07-09-2023, 09:28 PM
(07-09-2023, 08:31 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: Because he knows that, arguably, the majority of humans will not take it. He already knows everything, he is omniscient. For instance, let's say that I design an aircraft with a known flaw. This flaw will cause catastrophic failure resulting in loss of life at some point unless a series of very particular, complicated maintenance items are completed after every flight. Now, me being this engineering genius, knows that there is no way these maintenance items will be completed correctly every time as there aren't enough aircraft mechanics in the industry that are certified to do them. However, I put them into production and they go into service.
When the aircraft inevitably catastrophically fails, is the argument of "I offered the solution to prevent this from happening, look at the mechanic, it's his fault" an acceptable argument to remove any culpability from my side? I knew this would fail, just like god knew that his creations would not take up his offering of salvation. The plan is inherently flawed, but he went on with it anyway. This is why I am skeptical that he is an all-loving god, should he exist. That would strike me as more of an apathetic creator.
Well, I think there needs to be context for why you created the aircraft with a flaw in the first place.
God created us with free will, which is itself a flaw because free will suggests that we can do whatever we want. If we can do whatever we want then we can act in ways that are evil. But God did not create us to commit evil acts, he simply gave us the choice to. He gave us free will to be able to choose what we want, but in a limited sense of course.
I would still say God is responsible for creating us with free will, but I wouldn't say he's responsible for all the indivudal choices we make out of that free will. That's all on us because we chose to do it. Now, if God created us with free will and then literally controlled us like puppets at points in our lives and made us act out evil things that we didn't freely choose to do, I would say God is responsible for all of our evil acts. But that's not what's happening.
In regards to salvation...
God didn't have to offer us that. At all. He could have created a world where there's just a bunch of suffering and then you die. But I believe he offered us an alternative out of love. I know people will have gripes in the way that God is deciding to offer it to us, but at the end of the day I would argue that the reasons for not taking that offer seems a bit quesitonable.
For those who have a disdain for God, they want to have the free will to do what they want right? They want to be able to do all the "sinful" things they want to do, but why? Obviously because that's what's "fun" that's what's "interesting" that's what's "enjoyable", but that's all quite relative and I'd even argue a bit trivial in comparison to everlasting life in which you wouldn't get to act out those sinful desires but still have free will in a limited sense. This is because at the root of it all, we all really want peace. Eternal happiness. It's what we strive for as human beings. It's why we go to work everyday to make ends meet. It's why we have trelationships with other human beings. It's why we follow the law. It's why we eat and drink and sleep. It's why we do the majority of the things we do in life, because we want these things to lead to a happy/satisfying/peaceful outcome. Yet none of it lasts eternally.
Here comes God, offering us eternal salvation but we don't want that because we have less choice than we had before?
