Can God Prevent People from Making Mistakes?

[Purple Knight]

Question for debate: Can God prevent people from making mistakes?

Note: I'm using can in the sense of, is this something God is (potentially, because he hasn't promised not to) willing and able to do? In other words, if this is part of the free will issue, and/or God has a moral reason for declining to interfere, the answer is no.

This is going to be a tough question if you believe the Bible is inerrant, because humans are prone to error and if God wanted an inerrant Bible, he would have had to account for that. In other words, to make sure there were no errors, it seems like God would have had to use this ability.

There is a qualitative and fairly clear difference between someone who sits down with an open mind, humility in the sense that he is willing to be proven wrong, and an honest heart, and wishes to complete some task, and someone who chooses not to.

The sub-question is, how much fault does God bear that our lives suck? If he can just cure our imperfections (not our sins, but our imperfections - big difference) why doesn't he do it? If he can guide us toward writing an inerrant Bible, then how about just making it so I don't ever drop a dish and break it? This is not a choice. Nor am I sinning when I screw up and break a dish (I... don't think). I'm not sinning when someone tricks me either, unless I sort of knew and inwardly wanted to go along with it for some reason, so how about preventing me from ever being deceived? How about making the wicked people's brains shrivel up until they're mentally disabled? You trick someone? Your IQ goes down 10 points. You trick someone trying to do good, into doing evil, and you become a vegetable. Let people explain it scientifically for all I care. Drugs already ruin our brains so making it so deception does the same would be possible.

If you believe that the world of man, after the Fall, is a test to see if we can make our own way, what it almost seems like is that God was, if not happy about it, at least willing to accept that we might be able to make our own way, and in a sense, happy for us. He started out willing to flood the world if it got too bad, but then said he'd never do that again. He was willing to wipe out Sodom and Gomorrah. But it almost seems like he changed his mind. It's almost like he wanted to see the result of humans making it on their own, if it was even possible. Not only a fair test, but a magnanimous one, where the tester takes pains to make sure the result that credits him less, actually appears, if it can.

But something changed. God stopped zapping people. This is not the result of attempting to splice a fictional canon onto a reality where this being does not exist - this happens within the canon. By the time Jesus appears and clashes with corrupt pharisees, God has already stopped zapping people. This is a problem because now, without the close supervision, people can take God's word and twist it. They can say morality is whatever they want, use God's name to do it, trick people, and make truth the exclusive domain of the clever: If you can't catch the deceptions, you're just duped, and you don't get access to truth. This is... not only not a magnanimous test, it has ceased to be fair. The world can't be completely evil. Hence the flood. You need to be able to choose good. It might be hard but the option needs to be there, and if everyone is evil, or if you'll just be duped when you try to choose good... you effectively don't have the option.

This is not about whether you'll go to Heaven/Paradise (whichever you believe good people go to) anyway because you tried. This is about the test being a rigged game. If people are just going to deceive us when we're all trying to choose good over evil, the world will fall, but that result was not the only possible one.

[JehovahsWitness]

Question for debate: Can God prevent people from making mistakes?

Note: I'm using can in the sense of, is this something God is (potentially, because he hasn't promised not to) willing and able to do? In other words, if this is part of the free will issue, and/or God has a moral reason for declining to interfere, the answer is no.

As noted , if we use "can" NOT in the sense " has he got the power" but does he permit himself to use his power in this way .... then biblically no, God "cannot " not prevent people from making mistakes. He does not override the free will of his intelligent creatures. What he does do however is provide help and guidance so that those he loves can either avoid a serious error or provide the means for them to recover from their mistakes.

For the most part the God of the bible is depicted as refraining from any direct intervention in individual human choices unless they are in direct contrast to His will and purpose.

So in the case of the humble and willing to take guidance, if they want to never make another mistake ever, they should receive the necessary guidance, right?

No, biblically speaking that is impossible at present. According to scripture, we are all imperfect and that means we will make mistakes(a fact born our by our collective human experience).

[Purple Knight]

Once again, irrelevant. You believe that God can prevent people from making mistakes, but you apparently can't demonstrate that it is true. What you simply believe is of no value to anyone else, so you might as well just keep it to yourself. You're not make any sort of case for this God of yours in this debate.

I want to go along with it because belief systems can then be shown false, or shown to contradict. So can alternatives. We can eliminate all that are shown so.

I would like to never drop and break a dish, ever again. Never spill another cup of coke. Never trip or fall.

Then just stop doing that, I don't think God prevents you doing better.

Yes he does. I am not trying to drop anything. I am not maliciously cackling when I break something. I am always at least trying to be careful.

