Determinism and Pharoah

[Wootah]

The background is that pharoah gets his heart hardened from time to time during the plagues/miracles in exodus.

The issue is about free will and determinism.

I actually dont see an issue with God forcing a bad person to do something. Is there any example of God forcing a good person to do something?

[Wootah]

[Replying to Wootah]

I never get why people jump to determinism and free will violations here while completely ignoring human nature.

Look at a child playing with toys. If another child comes and tries to take one, even one receiving little to no attention, the first child’s natural tendency is to resist, and pull that toy back with great emotion.

In other words, the second child’s action of taking the toy will cause the first child’s heart to harden.

So too with God and Pharoah.

God knows this and predicts this. It is not at all a violation of free will but a rational awareness of the impact of our actions on others.

You could say that our experiences in life can harden our hearts. I just want to explore the usual argument against God denying free will in this thread.

And when you do explore it, from the angle I am thinking of, bad people get denied their free will all the time - it's called prison.

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 28 by rikuoamero]

Hmmm... what an interesting question.
Perhaps we've got it all wrong.

Maybe God used all, or almost all of his power creating the universe.
What if...

So many "what ifs..."
What if timeless God re-wrote history?
Would it violate Adam'f freewill? No, he'd love it.
Unless... Adam has the same irrationality as Satan...
unless...

Sure - explore that in a new thread perhaps. Given your magic wand and 6 billion humans how many times a day do you think you would need it to prevent evil?

[Willum]

[Replying to post 31 by Wootah]

LOL.

Just twice, Adam and Eve again.
Our timeless God does the same thing... for a different reason.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 28 by rikuoamero]

Hmmm... what an interesting question.
Perhaps we've got it all wrong.

Maybe God used all, or almost all of his power creating the universe.
What if...

So many "what ifs..."
What if timeless God re-wrote history?
Would it violate Adam'f freewill? No, he'd love it.
Unless... Adam has the same irrationality as Satan...
unless...

Sure - explore that in a new thread perhaps. Given your magic wand and 6 billion humans how many times a day do you think you would need it to prevent evil?

I really don't see what the number changes about the question. We're not talking about some human who gets tired, and needs to recharge.
We're talking about a God who can create universes, who is all powerful and knows everything. Not even an infinite number of humans a day would be enough to tire it out (or whatever the equivalent for a god would be).

[Wootah]

[Replying to post 31 by Wootah]

LOL.

Just twice, Adam and Eve again.
Our timeless God does the same thing... for a different reason.

What did your wand do to only be needed to work twice?

Suppose it worked twice, wouldn't A&E's children and their children, etc also sin at least once per child?

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to Wootah]

I never get why people jump to determinism and free will violations here while completely ignoring human nature.

Look at a child playing with toys. If another child comes and tries to take one, even one receiving little to no attention, the first child’s natural tendency is to resist, and pull that toy back with great emotion.

In other words, the second child’s action of taking the toy will cause the first child’s heart to harden.

So too with God and Pharoah.

God knows this and predicts this. It is not at all a violation of free will but a rational awareness of the impact of our actions on others.

You could say that our experiences in life can harden our hearts. I just want to explore the usual argument against God denying free will in this thread.

And when you do explore it, from the angle I am thinking of, bad people get denied their free will all the time - it's called prison.

And yet, in the Sandy Hook thread, you responded to the OP by saying "Free will", as in (From what I was able to piece together from your brief and so far only response on that thread) that God's non-intervention to save the children in Sandy Hook was because he supposedly had to respect the free will of the shooter.
So how do you explain this quandary? A reply here saying that bad people get denied their free will in prison (something I don't disagree with) while (essentially) saying that bad people have to have their free will respected and allowed.

[Wootah]

And yet, in the Sandy Hook thread, you responded to the OP by saying "Free will", as in (From what I was able to piece together from your brief and so far only response on that thread) that God's non-intervention to save the children in Sandy Hook was because he supposedly had to respect the free will of the shooter.
So how do you explain this quandary? A reply here saying that bad people get denied their free will in prison (something I don't disagree with) while (essentially) saying that bad people have to have their free will respected and allowed.

God has free will as well. He doesn't have to restrain the hand of every evil person and he can choose to restrain or force the hand of Pharoah. By and large, he allows people to act as they wish but in the end, bad people will go to prison.

But my argument in this thread is there is nothing immoral about hardening Pharoah's heart because he is already evil and deserves restraint. Losing free will is to be restrained.

[Willum]

And yet, in the Sandy Hook thread, you responded to the OP by saying "Free will", as in (From what I was able to piece together from your brief and so far only response on that thread) that God's non-intervention to save the children in Sandy Hook was because he supposedly had to respect the free will of the shooter.
So how do you explain this quandary? A reply here saying that bad people get denied their free will in prison (something I don't disagree with) while (essentially) saying that bad people have to have their free will respected and allowed.

God has free will as well. He doesn't have to restrain the hand of every evil person and he can choose to restrain or force the hand of Pharoah. By and large, he allows people to act as they wish but in the end, bad people will go to prison.

But my argument in this thread is there is nothing immoral about hardening Pharoah's heart because he is already evil and deserves restraint. Losing free will is to be restrained.

We all are evil, according to Biblical assertion, when we all choose not to do it, such a choice is good. If God is forcing us to do evil, then that violates freewill, and the concept God is good.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 36 by Wootah]

God has free will as well.

Does he ever choose evil? If no, then the usual apologetic argument of "humans have to have free will in order to choose good, otherwise we'd be robots" falls apart.
If yes, then well...God chooses evil and any apologetic argumentation that God is good and as such we should follow him, also falls apart.

I really don't see how your belief system survives this two pronged attack.

He doesn't have to restrain the hand of every evil person

Why not?

and he can choose to restrain or force the hand of Pharoah.

If he had not messed with Pharaoh's will, evidently going by the story, Pharaoh would have let the Hebrews go and there wouldn't have been plagues, death and destruction.

Seems to me then that hardening Pharaoh's heart is simply an excuse, so that God can show off his awesome God powers.

Put yourself in God's shoes. You've got your chosen people, the Hebrews, enslaved (I won't ask you about the moral quandary of allowing them to be enslaved in the first place after telling them to go to Egypt) and you've got a Pharaoh who, if not for your meddling, would have let them go.
Why on Earth would you choose to harden his heart and go through with the plagues, if not to simply show off? Why not just have the Hebrews leave? And if Pharaoh does decide to not let them go, do a Matrix and have his mouth disappear for a few minutes so he can't give the order to his soldiers.

By and large, he allows people to act as they wish but in the end, bad people will go to prison.

Yes they do go to prison, and yes, in prison, they have their will violated. They are not allowed to do as they want. People are told, growing up, "Be a good person, or you go to prison where you can't do as you want" (to sum up).
Yet on threads like Sandy Hook, this lesson isn't remembered. Instead, it's "God has to respect the free will of the shooter".

But my argument in this thread is there is nothing immoral about hardening Pharoah's heart because he is already evil and deserves restraint.

How can he be evil if he is being forced to do evil things? Remember, the hardening of his heart is what leads to him NOT letting the Hebrews go.
Reworded, what you just said is "It's moral to force the leader of a nation with a population of slaves to keep said slaves in captivity, even if his honest desire is to let them go free"

Losing free will is to be restrained.

Yes it is, and when bad people do bad things, or plan to do bad things, we typically lock them up and prevent them from doing those things.
Yet in the case of Sandy Hook, we have you saying "Free will [is to be respected]" and here on this thread, we have you essentially saying that a king's free will is not to be respected, so that an entire population can be kept in captivity.

It doesn't make sense.