on how to choose belief?

I'm disagreeing that this is true.

So you're calling me a liar? You think I do know how to choose my belief but I just don't want to?

You have not established that we have this inability or lack the knowledge.

Either
1) I cannot choose belief
2) I do not know how to choose belief
3) I am a liar

Which one is it?

You know there are three logically possible alternatives in regards to believing in fairies. You have admitted there are those who believe, so it is a possibility. Me and you are among those that do not believe. And there would be agnosticism available as well. I positively believe that free will impacts the choice.

Then why are you unable to make the free will choice of believing in fairies?

1. How could you possibly know that no one on Earth believes in fairies for reasons other than fideism?

Okay, I am aware of none. I'm open to being shown there are. Are you aware of any? If so, give them. If not, then we are agreed that no one seems to believe in fairies for reasons other than fideism/personal experience.

The burden of proof is on you for claiming no one believes in fairies for reasons other than fideism or personal experience. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because we know of no one that believes in fairies does not mean that no such person exists. The burden of proof is on you.

2. The amount of people believing something has absolutely no bearing on whether the claim is true. This is an appeal to popularity. You are essentially saying that "because Christianity has more believers than fairies, it is more justified to believe in the Christian God than fairies".

No, I was saying that because the existence of fairies has no rational arguments given for it and Christianity does...

What rational arguments are there for Christianity?

You personally find fairies to be unbelievable and so you do not have a choice in believing in them. I personally find the Christian God to be unbelievable and so I do not have a choice in believing in him.

You say you had no choice in rejecting belief in fairies, then you say I have a choice in rejecting belief in the Christian God. This is hypocritical.

No, it wasn't about my personal feelings on the matter. It was about the type of evidence offered for fairies and the type offered for God and, more narrowly, the Christian God.

You have yet to provide any such evidence.

If fairies had good (or any) philosophical arguments for their existence, then I would not be bound by the emphasis I put on reason to reject belief in fairies, opening up to me a choice to make between multiple reasonable options.

I do not consider Christianity to be a reasonable option. Therefore, going by your logic, I do not have a choice but to reject Christianity.

God does have good philosophical arguments for His existence, so you do have a choice in accepting or rejecting belief in God's existence.

I have said this repeatedly... There are good philosophical arguments for the existence of a god. There are no good philosophical arguments for the Christian God.

That depends on how you personally define fairies.
- fairies might be timeless
- fairies might be changeless
- fairies might be beginningless
- fairies might be immaterial, made out of magical fairy dust
- fairies might be uncaused
- fairies are surely personal
- fairies might be necessary


If that is what you mean by fairy, you are going against any of the recorded uses of the term...that I am aware of. If you have evidence otherwise, share it. If not, then using that term is misleading. Why still call it a fairy?

Because it's tiny, has wings and a tiny little wand.

Just so it's not the term God? That would be ad hoc.

Instead of giving me philosophical arguments for god, give me a philosophical argument for YHWH. Can you do that? I doubt it. Applying these philosophical arguments to YHWH is just as ad hoc as applying them to fairies.

Not by you, maybe. But if someone believed all this about fairies, then these arguments can be used to support fairies

Show me someone who does that, that isn't committing the ad hoc fallacy.

The amount of people holding a belief is completely irrelevant to the truth of said belief.

[Justin108]

2. Radical claims require radical evidence.

The evidence for some kind of God is about 50/50. An indifferent God would be fine with 50/50, but a God who wanted me to believe in him would give me more evidence.

How do you come up with that percentage?

I said about 50/50. It's an estimate. I am personally on the fence of whether or not these arguments are convincing enough to me, and so I place it at around 50/50. I didn't employ a complex mathematical formula if that's what you're asking.

And as I have clarified before, there is reason to believe in a god but not good enough reason to believe in the Christian God. I'm guessing Yahweh wants us to believe in him specifically. If he wanted me to believe in him specifically, then he has not given me nearly enough evidence to do so. Back to my Jabba the Hutt analogy. God has given me enough evidence to consider the possibility that aliens exist, but he has given me absolutely no evidence that Jabba the Hutt exists.

Okay, so what are the characteristics of this god (as you see it) that come out of this "50/50" evidence? I need to know what you see the starting point being.