I believe this "life" is like the virtual reality in the Matrix movie. This is only a short lesson about good and evil. For that I think I think everything is good enough. Those who become righteous, can get back to perfect life with God after this.

That's something I've considered too. If we wake up and this is a dream, does it make any suffering within the dream null and void?

viewtopic.php?p=1036520

It depends on what suffering is. And maybe it's different by the person. The idea that Wolverine learns to ignore pain because he knows he'll regenerate quickly, is different from the way some events can traumatise people.

If you lose a leg, which part is the suffering? The initial pain, or the fact that you then do not have a leg and have to live with that? Even if you say it's the latter, someone might live for 60 years with that and that might change them, so that when they're resurrected, they still bear the weight of that suffering. And I have to wonder if whatever leaves real scars, must itself be real.

No, biblically speaking that is impossible at present. According to scripture, we are all imperfect and that means we will make mistakes(a fact born our by our collective human experience).

So, do you agree with me that it's not a fair test? In that one JW video, which I quite agree with both the applicability of the metaphor and the validity of the principle, the student says he has a better way to solve the equation than the professor, so the professor lets him try. And when the student clearly can't do it, the issue is settled. But the issue is not so much settled if the professor zapped the student on the way to the board and made him retarded.

Dropping the metaphor, what the test might clearly show is that humans, as we are, are incapable of solving the moral equation on our own. But if this is because of physical and mental imperfections, without which we could have solved it, all it ends up testing is how strong of a stupification zap we got.

The biggest single issue is vulnerability to deception. If most people want to be good, but end up tools of a very, very few wicked people because God gave the wicked people the intellect to deceive the fools, and denied the fools the intellect to resist the deception... I mean... yeah... Shenanigans.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to JehovahsWitness in post #21]

But that would be the same if there was no god there doing anything, right?

[TRANSPONDER]

Once again, irrelevant. You believe that God can prevent people from making mistakes, but you apparently can't demonstrate that it is true. What you simply believe is of no value to anyone else, so you might as well just keep it to yourself. You're not make any sort of case for this God of yours in this debate.

I want to go along with it because belief systems can then be shown false, or shown to contradict. So can alternatives. We can eliminate all that are shown so.

I would like to never drop and break a dish, ever again. Never spill another cup of coke. Never trip or fall.

Then just stop doing that, I don't think God prevents you doing better.

Yes he does. I am not trying to drop anything. I am not maliciously cackling when I break something. I am always at least trying to be careful.

I believe this "life" is like the virtual reality in the Matrix movie. This is only a short lesson about good and evil. For that I think I think everything is good enough. Those who become righteous, can get back to perfect life with God after this.

That's something I've considered too. If we wake up and this is a dream, does it make any suffering within the dream null and void?

viewtopic.php?p=1036520

It depends on what suffering is. And maybe it's different by the person. The idea that Wolverine learns to ignore pain because he knows he'll regenerate quickly, is different from the way some events can traumatise people.

If you lose a leg, which part is the suffering? The initial pain, or the fact that you then do not have a leg and have to live with that? Even if you say it's the latter, someone might live for 60 years with that and that might change them, so that when they're resurrected, they still bear the weight of that suffering. And I have to wonder if whatever leaves real scars, must itself be real.

No, biblically speaking that is impossible at present. According to scripture, we are all imperfect and that means we will make mistakes(a fact born our by our collective human experience).

So, do you agree with me that it's not a fair test? In that one JW video, which I quite agree with both the applicability of the metaphor and the validity of the principle, the student says he has a better way to solve the equation than the professor, so the professor lets him try. And when the student clearly can't do it, the issue is settled. But the issue is not so much settled if the professor zapped the student on the way to the board and made him retarded.

Dropping the metaphor, what the test might clearly show is that humans, as we are, are incapable of solving the moral equation on our own. But if this is because of physical and mental imperfections, without which we could have solved it, all it ends up testing is how strong of a stupification zap we got.

The biggest single issue is vulnerability to deception. If most people want to be good, but end up tools of a very, very few wicked people because God gave the wicked people the intellect to deceive the fools, and denied the fools the intellect to resist the deception... I mean... yeah... Shenanigans.

In the analogy, the student reckons he has a better solution to the equation. Ut doesn't work. That doesn't mean there is no better way, but so far the professor's method is best. Rather than zapping, the professor shoul;d commend the effort for trying to do better.

Dropping the metaphor, the moral equation might not be solvable. We have no logical basis for thinking it resolves. It is like saying 'what is the Right kind of art, or what is the right kind of music?'. Of course those don't have the problematic effects that morals and ethics do. We know the ideal, that everyone is happy and treated fairly, but it's like the perfect art and music. It probably doesn't exist, even as an ideal. In a way the imperfections, different ideas and constant striving is what makes it worthwhile, not achieving it. Like the invisible elephant in the invisible room, questioners ask 'wouldn't heaven become boring?'

