Quote:
Originally Posted by Mightyboosh
Happy new year y'all. I capitalised 'Perfection' just to annoy Aaron.
So, I'm having a problem resolving an apparent conflict between the idea that there is free will and the idea that god is perfect, omniscient and omnipotent. Those three values are claimed for god, or attributed to him, by various theists. If you don't think god possesses any or all of those characteristics, this doesn't apply to you.
In the beginning god created everything that will ever happen for the entirety of existence. Since god is perfect and in possession of all knowledge that it's logically possible for him to know and all powerful and therefore able to create everything as he wished to and change anything that he wished to change, it follows that everything must be exactly as god intended and could be no other way since he logically, as a perfect being, could not have created it any less perfect. He can't make mistakes, he can't create anything that could be improved in any way.
Thus, even if god lives in an eternal now where we have the illusion of time and are able to make choices, we can't actually choose anything other than what he decided would happen when he created eveyrthing. Therefore there is no actual free will. Ditto for intecessory prayer which can't change anything, or trigger an outcome, since that outcome is already decided and was never a choice in the first place.
This assumes that there is only ever one perfect outcome, a value of perfection that can't be added to. Everything is already the 'most perfect' it can be.
You make assumptions that aren't necessarily true.
"Since god is perfect and in possession of all knowledge that it's logically possible for him to know and all powerful and therefore able to create everything as he wished to and change anything that he wished to change, it follows that
everything must be exactly as god intended and could be no other way since he logically, as a perfect being, could not have created it any less perfect. He can't make mistakes, he can't create anything that could be improved in any way."
It is entirely plausible that God desired to create man with free will, and with that desire allowed for man to do things that are not perfect, and displeasing to him.
As the great theologian AW Tozer said:
God sovereignly decreed that man should be free to exercise moral choice, and man from the beginning has fulfilled that decree by making his choice between good and evil. When he chooses to do evil, he does not thereby countervail the sovereign will of God but fulfills it, inasmuch as
the eternal decree decided not which choice the man should make but that he should be free to make it. If in His absolute freedom God has willed to give man limited freedom, who is there to stay His hand or say, ‘What doest thou?’ Man’s will is free because God is sovereign. A God less than sovereign could not bestow moral freedom upon His creatures. He would be afraid to do so.