God's Plan For Your Life

[Miles]

.



"God has plans. From the very beginning when He created this world, He had a plan. For day and night, heavens and earth, land and sea, sun and moon, birds and fish, animals and humans, He has always had a plan. And just four verses into His Word, we see that He likes His plan. He calls it good. Indeed, near the end of creation, He calls His plan very good. (Genesis 1).

His plan is good because of the purpose it will serve. It is good because of the hope it will give. It is good because of the lives it will save. But really, it is good simply because of the God who calls it so. Creation had only to be created for it to be called good.

But still, God has plans. He has them for you. He knew the span of your life before you were formed in your mother’s womb. He knows the hairs on your head, the thoughts in your mind, and the hours that you will live on this earth. He would not leave such attention to detail merely to chance. God has plans for you, and they are good.
source




................................


So, why would god plan to have your three-month old baby die of SIDS, or suffocation, or an atrioventricular septal defect, or . . . ?

Why would he plan that you die in an automobile accident at the age of eight?

Why would he plan that you starve for your entire life, eating insects while sitting in a dirt floor hut in the Democratic Republic of Congo?

Why would he plan that your sister never attain an IQ over 55?


If these are god's plans then he must be some kind of ubersadist. But if none of this is the result of his plan, why did he let them occur? Why bother making plans in the first place? Are his plans really that ineffectual, but, in fact, worthless?


OR, are god's plans only for people like Wally Cleaver and the "Beaver," and all the other good folk of Mayfield?



Inquiring minds would like to know.


.

[Miles]

And its only by having free will can we really love.

Prove it. Prove that love can only come from having free will.

When I said "really" love I was refering to real love, which is biblically agapé. Scripturally agapé is the highest form of love and is an intellectual choice (rather than an chemical driven instinct). By defintion then "real" love ("to really love) is by choice and this necessitates free will.

Thus, as defined, a logical inevitability,

.........................................


Having moved the goal posts, show us where the word "agapé," being scriptural, appears in the Bible. AND where the Bible says it's an "intellectual choice."


.

[Purple Knight]

When I said "really" love I was refering to real love, which is biblically agapé. Scripturally agapé is the highest form of love and is an intellectual choice (rather than an chemical driven instinct). By defintion then "real" love ("to really love) is by choice and this necessitates free will.

Yep. I pretty much hit the nail on the head. For some reason you and I think alike.

I think he's talking about the idea of love for another; that if I built a woman from the ground up and programmed her personality to be exactly what I wanted, I wouldn't really love her. And she wouldn't really love me because she could never have chosen not to love me, so it would hardly be genuine love.

And this is exactly the idea I was talking about in the free will thread: The idea of choices that aren't motivated by our base desires. You understand me completely. If this intellectual, agapé love exists, I'm wrong and free will exists.

But I can't find it. I've scrutinised stories of people who are born gay and try not to be, and they don't impress me. Conversely, I don't think it's possible for a man to decide to be gay when he isn't. The modern idea is that not letting someone act out the sexuality they were born with is horrid, because the assumption is that people can't change. However, if this intellectual love exists, they could rather easily. Don't want the stigma of being straight and cis? Being bullied at work and want some legal protections? No problem; just go toward another male instead of a female. But does that happen? I very much doubt it. I find all love to be a product of our base desires. I don't find this agapé love. I find people to be meat robots that just go toward whatever their meat robot brain is set to go toward.

Now, I love my cats. They don't help me reproduce. I can't think of a base desire they satisfy. But they're affectionate and seem very much to love me. However, if someone turned them all into cockroaches, that love would be gone. I wouldn't care if a cockroach was affectionate; I would scream GET IT OFF ME. I would feel horrible that I no longer loved them if I knew they had all their memories and attachment to me, but clearly, even that is not the kind of love we're looking for.

A similar concept is unconditional love. Dimmesdale pointed out that if someone was constantly horrid to you, you probably wouldn't love them as much. I don't find a flaw with that reasoning. If you had unconditional love for someone, such that you'd love them even if they were hateful to you at every opportunity, what about them, what part of them, would you be loving, exactly? Their physical beauty? That seems like the opposite of what we're looking for.

I'm not going to lie, I love my grandma. I'm a good grandson.

She is old and, like many good grannies in her age bracket at least, believes in Jesus and so forth. She doesn't believe in hell though (or has pondered most any of the dogmas making up Christianity -- hers is an exceedingly simple faith), and in general tries to see the best in people. I am tied by affection to her and know I would hate to lose her.

Anyway, I have had recurring disturbing dreams of her telling me that I am a good for nothing and destined for hell. Even though this is completely out of step with her actual character, in my dream I cannot help but be affected. I feel both chastised and resentful of her for telling me this in my dreams. It got me thinking: would my affection in real life be changed if she all of a sudden had this alteration in her views? Well, to some extent, of course. Whereas before I felt nothing but unconditional love from her, to suppose I would be slammed with "you're going to hell no matter what" is a real hard pill to swallow for anyone.

This really cuts into the quality of love for another, whether that love is selfless or not. I do believe in selfless love, and that we need to love no matter what. Even if that means being sentenced to hell by the one you love. No one is perfect in this respect, but that is an ideal which cuts to the heart of what love really means. If love is not at least bent on selflessness, moving in that direction, then it is egocentric, and conditional on a give-and-take reciprocity. This is not to say that reciprocity is bad, it's not. But if that is all love is: an exchange, or bartering, then that does little to honor the true essence of love.

