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]

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

I'm shifting the argument to God either rejects us for the inability to choose belief or the lack of knowledge on how to choose belief. This is like God throwing a group of children into a swimming pool. Those who either cannot or do not know how to swim will drown. So who is to blame? Us for not knowing how to swim? Or God for throwing us in the pool?

Another example of honing one's critique/position, not shifting the goalposts. So now I must deal with the honed critique.

Please answer the question...

Suppose you wanted to make the claim that humans cannot fly. How would you go about proving that?

You would talk about the physics of flying and why human bodies are therefore incapable of flying.

I'm asking you how to choose what to believe in and your answer is "by picking one of the options to believe in". That's the very thing I'm asking you how to do! Choosing something to believe and picking something to believe is the same thing! This is like asking someone how to swim and you answering "well first you go into the water, and then you swim". This is clearly not helpful instructions at all. So I'll ask again: how does one choose a belief?

No, answering 'how do you swim?' by 'you swim' is not the same as answering 'how do you choose?' by 'you pick one belief out of various available options.' The latter tries to help you understand what 'choice' means without using the word (or a variant of it). Defining choice as "to have a choice" tells us nothing new. But saying there are various available options that we pick from tells us something more.

But perhaps you were asking something more like this: we have a will and we see the options and we think "A, B, C and D are all viable options" and then we think about the various reasons we may want to pick one over the other (rationality, utility, aesthetics, etc.) and we think "I will believe B instead of A, C or D because of the mix of reasons X, Y and Z."

It's similar to choosing what to eat. You have many options of food you could eat. You have some ruled out because of your taste buds, geographical location, economic situation, etc., but you still have plenty of options to choose from that you are attracted to for different reasons. You could choose A, B, C or D. You exercise your will, seeing the viable options, think about why you may want to pick one over the other and then think "I will eat B instead of A, C or D."

We also breathe while unconscious. Yet while conscious, we can choose to not breathe. Breathing is still in our control. The fact that someone can do something while unconscious does not prove that we do not have control over it. So I'll ask again, how does science know heartbeats are out of our control?

That's a good point. In my mind I was working against the idea that we have complete control over our heartbeat, but I didn't make that clear at all.

How is this different from me observing that I cannot choose my belief?

Because you are observing a feeling like you cannot choose your belief, but there is no accompanying data or valid reasoning that you actually do not choose your belief.

With heartbeats, scientists could observe people having the feeling like they can't control their heartbeats, but they are more interested in the accompanying data through monitors that people actually do not start and stop their heartbeats just by will. We don't have that with beliefs.

How is this any different from me not having a choice to believe in God? This is a massive double standard. You don't believe there are good reasons to believe in fairies and I do not believe there is good reason to believe in the Christian God. But my belief is a choice and yours isn't? How do you justify this?

It's not just that I don't believe there are reasons to believe in fairies that go beyond unverifiable personal experience or fideism, it's that no one does. That is not the case with belief in God or even more narrowly the Christian God.

So, I still don't see how the only evidence you have for your argument (a request for me to choose to believe in fairies) is a clear indication that no belief involves a free choice. But that must be true for your claim that the Christian God is illogical or unloving to allow you to stay eternally separated from Him to go through.

fideism
'f??d??z(?)m/Submit
noun
the doctrine that knowledge depends on faith or revelation.

How is belief in the Christian God not confined to fideism?

Where are you getting your definitions from? This one is incomplete at best. Fideism usually refers to an exclusive reliance upon blind faith or faith defined as an antonym of reason (which arose quite recently in popularity because of rationalism, but is not the traditional Christian use of it). Fideists see reason as something to be disparaged. If nothing else, this is what I mean by the term for the purposes of our discussion and what you need to respond against.

There are fideistic Christians, but that is not the bulk of Christian history and not the Christian God I have been speaking of.

