The meta-thread about the ex nihilo threads

[seven7up]

7up; Really you are just trying to weasel out of the problem.

Um, no. It is a central tenet of the Arminian system that God has foreknowledge of the free will choices of the moral agent. How is a central belief a "weaseling out"?

It is "weaseling out" because it is not logically consistent. The only way out of it is to say, as Joseph Smith did, that we are coeternal with God.

7up: It appears that you are now trying to argue that God is forced to created what he creates, because God foreknew the creatures of creation and their outcomes, and by foreknowing something, God must actuate what He foreknew in his own mind.

Bingo

7up: In other words, you appear to be arguing here that God is limited by God's own foreknowledge.

Correct!! As I said, since He foreknows it, it comes to pass. If it does not come to pass, He did not foreknow it as an actuality, only a potential.

I just want to make clear that you are putting more limits on God.

7up; Also, it looks like you are now denying what you said earlier about God knowing possible outcomes of worlds and creatures that He did not decide to actuate.

Nope. A possible world is not an actuated world. Only the world God foreknew will exist is actuated.

God thought up the concept of Hitler, and then God was forced to create Hitler, because God thought of Hitler. Got it.

7up: Is it God's foreknowledge that determines whether or not the creature's actions become actualized (God's foreknowledge is the first cause), or are the creature's actions "first causal" by nature and God foreknows those actions?

They exist simultaneously in God's mind, not in a "first and then" relationship.

Your solution then, is to argue that our WILL (the will of human beings) is COETERNAL with God. In other words, your solution to my first argument is to attempt to copy the LDS position. Congratulations.

7up: It is like me deciding to build a car, and I have no choice but to build the very first concept that comes to my mind, whether it is a good concept or not.

For Him to choose otherwise would violate the cube's free will, and would change what God foreknew. That has been my argument all along, even in the old TWeb debate. It's just obviously taken you this long to get it.

Nonsense. It was not your old argument. In fact, at one point you were criticizing my theology, saying that you were appalled by the idea that God would have to bow to the will of the creatures that God Himself was creating, thus putting the will of created creatures on existential par with God's will.

Here is a section of an earlier discussion between you and I:
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7up: The difference between your view and mine - is that God, in your theology, is creating a rapist from God's own imagination (ie from nothing).

For His own purposes. For, if God is to not create the rapist, then He is filtering evil based on arbitrary criteria. If God decides not to create the rapist because rape is evil, then He would have to not create ANY of us, because we ALL think evil thoughts from time to time.

7up: In my theology, there already existed a flawed intelligence from eternity.

Which dictates to God what it will and will not do. God then becomes its slave.

7up: That flawed and imperfect intelligence progressed into humanity

Which was 1) facilitated by God based on the demand of the flawed intelligence (which makes Him subject to their will), 2) commanded by God based on a plan that God has (which violates their free will), or 3) arranged by God out of ignorance of what their plans were (which makes Him not omniscient)

7up: , and to deny any step of that progression could have been a violation of that individual's free will.

So, their will is greater than His. Now I see how you came to the conclusion that you can be His equal one day.

(Oh and in the previous post, after I said that we could assume for the moment, to make the debate more fair for you, that God knows which spirits will be good and which will be bad, you responded to this:)

7up: In LDS theology, the physical existence is a parallel of the spiritual existence. We believe that our spirits chose to enter physical bodies, and therefore, the possibility exists that the eternal intelligence had some kind of will to enter a spiritual body.

With full consent of Elohim, right? Is he even capable of saying no?

So Bill, now you are arguing to me that God cannot help but create from nothing those beings which God foreknows. In other words, you are now arguing that God is incapable of saying no. (A concept which you were previously mocking.)
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7up: Is the idea that God's own foreknowledge causes God to create what He creates your final answer on this?

Yes. It was my first answer too.

If you had this concept from the beginning, you would have said ... "You know what 7up, I agree with you in the sense that I agree that "the will of human beings is coeternal with God." Then we could have skipped the whole first argument, and simply moved on to the second one.

You didn't start to agree with some aspect of a coeternity of will until after an entire month of debate.

