No true Free Will exists if Ex Nihilo creation is true

[seven7up]

Back to the original idea of this thread: If God is omnipotent, then he is still "on the hook" in some sense for the way the universe is, ex nihilo creation or not.

As you will be forced to see in this discussion, the hook and barb are much larger in the Ex Nihilo view. Christian theologians continue to insist on Ex Nihilo doctrine. It is one of the reasons that critics have so successfully demonstrated philosophical problems with this view of God and creation; and rightly so. By continuing to preach "creation from nothing", you are only helping the adversary undermine Christianity. You are unwittingly working against yourselves ... and God, by presenting a false religion that cannot stand up to scrutiny. Even as a teenager, I could see the flaws in your system of dogma.

God created me and Bill to call you to Christ, through whose life and death and resurrection you can be reckoned right before God through faith, not through various efforts to keep God's commands.

Feel free to start a thread concerning the relationship between Faith, Grace, and Works. I will be happy to address that topic with you, time permitting. Just know that it is large groups within the Evangelical community that have fooled countless people into believing that they are saved without repentance. That will be on your heads (or their heads), not mine. Fortunately, I have seen a change for the better in some of these Christian circles, as some of them are actually turning more towards a balanced, and quite frankly, a more LDS view. Refusing to take grace as a "license to sin" is not the same as supposedly trying to earn your way into heaven. I hope that you all can appreciate that contrast.

-7up

[seven7up]

Ex Nihilo as veiled pantheism

7UP: In mainstream Christian theology, where does your spirit come from? When does your spirit come into existence?

It is created during conception. I don't believe that God chooses to personally make your spirit. I believe it is all part of the process of being conceived.

You are just trying to be "indirect" about it. It doesn't matter how "indirectly" you try to twist your way out of it. An omniscient and omnipotent God has complete unilateral control. Reality will be EXACTLY what God created it to be and what God envisioned in His own mind before He even created it, down to the very most intricate detail, including what you "decided" to eat for breakfast this morning.

Christian Philosopher Thomas Oord relates two significant points as follows:

*Problem of Evil: If God once had the power to create from absolutely nothing, God essentially retains that power. But a God of love with this capacity appears culpable for failing to prevent evil.

*Empire Problem: The kind of divine power implied in creatio ex nihilo supports a theology of empire, based upon unilateral force and control of others.

Let me ask you a question. When your God creates spirit babies, who decides which intelligences will inhabit them out of the infinite number of intelligences out there? How was the intelligence of Jesus chosen from among those intelligences and put into a spirit baby?

The intelligences are entities of free will. If you have thought long and hard about this theological framework, we can consider the possibility that these entities themselves decide to enter into that spiritual form.

The difference is that when placed at a higher level of existence, this entity may begin to act out its free will in a more meaningful way. This is especially true for us as human beings living by faith in mortality. Right now we are given tremendous amounts of freedom, outside of God's presence, to see what we are really made of.



7up: IF you wanted to make a statue out of superior characteristics, ex nihilo, let's say out of gold for example, .... I would be stuck with working on sandstone, or whatever material I had available to work with.

I was using an example of coming up with the same statue by two different means: You doing it by carving, me doing it by fiat.

And you decide to miss the point of that analogy. The intelligences (and subsequently spirits) that became these individuals had unique characteristics.

John the Baptist, for example, would have been an entity/intelligence, represented by gold, with superior characteristics which eventually resulted in better moral decision making when "tested by fire" , than ... let's say ... the decision making of Cain, or Hitler, which is represented by sandstone and results in poor moral decision making.

Your own God had to create a universe from his own mind too. He just used existing material to shape the universe and the real God created the material and the universe. No difference in free will.

Contrary to the Ex Nihilo view, the world we live in today is the result, not only ultimately of the plan of God being carried out, but it is influenced by the different wills, sometimes contrary voices, which are "self-determined" and "first-causal" in nature. LDS do not accept your theological framework, which is based on the Greek philosophical view (Greek philosophical monotheism) known as the single "Unmoved Mover", which was turned into God the Father in order to make Christianity more acceptable to the Roman world.

The reality that we witness is not only the result of the will and plan of God, but also the result of the wills of all those who have free agency, whether they be human, spiritual, divine, angelic, etc. In other words, the history of the world is not written solely by God, while I admit that his hand is in all of it, but history is also coauthored by all of us. LDS theology allows for true interpersonal relationships. God does not simply to enjoy himself and his own contributions to reality which are entirely a result of his own imagination; this would be nothing more than a relationship with Himself, or the diverse aspects of God's own mind. Instead, God wants to be enriched by relationships with independent beings who truly add something to reality other than God's own self projections.

