Featured Could God create someone like Himself?

Some folks are chasing their tails, using fancy words, in response to an asinine Op. In my opinion of course. Preachinjesus gave a very early and correct response to the OP!

 

From Isaiah

42:8 :I am the LORD;that is my name! I will not yield my glory to another...

43:10...Before me no god was formed,nor will there be one after me.

43:11 : I,even I,am the LORD,and apart from me there is no saviour.

44:6 : ...I am the first and the last;apart from me there is no god.

44:7 : Who then is like me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before me what has happened since I established my ancient people,and what is yet to come --yes,let them foretell what will come.

45:5 : I am the LORD,and there is no other;apart from me there is no God...

45:6 : ...there is none beside me. I am the LORD,and there is no other.

_______________________________________________________

All Scripture is from NIV.

 

No, no. You have PART of the choice or the chooser relying upon other things. But you have this weird mysterious part which relies upon nothing. That part is as independent as God Himself in your theology.

You can't have the will PARTLY depending upon things (influences, natural desires, etc...) but still be independent unless you divide the will up into the parts that are dependent and this mysterious part that is independent. You say the choice is dependent upon the chooser and the chooser is dependent upon God. BINGO!! That is precisely what I have been saying all along.

The second floor (choice) rests upon the first floor (chooser) which rests upon the ground (God). So the second floor rests upon the ground. There is no part of it that floats on its own. Every part of the second floor that rests upon the first floor depends upon the ground.

The CHOICE points to GOD then for its existence. Now, keep in mind what a choice is. It is not an ABILITY to choose. It is what the ability to choose... CHOSE. The choice, the thing chosen, can point to God for why it is what it is, right?

But you do know. You know for the same reason you know ANYTHING. Contingency. All of science and philosophy depends upon it. This happens because this happened and so on and so on... All the knowledge we have about anything relies upon contingency.

But you and Skan all of that fact of life to defend your theology.

Why?

And you failed to address some questions and comments of mine in my previous post like:

Why not? And what IS the sufficient guarantor of the "content of the choice"?

Yes.. God. We have an accord. The choice requires a chooser and the chooser requires God.

Substitute "depends upon" for "requires" and you will have the clarification you asked for earlier.

 

I will let you figure it out but I highlighted part of the OP to help.

Incidentally God did create

His name was Adam and her name was Eve!

 

Luke....you appear not to realize that, fundamentally, we are insisting on debating the "existence" of an abstraction right?

A "choice" is an abstraction just as the number 7 is:

Does the number 7 "Exist" in the sense of a concrete noun?....does a "choice"?

What are the number 7's properties? What properties does a "choice" posses?
Redness?
Sphericity?
An inflatable rubber composition?

I know, I know! :wavey:.....it's a beach ball!!! :wavey:

A choice is merely an idea, Luke. It possesses no properties, it may not have temporal becoming of any sort, and it does not cease to exist either. It does not in some real sense....EXIST at all!

All things have as their source God and God alone. NOTHING...including logical truths, mathematical values, or even similar abstractions such as "choices" have any meaning outside of or apart from God. None of it "exists" a-se...........They don't really...."exist" either.

A "choice"....is a noun which merely describes the idea of taking an action.
It "exists" in the same sense that my going on a "hike" or a "walk" exists.
It's an abstract idea that merely refers to an action which has been taken.

I am one week away from taking a "vacation". (Yay for me! :godisgood
Does my vacation then "exist"?
Did my walk?
Just because those are nouns doesn't mean that it is proper to debate whether they are contingent or necessary.....Only my person (which very much "exists") which takes said action exists either contingently or necessarily.
And, it so happens that God has created me with the capacity and ability to take these walks and hikes and vacations.

I exist contingently...so also do my choices "exist" contingently. Thus, it is not proper to debate whether they are either a-se or not! Of course they are not! They depend (at minimum) upon ME for them to have any meaning or frame of reference at all.

I have entertained this line of questioning so far, and am not unwilling to continue to do so, but it is fundamentally based upon a category mistake....the same category mistake I mentioned in another thread that a "choice" is a "thing" that exemplifies what properly can be defined as "existence".....
It's a category mistake I've seen some certain Calvinists argue (I tend to theorize that it all came from the same singular source and most compatibilists never questioned it's veracity because they thought it sounded cool) but it is essentially fundamentally flawed to begin with.