7up: ....now your refutation seems to be that God MUST create the cube that God foreknew that He would create. Here you assert that God has no choice in the matter.... God's foreknowledge is the cause. This is quite a circular argument that you have developed.

And it is logically sound. Any deviation from that violates another portion of God's attributes.

7up: And we have not even gotten to the second, and more powerful part of the problem for you.
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7UP: So, on to the next part. Second, I argue that God has power over outcomes by designing every single aspect of who and what we are, as Hausam explains above, "the choices we make are the results of the motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who we are, that make up the real essence of our actual being. That is why our choices reveal who we are. If our choices were not produced from the essence of our being, they would not be our choices fundamentally and would not reveal anything about who we are. Therefore, if God were the creator of our being or the essence of who we are, as a logically consistent account of creation ex nihilo would affirm, he would also be the creator and cause, at least indirectly, of the actual choices we make."

7up: Do you expect God to act contrary to God's nature?

Of course not. But we are not God. His nature is pure and consistent. Ours is impure and consistent.

And therefore you must argue that God is incapable of creating a being with a pure and moral nature. You must argue that God's imagination is only capable of producing impure beings.

7up: For starters, what is our nature?

Sinful. Unable to do good. Do you need the Bible verses that say that?

I agree that we are sinful by nature. However. I would qualify the statement "unable to do good". Anyways, the point is that we are sinful by nature.

7up: When a child is born in this world, what is the nature of that child.

Sinful, but innocent.

Are you going to put another limitation on God, by saying that God's imagination is not strong enough to come up with a morally superior creature?

7up; Is the child rational?

No. That part of the brain doesn't fully develop until we reach about 23.

You are avoiding the question. Plus, evangelicals imagine Adam and Eve being created as adults, so ...

7up: Why not? When God created Adam and Eve, where did they get their motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who they are, that make up the real essence of Adam and Eve's actual being. Where did all of that (their come from?

God.

Correct. In Ex Nihilo theology, all of these characteristics come from God Himself.

7up: If Adam and Eve were rational , why did they make such an obvious blunder with such immense consequences?

Because they listened to the serpent. I do not fathom to question why they did that, since scripture does not say why.

So, God is omniscient and omnipotent, but the best thing God can come up with from God's own imagination is a being who is so dumb (or sinful) that they will fall for the first trick that is thrown at them?

7up: The reason I presented the arguments on these two levels, is because first people try, as you did, to say that choices are not simply random. Right. Because they are determined by who and what we are. On the other hand, if you try to go the other way, and try to claim that God does not create our motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, etc., then you also have no recourse in your argumentation.

Would you PLEASE stop splitting up my posts? If you do it again, I am going to report you for back to back posts!

I try to keep them together, but sometimes they get far too long.

-7up

[Bill the Cat]

7up; Really you are just trying to weasel out of the problem.



It is "weaseling out" because it is not logically consistent.

Yes it is. You just can't seem to grasp that foreknowledge is not the same as causation.

The only way out of it is to say, as Joseph Smith did, that we are coeternal with God.

No. Joseph said we were independently co-eternal as external entities. I am saying that God's foreknowledge of us and our choices is eternal.

7up: It appears that you are now trying to argue that God is forced to created what he creates, because God foreknew the creatures of creation and their outcomes, and by foreknowing something, God must actuate what He foreknew in his own mind.



7up: In other words, you appear to be arguing here that God is limited by God's own foreknowledge.

No more so than He is "limited" by His inability to destroy Himself, or make a square circle.

I just want to make clear that you are putting more limits on God.

It's a logical issue, not a limitation.

7up; Also, it looks like you are now denying what you said earlier about God knowing possible outcomes of worlds and creatures that He did not decide to actuate.



God thought up the concept of Hitler, and then God was forced to create Hitler, because God thought of Hitler. Got it.

No, no NO!! God foreknew Hitler, and then God created Hitler because God foreknew Hitler. Let's look at this from a simpler perspective since you don't seem to be getting it.