As I have discussed previously, Ex Nihilo creation theology is a veiled form of Pantheism, whereby the created Universe is a projection of God's own creative imagination which results in nothing more and nothing less than what God imagined it would be in His own mind before deciding to create it.

-7up

[seven7up]

duh. It's called free will.

Even Evangelical Christians usually admit that God is not omnipotent in the sense that there are no logical contradictions. God cannot, for example, create a circle with four corners.

The argument that you are attempting to use here fails under this category. I explained it in the video; you simply have not grasped it. I provided a quote to Bill which explains the concept in summary. Please read it carefully.

Not if he gives them free will. Apparently your idea of an omnipotent God isn't really omnipotent if he can't create free will.

You have not even begun to demonstrate any understanding that is necessary for the level of discussion being addressed here. I will try to be patient.


-7up

[seven7up]

BILL: So, God places the mouse in the maze, despite not wanting it to go to point B, and you think that is Calvinism?

No. In Calvinism (or Ex Nihilo), God WILLS people to go to hell, and therefore they do. If God did not want them to go to hell 1) He could have created those particular individuals differently OR 2) He could have refrained from creating those individuals to begin with.



7UP: God creates people to go to hell. In fact, in that theology, God created all of us from God's own mind in such a way that the grand majority of us would end up in misery and damnation forever. ... and puts the blame squarely on the creations which God conjured up purely from His own imagination.

BILL: That's Calvinism for you.

Calvinism is the logical conclusion that is drawn from Ex Nihilo creation theology.

BILL: Sparko has also explained this to you how your complaints are based solely on how YOU prefer that God SHOULD have behaved, not how He CHOSE to do so.

No. My arguments are simply based in logic. "Preference" has not much to do with it.

Who do you think you are to tell God what He should do? Does He seek YOUR counsel before doing things? Do you not trust His ability to make decisions that conflict with yours?

This ol' straw man again Bill? You and I both know that, from my perspective, God did everything perfectly. He did the very best possible with the eternal intelligences that He had to work with. The very fact that Had to work with flawed entities with free will is why we find sin and suffering in our world. It is not because God created flawed spirits Ex Nihilo.

it is nothing more than a whiny complaint.

Do you think that repeating the terms "whiny" and "complaint" are sufficient to overcome the arguments of free will that you wish could exist in your theology Bill? You are going to have to do better than that. Try a substantive response for once.

While you think on that, I will have a Calvinist preach to you:

"In Calvinism, there is no conflict between the will and nature of God and the nature of ultimate reality, or the basic laws of reality. Whereas in an Arminian or an LDS view, sin and suffering, to the extent that they occur, are indications of the failure of God to attain his desires and reminders that God is limited by a universe he did not create and over which he does not have full control, in the Calvinist view, sin and suffering, like all things, are outworkings of the free plan of God. There are no “lawlike structures or principles” which are coeternal and not identical with God himself. Rather, in Calvinism, all the laws of reality are rooted in him, in his nature and will. He is in full control of reality. ...

Creation ex nihilo implies a radical metaphysical dependence upon God, one that logically guarantees that the creature will not be independent from God or be capable of independent contributions to reality in the ways envisioned in Arminian thought. In fact, creation ex nihilo logically leads directly to Calvinistic determinism. So, there is a conflict between ex nihilo creation and some of the central features of the Arminian universe. ...

To put it another way, the explanation for the particular choices free creatures make, in the Arminian view, cannot be found in the fact that God gave his creatures free agency. God’s act of creation was a cause that had some effects. By definition, an effect is something that exists by means of having been determined by some preceding action as its cause. If our choices are undetermined by God and first-causal by nature, they therefore cannot be effects of God’s creative activity. They cannot be explained by it or traced back to it. They are wholly self-existent or self-originated. God cannot create uncaused choices, directly or indirectly. " - Mark Hausam

-7up

[Sparko]

As if God can create a being purely from God's own mind and imagination Ex Nihilo (knowing everything that the creature would do before hand) and then "wash his hands" of what the creature does afterwards?

duh. It's called free will.

The kind of creation and omnipotence you speak of implies complete unilateral power. God has TOTAL control and therefore is responsible for every "choice" that the creature makes.

