Thread: Unconditional Love

So, if I understand you correctly, you're saying that he see all possible outcomes?

I'll admit that's an approach I hadn't thought of, and it seems pretty valid to me.

This means he knows EXACTLY what everyone will be doing at any time. This also means that when you "decide" to walk down to the store or watch television or whatever, he knew you were going to do that before you did it. Since he's never going to be wrong about it, it means that every single thing any of us will ever do is predetermined, hence, no free will.

No, all knowing only means that God knows everything that can be known, that is, all of knowledge. But, at least in the Christian depiction of Genesis, knowledge is created; it is not a part of God. So far, so good(though there are some qualms as to whether knowledge can be created within time or must be created outside of time). How this relates to your example is that before your free willed decision, the knowledge of what you'd choose didn't exist. Hence, God knew everything before your decision, and instantanously after your decision, God knows your decision. His attribute of all knowing is preserved.

His other attributes should also be preserved here, I think. Omnipotence, assuming the most common defintion, only relates to what is logical. So, when someone says that God can go into the future, it really begs the question as to what the future is. By going by what I said before, the future is the knowledge of our free willed decisions among other things. God can go to the future for the meaning of the future is our choices and the creation of knowledge. And his attribute of being all good is preserved because he's only creating the knowledge of our choices; he's not actually partaking in evil.

God is in no dimension. Putting God in a dimension is limiting his omnipresence.

@Govt:
>>I love you so much that I will give you free will and then send you to Hell forever because you've used it. Alos, I'm omnipotent, so I knew you were going to do that, but it's ok.


[sales pitch]
Interestingly, a point very similar to yours was brought up by W.H. Auden, in his critical review of The Great Divorce. Here's an excerpt from the introduction to an essay I wrote a short while ago:

W.H. Auden, in his article Red Lizards and White Stallions, attempts to establish the theological basis for the writing of The Great Divorce. According to Auden, the novel was written in response to two main misconceptions concerning the Christian doctrine of eternal judgment and Hell. The first was the idea that God’s law is “something He imposes on individuals, with or without their consent,” (Auden 261) and therefore that we are compelled to obey on pain of eternal damnation. However, this implies that God is a God of judgment rather than love, and above all, denies freedom of choice. Auden states that liberal theology adopted “a doctrine of inevitable progress” (261) in response, the belief that all people will grow inevitably closer to God until Heaven is reached regardless of the starting point; but this doctrine presents precisely the second misconception that Auden refers to. He postulates that since by this doctrine we will sooner or later be compelled to recognize God’s love, “my present freedom to refuse is only apparent, and when my sins get me into trouble I may reasonably complain that it was very unkind of God not to exercise his omnipotence earlier.” (Auden 261) According to Auden, it is in response to both of these misconceptions that C.S. Lewis wrote The Great Divorce.

I recommend The Great Divorce.
[/sales pitch]
To expand a little, it is my belief that God gives us the choice to love him or not - which isn't to say, he doesn't care if we love him or not. It is simply that, in the words of Screwtape, "He cannot ravish. He can only woo." (C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters).

Now, let us assume the perspective that Hell is merely a place apart from God. In the words of George MacDonald, "There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him." (C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce) Applying this concept, which AFAIK is in line with biblical teachings, the inevitable result of this prolonged separation from God in Hell is the degeneration of the person in question. Eventually, the result as depicted in The Great Divorce is that nobody in Hell (the "Gray Town") can get along, and everybody makes themselves and everybody else miserable. In short, it's not God's fault at all - merely the natural (as opposed to legal) consequence of choosing to go separate paths from God.

Although The Great Divorce is a fantasy novel and cannot be taken for literal truth, IMO it does present a viable defense. It is my understanding that it breaks God's heart when anybody goes to Hell; but if there is to be freedom of choice, then a Hell there must be.


@gcn_zelda:
>>but, God and Christ are physical beings
I can see Christ being a physical being, while he was on Earth, but how are God and the resurrected Christ supposed to be physical?

treenef's post brings to mind this:
It wasn't until recently that people began to accept the particle/wave dualism of light (and all matter). There are, so far as I know, no observable parallels in objects that we see ordinarily; however, we accept it simply because our models seem to fit OK. It's likely that light acts neither as particle nor wave, and is in a category all of its own.

Why do we assume, then, that God fits neatly into one or more categories that we have made almost exclusively for the purpose of describing the physical world? It is likely that God is entirely beyond the scope of our understanding, and we can understand only the aspects of him that have parallels in our world that we can understand. After all, he is supposed to be our creator

**EDIT**

God, having already been resurrected in some period of time during eternity, received his.

I can go with your explanation for Christ, but when was God resurrected??

Originally Posted by Glirk Dient

Such as when theres lightning, that's flaming fur falling from the sky.

God hacking up hairballs.

Hmm, it seems I've started marketing Christianity. That wasn't my intention, so I'll stop here unless anyone is interested in continuing.

Originally Posted by gcn_zelda

My understanding is that resurrection gives a physical, but perfected body. Christ, being resurrected has this, and God, having already been resurrected in some period of time during eternity, received his.

Of course I may be completely mistaken, but this is how I've always understood it.

Why would you say this? Everything in any religion is given to personal interpretation by every person. Don't take someone else's interpretation, create your own.

Once again, God is not an entity that we can think of. Our minds are as suited to define God as an earthworm's mind is suited to thinking about how many stars are in our universe.

Originally Posted by Govt

Assuming:
God exists
God is all-powerful and all-knowing

[...]

It's entirely possible there's a glaring hole in my logic, but I'd love to see someone point it out.

Yes, you missed something. What if God is simply lazy ? I can wash my car. I didn't. On the same basic principle, God might be omniscient and allmighty, but no one knows if "he" actually uses his powers or if he is just lying on his virtual heavenly couch watching the 200 best Jerry Springer reruns munching potatoe chips all day long



Unconditional is a term that doesn't go to well with Germans. Last time I heard someone say "unconditional" it was our unconditional loyalty to the US. Until the US wanted troops. Uh-oh... no, you know, it's more like "unconditional loyalty(but without troops) (tm)". Money ? Oh, no, not money. You cannot have money, it's more like an "unconditional loyalty(but without troops)(and without money)(TM)". So much for this time. The time before that Germany vowed unconditional loyalty ended in 4 years of trench-fighting all over Europe. So for me, "unconditional" is equivalent to "stupid" or "lie".

As Thantos said, there are people I love(d) that I will always love a little bit, if only for what they once were and/or might become however unlikely that may be. Some even fall in the "if you kiss me now I know you'll fool me again"(wham-last christmas) - category.