This was a rebuttal to your claim that "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". I then demonstrated that the same philosophical arguments for god can be made for fairies (see post 146)

- using the cosmological argument, I can conclude that fairies are the first cause
- using the teleological argument, I can conclude that fairies designed the complex world
- using the ontological argument, I can conclude that fairies are the greatest beings in the universe
- using the moral argument, I can conclude that morality comes from fairies

I'm going to need to see you present one of these to see how you conclude that fairies exist, because I think you are misunderstanding those arguments. It's not just a matter of throwing a name in there or the whole god-of-the-gaps nonsense. Fairies are specific types of things and they aren't the things these arguments argue towards. The cosmological argument is used to argue for a timeless, changeless, beginningless, immaterial, uncaused, personal, necessary being. Fairies don't fit that description unless you are just using a term that has no connection to what it usually means, which would be quite confusing. Fairies are not believed to have designed the world, but are creatures within the world, aren't they? They aren't described as that than which a greater cannot be thought. They aren't touted as the standards for one's morality.

[The Tanager]

2. Radical claims require radical evidence

If you can justify that it is the best explanation, then yes...

So, am I right that you are saying you don't think God has to necessarily appear to you in order for you to have enough reason to believe in God's existence? God being the best explanation of the evidence is enough reason to believe?

It needs to be good reason for that person. People are different. It takes less to convince some than others. If God wanted a very skeptical person to believe, he will have to provide a lot of evidence to that person. Maybe there are good reasons to believe in God, but I don't know of any. So if God does not want to appear to me personally, then at least he will have to lead me to the good evidence for his existence. If he does not do this, then he must not be so concerned about whether I believe in him.

If you don't have an personal experience of God, yes, lead you to the evidence, but not make you believe.

Now, you already believe there is good enough reason to believe in the existence of some kind of God, right? Or do we need to have that discussion first?

[The Tanager]

3. The Effect of Sin

So none of what we choose is based on nature? Humans eating meat and vegetables is not in our nature, we just all happen to make the choice to eat meat and vegetables rather than sand and dry leaves?

Did I say that? No, I did not. I've said over and over that it is based on but not determined to be one specific way by our nature. Our nature limits the kinds of choices we can make. I have never said (and keep correcting you) that I'm not arguing for complete unlimited freedom.

I said the difference is that the three options you gave, we would agree, are mechanistic processes. Your critiques rely on our will being mechanistic. You must either prove that our will is mechanistic or actually show how Christianity is incoherent even if our will is free. Can you do either of those?

Now please explain how the matter of choosing self-reliance over surrender is not the exact same thing? Yes, we have free will. But the fact that all of us end up preferring self-reliance over surrender tells us it is in our default nature (as defined in post 148) to choose self-reliance over surrender just as it is in our nature to choose meat and vegetables over sand and dry leaves. Self-reliance is more attractive to our default nature just as meat and vegetables are more attractive to us. Either this, or it is a massive coincidence that all of us just happened to choose self-reliance.

Show me why your analogy is apt. Why not say the choice between choosing self-reliance or surrender is like choosing between meat OR vegetables? We are attracted to both meat and vegetables, generally speaking at least. And I'm saying we are attracted to both self-reliance and surrender, at least at first.

It seems to me that you are smuggling determinism in here by saying, yeah but if we are attracted to meat and vegetables equally, we will choose them equally. Yes, if our attractions determine our choices. But this means we don't have free will.

So us having free will causes us to choose self-reliance over surrender? Don't you mean it allows us to choose self-reliance over surrender? If it caused us to choose self-reliance, then we would not really have a choice.

Saying there is a causal connection between free will and us ending up all choosing self-reliance over surrender could mean different things. You took it as our free will determines us choosing self-reliance. I meant it as free will is the explanation for why the history of human choices goes against what probability says would happen if this choice was mechanistic.

I'd say the same thing with your ice cream example. Both flavors are attractive in different ways (and maybe even for opposite reasons for some people). Free will is the explanation for why the choice of flavor A went against what probability says would happen if the choice was mechanistic. Flavor A's reason for success is as varied as the people who choose it. Some want to give their taste buds the greatest joy. Some want to try something different. Some want to deprive themselves of joy, perhaps. Some want to follow the crowd. Some want just to spite someone else. I'm sure there could be other possible reasons.