[JehovahsWitness]

...show us where the word "agapé," being scriptural, appears in the Bible.

Source: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g26/kjv/tr/0-1/

“Love [NOUN: agaʹpe] ... is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is, it was not drawn out by any excellency in its objects, Rom. 5:8. It was an exercise of the Divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself, cp. Deut. 7:7, 8 . . . ” - An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, by W. E. Vine, Vol. III, p. 21

“[verb: agapao] is wider, embracing espec. the judgment and the deliberate assent of the will as a matter of principle, duty and propriety.” - James Strong’s “Greek Dictionary of the New Testament”

[1213]

...
So it's good to reject god.
...

No, it is good to have freedom.

But this isn't what you said. You said:

"And that good includes the possibility to reject God."

...

Sorry if I was unclear. I meant to say, the good includes freedom and freedom makes it possible to reject God. It does not mean that everything people choose freely is then automatically also good.

[Miles]

...show us where the word "agapé," being scriptural, appears in the Bible.

Source: https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g26/kjv/tr/0-1/

“Love [NOUN: agaʹpe] ... is not the love of complacency, or affection, that is, it was not drawn out by any excellency in its objects, Rom. 5:8. It was an exercise of the Divine will in deliberate choice, made without assignable cause save that which lies in the nature of God Himself, cp. Deut. 7:7, 8 . . . ” - An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, by W. E. Vine, Vol. III, p. 21

“[verb: agapao] is wider, embracing espec. the judgment and the deliberate assent of the will as a matter of principle, duty and propriety.” - James Strong’s “Greek Dictionary of the New Testament”

But "agapé," has several meanings besides love, such as:

Affection
Good will
Benevolence
Brotherly love
Love feasts
Dear
Charity
Feasts of charity

And note what your Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words has to say about G26.






As for your claim that Agape "is by choice and this necessitates free will," your evidence by W. E. Vine is a real head scratcher because . . .

In his example, Deuteronomy 7:7, the verse says nothing about choosing love, but Jesus choosing people.

"7 Why did the Lord love and choose you? It was not because you are such a large nation. You had the fewest of all people!
8 But the Lord brought you out of Egypt with great power and made you free from slavery. He freed you from the control of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. The Lord did this because he loves you and he wanted to keep the promise he made to your ancestors."

And Vine's citation of Rom. 5:8 is also throw-away because it doesn't imply or say a thing about choice, choosing, or chosen either.


IN ANY CASE, despite what the source for any word(s) in the Bible may be, they demonstrate just as much variety of meaning as do our English words of today, which means they're just as open to subjective conjecture and bias, and just as unreliable.

Here, from etymonline.com

agape (n.)
c. 1600, from Greek agapē "brotherly love, charity," in Ecclesiastical use "the love of God for man and man for God," a late and mostly Christian formation from the verb agapan "greet with affection, receive with friendship; to like, love," which is of unknown origin. Sometimes explained as *aga-pa- "to protect greatly," with intensifying prefix aga-. "The Christian use may have been influenced by Hebr. 'ahaba 'love'" [Beekes].

Agape, in plural, was used by early Christians for their "love feast," a communal meal held in connection with the Lord's Supper. "The loss of their original character and the growth of abuses led to the prohibition of them in church buildings, and in the fourth century to their separation from the Lord's supper and their gradual discontinuance" [Century Dictionary]. In modern use, often in simpler sense of "Christian love" (1856, frequently opposed to eros as "carnal or sensual love").

Notice there's not a thing about "agapē" being the "highest form of love and . . . an intellectual choice" at all. Its a word that obviously evolved to mean a variety of things, which can be used as the publisher saw fit. Sometimes as "love," sometimes as "dear," and sometimes as an indication of "good will" or "charity."



.

[JehovahsWitness]

And which of those are negated by free will?




JW

[Miles]

And which of those are negated by free will?

Not my obligation because you still haven't proven that your statement "only by having free will can we really love" is true by claiming it's a "logical inevitability."

In order to claim it as a logical inevitability you first need to prove free will actually exists. Until then any appeal to it is just so much clam chowder.


.

[JehovahsWitness]

Scripturally agapé is ... an intellectual choice (rather than an chemical driven instinct).

None of the above are negated by free will; indeed most, if not all of them are decision based, ergo they only possible if one has the capacity to make decisons (free will).

You cannot hold a (love)feast without deciding to do so. Are you going to display brotherly love (not love to your literal blood brother, which would be a different word) without identifying and deciding to do so? Is being kind not a decisive action? Rhetorical questions because the answer is obvious.

CONCLUSION: The above illustrates rather than negates my original point.

Whether you believe personally free will exists or not, is irrelevant, your own sources indicate free will as per the standard dictionary definition of the words, is an integral part of the biblical notion of love (agape) which was my point.

JW

[JehovahsWitness]

Scripturally agapé is the highest form of love ....

Notice there's not a thing about "agapē" being the "highest form of love ...

Source: https://www.britannica.com/topic/agape

MATTHEW 22: 37-40


Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

JW

To learn more please go to other posts related to...

LOVE, HATE and ...POLITICAL INVOLVEMENT