I know very little to nothing about this god. My guesses are that this god is sentient, made the universe, is probably immortal and has quite possibly existed for eternity. I make no further assumptions about this god.

[Justin108]

Either self-reliance is naturally more attractive to our default nature (which is why we all end up choosing self-reliance over surrender) or it is just a massive coincidence that we all end up choosing self-reliance over surrender. Which is it?

If determinism is true, I would agree with you.

It isn't a matter of either determinism or preference. Both can exist and both do exist. We have free will in choosing what to eat, yet most of us have a clear preference for food rather than sand. Similarly, we seem to have a clear preference for self-reliance over surrender. Why do you bring up determinism when I say we prefer self-reliance, but you do not bring up determinism when I say we prefer food over sand?

Please explain to me your understanding of the term "attractiveness"? I do not mean visually attractive, rather attractive in a general sense. Why can I say "coca cola is more attractive to the people than rusty water" but I cannot say "self-reliance is more attractive to the people than surrender"?

It would be a massive coincidence (in the sense of 'chance') for a dice rolled to end up a 3 even 50 times in a row, much less millions of times. But you are critiquing a worldview that believes there is free will. That changes the picture.

It doesn't change a thing. If one day, everyone on earth picked the exact same lottery numbers, despite it being a free will decision, I will still believe it to be an extraordinary coincidence. Wouldn't you?

By definition, free will means that what we choose is not simply due to our natural attractions.

I never said it was due to our natural attractions, I said it was influenced by our natural attractions.

Justin108 wrote:
You can't say 3. "free will" because we already know they have free will. That's what makes them having a choice possible to begin with. What I'm asking is why, despite having a free-will choice, they always prefer choosing flavor A? Most would say "well flavor A is obviously tastier (more attractive) than flavor B". But not you. What would your explanation be for flavor A's success?

Justin108 wrote:
No. You are assuming that both flavors are equally attractive. We have no idea what each flavor tastes like. Free will is not the explanation for why A did so much better than B. The most rational explanation would be that A simply tasted better than B. It was more attractive to everyone.

If you are saying they are only attracted to one flavor, then of course free will does not play a role.

Of course it does. I can choose to eat something even if I'm not attracted to it. I can eat cardboard if I decided to. That's what free will is.

But you are critiquing a view as incoherent that says free will does play a role. We aren't only attracted to self-reliance, so this analogy is not apt to the worldview you are critiquing.

I never said flavor-B is entirely unattractive. Just that flavor-A seems to be more attractive.

Point out the flaws.

My view (that you are critiquing as incoherent) is that God created us with self-reliance and surrender being equally as attractive. Your analogy says the relationship between these two is like the relationship of human attraction to meat/vegetables versus sand/dry leaves. Those are not equally as attractive. Therefore, the analogy is flawed.

I disagree with the part in bold so obviously I am not going to force my analogy to use two equally attractive foods! Everyone chooses self-reliance over surrender yet you insist that self-reliance is not more attractive. I am absolutely baffled by your inability to grasp the concept of attraction.

Because everyone, literally everyone ends up choosing self-reliance over surrender. This is why I did not use meat vs. vegetables as an example because there is a balance between how many people choose meat vs. how many people choose vegetables. There are some people who prefer meat and there are some people who prefer vegetables. Some choose A, some choose B.

I needed to find an example where everyone chooses A and no one chooses B. That is why I went with food vs. sand. In fact, there are people with eating disorders who eat sand so ironically, it is more in our nature to eat sand than it is to choose surrender.

Which is an improper thing to do here because by definition free will means that a description of choices does not mean a prescription to where it had to be that way

When did I make the claim that description of choices means a prescription of choices? If the matter of sand doesn't sink in, then let's focus on my ice-cream analogy. I have allowed the possibility of coincidence. It is possible that both ice-cream flavors are equally as attractive, but that everyone just chose flavor-A by chance. I have allowed this as a possibility. But rationally speaking, it is statistically more likely that the event is better explained by flavor-A simply tasting better. I have allowed the explanation of coincidence, yet you reject that as well. So if flavor-A outperforms flavor-B, if it is not because flavor-A tastes better and it is not a mere coincidence, then what possible explanation is there for flavor-A's success?