Now, yes, it is a coincidence in the sense that the result was not because of one connected direct cause, if that is what you meant by coincidence. I was taking coincidence to mean something more like an occurrence by mere chance.

[The Tanager]

4. An analysis of one analogy of the Christian solution

I disagree. Beings have one nature as a whole. We may have several aspects to our nature, but it is still one nature.

You started this thread as a critique of the coherence of Christianity. You assumed what you thought it stated was true and then made the critique that, given that, Christianity is inconsistent or incoherent. Christianity teaches that Jesus has two natures. You can either (1) show that given Christian belief, it leads to an incoherence, which means you can't just say you disagree with what it states and expect that to be taken as a rational case or (2) prove that what it says is not true, which means you are taking the burden upon yourself to prove that beings can only have one nature. Which path are you taking?

There are literally no examples of entities with more than one nature so your assumption that God does is unjustified special pleading.

No, it's the assumption you have made by the kind of critique you brought upon Christianity. I didn't start this thread with claims assuming certain truths within Christianity, you did.

Instead of asking me to just reformulate everything, please point out which parts exactly in my argument is not accurate.

Okay. Your first premise seems incomplete (and may be misleading) because Jesus is one Person of the Triune God. Your second premise overlooks the nuance that I said we surrender a nature to a greater nature. Your third and fourth premises also need to take account of natures, not beings. And the conclusion does not seem to follow from these reformulated premises.

Umm... yes it doesn... but anyway.

No, this is vital to the discussion. If your definition of omnipotence is "having every ability" you need to back that up. That is not how it is used in the philosophical world. No serious philosopher has faulted a being for not being omnipotent because it can't urinate. Urination requires a body or it would be something else. God doesn't have a body, so by definition, He doesn't have the ability of urination. This doesn't keep Him from omnipotence.

Luke 1:36-37

36 “And look, your relative Elizabeth has also become pregnant with a son in her old age—although she was called barren, she is now in her sixth month! 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.�

Ergo, successfully helping us surrender without first becoming Jesus is possible with God.

By this logic, making a round square is also possible with God. But Descartes and those he influenced were pretty much the only Christians who defined and used omnipotence in this way. Everyone else have said omnipotence does not include doing things that are logical contradictions.

If you want to argue against a Cartesian, you'll have to look elsewhere. If you want to critique my view, critique my view or show how the Cartesian view is the only option for a Christian. My view does not contradict Luke 1:37 because salvation is not impossible for God. Salvation by illogical means is. A God not having the ability to surrender in His divine nature surrendering is illogical.

By what definition exactly?

The definition I've given it, since you are critiquing the coherence of the analogy of the Christian solution I hold to. That is the whole framework of this section, which is the discussion you took on by starting this thread.

A man who cannot swim can help someone else swim. Why can't God who cannot surrender successfully help us surrender?

How can that person help someone else swim?

(1) Teaching them the strokes to use.
(2) Physically helping them to make the strokes (through holding them in the water, moving their arms, etc.)

In order to do (2) one must have the physical abilities required. They must have arms, for instance. If you don't have arms, you may be able to do (1), but not (2). Do you agree with this?

Let me rephrase. Someone can get someone else to successfully perform something without doing the same thing themselves. I can help my daughter successfully swim by holding her up without me swimming.

Yes, but she still has to accomplish something on her end. If she fails her part, you have not helped her successfully. This describes God giving us the law in our natures about surrendering. Without surrendering, God tried to help us perform the surrendering on our own. We failed. Now we need option (2).

Is this what God does? Does God go inside us and change our desires?

Yes. But not in the sense of just doing it for us, because that would be determinism. In the sense of us doing it together. It's like a three-legged race, not God running the race for us or just coaching us on how to run the race.

Yes God is so much more, so why is God so much more restricted than the psychiatrist?

He's not more-than-a-psychiatrist. He's something totally different than a psychiatrist. They do completely different things. There are more options open to a quarterback once the ball is in play (throw, handoff, run, even kick) then there is a midfielder in soccer (kick the ball, head it), but this doesn't say anything about which is greater. It's apples to oranges. And they are much more alike than a psychiatrist's goal and God's goal.