But yes, there is a huge problem in deception. At best there are huge demographics of people who want persuade others either believing it is for their good or to exploit them. There is a whole industry devoted to cheating people online. Even of we knew the Right without question, many people would see no reason to do it. Nobody can doubt the problem, but I see no reason to think that appealing to religion will make it any less of a problem, rather it will jut give more things to quarrel, divide us and exploit about.

Morals is a problem on its' own terms, not something that resolves as 'We can't do this, we need a Dieu ex machina'.

[Purple Knight]

Dropping the metaphor, the moral equation might not be solvable.

We have no logical basis for thinking it resolves. It is like saying 'what is the Right kind of art, or what is the right kind of music?'.

Well, I think we can at least ask the question. And since an infinite number of potential pieces of art or music exist, so it can't resolve if the large infinity is excluded and specific permissions must be made for a small and defined category, the question must actually be (because it's the only one we can potentially answer): What is the wrong kind of music?

I think we can answer that: Music that hurts people. Anything else is permissible, and you may think it sounds bad, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Now, what is harm? That's a difficult question but I think that can also be answered, and I think it must be by mutual agreement. The truth is, everything hurts everybody, just in most cases very little. So if there are to be universally agreed upon slights, we must sit down and all agree what they are, and then not do those things.

And whose morality is overarching? Nobody's. We've lost the capacity to agree and both sides of the political spectrum want their feelings to override the other guy's facts, while dismissing the other guy's feelings and delighting in drinking his tears because he is evil. That's called a war. A fight is simply what does - and should - happen when we can't agree. If we can agree, then there is no more need for a fight. That gives everyone a vested interest in finding common ground, but if we can't, it is better to have force decide it than to have one side browbeat the other into moral slavery.

But yes, there is a huge problem in deception. At best there are huge demographics of people who want persuade others either believing it is for their good or to exploit them. There is a whole industry devoted to cheating people online. Even of we knew the Right without question, many people would see no reason to do it. Nobody can doubt the problem, but I see no reason to think that appealing to religion will make it any less of a problem, rather it will jut give more things to quarrel, divide us and exploit about.

This is where I'm saying God is not giving a fair test. If we fail at running the world because he gave deceivers the intellect they need to deceive, and failed to provide their marks with the intellect to resist, then that's on him. That does not reflect on us at all. The fact that there are a few bad elements tests the resiliency of a system. Any system can work in a vacuum. A real test does include bad elements. But if they've been given extra abilities so they will always win, and those who would stop them have been denied those abilities, the system is not being tested.

Morals is a problem on its' own terms, not something that resolves as 'We can't do this, we need a Dieu ex machina'.

If someone told us a way to live and it worked, and no more injustice was ever suffered, I would be more or less happy with that.

If I thought there were large and potentially unreasonable impositions, however, I would (as should everyone) question their absolute necessity. You can lock everyone in a box and feed them through a tube, never let them see another person, control it all with a computer, and that solves the issue of injustice. No one ever sees anyone else, no one knows of anyone else, so how would they hurt them?

We can solve the issue. It's solvable. The question is, can we do it without horrible impositions? Can people be both reasonably free, and entirely free of injustice?

[brunumb]

Once again, irrelevant. You believe that God can prevent people from making mistakes, but you apparently can't demonstrate that it is true. What you simply believe is of no value to anyone else, so you might as well just keep it to yourself. You're not make any sort of case for this God of yours in this debate.

I want to go along with it because belief systems can then be shown false, or shown to contradict. So can alternatives. We can eliminate all that are shown so.

I understand what you are saying. Do you think that it is enough for someone to present what they believe as the basis of their argument rather than why they believe it? If someone says "I see no good reason to believe what you are saying", we already know that, otherwise they would not have that belief. They are simply pulling down the shutters on any debate. The debate hinges on the why rather than on the what.

[TRANSPONDER]

Dropping the metaphor, the moral equation might not be solvable.

We have no logical basis for thinking it resolves. It is like saying 'what is the Right kind of art, or what is the right kind of music?'.

Well, I think we can at least ask the question. And since an infinite number of potential pieces of art or music exist, so it can't resolve if the large infinity is excluded and specific permissions must be made for a small and defined category, the question must actually be (because it's the only one we can potentially answer): What is the wrong kind of music?