But we are more attracted to self-reliance. This is evident in the fact that we all end up choosing self-reliance.

Not at the beginning. We all choose self-reliance and surrender at different times. As we choose self-reliance more and more...

Why did we all begin choosing self-reliance more than surrender if self-reliance was not more attractive? There are logically only two explanations. Either by attraction/preference, or by chance... there is no logical third option.

the attraction then becomes lopsided because of our own choices

Yet the opposite has never happened. No one has ever chosen surrender more and more, resulting in our attraction to surrender becoming prevalent? How can you explain this? How has this literally never happened among any of the billions of people to have ever lived? There are logically only two explanations. Either by attraction/preference, or by chance... there is no logical third option.

[Justin108]

Do you have scripture to support this claim?

First off Christianity is not just the Bible. There are also things like creeds.

Where do these creeds come from if not the Bible? And if they do not come from the Bible, who came up with them? Can you name an absolute creed of Christianity that does not come from the Bible?

Please state where in the Bible it says that
- God needed the ability to surrender to help us surrender
- Jesus sacrificed himself to his own second nature
- God gained the ability to surrender in a human way by becoming Jesus

All of these are ad hoc explanations from you. Not from scripture.

They are not ad hoc, they come about through thinking about events and descriptions in scripture, logic, philosophy which is perfectly fine for any worldview to use.

So in other words, you came up with these conclusions yourself?

The burden of proof is on the initial claim. If Christianity made the claim that beings can have two natures, it is up to Christianity to prove it.

That isn't how this thread started. You made the initial claim, so isn't the burden of proof on you?

Yes and in your rebuttal, you made a new initial claim. The new claim now has a fresh burden of proof. Just because I started this thread does not mean that any and all claims by my opponent is now free from any burden of proof. If I started my thread with "God just has one nature" then the burden of proof would be on me. But my thread makes no mention of how many natures God has. You are the first to make any claim regarding how many natures God has. Ergo, the burden of proof regarding the topic of how many natures a being can have is on you.

Your initial claim was that the Christian God was incoherent given what it teaches about forgiveness. I have corrected what I see as your misunderstanding of what Christianity teaches about forgiveness and you are still critiquing that my Christian view is incoherent given those beliefs

...by making a claim that beings can have several natures. Now please support that claim.

But now you want to switch your critique and say that it's not incoherent, but that a belief it is based on is not proved true. And now that is the initial claim. That looks like a bait and switch. I've been analyzing your argument of incoherence. This is not just honing your argument, but switching to a different argument. If you want to switch to discussing that, then I will take it as you are admitting that you can't show the view is incoherent given what it teaches. Or we can keep with why you initially started this thread.

I am not changing anything in my argument. I am merely pointing out another shortcoming in yours. Even if entities can have several natures, it still would not address the core issue of my thread regarding why God needed to become Jesus in order to save us. I see no logical necessity in God becoming Jesus in order to help us surrender. You have yet to explain why this is a logical necessity.

I never said it was impossible. But it is an ad hoc explanation to justify the absurd notion that God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself.

Well, I haven't made the notion that God sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself (that's a misunderstanding I've already addressed), so I can't be performing this ad hoc justification you are speaking about.

Ok

- who is Jesus sacrificing himself to?
- why is he sacrificing himself to this entity?
- who is Jesus saving us from?

Most likely because no one has ever claimed that an omnipotent being cannot urinate. The only things philosophers have ever objected to regarding omnipotence is the ability to do that which is logically impossible. An omnipotent being urinating is not logically impossible and so philosophers would assume an omnipotent being could do this.

It is logically impossible for an omnipotent being without a body, so philosophers would not assume any omnipotent being could do this.

philosopher
flsf/
noun
a person engaged or learned in philosophy, especially as an academic discipline.

I studied philosophy for three years. By definition, that makes me a philosopher. I, a philosopher, assume an omnipotent being without a body would be able to urinate. Ergo, your claim has just been proven false.

Does it logically require a body? Or does it just so happen that every being you have ever seen urinate just so happens to have a body? I see no logical contradiction in the statement "and then the ghost peed in the soup".