A psychiatrist's goal (in our example) is to help the addict quit. There are many ways this can be accomplished because of what the goal is. It will be limited, however, in some cases as to what will work for an individual.

God's goal (in our analysis) is to save humankind. And to do so without negating their free will. What do the options of a psychiatrist for a different goal have to do with this? The goals are different things. You can use the psychiatrist as an analogy to get a specific point across, but the way you are using it is to compare two different goals that have no logical connection between them.

Again, I am asking you how he does this? I am asking how he helps us surrender. Telling me "well he does it by helping us to actually surrender" does not answer my question. You have a habit of explaining things through tautologies, I've noticed. So without repeating that he helps us surrender, can you please explain to me how exactly he helps us to surrender?...

Give me one example

Perhaps I was misunderstanding you here. There is God helping us return to a surrendering relationship with Him and there is God helping us surrender in a specific situation. I gave an example (not a tautology) of the latter, and you know this because you then quote it in the very next line of your latest response, but maybe you mean more of the former?

Seems arbitrary, doesn't it? That's my point. I see no reason why just surrendering isn't enough. Why do we need to surrender in a human way? Why can't we just surrender in a generic manner? If we absolutely need to surrender in a human way, then why don't I also need to surrender in a Justin way?

But just because yours is arbitrary, it doesn't mean every other one is. Each distinction must be gauged on its own merit. I make the distinction at humans because humans are a specific kind of creature. We have bodies, rationality, a will, personality, etc. Other creatures are different kinds of things. Rocks don't have personality or a will or rationality. So their surrendering to God would not include those things. Animals are creatures whose actions are based off instinct in a way humans aren't. Our kind of surrender is different than theirs in categorical kinds of ways. Your surrender looks different than mine, not by category, but in specific details within those same categories.

[The Tanager]

5. On the Trinity

This is bleeding into the first part of section 4, but maybe questions will come back to here out of that.

[Justin108]

I'm shifting the argument to God either rejects us for the inability to choose belief or the lack of knowledge on how to choose belief. This is like God throwing a group of children into a swimming pool. Those who either cannot or do not know how to swim will drown. So who is to blame? Us for not knowing how to swim? Or God for throwing us in the pool?

Another example of honing one's critique/position, not shifting the goalposts. So now I must deal with the honed critique.

Ok we're both "honing our arguments". Now can you address what I said? 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?

Please answer the question...

Suppose you wanted to make the claim that humans cannot fly. How would you go about proving that?

You would talk about the physics of flying and why human bodies are therefore incapable of flying.

And if someone made the claim that "using our spiritual power, we might be able to fly". Physics would be out the window. So how would someone prove that humans cannot fly?

I'm asking you how to choose what to believe in and your answer is "by picking one of the options to believe in". That's the very thing I'm asking you how to do! Choosing something to believe and picking something to believe is the same thing! This is like asking someone how to swim and you answering "well first you go into the water, and then you swim". This is clearly not helpful instructions at all. So I'll ask again: how does one choose a belief?

No, answering 'how do you swim?' by 'you swim' is not the same as answering 'how do you choose?' by 'you pick one belief out of various available options'

choose
tʃu�z/
verb
pick out (someone or something) as being the best or most appropriate of two or more alternatives.

Your instructions on how to choose is basically just telling me what "choose" means.

I cannot (or do not know how to) pick one belief. My brain does this automatically. My brain automatically picks the most believable option. I do not have control of this process. Ergo, my belief is not a choice. If you insist that belief is a choice, please explain to me how one "picks" a belief as I cannot do so voluntarily. My brain picks beliefs automatically.

The latter tries to help you understand what 'choice' means without using the word (or a variant of it)

"Pick" is a variant of the word "choice". If I asked you to pick what you want for lunch and if I asked you to choose what you want for lunch, I am asking the exact same thing. If you believe there is a difference between the word "pick" and "choose", please explain the difference to me.

Defining choice as "to have a choice" tells us nothing new. But saying there are various available options that we pick from tells us something more.