I think we can answer that: Music that hurts people. Anything else is permissible, and you may think it sounds bad, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Now, what is harm? That's a difficult question but I think that can also be answered, and I think it must be by mutual agreement. The truth is, everything hurts everybody, just in most cases very little. So if there are to be universally agreed upon slights, we must sit down and all agree what they are, and then not do those things.

And whose morality is overarching? Nobody's. We've lost the capacity to agree and both sides of the political spectrum want their feelings to override the other guy's facts, while dismissing the other guy's feelings and delighting in drinking his tears because he is evil. That's called a war. A fight is simply what does - and should - happen when we can't agree. If we can agree, then there is no more need for a fight. That gives everyone a vested interest in finding common ground, but if we can't, it is better to have force decide it than to have one side browbeat the other into moral slavery.

But yes, there is a huge problem in deception. At best there are huge demographics of people who want persuade others either believing it is for their good or to exploit them. There is a whole industry devoted to cheating people online. Even of we knew the Right without question, many people would see no reason to do it. Nobody can doubt the problem, but I see no reason to think that appealing to religion will make it any less of a problem, rather it will jut give more things to quarrel, divide us and exploit about.

This is where I'm saying God is not giving a fair test. If we fail at running the world because he gave deceivers the intellect they need to deceive, and failed to provide their marks with the intellect to resist, then that's on him. That does not reflect on us at all. The fact that there are a few bad elements tests the resiliency of a system. Any system can work in a vacuum. A real test does include bad elements. But if they've been given extra abilities so they will always win, and those who would stop them have been denied those abilities, the system is not being tested.

Morals is a problem on its' own terms, not something that resolves as 'We can't do this, we need a Dieu ex machina'.

If someone told us a way to live and it worked, and no more injustice was ever suffered, I would be more or less happy with that.

If I thought there were large and potentially unreasonable impositions, however, I would (as should everyone) question their absolute necessity. You can lock everyone in a box and feed them through a tube, never let them see another person, control it all with a computer, and that solves the issue of injustice. No one ever sees anyone else, no one knows of anyone else, so how would they hurt them?

We can solve the issue. It's solvable. The question is, can we do it without horrible impositions? Can people be both reasonably free, and entirely free of injustice?

What music hurts us? It's very much personal. Sometimes it's being challenged.



Morality can be challenged profitably and insisting it's set on stone is where the harm is. This is about the philosophy of morality and you are right that trying to drag a god that supposedly arranged this mess gets us nowhere and is best left out of it.

The concept and mechanism of a free but just morality is there, but people have to want it. We may have to accept that humans are self -centred and we may never get altruism, and will just have to make the best of it. But the best of it without war, dictatorship and poverty, is by no means too bad. And only those trying to puke over this big win of a life in hopes to makes us despair so as to sell is hopes of a better life after death in exchange for selling our souls to them now, are part of the problem, not the solution.

[Purple Knight]

Once again, irrelevant. You believe that God can prevent people from making mistakes, but you apparently can't demonstrate that it is true. What you simply believe is of no value to anyone else, so you might as well just keep it to yourself. You're not make any sort of case for this God of yours in this debate.

I want to go along with it because belief systems can then be shown false, or shown to contradict. So can alternatives. We can eliminate all that are shown so.

I understand what you are saying. Do you think that it is enough for someone to present what they believe as the basis of their argument rather than why they believe it? If someone says "I see no good reason to believe what you are saying", we already know that, otherwise they would not have that belief. They are simply pulling down the shutters on any debate. The debate hinges on the why rather than on the what.

I think it's valid, especially where morality is concerned. The only way to deduce anything about morality is to let people posit systems and go along with them until we find something that's unfeasible or a contradiction.

With religion, I would rather get one of these knockdowns. Their beliefs might all be true... until we find something that doesn't fit.

I think it's a pretty sturdy case against the reason for allowing us to inflict suffering on one another being a test to see if humanity can pull through without the help of a god.

Some nebulous god exists and created the universe? Well yeah maybe. It's not like there's a way to know.

But when people get into specifics about why God does stuff and what it wants, I feel like we can then at least eliminate some possibilities.

[TRANSPONDER]

I agree. The arguments like cosmic origins, Fine tuning and complexity only go so far. and the specifics in religion on count if the religion is true. Otherwise at best we have one question - whether or not the 'Nature' that did everything is conscious/thinking or not.

Religions are done before we start because nobody can agree which religion or even denomination. You'd think that would settle the matter but there are excuses about 'Hiddenness' and Free Will, and the assumption is that of course all the others have it wrong.

And morality is like Cosmic origins, Life and consciousness. It might be 'given' by a god, or it might not, and like religion, that it seems basic to all cultures, but different in the details, suggests an instinct rather than a Divine Command.