What is pee? Is it something material? Yes. Being immaterial means you don't have material things about you. Therefore, by definition (and not ad hoc) an immaterial being cannot urinate. Urination logically requires a body.

Are you claiming that immaterial entities cannot create things?

Let me give it a shot
- in order to speak, one by definition needs a physical mouth
- God does not have a physical mouth
- Therefore, God never spoke to Moses, Abraham, or any of the prophets

If God cannot urinate because he lacks a physical body, then God can also not speak as that requires a physical body. God can also not listen, as that requires physical ears, nor can he think as that requires a physical brain.

God cannot do these things in a bodily way (well until the Incarnation). Foul! Special pleading! No, because urine is a material substance. Communicating, understanding, thinking are not material things.

I never said "God cannot communicate", I said God cannot speak. He cannot listen. Both of these things are very much material as they make use of generating and receiving sound waves (physical things) that travel through air (more physical things) that are then received by membranes in our inner ear (more physical things). If God has no physical membrane, how can he pick up on the sound vibrations we make through our vocal chords? As for thinking and understanding - yeah those are also physical things. Any neurologist would tell you this. There are very material chemical and electric processes involved in thinking[/quote]

Right. Reason allows that the author of Luke did not consider logical impossibilities. But I'm sure the author expected God to be able to do all things logically possible. If not, why would the author blatantly lie and say nothing is impossible for God when some things clearly are?

And it is illogical for a being without ability A in its nature to exercise ability A. My nature does not have the ability to fly. Therefore, I cannot exercise that ability.

Well hell then Luke might as well have said that George Bush can do all things, because then one could argue "yes, George Bush can do anything as long as it is logically possible and so if George Bush cannot do something, then it's because that something is logically impossible to him".

If this is how you interpret Luke, then essentially Luke is saying "God can do anything as long as that something is something that God can do". But this would be an utterly pointless statement then as this is true for literally anyone. I can do anything as long as that something is not something that I cannot do. So if your interpretation is true, then Luke was wasting ink, making an obvious statement.

Basically, your interpretation of Luke is that "God can do everything, except for those things that he cannot do". Oh.. really Luke...? How insightful of you...

By the definition that you've given it? So you've resorted to redefining words in order to support your arguments?

Not at all.

Ok then what is the definition of surrender? Why is it essential? And where did you get this definition from if not from a dictionary?

I don't care about God having the ability to surrender, I care about God helping us surrender. He does not need to have the ability to do it himself in order to help us do it successfully. Please explain why it is logically impossible for God to successfully help us surrender without him surrendering first? A man who cannot swim can help someone else swim. Why can't God who cannot surrender successfully help us surrender?

Free will. For the help to be successful we have to cooperate or it becomes God controlling our actions to make us do our part. You can help someone else swim only if they do their part. Otherwise you are just swimming for them.

If I willingly choose to surrender and ask for God's help (pre-Jesus) then I am making the free will decision to surrender. From this point onward, accepting God's help in surrendering is in accordance with my free will.

Please explain why God helping is takes away our free will but Jesus helping us doesn't?

Yes. But I just want to stress the fact that person A does not need to be able to swim himself in order to help person B swim. Similarly, God does not need to be able to surrender himself in order to successfully help us surrender.

Yes, if the other person cooperates. But the problem with sin is that we don't cooperate on our own, so God must resort to another option.

Ok now you're pointing out the flaws in us. I want to know what flaws are present in God that prevents him from successfully helping us without becoming Jesus first? What ability does God gain in becoming Jesus and how does he use this ability to help us surrender?

That is why I specifically said I can help her successfully swim. Can God help us successfully surrender without himself surrendering?

As I've said before, yes. This is the Law I've talked about so many times.

The Law is not an example of God successfully helping us surrender. The Law failed. The Law is an example of God unsuccessfully trying to help us surrender. I am asking if it's possible for God to successfully help us surrender without becoming human first.

The problem is that we don't cooperate. God could leave us unsuccessful or try another method. God tried another method.

If our lack of cooperation was the problem, then why did God changing his method solve the problem? How does God becoming Jesus suddenly make us cooperate?

