A Question about Free Will, Hell and how it is all set up.

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Kevin_Bo-Bevin

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#181
Apr 14, 2018
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#181
trofimus said:
He cannot. He must be always moral, not lying, good, loving, just etc. He cannot change that tomorrow. One of His attributes is always needed by another of His attributes.

Thats the beauty and stability of a perfect God.
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God decides what is perfect. He can be immoral, lying, evil, etc. while still being perfect because He is God. What do you not understand about God having absolute power?
 
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John146

Senior Member
#182
Jan 13, 2016
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#182
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
I do not understand why God has decided to set up the universe in such a way that He would have to send people to Hell even though He does not want to send people to Hell and has the power to set up the universe in another way that makes it so that nobody has to go to Hell.
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God's desire is that man truly love Him. God's desire is that man truly give glory to Him. This cannot be so if God set things up where there is no other choice.
 
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John146

Senior Member
#183
Jan 13, 2016
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#183
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
God decides what is perfect. He can be immoral, lying, evil, etc. while still being perfect because He is God. What do you not understand about God having absolute power?
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God would cease to be holy and righteous if he chose to sin.
 
trofimus

trofimus

Senior Member
#184
Aug 17, 2015
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#184
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
God decides what is perfect. He can be immoral, lying, evil, etc. while still being perfect because He is God. What do you not understand about God having absolute power?
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Your view is that God decides what is good or evil, perfect or love.

My view is that God is good, perfect, love.
 
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Stunnedbygrace

Senior Member
#185
Nov 12, 2015
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#185
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
Hi there, I'm new here and I have a glaring question that I just haven't been able to find a satisfiable answer to. Here goes:

God set everything up so that we have free will and through this free will we are able to either choose or deny Christ. We have this choice in order for us to be able to truly love God. Because without this choice we would be like robots, and our "love" would be meaningless.

With this free will comes the possibility of denying God and being sent to Hell. But God does not want any of us to go to Hell because He loves us so much. And yet, the way that He has set everything up makes Hell a very real possibility for people.

God is omnipotent, that means that He can do whatever it is He wants. So, why hasn't God, in all his love, set up everything so that we have free will and yet everyone chooses to accept him, never sin, and go to Heaven? You may say, "If God makes everyone accept him and go to Heaven that would mean we wouldn't have free will." But to say that God cannot make us accept and love him and still have free will would be to deny his omnipotence. God can make it so, it is within his power.

God can make it so that we all have free will and that we never sin and all end up going to Heaven. So why should it be that he chooses to allow people to deny him and go to Hell?
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Hmm...I don't think I had the freewill to choose Him. I didn't even believe He existed until He opened my eyes to see. And then, once I could see that He was, I couldn't have possibly just said I don't care. I just...I know the argument of freewill but it was not my experience that I just chose to believe He existed. Instead, I suddenly just SAW that He did and that the gospel i was reading was true. I began by thinking it wasn't true, but by the 4th book, I saw it was.

I cannot go completely apart from my own experience. Other men say they studied scripture for years before they saw it was true and that God existed and so they believed. That just wasn't my own experience. My own experience is that I was blind all my life and then read the gospel and could suddenly see the truth.

But, AFTER I could see, there have been many times where I had to actually choose what God has said over what the world says. My very first great struggle was over whether to believe and follow the world regarding storing wealth or believe Him that He would always give me enough for the day. It was a long and intense battle. I wavered for many years, and this was AFTER I'd received His Spirit.
 
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Kevin_Bo-Bevin

Member
#186
Apr 14, 2018
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#186
trofimus said:
Your view is that God decides what is good or evil.

My view is that God is good and anything else is evil.
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If God is sovereign, then God has the power to decide what is good and what is evil. Sovereignty is the attribute of having the authority to declare laws. Thusly, I believe that God has the power to declare what is good and what is evil. For if he did not, then he would not be sovereign.
 
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Kevin_Bo-Bevin

Member
#187
Apr 14, 2018
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#187
John146 said:
God's desire is that man truly love Him. God's desire is that man truly give glory to Him. This cannot be so if God set things up where there is no other choice.
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It can be set up in a way that we cannot understand where it all works.
 
trofimus

trofimus

Senior Member
#189
Aug 17, 2015
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#189
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
If God is sovereign, then God has the power to decide what is good and what is evil. Sovereignty is the attribute of having the authority to declare laws. Thusly, I believe that God has the power to declare what is good and what is evil. For if he did not, then he would not be sovereign.
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The doctrine of God´s sovereignity does not include that He can change His own character or attributes. I do not know where you got it from. Certainly not from Christianity.

The doctrine of God´s sovereignity says that He is sovereign over all His creation.
 
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Stunnedbygrace

Senior Member
#190
Nov 12, 2015
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#190
I think I see what you're saying kevin...sometimes in attempting to build a systematic theology, we fail to admit that we don't understand everything about God. At least in areas.
 
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Kevin_Bo-Bevin

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#193
Apr 14, 2018
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#193
trofimus said:
The doctrine of God´s sovereignity does not include that He can change His own character or attributes. I do not know where you got it from. Certainly not from Christianity.

The doctrine of God´s sovereignity says that He is sovereign over all His creation.
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[FONT=&quot]Psalm 135: 6 a"Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps."[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] 6 aWhatever the Lord pleases, He does,[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.[/FONT]
 
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Stunnedbygrace

Senior Member
#195
Nov 12, 2015
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#195
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
But that does not mean that sinning is beyond his power.
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I can't grasp what you say here...It's like saying (to me) that if God wanted to choose to be or to do evil, that He could. It doesn't make any sense to me...
 
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John146

Senior Member
#197
Jan 13, 2016
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#197
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
Psalm 135: 6 a"Whatever the Lord pleases, He does, In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps."
6 aWhatever the Lord pleases, He does,
In heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deeps.
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And Scripture has stated what pleases God. Search the Scriptures. Get your understanding of God from the Scriptures.
 
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Stunnedbygrace

Senior Member
#198
Nov 12, 2015
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#198
Kevin_Bo-Bevin said:
He has given us a promise that He won't be. But I believe he could be if He wished it.
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I just...don't understand what you're arguing for here...It's like, why have an argument that if God wanted to be like satan, He could?
 
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Kevin_Bo-Bevin

Member
#199
Apr 14, 2018
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#199
John146 said:
Search the Scriptures. Scripture has stated how things are set up. Discussing other possibilities is futile.
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I wish to discuss other possibilities in order to better understand why God chose to set things up the way they are. I do not think that trying to understand God better is futile.
 
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