-7up

Not if he gives them free will. Apparently your idea of an omnipotent God isn't really omnipotent if he can't create free will.

[seven7up]

You are still making the assumption that God could not create our spirits with free will and end up with the exact same spirit as if it existed forever as in the LDS scenario. He could. That is what omnipotence is.

As if God can create a being purely from God's own mind and imagination Ex Nihilo (knowing everything that the creature would do before hand) and then "wash his hands" of what the creature does afterwards?

The kind of creation and omnipotence you speak of implies complete unilateral power. God has TOTAL control and therefore is responsible for every "choice" that the creature makes.

-7up

[Bill the Cat]

"Proscribe" means "forbid." I would be delighted to hear that you do not proscribe Calvinism, but I suspect you meant that you do not subscribe to it.

See what I get for posting while I am eating...

Back to the original idea of this thread: If God is omnipotent, then he is still "on the hook" in some sense for the way the universe is, ex nihilo creation or not.

That's what I tried to get him to see before the crash when I explained that God allows the natural disasters to occur, and all of the carnage that follows, despite having the power to stop them, so He is just as responsible for death and misery from a Mormon framework as He is from an ex nihilo, Arminian, or Calvinist one.

[RBerman]

That's Calvinism for you. Which is why I do not proscribe to it.

"Proscribe" means "forbid." I would be delighted to hear that you do not proscribe Calvinism, but I suspect you meant that you do not subscribe to it.

Back to the original idea of this thread: If God is omnipotent, then he is still "on the hook" in some sense for the way the universe is, ex nihilo creation or not.

[RBerman]

God created me to be Mormon Bill. If you have a problem with it, take it up with Him. I don't have a say in the matter ... right?

God created you to start Mormon. Just like God created Saul/Paul to start as a persecutor of Christians, until God directly intervened to radically change the direction of his thinking. God created me and Bill to call you to Christ, through whose life and death and resurrection you can be reckoned right before God through faith, not through various efforts to keep God's commands. I pray that God will open your heart to his love.

[Bill the Cat]

Quote Originally Posted by seven7up
Would God place mouse 2 into the maze, if God did not want mouse 2 to go to point B?





You nailed it Bill. That is exactly the Calvinist perspective, which is the logical conclusion from Ex Nihilo doctrine.

So, God places the mouse in the maze, despite not wanting it to go to point B, and you think that is Calvinism??? The Calvinist believes in the absolute sovereignty of God and His ability to have everything He desires occur. If God places the mouse in the maze, it will only go exactly where God wanted it to go. You don't even understand that basic concept...

God creates people to go to hell. In fact, in that theology, God created all of us from God's own mind in such a way that the grand majority of us would end up in misery and damnation forever. ... and puts the blame squarely on the creations which God conjured up purely from His own imagination.

That's Calvinism for you. Which is why I do not proscribe to it.

When really, if God knew someone would go to hell, and didn't want that person to end up in hell, then God could have simply NOT created that person in the first place.

Again, here is your real whine. COULD and SHOULD are different concepts. COULD He have? Absolutely. SHOULD He have? That's the real beef you have with Ex Nihilo. You think you know better than God on what He SHOULD do than He does.

God created me to be Mormon Bill. If you have a problem with it, take it up with Him. I don't have a say in the matter ... right?

From a Calvinist argument, you are correct. But since I am not a Calvinist, I will rely on God's wisdom for creating you the way He chose to and follow His command to preach the Gospel to you, since I do not know God's intent for you.

No. I don't have to whine about a false and invented theology. I just point out the problems that exist inside the framework of that false and invented theology.

Absolutely false. Sparko has also explained this to you how your complaints are based solely on how YOU prefer that God SHOULD have behaved, not how He CHOSE to do so. Who do you think you are to tell God what He should do? Does He seek YOUR counsel before doing things? Do you not trust His ability to make decisions that conflict with yours?

As I said, it is nothing more than a whiny complaint.

[Sparko]

In LDS doctrine, we are not just "molecules". Let me give you a few quotes here to help you understand where Mormons are coming from here. First, let's Joseph Smith who spoke about this:

"The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-eternal with God himself. . . . Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end."

"[T]he mind of man—the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; . . . We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles."