- We did not cooperate
- God became Jesus
- Now we are cooperating all of a sudden

Explain how and why this is happening

Ok God goes inside us and helps us surrender. Why can he not do this prior to becoming human first? What exactly (try to be specific) does he do when he helps us surrender? Don't just say "he surrenders with us". I want to know what it means to surrender. Is it a thought? Is it a physical action? What does one do when surrendering and what exactly does God do to help this along?

He guides our thoughts that are wrong and selfish

God can do this without becoming Jesus

shows better alternatives

God can do this without becoming Jesus

we agree that is what we want to do and God is the power of us then performing that action

Again, you are being vague. What does "God is the power of us then performing that action" mean?

So to summarize, God helps us surrender by
- guiding our thoughts that are wrong and selfish
- showing us better alternatives

Why can God not do these things before becoming Jesus?

[The Tanager]

1. Does the Christian God reject people for beliefs they don't have control over?

So you're calling me a liar? You think I do know how to choose my belief but I just don't want to?

No, I think your adherence to the belief that beliefs are mechanistic processes is causing your (possible) confusion. Your critique of the Christian God in this section rests on that postive claim. A positive claim that you have the burden of proof for your further argument to go through.

Then why are you unable to make the free will choice of believing in fairies?

A problem in your critique seems to be built on a misunderstanding of 'free will choice' as the ability to believe anything with no actual reason or against the influences limiting your decision making. That is not what free will means. We exercise our free will as it is being limited and influenced by various reasons, but not mechanistically determined by any one of those influences.

Concerning belief in fairies, my lack in personal experience of such creatures plus the apparent lack of any rational argument limits me from exercising my free will in belief about fairies.

This is not the same with belief in God or, more specifically, in the Christian God because there is not a lack of rational argument for those that lack personal experience with God.

I do not consider Christianity to be a reasonable option. Therefore, going by your logic, I do not have a choice but to reject Christianity.

No, my logic was not about our personal feelings concerning the strength of the arguments, but the type of argument we are responding to, whether it purports to be rational or not.

The burden of proof is on you for claiming no one believes in fairies for reasons other than fideism or personal experience. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because we know of no one that believes in fairies does not mean that no such person exists. The burden of proof is on you.

Why do I need to prove something to you that you already agree with? Isn't that wasting our time?

[The Tanager]

2. Radical claims require radical evidence

I think some of part 1 was moving into this part of our discussion.

The amount of people holding a belief is completely irrelevant to the truth of said belief.

My point was not that the amount of people who hold this belief is relevant to the truth of it, but rather that I wanted to analyze an actual argument, so show it to me. Which leads into...

Instead of giving me philosophical arguments for god, give me a philosophical argument for YHWH. Can you do that? I doubt it. Applying these philosophical arguments to YHWH is just as ad hoc as applying them to fairies.

I don't apply things like the cosmological argument directly to YHWH, so I'm not committing an ad hoc fallacy. So, now let's look at your claim that the cosmological argument can be made to argue for the existence of fairies.

My first critique is that it appears to commit the ad hoc fallacy, because you are taking the conclusion of the argument and then defining 'fairy' to mean exactly what the conclusion of the argument points toward. Not only that, but you are going against what everyone else historically means when they talk about fairies. And you are doing this specifically to support your claim that the cosmological argument can point to something other than God.

Because it's tiny, has wings and a tiny little wand.

My second critique is: it has wings? Immaterial wings? And is made out of 'immaterial' magical fairy dust? How does that work?

My third critique is how does the cosmological argument point towards the cause of the universe being tiny? having wings? or a tiny little wand?

What rational arguments are there for Christianity?

You have yet to provide any such evidence.

Why haven't I provided it yet? Because I've been trying to get what point you want to start at before moving on.

I said about 50/50. It's an estimate. I am personally on the fence of whether or not these arguments are convincing enough to me, and so I place it at around 50/50. I didn't employ a complex mathematical formula if that's what you're asking.

I was just trying to see more clearly what you meant by that. It seems that the 50/50 describes your personal feelings or confidence concerning the arguments, rather than an objective standard. It seeming about 50/50 to you says nothing about whether or not the evidence itself is 50/50, unless our beliefs are mechanistic processes. So, I don't think your critique that "a God who wanted me to believe in him would give me more evidence" is warranted (as it stands currently, at least) in our discussion.