Saying " there are various available options that we pick from" is exactly the same as saying "there are various available options that we choose from". I know there are various options. My point is I cannot choose (or pick) what to believe in. My mind does that automatically. If you insist that I can, then please explain how.

It's similar to choosing what to eat. You have many options of food you could eat. You have some ruled out because of your taste buds, geographical location, economic situation, etc., but you still have plenty of options to choose from that you are attracted to for different reasons. You could choose A, B, C or D. You exercise your will, seeing the viable options, think about why you may want to pick one over the other and then think "I will eat B instead of A, C or D."

It is not the same as choosing what to eat. I can choose to eat anything I want. I can choose to eat cardboard. I wouldn't have good reason to choose cardboard but I still can. This is not true for belief. If I do not have good reason to believe something, then I cannot choose to believe it.

You have no good reason to eat cardboard, but that does not remove cardboard as a possible choice. However, you do not have good reason to believe in fairies and because of that you cannot believe in fairies. If belief was a choice, then you would be able to believe something even if you did not have good reason to.

How is this different from me observing that I cannot choose my belief?

With heartbeats, scientists could observe people having the feeling like they can't control their heartbeats, but they are more interested in the accompanying data through monitors that people actually do not start and stop their heartbeats just by will.

Just because they do not start or stop their heartbeats does not mean they cannot.

We don't have that with beliefs.

Yes we do. I have observed that I do not choose my beliefs, just as scientists have observed that people do not stop and start their heartbeats. So again I ask, what's the difference?

How is this any different from me not having a choice to believe in God? This is a massive double standard. You don't believe there are good reasons to believe in fairies and I do not believe there is good reason to believe in the Christian God. But my belief is a choice and yours isn't? How do you justify this?

It's not just that I don't believe there are reasons to believe in fairies that go beyond unverifiable personal experience or fideism, it's that no one does.

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

That is not the case with belief in God or even more narrowly the Christian God.

Give me one reason to believe in the Christian God (not just a generic god) that does not rely on fideism or unverifiable personal experience.

So, I still don't see how the only evidence you have for your argument (a request for me to choose to believe in fairies) is a clear indication that no belief involves a free choice.

It is simple. You cannot choose to believe in something you feel is unbelievable. 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.

This was a rebuttal to your claim that "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". I then demonstrated that the same philosophical arguments for god can be made for fairies (see post 146)

- using the cosmological argument, I can conclude that fairies are the first cause
- using the teleological argument, I can conclude that fairies designed the complex world
- using the ontological argument, I can conclude that fairies are the greatest beings in the universe
- using the moral argument, I can conclude that morality comes from fairies

I'm going to need to see you present one of these to see how you conclude that fairies exist, because I think you are misunderstanding those arguments. It's not just a matter of throwing a name in there or the whole god-of-the-gaps nonsense. Fairies are specific types of things and they aren't the things these arguments argue towards. The cosmological argument is used to argue for a timeless, changeless, beginningless, immaterial, uncaused, personal, necessary being. Fairies don't fit that description[/quote]
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

Fairies are not believed to have designed the world, but are creatures within the world, aren't they? They aren't described as that than which a greater cannot be thought. They aren't touted as the standards for one's morality.

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

[Justin108]

It needs to be good reason for that person. People are different. It takes less to convince some than others. If God wanted a very skeptical person to believe, he will have to provide a lot of evidence to that person. Maybe there are good reasons to believe in God, but I don't know of any. So if God does not want to appear to me personally, then at least he will have to lead me to the good evidence for his existence. If he does not do this, then he must not be so concerned about whether I believe in him.

If you don't have an personal experience of God, yes, lead you to the evidence, but not make you believe.

Now, you already believe there is good enough reason to believe in the existence of some kind of God, right?

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.

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.

[Justin108]

So none of what we choose is based on nature? Humans eating meat and vegetables is not in our nature, we just all happen to make the choice to eat meat and vegetables rather than sand and dry leaves?