Here is an Ensign article that discusses this as well:

The Restoration of Major Doctrines through Joseph Smith: The Godhead, Mankind, and the Creation

Eternal life is also possible, in part, because an element of every human being is divine and eternal. Joseph Smith used several different terms to refer to that eternal essence—spirit, soul, mind, and intelligence. He received the knowledge that “man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.” (D&C 93:29.) He taught that “the mind of man is as immortal as God himself” and that “the Spirit of Man [meaning intelligence] is not a created being.”

He did not define, however, this element’s form and substance, nor did he identify its attributes, other than its eternal nature. This eternal element of intelligence or light of truth is something other than the spirit bodies God created later; these later entities were “the intelligences that were organized” and were the spirits that Abraham saw. ... In our own primeval births, the eternal intelligence part of us was “organized”.




I agree with you. God's foreknowledge, in and of itself, does not determine outcomes. It is the combination of Ex Nihilo, Omniscience and Omonipotence. In the video, I make the inference that foreknowledge alone is not the problem. Start at 4:00 , where I give the Ex Nihilo view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxOiYvKDack

Then at 6:50, I give a contrasting view, whereby God is not creating Ex Nihilo, but instead for entities of free will that already exist.

You are still making the assumption that God could not create our spirits with free will and end up with the exact same spirit as if it existed forever as in the LDS scenario. He could. That is what omnipotence is.

My argument has to do with Ex Nihilo. You are arguing against the concept that you wish I were making, rather than the argument I am actually making. You are going to have to pay closer attention than that.



In mainstream Christian theology, where does your spirit come from? When does your spirit come into existence?

It is created during conception. I don't believe that God chooses to personally make your spirit. I believe it is all part of the process of being conceived. Just like God didn't choose your parents and your genetic makeup. He KNEW you would be born, but I don't think he forced your entire lineage just to create you personally. Other than extreme calvinists, I don't think any Christian thinks that.

Let me ask you a question. When your God creates spirit babies, who decides which intelligences will inhabit them out of the infinite number of intelligences out there? How was the intelligence of Jesus chosen from among those intelligences and put into a spirit baby? Did the Father decide, or did he just get really lucky that his very first son was so good and perfect, better than any other intelligence out there?

No, because IF you wanted to make a statue out of superior characteristics, ex nihilo, let's say out of gold for example, .... I would be stuck with working on sandstone, or whatever material I had available to work with.

I was using an example of coming up with the same statue by two different means: You doing it by carving, me doing it by fiat. In that scenario, the statues would be identical at the end. There is nothing to stop an all powerful God from creating people with free will just because he created the universe out of nothing. Whether he started with nothing or a pile of sand, the universe once created could be the same universe.

Who created the mouse's mind, and therefore ultimately created the mouse's likes and dislikes?

The mouse's parents, and his environment.

People are included as part of the the Ex Nihilo creation in your theology. Consider this quote from Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler:

"The only place the world "existed" before God made it was as an idea in God's mind."

You can replace the word "world" with anything that God imagined before creation. The only place that "you" existed before God created the Universe was as an idea in God's mind. The only place that "Hitler" existed before God created the Universe was as an idea in God's mind. The only place that "rape" existed before God created the Universe was as an idea in God's mind.

You get the idea.

-7up

Your own God had to create a universe from his own mind too. He just used existing material to shape the universe and the real God created the material and the universe. No difference in free will.

[seven7up]

Quote Originally Posted by seven7up
Would God place mouse 2 into the maze, if God did not want mouse 2 to go to point B?

Yes.

You nailed it Bill. That is exactly the Calvinist perspective, which is the logical conclusion from Ex Nihilo doctrine. God creates people to go to hell. In fact, in that theology, God created all of us from God's own mind in such a way that the grand majority of us would end up in misery and damnation forever. ... and puts the blame squarely on the creations which God conjured up purely from His own imagination.

When really, if God knew someone would go to hell, and didn't want that person to end up in hell, then God could have simply NOT created that person in the first place.


God created me to be Mormon Bill. If you have a problem with it, take it up with Him. I don't have a say in the matter ... right?

This turns into a big whine on God "should have been able to" only create those who would choose salvation.

No. I don't have to whine about a false and invented theology. I just point out the problems that exist inside the framework of that false and invented theology.


-7up

[seven7up]

OK you seem to be confusing Ex Nihilo with Ominscience. You are using a classical argument against God knowing the future. I will go into that in a minute but first:

There is no difference between God creating out of existing material, or creating the material and then creating the universe. Nothing except what he starts with. Once the universe is created, it is the same universe in both cases. Even starting with existing material, your LDS God, if he was omniscient, could use that material to create anything he wanted to and have absolute control over everything down to which way each molecule will move around.

