A question for any Christians

[Goatse]

I'm sure this is an old argument, but I'm interested to see what any Christians have to say.

I was brought up as a Christian and I'm unsure what to believe in now - one of the things that pushes me away from believing is the fact that God has given us freewill to choose to believe in him or not. However, God is also all-knowing, so he knows exactly how my mind works, how intelligent I am, what will affect me throughout my live, and subsequently knows if I will believe in him or not. So I don't really have a choice - because if I have to do what he knows I am going to do. So he's going to either give me - along with everyone else in the world - admittance to Heaven because of how he made us, or damnation in Hell for eternity for the same reasons.

And please don't give me the "God works in mysterious ways" bullshit. I'm actually interested in learning about what serious Christians have to say about this.

Thanks.

[which doctor]

It's just another paradox that shows that christianity is not the answer. No christian could come up with a decent explanation.

[James]

well surely you stated your answer by stating that he knows all to have free will.

Indeed, some christians argue that in the long run god "knows" who will save themselves.



Going on to the subject of "how he made us". It is a good question. I suppose you must take it back to the concept of the fall.
I think it is important to recognise that the god of christianity hasn't had one form of relationship with "his people" since the begining of time. It has evolved and changed several times.


Over all though, i recognise that "all i know is that i know nothing". I don't attempt to understand all the ins and outs of "god's rationality". Just as i don't try and suppose that i know, or can ever know, everything that human's know colletively about our world.

[VonClausewitz]

Several Christians and non-christians have come up with explanations, but for now I'll give you two I can remember - St Augustine and Irenaeus.

St Augustine;

That God gave us free will to choose, to be evil, to love to hate, as a punishment for the whole original sin thing, for abusing his trust, and that only those who absolve themselves by defeating our inbuild faults will be admitted to Heaven. In essence - we're all damned, unless we save ourselves. He knows what you have so many choices, but he either doesn't know or purposefully ingores which you will take.
Makes the whole thing a little more interesting apparently.
(It won't surprise anyone that Augustine belonged to the same monastic order that the Late Inquisition drew men from).

Irenaeus;

That God created mankind inherently flawed so that we could attain divinty through our own actions, overcoming evil and all that jazz. Basically to Irenaeus, God would have been bored creating us all perfect, so made us flawed, so that only the good would get into heaven, and in the (probably vain) hope that humanity would overcome it's flaws. He does seem to agree with the whole 'we're all damned' thing aswell though.

I Have never read anything about God's all knowingness though, but I expect he formulated something along the lines of what Augustine said.

---

Hope that helps a little ?

[Goatse]

But he knows what I'm going to do. So have I really got a choice? The only thing I can do his what he knows I will do. If I do anything other than that then God's all-knowingness is not true.

[VonClausewitz]

Well, if the philosophical arguments aren't any good, there is always the historical idea that God's all knowingness was cooked up by the usual suspects in the early middle ages, and infused into many of the emergent religions, so to scare the layfolk into general subservience through terror tactics.

Basically it just makes any argument against christianity from your point of view a pointless argument, as the point being picked upon is rendered irrelevant. A clever tactic used by christians the world over, so watch out for it.

[STI]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2005, 08:58 PM
But he knows what I'm going to do. So have I really got a choice? The only thing I can do his what he knows I will do. If I do anything other than that then God's all-knowingness is not true.
Fact of the matter is, there's no good answer to that question. Come to think of it, it was that question which got me thinking about atheism for the first time.

Maybe you should too.

[Wiesty]

its not the fact of being bad and going to hell, if ur a christian, ur pretty much going to heaven, hell is for non religious people murderers, etc. Now if your a murderous catholic, you should be questioning why your catholic.

[STI]

Because you've been tricked into believing something that isn't true, just like all the other Catholics.

Or it could be that your Catholicism is what made you a murderer.

[violencia.Proletariat]

heaven sounds like an awful lot of work. you have to know what your gonna do which is what he you think he wants you to do but how do you know if you should do that? :lol:

[Jazzy]

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness and they don't believe in the usual concept of "heaven" they believe as is stated in the bible that 144,000 chosen few will inherit the kingdom with YHWH (Jah, Jehovah) and the rest will inherit the earth....so there's another concept for you.....

[drain.you]

I tried asking my auntie this and she couldn't come up with an explanation.
It really doesn't make any sense.
In fact if you think about it, if God is all knowing then he knows if we are going to heaven or not before we are even born so whats the point in us living?
Also if God knows the future (I'm assuming he does if he knows everything) then that means that our lives are predistined. Therefore everything we do is planned and we can't escape going to hell if we are meant to anyway.

Its like Judas betraying Jesus. Judas betrays Jesus and is sent to hell. Jesus then dies to save mankind (to show them how they supposed to be, blah blah, you know). If Judas hadn't betrayed him then Jesus wouldn't have died on the cross for us so why is Judas sent to hell for doing what was in Jesus's plan anyhow.

[boosh logic]

hell is for... ...non-religeous people

Are you sure? I'm not religeous so I'm not worrying about hell, but surely if there was a god then he wouldn't confine someone who never said a wrong word, did a wrong thing and always helped others, but had no belief in religeous terms, to eternal suffering?

[drain.you]

Think what is meant by hell is for non-religious people is that the Bible teaches religious people that if they stray away from the religion then they will go to hell, its a way to keep people believing and because christianity focuses quite strongly on how nasty hell is and how you will go to it if you do wrong, it effectively keeps people terrified from leaving a religion.

Suppose it also allows religious people to try and save non-religious people from hell by converting them to their religion.

Unless you believe in hell, its message will have little effect on you.