I have a red apple in my hand. God foreknew this apple would be red at this very instant in time. So, He created the red apple to be red at this very instant in time because He foreknew it. There are other possible realities where the apple could have been green or yellow. There are also impossible realities where the apple would be rainbow colored, but those are not important at this moment. The reason why I do not have a green apple in my hand is because God did not foreknow that I would have a green apple, despite it being a possibility due to the existence of green apples. Hence a choice was made by me of which color apple to choose, which God foreknew before I ever existed. So, He foreknew me and the red apple in His mind, not as independent co-eternal beings, but as knowledge that will be actuated into reality when the time was right. Neither I or the apple actually existed beside God as separate and independent beings.

7up: Is it God's foreknowledge that determines whether or not the creature's actions become actualized (God's foreknowledge is the first cause), or are the creature's actions "first causal" by nature and God foreknows those actions?



Your solution then, is to argue that our WILL (the will of human beings) is COETERNAL with God.

Wrong. God's foreknowledge of our will belongs to God's existence.

In other words, your solution to my first argument is to attempt to copy the LDS position. Congratulations.

Wrong.

7up: It is like me deciding to build a car, and I have no choice but to build the very first concept that comes to my mind, whether it is a good concept or not.



Nonsense. It was not your old argument.

Yes it was.

In fact, at one point you were criticizing my theology, saying that you were appalled by the idea that God would have to bow to the will of the creatures that God Himself was creating, thus putting the will of created creatures on existential par with God's will.

And rightly so. Your theology posits separate and independent beings that instruct God on their desires to progress. They do not originate within God as far as their existence goes. All your god does is basically buy them clothes, pat them on the head, and wish them the best of luck. You claim that your god won't deny them progression, yet he does that very thing when he denies those who get assigned to the telestial kingdom.

Here is a section of an earlier discussion between you and I:

It's you and ME. not you and I

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7up: The difference between your view and mine - is that God, in your theology, is creating a rapist from God's own imagination (ie from nothing).



7up: In my theology, there already existed a flawed intelligence from eternity.



7up: That flawed and imperfect intelligence progressed into humanity



7up: , and to deny any step of that progression could have been a violation of that individual's free will.



(Oh and in the previous post, after I said that we could assume for the moment, to make the debate more fair for you, that God knows which spirits will be good and which will be bad, you responded to this:)

7up: In LDS theology, the physical existence is a parallel of the spiritual existence. We believe that our spirits chose to enter physical bodies, and therefore, the possibility exists that the eternal intelligence had some kind of will to enter a spiritual body.






So Bill, now you are arguing to me that God cannot help but create from nothing those beings which God foreknows. In other words, you are now arguing that God is incapable of saying no. (A concept which you were previously mocking.)
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No I am not saying God is incapable of saying no. I am saying that IF He said no, then He would have foreknown that He said no, and the "yes" would never have been actuated, meaning He would never have foreknown the "yes". What I am saying is that God is incapable of creating something different from which He foreknew, even a "no". Your god can't say no for a different reason.

7up: Is the idea that God's own foreknowledge causes God to create what He creates your final answer on this?



If you had this concept from the beginning, you would have said ... "You know what 7up, I agree with you in the sense that I agree that "the will of human beings is coeternal with God." Then we could have skipped the whole first argument, and simply moved on to the second one.

But it isn't "co-eternal with God" in the way you are using that term. A human's will is "with God" in that He foreknew it and created it, but it is not "co-eternal"

You didn't start to agree with some aspect of a coeternity of will until after an entire month of debate.

You still don't get it. There is no "aspect" of co-eternity of will, especially the way you believe.

7UP: So, on to the next part. Second, I argue that God has power over outcomes by designing every single aspect of who and what we are, as Hausam explains above, "the choices we make are the results of the motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who we are, that make up the real essence of our actual being. That is why our choices reveal who we are. If our choices were not produced from the essence of our being, they would not be our choices fundamentally and would not reveal anything about who we are. Therefore, if God were the creator of our being or the essence of who we are, as a logically consistent account of creation ex nihilo would affirm, he would also be the creator and cause, at least indirectly, of the actual choices we make."

7up: Do you expect God to act contrary to God's nature?



And therefore you must argue that God is incapable of creating a being with a pure and moral nature.