I am more than willing to continue this conversation...but, I think we should consider that this is, indeed becoming the equivalent of debating the number of angels who can fit on the tip of a needle...... (453 b.t.w.).:thumbsup:

You are not merely insisting that Compatibilism is true, and L.F.W. false....you are submitting that it is incoherent. That's a rather sweeping claim.

I'd like for you to consider this if you would like to continue this line of debate.

 

An idea requires a mind and a mind, unless it is God's is filled with information that it RECEIVED. The mind is thoroughly contingent and so is the idea and choices that come from it.

My point exactly.

A man makes a choice BASED on something. If you say he makes it based on himself, that is a meaningless statement. What does it mean to base something on yourself? It means to base it on your desires, your intellect, your abilities and all the external things that make you what you are. ALL OF THOSE THINGS are contingent- they are dependent- fully reliant upon God.

A choice, as you said, "REQUIRES" many things. That is my very point.

There is NO REASON to assume that there is this mysterious freedom where the making of a choice is different from all other things in the universe which are fully contingent, dependent things which, as you say "require" things outside of themselves to make them and to sustain them.

A choice like a rock or like an accident or like an idea REQUIRES or depends upon things outside of itself to make it what it is.

A choice is no more independent than an idea or an accident. To HAPPEN, to come to be, it is brought to pass by forces outside of itself.

There are factors outside of itself which brought it into existence and made it what it is.

That is true of everything in the universe- even the number 7.

What Skandelon wants to do is create this contra-causal choice which is unlike everything else in the universe. Like nothing else in the universe but God ALONE- it is not brought to pass by factors outside of itself. The choice can share that property with nothing else that exists but God. God and the choice are the only things that exist that are not brought to pass by forces outside of themselves. The choice, like God, is UNCAUSED.

It is UNCAUSED. The problem is that this ABOVE ALL ELSE is an incommunicable attribute of God.

Skandelon attributes the PREMIER incommunicable attribute of God, God's very "I Amness" to a man's choice.

He tries to get out of it by retorting, "A choice is based on the CHOOSER!!! That is not NOTHING!!!"

But he just backs up his dilemma by one step. If the choice is based on the chooser and the chooser is fully dependent upon outside forces for his existence and actions then the choice is still dependent upon those forces.

 

Let me just clarify. You want me to prove biblically for you that God's independency is one of his incommunicable attributes??

Do you believe God HAS incommunicable attributes?

And???

What theist on EARTH disagrees with that!?!?!?!?!

Yep, me too. So???

Along with every other human being who has ever lived I suppose. So what???

Then you need to do TWO THINGS.

Define them for us or give us your favorite definition and show where "contra-causal" free will is a necessary part of those definitions.

And show how I have made them meaningless.

 

Perhaps your OP is just too esoteric for usens! All except "preachinjesus" that is. He hit the proverbial nail on the head with one blow.

 

Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular. 1 Cor 12:27
And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; from Col 1:18
Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit. from Eph 2:20-22
For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. Col 2:9

Well, Skandelon; Right? Or wrong?

Just some thought.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: Eph 4:12,13 ------Does that speak of the parts or of the whole? I'm not sure.

 

Why would I need to do that when have repeatedly stated that I believe that we are responsible to God for the decisions we make?

Your OP was vague. You want men to be as free as only God can be and then imply that we who deny that are saying that God does not make people in his image. That's quite a leap on your part.

I don't have a problem with the word responsible. I have a problem with you equating man's choices (or the self that makes them) with the Uncaused Causer; I have a problem with you implying that God's incommunicable attribute of independency is communicable.

False dichotomy. The latter does not negate the former.

Excellent. Thank you. Now what do you think "own one's own" means? Tell us how that works. In reality, even YOU don't believe that man makes choices "own his own" without God. So you can't think it means that. So what DO you think it means.

I have no problem with the definition so long as we understand that nothing truly does anything own it's own apart from God.

You keep doing this "able" thing with the word. Your definition does not imply that etymology.

I have no problem with that definition. And just because people pick what everybody knew they were going to pick (like a hamburger over a hot dog) does not mean that it was not a real choice.

My son will always choose to play video games over doing homework. If I give him the option, I know what he is going to pick. It is settled. 10 times out of 10 he will pick video games. The fact that it is settled what one is going to pick between two options does not mean that their picking does not equate to real choice.

There is nothing in the definition you provide to say otherwise.