Did I say that? No, I did not. I've said over and over that it is based on but not determined to be one specific way by our nature. Our nature limits the kinds of choices we can make. I have never said (and keep correcting you) that I'm not arguing for complete unlimited freedom.

I said the difference is that the three options you gave, we would agree, are mechanistic processes.

Which is why I replaced those with non-mechanistic processes such as our choice of what we eat.

Your critiques rely on our will being mechanistic. You must either prove that our will is mechanistic or actually show how Christianity is incoherent even if our will is free. Can you do either of those?

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?

Now please explain how the matter of choosing self-reliance over surrender is not the exact same thing? Yes, we have free will. But the fact that all of us end up preferring self-reliance over surrender tells us it is in our default nature (as defined in post 148) to choose self-reliance over surrender just as it is in our nature to choose meat and vegetables over sand and dry leaves. Self-reliance is more attractive to our default nature just as meat and vegetables are more attractive to us. Either this, or it is a massive coincidence that all of us just happened to choose self-reliance.

Show me why your analogy is apt.

Point out the flaws.

Why not say the choice between choosing self-reliance or surrender is like choosing between meat OR vegetables?

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.

We are attracted to both meat and vegetables

Correct. Which is why some choose meat and others choose vegetables.

And I'm saying we are attracted to both self-reliance and surrender, at least at first.

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

It seems to me that you are smuggling determinism in here

No. I am not claiming determinism. I am not saying it is impossible to choose surrender. I am saying that self-reliance is just so much more attractive than surrender and the evidence is the fact that everyone ends up choosing self-reliance. Back to my ice-cream analogy.

Suppose an ice-cream company brought out two new flavors of ice-cream. Literally everyone chose flavor A over flavor B. They all had a taste of both, but everyone kept coming back for flavor A. Remember, these people also have free will. How would you explain flavor A's success?
1. Flavor A is more attractive
2. Coincidence
3. Other (please specify)

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?

I'd say the same thing with your ice cream example. Both flavors are attractive in different ways (and maybe even for opposite reasons for some people). Free will is the explanation for why the choice of flavor A went against what probability says would happen if the choice was mechanistic.

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.

Some want to give their taste buds the greatest joy.

That's my whole point! Flavor-A tastes better. It "gives taste buds the greatest joy" as you put it. It is more attractive.

Some want to try something different.

Which is why everyone tried B as well. However, after trying B, they kept going back to A. Why? Most likely because A tasted better.

Some want to deprive themselves of joy, perhaps.

Ok this is just getting ridiculous... who buys ice-cream to deprive themselves of joy? You are reaching here. You would rather believe there are some masochists buying ice-cream than to just believe that A is successful because A tastes better?

Some want to follow the crowd.

And some want to be different. Let's apply this reason to self-reliance vs. surrender. Are you suggesting that in the history of mankind, no one ever wanted to be different enough to choose surrender over self-reliance?

Some want to give their taste buds the greatest joy. Some want to try something different. Some want to deprive themselves of joy, perhaps. Some want to follow the crowd. Some want just to spite someone else. I'm sure there could be other possible reasons.

Can you honestly say that all of these reasons are more likely than the explanation that flavor-A just tastes better? I get that these are all possible, but which is more likely?

If you worked for this ice-cream company and had to choose to release only one of these flavors, would you release flavor-A? Or would you think "it doesn't matter. Both flavors are equally attractive"? Can you honestly tell me that despite the performance of flavor-A that both flavors are probably equally attractive?

Now, yes, it is a coincidence in the sense that the result was not because of one connected direct cause, if that is what you meant by coincidence. I was taking coincidence to mean something more like an occurrence by mere chance.

No I was talking about mere chance. What are the chances that 100% of all people chose self-reliance over surrender?

The only possible explanations are
a) Self-reliance is more attractive
b) Massive coincidence

Free will does not explain why 100% chose self-reliance. It explains why it is possible for everyone to choose self-reliance, but it does not explain why it happened. Coincidences are possible. I'm not saying otherwise. It is possible for this to have happened. I just want you to acknowledge what a massive coincidence it would have to be for 100% of all people to choose self-reliance over surrender.