In LDS doctrine, we are not just "molecules". Let me give you a few quotes here to help you understand where Mormons are coming from here. First, let's Joseph Smith who spoke about this:

"The mind or the intelligence which man possesses is co-eternal with God himself. . . . Is it logical to say that the intelligence of spirits is immortal, and yet that it had a beginning? The intelligence of spirits had no beginning, neither will it have an end."

"[T]he mind of man—the immortal spirit. Where did it come from? All learned men and doctors of divinity say that God created it in the beginning; . . . We say that God himself is a self-existent being. Who told you so? It is correct enough; but how did it get into your heads? Who told you that man did not exist in like manner upon the same principles? Man does exist upon the same principles."

Here is an Ensign article that discusses this as well:

The Restoration of Major Doctrines through Joseph Smith: The Godhead, Mankind, and the Creation

Eternal life is also possible, in part, because an element of every human being is divine and eternal. Joseph Smith used several different terms to refer to that eternal essence—spirit, soul, mind, and intelligence. He received the knowledge that “man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.” (D&C 93:29.) He taught that “the mind of man is as immortal as God himself” and that “the Spirit of Man [meaning intelligence] is not a created being.”

He did not define, however, this element’s form and substance, nor did he identify its attributes, other than its eternal nature. This eternal element of intelligence or light of truth is something other than the spirit bodies God created later; these later entities were “the intelligences that were organized” and were the spirits that Abraham saw. ... In our own primeval births, the eternal intelligence part of us was “organized”.

OK now on to Omniscience. If God knows what someone is going to choose that does not mean that God is making them choose it.

I agree with you. God's foreknowledge, in and of itself, does not determine outcomes. It is the combination of Ex Nihilo, Omniscience and Omonipotence. In the video, I make the inference that foreknowledge alone is not the problem. Start at 4:00 , where I give the Ex Nihilo view. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxOiYvKDack

Then at 6:50, I give a contrasting view, whereby God is not creating Ex Nihilo, but instead for entities of free will that already exist.

Again that has nothing to do with Ex Nihilo.

My argument has to do with Ex Nihilo. You are arguing against the concept that you wish I were making, rather than the argument I am actually making. You are going to have to pay closer attention than that.

Ex Nihilo never says that God creates every instant in the universe from start to finish as a fixed thing. It doesn't even mean that he creates YOU specifically. Your mom and dad created you. God might or might not influence which sperm meets which egg, and various circumstances in your life that form you into who you are today. But that would be the case in the LDS version of God or a God who created Ex Nihilo (out of nothing). Ex Nihilo just refers to HOW God creates and specifically to the initial creation.

In mainstream Christian theology, where does your spirit come from? When does your spirit come into existence?

If I could create ex nihilo and you could not, and we each wanted to make a statue, I would just snap my finger and the statue would appear. You would take a large rock and carve out the statue, but when we are done, the statues are the same. From that point forward there is no difference in what happens with that statue. They are identical.

No, because IF you wanted to make a statue out of superior characteristics, ex nihilo, let's say out of gold for example, .... I would be stuck with working on sandstone, or whatever material I had available to work with.

The mouse has a mind and likes and dislikes. It is a unique individual mouse that likes what is at its end of the maze.

Who created the mouse's mind, and therefore ultimately created the mouse's likes and dislikes?

But nothing in Ex Nihilo says God creates people Ex Nihilo out of his own mind. It refers to creating the universe. Do you regularly notice anyone popping into existence out of nothing? I don't.

People are included as part of the the Ex Nihilo creation in your theology. Consider this quote from Ravi Zacharias and Norman Geisler:

"The only place the world "existed" before God made it was as an idea in God's mind."

You can replace the word "world" with anything that God imagined before creation. The only place that "you" existed before God created the Universe was as an idea in God's mind. The only place that "Hitler" existed before God created the Universe was as an idea in God's mind. The only place that "rape" existed before God created the Universe was as an idea in God's mind.

You get the idea.

-7up

[Bill the Cat]

Would God place mouse 2 into the maze, if God did not want mouse 2 to go to point B?

Yes.

[Bill the Cat]

This turns into a big whine on God "should have been able to" only create those who would choose salvation.