Nope. He is capable. It is a possibility. But if there was never in all of existence such a created creature, then it remains only an unactuated potential.

You must argue that God's imagination is only capable of producing impure beings.

Wrong. God's imagination only produces those beings He foreknew.

7up: For starters, what is our nature?



I agree that we are sinful by nature. However. I would qualify the statement "unable to do good". Anyways, the point is that we are sinful by nature.

Good.

7up: When a child is born in this world, what is the nature of that child.



Are you going to put another limitation on God, by saying that God's imagination is not strong enough to come up with a morally superior creature?

Again, you presuppose causation. Is God strong enough to come up with a rainbow colored apple? If He were, and He did, would He then have foreknown the apple was red, or rainbow? Would a red apple have existed if He created it a rainbow color?

7up; Is the child rational?



You are avoiding the question.

No, I am answering what you asked.

Plus, evangelicals imagine Adam and Eve being created as adults, so ...

Physically, yes, but not experientially.

7up: Why not? When God created Adam and Eve, where did they get their motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who they are, that make up the real essence of Adam and Eve's actual being. Where did all of that (their come from?



Correct. In Ex Nihilo theology, all of these characteristics come from God Himself.

Based on His foreknowledge of what they would be like. Eve had a temper because God foreknew Eve would have a temper, therefore He created her to have a temper. This is the very basics of foreknowledge.

7up: If Adam and Eve were rational , why did they make such an obvious blunder with such immense consequences?



So, God is omniscient and omnipotent, but the best thing God can come up with from God's own imagination is a being who is so dumb (or sinful) that they will fall for the first trick that is thrown at them?

Yes because God foreknew they would be "dumb". Had He changed that, they would not have ever been "dumb", and He would not have foreknown their "dumbness", but this would have violated their free will to be "dumb" if they chose to be dumb, so God did not change them, and therefore He did not foreknow them as "intelligent".

[seven7up]

7up; Really you are just trying to weasel out of the problem. It is "weaseling out" because (your argument) is not logically consistent.

Yes it is. You just can't seem to grasp that foreknowledge is not the same as causation.

I have said this MANY, many times. It is amazing that you keep getting this wrong after the lengthy discussions we have had. I NEVER argued that foreknowledge is the same as causation. I argue that creation Ex Nihilo is the same as causation.

7up: The only way out of it is to say, as Joseph Smith did, that we are coeternal with God.

No. Joseph said we were independently co-eternal as external entities. I am saying that God's foreknowledge of us and our choices is eternal.

The concept is essentially the same, whether we existed outside of God's mind or inside of God's mind. See below.

7up: It appears that you are now trying to argue that God is forced (later you call it like being a "slave) to create what he creates, because God foreknew the creatures of creation and their outcomes, and by foreknowing something, God must actuate what He foreknew in his own mind. (note in parenthesis added)

7up: In other words, you appear to be arguing here that God is limited by God's own foreknowledge.

No more so than He is "limited" by His inability to destroy Himself, or make a square circle.

Creating rational beings with free will is not a logical contradiction. Your rational leads you to something like: God first thought of ignorant and disobedient beings, therefore God was forced to create ignorant and disobedient beings.

7up: I just want to make clear that you are putting more limits on God.

It's a logical issue, not a limitation.

God would be "limited" to creating the first kind of being that He comes up with, even if it is a crappy one.

7up; Also, it looks like you are now denying what you said earlier about God knowing possible outcomes of worlds and creatures that He did not decide to actuate. ... God thought up the concept of Hitler, and then God was forced to create Hitler, because God thought of Hitler. Got it.

No, no NO!! God foreknew Hitler, and then God created Hitler because God foreknew Hitler.

Hitler existed eternally within the mind of God ... is the implication of what you are saying here.

Let's look at this from a simpler perspective since you don't seem to be getting it.

