A Question about Free Will, Hell and how it is all set up.
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Evil cannot stand to be in Gods Presence.
Why doesn't God just allow evil to be in His Presence?
Because we look at Gods Chess Board and we are thinking with the rules of checkers. Why doesn't God king us? Because that is not the way chess works.
But we don't understand.
No, we can't. We don't understand the rules of Gods Chess Board until after the final moves have been made. Even then we don't all fully understand.
Kevin, Kevin Bo Bevin. First off I would look at your basic premise of what you are thinking and what the problem is. More than likely your basic premise is wrong because of mis-understanding.
We are lucky because we can pray to the Lord and ask the questions that are really bothering us. I've never really worried about the big picture stuff. I always figured that God Knows what He is Doing.
I do ask about the periphery stuff that I'm not real sure about sometimes.
The third grader really shouldn't worry about the rules of calculus. You're just not ready to learn that yet. First learn fractions and geometry and algebra and trigonometry.
Why doesn't God just allow evil to be in His Presence?
Because we look at Gods Chess Board and we are thinking with the rules of checkers. Why doesn't God king us? Because that is not the way chess works.
But we don't understand.
No, we can't. We don't understand the rules of Gods Chess Board until after the final moves have been made. Even then we don't all fully understand.
Kevin, Kevin Bo Bevin. First off I would look at your basic premise of what you are thinking and what the problem is. More than likely your basic premise is wrong because of mis-understanding.
We are lucky because we can pray to the Lord and ask the questions that are really bothering us. I've never really worried about the big picture stuff. I always figured that God Knows what He is Doing.
I do ask about the periphery stuff that I'm not real sure about sometimes.
The third grader really shouldn't worry about the rules of calculus. You're just not ready to learn that yet. First learn fractions and geometry and algebra and trigonometry.
I think you are imagining His attributes as standing alone and then you stretch them without any boundaries.
I am imagining His attributes to be perfectly interconnected. So, He cannot use His power where His wisdom says "no". Etc.
And God, to me, is a complex being perfectly balanced with all good attributes. So that He is "locked" in a perfect state and that cannot be changed. Thats what first philosophers called "God is immovable" and what Bible calls "there is no change in God".
And thats also what makes Him free. Not free from good, free from truth, free from wisdom. But free from error, from evil, from injustice etc.
IMHO.
I am imagining His attributes to be perfectly interconnected. So, He cannot use His power where His wisdom says "no". Etc.
And God, to me, is a complex being perfectly balanced with all good attributes. So that He is "locked" in a perfect state and that cannot be changed. Thats what first philosophers called "God is immovable" and what Bible calls "there is no change in God".
And thats also what makes Him free. Not free from good, free from truth, free from wisdom. But free from error, from evil, from injustice etc.
IMHO.
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Kevin_Bo-Bevin,You have been talking for over 3 hours but you haven't made any step forward.
I'll make some words & statements clear for you or rather, i'll have some ground rules that will help you in this discussion going forward:
1. You have defined, in your own words, omnipotence as having power to do everything;
Right but it is not the power of God that is limited, it is the word everything in that definition that has limits- a square circle is not part of everything, it is nothing. So please understand going forward that the things you ascribe to omnipotence can not work the way you imagine them. God is truth so He can not lie- lying is not part of everything that God can do. If God is light, darkness can not be part of everything that He is.
2. Perfect Love- the top most love requires that one dies on behalf of others, (God does that because He is perfect) and in the process renders everyone forgiven their debts. It is upto us to accept the forgiveness or not. If your friend decides to pay your debt, you either accept it, or pay it yourself. Leads me to the next point about hell.
3. Hell- God doesn't send people to hell, he saves people from hell. How/why do we call it salvation? salvation from what?
I'll tell you something; only God (symbolically light) lives forever, everything else that is not Him is symbolically darkness and must perish. If anyone is to have any hope of living forever like God, they must be in Him and Him in them so that they are one. So, every other God's creation is by default in the darkness but because God loves man (created in His image), He saves man from darkness- so our default position is perishing (hell) but God brings us to the light (we will be one with Him).
In God there's peace/joy/happiness and all the good things, apart from God is hell (sadness/grieving/darkness e.t.c)
4. You can ask- then why did God create us knowing all these things will happen?
He creates because He is a creator
I'll make some words & statements clear for you or rather, i'll have some ground rules that will help you in this discussion going forward:
1. You have defined, in your own words, omnipotence as having power to do everything;
Right but it is not the power of God that is limited, it is the word everything in that definition that has limits- a square circle is not part of everything, it is nothing. So please understand going forward that the things you ascribe to omnipotence can not work the way you imagine them. God is truth so He can not lie- lying is not part of everything that God can do. If God is light, darkness can not be part of everything that He is.
2. Perfect Love- the top most love requires that one dies on behalf of others, (God does that because He is perfect) and in the process renders everyone forgiven their debts. It is upto us to accept the forgiveness or not. If your friend decides to pay your debt, you either accept it, or pay it yourself. Leads me to the next point about hell.
3. Hell- God doesn't send people to hell, he saves people from hell. How/why do we call it salvation? salvation from what?
I'll tell you something; only God (symbolically light) lives forever, everything else that is not Him is symbolically darkness and must perish. If anyone is to have any hope of living forever like God, they must be in Him and Him in them so that they are one. So, every other God's creation is by default in the darkness but because God loves man (created in His image), He saves man from darkness- so our default position is perishing (hell) but God brings us to the light (we will be one with Him).
In God there's peace/joy/happiness and all the good things, apart from God is hell (sadness/grieving/darkness e.t.c)
4. You can ask- then why did God create us knowing all these things will happen?
He creates because He is a creator
If you were here for answers you would be asking questions, not stating your flawed opinion over and over. The whole premise that you argue from, that God is “omnipotent”, or even what you call God is based on misinterpretation. There are your answers. You can not converge all of your thoughts into one understanding because you are taking pieces from multiple puzzles and trying to make one perfect picture. You get an image, just the wrong one.
You would first have to search out His understanding as doing his will . He commanded those he have given his will to study to so oneself approved unto him not seen
Free will for a Christian is to do the unseen will of the Father. If you have not the Spirit of Christ you are subject to do the will of the father of lies, the god of this world.
Proverbs 25:2
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.
Free will for a Christian is to do the unseen will of the Father. If you have not the Spirit of Christ you are subject to do the will of the father of lies, the god of this world.