I know very little to nothing about this god. My guesses are that this god is sentient, made the universe, is probably immortal and has quite possibly existed for eternity. I make no further assumptions about this god.

They would not be assumptions, if they come as conclusions of the rational arguments we have been alluding to that you said point "about 50/50" to the existence of a God. So, if you put the cosmological argument into this category, then God is timeless, changeless (at least without the world in existence), beginningless, immaterial, uncaused, personal, necessary. If you want to include the moral argument, then this God is concerned with how we act and seems to be against much of our actions. If you accept other arguments, then we could add other characteristics.

[The Tanager]

3. The Effect of Sin

It isn't a matter of either determinism or preference. Both can exist and both do exist. We have free will in choosing what to eat, yet most of us have a clear preference for food rather than sand. Similarly, we seem to have a clear preference for self-reliance over surrender. Why do you bring up determinism when I say we prefer self-reliance, but you do not bring up determinism when I say we prefer food over sand?

Please explain to me your understanding of the term "attractiveness"? I do not mean visually attractive, rather attractive in a general sense. Why can I say "coca cola is more attractive to the people than rusty water" but I cannot say "self-reliance is more attractive to the people than surrender"?

Why do you think I was saying it was a matter of either determinism or preference? I might be missing your critique there. I agree we have a preference for self-reliance over surrender. But we are discussing why we have that preference.

You are saying this preference is determined by our nature just like our preference for food over sand is determined by our nature.

I don't agree with that comparison. I agree our nature determines our preference for food over sand. But I think our preference for self-reliance is the result of our many free choices. It's much more like an addict's preference for drugs. We aren't naturally inclined to become addicted to drugs, but because of choices we make we may become addicts.

It doesn't change a thing. If one day, everyone on earth picked the exact same lottery numbers, despite it being a free will decision, I will still believe it to be an extraordinary coincidence. Wouldn't you?

Yes, but not in the sense of being the result of chance (like in rolling a dice), but being the result of people exercising their free will to the same end for different reasons.

Of course it does. I can choose to eat something even if I'm not attracted to it. I can eat cardboard if I decided to. That's what free will is.

You just said you were talking about attraction in a general sense. That attraction can be simple curiosity, not wanting to back down from a dare, or any number of things, it's not just about what tastes good.

I disagree with the part in bold so obviously I am not going to force my analogy to use two equally attractive foods! Everyone chooses self-reliance over surrender yet you insist that self-reliance is not more attractive. I am absolutely baffled by your inability to grasp the concept of attraction.

So, how are you using your analogy? The question is whether self-reliance and surrender were equally attractive at creation. Your analogy that assumes they are not (like our attraction to food versus sand) begs the question if you are using it in support of your critique against me. If you are using it just to clarify to me what you think the relationship between self-reliance and surrender is like, then it is unneeded because I understood your view there already. If you are not using it for support or clarification, what are you using it for?

Ultimately, your argument has seemed to have been that a description of how our choices have played out proves that we were determined/prescribed to act in that way by how our natures were hard-wired. A connection you are just stating as being true, but haven't shown why I should believe it is true.

Why did we all begin choosing self-reliance more than surrender if self-reliance was not more attractive? There are logically only two explanations. Either by attraction/preference, or by chance... there is no 3logical third option.

For the person who has never taken drugs but chooses to start, they did not do that because their attraction to drugs made them choose it. They were attracted to taking drugs for some reason(s) (a promise of acceptance from others, a feeling of peace, a way to escape, etc.) and attracted to saying no for other reason(s). They made a choice. The choice to take the drugs changes the picture. The promised attraction of the feeling of acceptance, peace, escape or whatever is now stronger.

I have always agreed that we choose what is attractive to us as opposed to attraction playing no role (chance). But you've seemed to go beyond this and say whatever the strongest attraction is determines our action. This moves to a different question, but you seem to be conflating the two. This new question is what is the cause of our choices. Here there are 3 options. (1) The strongest attraction determines our choice, (2) our free will, influenced by multiple attractions, determines our choice or (3) chance.

I agree with you on the first question, but it seems we disagree on the second.