Do you prefer "free-will suffering"or "robots

[Jagella]

As we all should know, apologists often employ the "free-will" defense against any argument from suffering or evil that serves to cast doubt on the existence of the Christian god. Doubters might maintain that no good god would allow suffering. Since suffering exists, God probably doesn't exist. Apologists often counter telling us that God needs to allow suffering so that we may have free will to do evil as well as good.

Needless to say, there are several objections that might be raised to this apologetic, but I'd like to start out by pointing out that it makes an assumption that may not hold for all people. That assumption is that suffering and evil is universally preferred over our being robots programmed to do only good. Personally, I'd take the robots! My being programmed to do good is fine with me, and giving up my choice to do evil is a small price to pay to attain safety, security, and happiness. Besides, I have no desire to do evil. So my being programmed to do only good would make little difference for me.

Question for Debate: Do you prefer suffering or people being "robots"?

[Tcg]

Maybe seeing that people choose evil and do evil things?

You are telling me an omniscience being had a gap in his knowledge right up to the point when people he created did evil things?

I don’t claim that omniscient person had gap in his knowledge. Also, I believe God is omniscient.

I think the issue here is that if God is omniscient he would not have been surprised that the people he created choose to do evil. He would have known this would be the result before they made this choice. If this were the case, why would it bother him when they did what he always knew they would do?



Tcg

[Bust Nak]

Maybe seeing that people choose evil and do evil things?

You are telling me an omniscience being had a gap in his knowledge right up to the point when people he created did evil things?

I don’t claim that omniscient person had gap in his knowledge. Also, I believe God is omniscient.

That at a glace appears to be a contradiction. Omniscient means no gaps in his knowledge, no gaps in his knowledge means knowing suffering, knowing suffering means experienced suffering, experienced suffering means seeing people choose evil and do evil things. So far so good except the last clause is a temporal event that happened at one point in time, so before that happened, there was a gap in knowledge?

[ttruscott]

I think the issue here is that if God is omniscient he would not have been surprised that the people he created choose to do evil. He would have known this would be the result before they made this choice. If this were the case, why would it bother him when they did what he always knew they would do?

The implications of the definition of omniscience that claims GOD knows everything that there is to know from all eternity past to eternity future created a huge cognitive dissonance with thoughtful Christians who have traditionally solved their disquiet by claiming it is all a mystery.

The problem is that from the Christian pov, GOD is loving, righteous and just with no need for evil in the least. From the pov of this definition of omniscience HE knew who would end in hell before HE created them YET CREATED THEM ANYWAY, which is not loving, righteous nor just as well as unnecessary.

The answer would seem to be found in one short sentence that describes the scope and range of all HE knows without listing particulars like other verses do: Acts 15:18 Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world. Everything that can be known is really all HIS works* and from all eternity is really from the beginning of the the world. The implications of this definition of omniscience is that IF HE did NOT create something HE does not KNOW it, ie, if HE did not create the results of our free will decisions, (they were truly free) then HE did not know those results until we chose them and brought them into reality by that choosing!

*All HIS works is usually taken to refer to all HIS creation, ie that which HE created by a creative decree.

Now I know that orthodox Christians are much too holy to accept what the Bible says over the pagan Greek wisdom that their church has endorsed for 1500 years but I gottah try. Omniscience was wrongly defined by the ancient Greeks and the church Fathers were wrong to accept their untruth into the Christian system just because it made GOD ever so much more Godly! But the implications are a blasphemy and until that is resolved I'll go with Acts 15:18.

[1213]

I think the issue here is that if God is omniscient he would not have been surprised that the people he created choose to do evil…

Does Bible say God was surprised?

…He would have known this would be the result before they made this choice. If this were the case, why would it bother him when they did what he always knew they would do?

Sorry, I don’t see why it should not bother, even if it is known before it happened.

[1213]

…That at a glace appears to be a contradiction. Omniscient means no gaps in his knowledge, no gaps in his knowledge means knowing suffering, knowing suffering means experienced suffering, experienced suffering means seeing people choose evil and do evil things. So far so good except the last clause is a temporal event that happened at one point in time, so before that happened, there was a gap in knowledge?

Unless God knew beforehand what will happen and what it would mean.

[Elijah John]

Only genuinely evil people can be a Christian.

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[Bust Nak]

…That at a glace appears to be a contradiction. Omniscient means no gaps in his knowledge, no gaps in his knowledge means knowing suffering, knowing suffering means experienced suffering, experienced suffering means seeing people choose evil and do evil things. So far so good except the last clause is a temporal event that happened at one point in time, so before that happened, there was a gap in knowledge?

Unless God knew beforehand what will happen and what it would mean.

Doesn't that sink the premise that "to know suffering, one must have experienced it?"

[1213]

…That at a glace appears to be a contradiction. Omniscient means no gaps in his knowledge, no gaps in his knowledge means knowing suffering, knowing suffering means experienced suffering, experienced suffering means seeing people choose evil and do evil things. So far so good except the last clause is a temporal event that happened at one point in time, so before that happened, there was a gap in knowledge?

Unless God knew beforehand what will happen and what it would mean.

Doesn't that sink the premise that "to know suffering, one must have experienced it?"

If one has seen everything happen before anything happened, I think it is possible He has also felt/experienced what it means.