[Justin108]

Christianity teaches that Jesus has two natures.

Do you have scripture to support this claim?

or (2) prove that what it says is not true

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.

which means you are taking the burden upon yourself to prove that beings can only have one nature.

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.

There are literally no examples of entities with more than one nature so your assumption that God does is unjustified special pleading.

No, it's the assumption you have made by the kind of critique you brought upon Christianity. I didn't start this thread with claims assuming certain truths within Christianity, you did.

All your rebuttals assume truths about Christianity. One such assumption is that God needed to help people surrender by first gaining the ability to surrender (which he lacked) by becoming human, thereby getting a second nature which he would then use to surrender to his first nature. None of this is supported by any scripture.

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.

No serious philosopher has faulted a being for not being omnipotent because it can't urinate.

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.

Urination requires a body

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".

God doesn't have a body, so by definition, He doesn't have the ability of urination.

By what definition? Oh we get to define things ad hoc now?

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.

Luke 1:36-37

36 “And look, your relative Elizabeth has also become pregnant with a son in her old age—although she was called barren, she is now in her sixth month! 37 For nothing will be impossible with God.�

Ergo, successfully helping us surrender without first becoming Jesus is possible with God.

By this logic, making a round square is also possible with God.

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?

By what definition exactly?

The definition I've given it

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

A man who cannot swim can help someone else swim. Why can't God who cannot surrender successfully help us surrender?

How can that person help someone else swim?

(1) Teaching them the strokes to use.
(2) Physically helping them to make the strokes (through holding them in the water, moving their arms, etc.)

In order to do (2) one must have the physical abilities required. They must have arms, for instance. If you don't have arms, you may be able to do (1), but not (2). Do you agree with this?

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.

Let me rephrase. Someone can get someone else to successfully perform something without doing the same thing themselves. I can help my daughter successfully swim by holding her up without me swimming.

Yes, but she still has to accomplish something on her end. If she fails her part, you have not helped her successfully.

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

This describes God giving us the law in our natures about surrendering. Without surrendering, God tried to help us perform the surrendering on our own. We failed.

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.

Can God successfully help us surrender without needing to become human first?

Is this what God does? Does God go inside us and change our desires?

Yes. But not in the sense of just doing it for us, because that would be determinism. In the sense of us doing it together. It's like a three-legged race, not God running the race for us or just coaching us on how to run the race.

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?

Again, I am asking you how he does this? I am asking how he helps us surrender. Telling me "well he does it by helping us to actually surrender" does not answer my question. You have a habit of explaining things through tautologies, I've noticed. So without repeating that he helps us surrender, can you please explain to me how exactly he helps us to surrender?...

Give me one example

Perhaps I was misunderstanding you here. There is God helping us return to a surrendering relationship with Him and there is God helping us surrender in a specific situation. I gave an example (not a tautology) of the latter

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.

If the surrender is to feed the homeless drunk and the person wants to walk on by, God brings to the human's mind what they should do and provides the courage to get over themself and actually love the person and is with the human every step of the way.

God can bring to the human's mind what they should do and provides the courage to get over themself and actually love the person and is with the human every step of the way without first needing to become Jesus. Why did God need to become Jesus first in order to bring to the human's mind that they should help the homeless person? Why is step A (becoming Jesus) necessary to reach step B (bringing to our mind the courage to help people)?

[The Tanager]

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

Ok we're both "honing our arguments". Now can you address what I said?

I did throughout the last post and will continue to.

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. You have not established that we have this inability or lack the knowledge. And your claim that God is wrong for damning you rests on this being true. Your support seems to be down to saying it's up to me to prove the opposite because you think you shouldn't be expected to prove a negative.

I think your wording is fooling you. In both our views I think a choice is being made. The question is whether the choice is impacted by free will (as I believe) or if it is a mechanistic process (as you claim). 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. You positively believe that a mechanistic process accounts for which people make which choice. And you are using this as a premise in a larger argument. That's not proving a negative like "I can't fly."

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.

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, that they are in different categories of investigation.

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

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

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.