Man is made in the image (reflection) of his Creator — that is, he possesses as his natural birthright reason and free will. He evidently is fully able to choose God, or to reject Him. Also evidently, this being the case, then God must want it this way.
If God wanted to create a race of slaves — or robots — then perhaps He would have "programmed" them, in the way you suggest. But then there would be no liberty in the world at all; everything in the human sphere would have been determined from the get-go.
But in my heart I believe/know that God made men free, to be His sons — created in Love, for Love. Individual men, of course, are free to reject Him.
I do not know how our Lord judges such souls, in the end. But if I were they, I'd be a little queasy on this point ... for eternity is a very long time....
Thanks for writing, JCB!
Time as we experience it now, may be long or short. Time as we will expereince it ‘then’ will be alrge, very very large, as in a nearly infinite volume. [Since Time as a dimensional expression had a beginning, it is not exactly correct to refer to ‘unending’ as eternal, is it?]
1 The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.
2Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.
3There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.
4 Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.
Romans 1:18-23
18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
You replied with this:
Betty Boop: Man is made in the image (reflection) of his Creator — that is, he possesses as his natural birthright reason and free will. He evidently is fully able to choose God, or to reject Him. Also evidently, this being the case, then God must want it this way.
If God wanted to create a race of slaves — or robots — then perhaps He would have "programmed" them, in the way you suggest. But then there would be no liberty in the world at all; everything in the human sphere would have been determined from the get-go.
But in my heart I believe/know that God made men free, to be His sons — created in Love, for Love. Individual men, of course, are free to reject Him.
I do not know how our Lord judges such souls, in the end. But if I were they, I'd be a little queasy on this point ... for eternity is a very long time...
This is distraction. The concept under contention was in your argument that your deity has filled in the minds of men, certain knowledge about this deity. I was disputing this by asking you if this was so, why didn't the deity choose to "fill" those same minds with all of its scriptures.
You say that would mean that this deity would be creating a race of robots. Not so, because, even with built-in (and not people-derived, people-sourced) scriptural knowledge, those people would still have a choice to make, whether to obey what those mental scriptures told them, or not. This is nowhere near what a robot does.
The choice element is not present in robots. The reason why in-built scriptural knowledge would be superior, is that under this realm, your faith in the fidelity of mere mortals would NOT HAVE TO BE A PRECONDITION to your faith in your deity. Under the present mode of scriptural transmission, without believing in what men tell you about your god, BEFOREHAND, you CANNOT believe in your god.
Excellent point. This is why I argue for the case of free will. God has created us in His image. We can choose His grace or reject it.
If God wanted to create a race of slaves — or robots — then perhaps He would have "programmed" them, in the way you suggest. But then there would be no liberty in the world at all; everything in the human sphere would have been determined from the get-go. -- Agreed, however, one should make it clear to James that one does not fall into the Calvinist camp which believes in just that -- pre-programmed robots.
To the followers of Calvin it is exactly as James argues against - to a Calvinist, those in the jungle are damned full stop. There is no leeway, there is no sense of love or grace or kindness, there is only the inexorable sense of impending doom -- all heading towards Ragnarok.