I have a red apple in my hand. God foreknew this apple would be red at this very instant in time. So, He created the red apple to be red at this very instant in time because He foreknew it. There are other possible realities where the apple could have been green or yellow. There are also impossible realities where the apple would be rainbow colored, but those are not important at this moment. The reason why I do not have a green apple in my hand is because God did not foreknow that I would have a green apple, despite it being a possibility due to the existence of green apples. Hence a choice was made by me of which color apple to choose, which God foreknew before I ever existed. So, He foreknew me and the red apple in His mind, not as independent co-eternal beings, but as knowledge that will be actuated into reality when the time was right. Neither I or the apple actually existed beside God as separate and independent beings.

You are proposing that they existed as part of God.

And really, I think LDS theology would call eternally existing entities "interdependent" rather than "independent". Nobody is truly independent.

7up: Is it God's foreknowledge that determines whether or not the creature's actions become actualized (God's foreknowledge is the first cause), or are the creature's actions "first causal" by nature and God foreknows those actions?

You did not answer this question.

The answer (either way) falls in line with Mark Hausam explained in his article.

7up: Your solution then, is to argue that our WILL (the will of human beings) is COETERNAL with God.

Wrong. God's foreknowledge of our will belongs to God's existence.

If our wills essentially existed IN God's mind and then the actualized Universe is an external manifestation of what existed within God, then you can see why I previously mentioned how Ex Nihilo is drawn back into a form of Pantheism.

7up: ... at one point you were criticizing my theology, saying that you were appalled by the idea that God would have to bow to the will of the creatures that God Himself was creating, thus putting the will of created creatures on existential par with God's will.

And rightly so. Your theology posits separate and independent beings that instruct God on their desires to progress. They do not originate within God as far as their existence goes.

It doesn't make much of a difference when compared to what you just proposed. You essentially proposed that God's unembodied mind included the unembodied minds/wills of those that God had not actuated yet, but our minds/wills existed within God's mind nonetheless.

All your god does is basically buy them clothes, pat them on the head, and wish them the best of luck.

Yours does worse than that. Yours creates us to be disobedient, ignorant, etc, and then condemns us for being that way.

You claim that your god won't deny them progression, ....

First of all, I gave the POSSIBILITY that God would be violating free will if He denies them progression. The other options include the idea that it is impossible for God to know the nature of a spirit child that has not yet been created OR that all spirit children are created in a single event. We don't know. I was just giving you a possibility to work with.

You claim that your god won't deny them progression, yet he does that very thing when he denies those who get assigned to the telestial kingdom.

LDS don't usually view it that way. People choose not to progress. They will end up in the kingdom that they are most suited for and that they are most comfortable in.

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7up: In my theology, there already existed a flawed intelligence from eternity.

Which dictates to God what it will and will not do. God then becomes its slave.

7up: That flawed and imperfect intelligence progressed into humanity

Which was 1) facilitated by God based on the demand of the flawed intelligence (which makes Him subject to their will), 2) commanded by God based on a plan that God has (which violates their free will), or 3) arranged by God out of ignorance of what their plans were (which makes Him not omniscient)

7up: , and to deny any step of that progression could have been a violation of that individual's free will.

So, their will is greater than His. Now I see how you came to the conclusion that you can be His equal one day.

(Oh and in the previous post, after I said that we could assume for the moment, to make the debate more fair for you, that God knows which spirits will be good and which will be bad, you responded to this:)

7up: In LDS theology, the physical existence is a parallel of the spiritual existence. We believe that our spirits chose to enter physical bodies, and therefore, the possibility exists that the eternal intelligence had some kind of will to enter a spiritual body.

With full consent of Elohim, right? Is he even capable of saying no?

So Bill, now you are arguing to me that God cannot help but create from nothing those beings which God foreknows. In other words, you are now arguing that God is incapable of saying no. (A concept which you were previously mocking.)
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No I am not saying God is incapable of saying no. I am saying that IF He said no, then He would have foreknown that He said no, and the "yes" would never have been actuated, meaning He would never have foreknown the "yes".

Please re-read what you wrote here. It pretty much summarizes the best that you can come up with in this debate.

What I am saying is that God is incapable of creating something different from which He foreknew, even a "no". Your god can't say no for a different reason.

What reason would that be?

