If god didn't want something to happen, do you really think that it would happen? When was the last time you saw someone 'free-will' themselves into defying god's law of gravity by getting out of their seat and walking on air to the clouds above? How about people free-willing themselves to walk through solid objects such as the steel doors of a locked bank vault? Has anyone free-willed themselves into creating an exact duplicate of themselves in order to serve out their prison sentence for them? Has anyone free-willed themself to go back in time and undo a mistake they made before they made it? Has anyone free-willed themselves to travel into the future and them return to the present with the winning lottory numbers?
Not possible you say? Then I guess your idea of 'free-will' is actually limited to what god actually wants you to do, now isn't it? So wouldn't it stand to reason that if there is a god, it's will IS done. If it doesn't want something done, then it CAN'T be done?
2007-07-10 05:03:53 · 14 answers · asked by Anonymous in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
You've just given a convincing argument that people can't have free will in a universe run by all an powerful God that has a plan. Free will is just an excuse given by people when they're questioned about the evil in the world or the doctrine of hell. These people will then say that God pre plans all people, has a plan for who they will marry, knows when they will die, and anything else in their future. I would find everything more believable if either free will was said to be imaginary or if God was said to not be omnipotent and omniscient.
2007-07-10 05:11:24 · answer #1 · answered by Graciela, RIRS 6 · 3⤊ 1⤋
Yes, Sovereign God's will IS actually done. He overrules the plans of men to fulfill His purposes.
God hates sin but He allows it for the greater good, also to fulfill His purposes.
Isaiah 46:9-10
Remember the former things of old,
For I am God, and there is no other;
I am God, and there is none like Me,
10 Declaring the end from the beginning,
And from ancient times things that are not yet done,
Saying, ‘My counsel shall stand,
And I will do all My pleasure.
Proverbs 16:9
A man's heart plans his way,
but the LORD directs his steps.
2007-07-10 05:52:31 · answer #2 · answered by Hope 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I love the logical way you put that. Such an elegant proof of why either God does not exist or if he does, he's a real ****** for willing such suffering on the world.
Further, in the same vein, it is his will that Atheists fight him, that genocidal maniacs kill, and that rapists rape. Otherwise, he is not all powerful and in that case he is a liar for saying he is and thus imperfect.
2007-07-10 05:26:47 · answer #3 · answered by deusexmichael 3 · 2⤊ 0⤋
>>"Has anyone free-willed themselves into creating an exact duplicate of themselves in order to serve out their prison sentence for them?"<<
there are a few potent mystics who've been recorded preforming a feat called bilocation, where they are literally two places at once.
most of your other examples have been done in some inteperetation by various mystics.
though, thats easily countered by the point that who is to say in those cases, God did not will them to be able to do so.
:yawn:
2007-07-10 05:12:40 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
You are just about right, except you left out the part where God's will for you is exactly the same as your will for you! That is what Free will actually means. But, as you say, there are natural laws put in place in this physical world that can only be "violated" by a tiny handful of people who are so evolved, and so aware of ultimate reality that they clearly see and experience that this physical world is mere illusion. These people have no other reason to be in this physical plane other than to try to teach the rest of us, what they know of ultimate reality and of who and what we all really are. The rest of us can only know and understand what we are ready to know and understand. A person can understand the same things the master knows, in an intellectual way..without understanding it experientially. The difference between the master and the person just mentioned is that in order to be a master you have to have evolved to the point that you understand both intelliectually AND experientially!
Most people don't understand at all. They only understand what their church leaders tell them to understand! Anyone who questions, and reads and studies, and does not blindly follow the answers that someone else tells them they are supposed to follow, is well on their way to a true understanding. Even if a questioner calls him or herself an Athiest, that person is on the way to true understanding, simply by virtue of the fact that this person is not blindly following so called "conventional wisdom", and is seeking his or her own answers from within. *sm*
2007-07-10 05:26:07 · answer #5 · answered by LadyZania 7 · 1⤊ 2⤋
Oh, but if we did something through God that can't be done normally, that'd be too much evidence for God, and you KNOW we can't have that!
Seriously, though, we non-believers would probably write it off as something else anyway. It would fall under what is now "possible," so we wouldn't be doing the impossible anymore.
2007-07-10 05:12:15 · answer #6 · answered by Skye 5 · 2⤊ 1⤋
We have free will and held accountable for our actions but God controls all things
proverbs 16:33 cast your lot but the outcome is determine by God
2015-03-25 06:48:09 · answer #7 · answered by Trilobiteme 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Answers to this question from Christians will no doubt resemble this one:
Black is white. Up is down. The truth is a lie. And Britney Spears is talented.
2007-07-10 05:10:12 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 1⤋
A little pre-destination philosophy on a Tuesday afternoon. Hmm....
My view is that what I think is irrelevant to God, if there is one, so I just keep on keepin' on.
2007-07-10 05:49:40 · answer #9 · answered by ? 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
I believe that things happen and that we humans assign a significance to those things.
2007-07-10 05:18:26 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