Meanwhile big erf's god is busy helping him locate a misplaced toy!

This is because God already knows they will never repent. When it says 'God hardened the Pharaoh's heart' there was no chance for the Pharaoh to repent and God knew he never would.

Like knocking on the door of a friend's house. If the lights on and music playing - you will keep knocking. But if the lights are off and the car is gone there is no point in knocking.

How do you and why would you harden an already hardened hart?

Yeah, so much for Pharaoh's free will. You guys are ALL about convenience!

"Apparent contradictions" are actual contradictions. Stop making up ad hoc excuses.

But we all know that not everyone repents before they die. So shouldn't god know that and act accordingly?

Mods, feel free to lock this thread if you want. The other free will thread I started is more on point.

Good cannot exist without evil, but I'm not sure that exact is supported in the bible so I can't say for sure. It's not like it's great when it comes to human psyche or dwelves deeply into philosophical discussions about absolutes.

Your conclusion about heaven though, takes for granted man is brainwashed and can't remember all bad the world has in it once we enter heaven.

[QUOTE=dknightx;19486915]these are not synonymous, nor are they as tightly coupled as you want them to be.

QUOTE]

no they're not which is why I listed them seperately. God created us to love Him. But free will is what makes it possilbe for us to also not love Him. It also allows us to do good and evil.

They are less important but by no means unimportant. The book of James covers this in detail. Some examples:

James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress..." (NIV)

James 2:17 "In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead." (NIV)

I think if you acknowledge God then doing evil is rejecting God as you know you are sinning against Him. Non-believers/acknowledgers have already rejected God so their whole life is a rejection of Him.

I agree that you dont have to believe in or acknowledge God in order to do good.

expand your mind a little dude. thinking that humans need free will to do evil just so they can choose to either love or reject God is just plain ridiculous. Plenty of atheists make the free will decision to not love God, and do plenty of good, if not more good, than theists who claim to love God.

I never said that, but if thats what you believe, you have a very sad, shallow, and pathetic worldview.

knight,

Not following your latest post. I never implied Christians do more good than athiests.

Also, you said in post 14 that both theists and athiests have done much evil and that the same could be said about good. I agreed with your premise and you tell me I have a pathetic worldview.

Of course we need free will to do evil in order to choose to love or reject God. This isn't thelogy so much as common sense.

sorry, my mistake i misread your post. oops

np knight, just wanted to make sure i wasn't going crazy

I think you need to understand what evil means?

It relates to obedience in its simplist terms.

This is pretty weak, what's a coin toss got to do with anything? Is satan using random chance generators to dictate his decisions?

Nothing makes him choose evil every time, he chooses it off his own back, and thus he is evil.

Surely that is what free will is?

That post lacks explanatory power. It doesn't explain what drives Satan to be evil. The fact that he chooses evil every time is more than just sheer coincidence.

I think its the fact that Satan has power over the weak in this world (due to his evil nature) that drives him to be evil.

Your post also lacks explanatory power. How does something God created get an "evil nature"?

err... free will?

I'm not meaning to sound like an ass here, but this is kind of doomed to be incredibly cyclic.

Satan was driven to evil by pride, anger, resentment, all those strong internal energies that are ultimately destructive that master yoda warned us about.

by a series of bad choices.

so then the question is, how can an all-loving God torture and punish Satan for eternity for a finite crime? In essence, Satan is no different than a human except that he is much more powerful.

Again, this also shows another weakness in the "freewill explains PoE" argument in that there is no loss of free will with loss of ability, so the fact that God has given us the ability to rape and murder each other makes me ponder how loving this God really is.

Jib i have a question about the series if choices thing. I dont know about Satan and id have to think about it more but at least for us the series of choices answer has a problem.

No humans are perfect so when we die and go to heaven our series of choices haven't gotten to the point where we would always choose good. So God could either allow us to continue to work on ourselves so our series of choices will lead to the point where we will always choose good (purgatory would maybe fit in?). Or God would have to change us in some fundamental way so we are no longer imperfect in our choices. If you have another answer i was wondering because neither option seems to work vary good. Well purgatory kind of works but im not sure you hold that view and everyone would have to go there before they could enter heaven.

When God says eternity does that mean forever and ever no matter what?

Or when God says eternity does it mean that as long as Satan continues his sinful nature which can (and God could very well know) be forever and ever. As in there is nothing that will ever get Satan to turn from sin. Therefore Satan will be in Hell for forever.