7up: Is the idea that God's own foreknowledge causes God to create what He creates your final answer on this?
If you had this concept from the beginning, you would have said ... "You know what 7up, I agree with you in the sense that I agree that "the will of human beings is coeternal with God." Then we could have skipped the whole first argument, and simply moved on to the second one.

But it isn't "co-eternal with God" in the way you are using that term. A human's will is "with God" in that He foreknew it and created it, but it is not "co-eternal"

The argument you just attempted would require that the characteristics and will of each individual would have had to co-eternally exist in God's mind. Otherwise, you can not attempt to use that argument. You have no alternative logical choice.

7up: You didn't start to agree with some aspect of a coeternity of will until after an entire month of debate.

You still don't get it. There is no "aspect" of co-eternity of will, especially the way you believe.

See above and below.
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7UP: So, on to the next part. Second, I argue that God has power over outcomes by designing every single aspect of who and what we are, as Hausam explains above, "the choices we make are the results of the motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who we are, that make up the real essence of our actual being. That is why our choices reveal who we are. If our choices were not produced from the essence of our being, they would not be our choices fundamentally and would not reveal anything about who we are. Therefore, if God were the creator of our being or the essence of who we are, as a logically consistent account of creation ex nihilo would affirm, he would also be the creator and cause, at least indirectly, of the actual choices we make."

7up: Do you expect God to act contrary to God's nature?

Of course not. But we are not God. His nature is pure and consistent. Ours is impure and consistent.

And thus you are forced to admit my point, that our nature, which God created (in your theology created out of nothing), is why we are flawed (ignorant, disobedient, etc.) In other words, we act according to our nature, just as God acts according to God's nature. If God would have created Adam and Eve with a different nature, then they would act according to that nature.

There can be different kinds of beings, with different kinds of natures, and all of those different kinds could have free will. So why create a being with the nature of disobedience, ignorance, and so easily deceived?

7up: And therefore you must argue that God is incapable of creating a being with a pure and moral nature.

Nope. He is capable. It is a possibility. But if there was never in all of existence such a created creature, then it remains only an unactuated potential.

And who's fault is it, that God did not actuate this potential? Why is it that ALL of the human souls turn out wicked if there were other possibilities or potentials?

7up: You must argue that God's imagination is only capable of producing impure beings.

Wrong. God's imagination only produces those beings He foreknew.

In that case, what comes first? Are you saying that the free will of the being that God foreknows comes first, BEFORE God's imagination?

If so, then our WILL and character is just as eternal as God is. Welcome to thinking like a Mormon.

7up: For starters, what is our nature?I agree that we are sinful by nature. However. I would qualify the statement "unable to do good". Anyways, the point is that we are sinful by nature. .... When a child is born in this world, what is the nature of that child? ... Are you going to put another limitation on God, by saying that God's imagination is not strong enough to come up with a morally superior creature?

Again, you presuppose causation. Is God strong enough to come up with a rainbow colored apple? If He were, and He did, would He then have foreknown the apple was red, or rainbow? Would a red apple have existed if He created it a rainbow color?

A God creating any kind of apple out of God's own imagination can create any kind and color of fruit that God wants to.

7up: Why not? When God created Adam and Eve, where did they get their motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who they are, that make up the real essence of Adam and Eve's actual being. Where did all of that (their whole being) come from?

God

7up: Correct. In Ex Nihilo theology, all of these characteristics come from God Himself.

Based on His foreknowledge of what they would be like. Eve had a temper because God foreknew Eve would have a temper, therefore He created her to have a temper. This is the very basics of foreknowledge.

7up: If Adam and Eve were rational , why did they make such an obvious blunder with such immense consequences?

Because they listened to the serpent. I do not fathom to question why they did that, since scripture does not say why

7up: So, God is omniscient and omnipotent, but the best thing God can come up with from God's own imagination is a being who is so dumb (or sinful) that they will fall for the first trick that is thrown at them?

Yes because God foreknew they would be "dumb". Had He changed that, they would not have ever been "dumb", and He would not have foreknown their "dumbness", but this would have violated their free will to be "dumb" if they chose to be dumb, so God did not change them, and therefore He did not foreknow them as "intelligent".

Being "dumb" is not a matter of free will. Being rational is not a matter of free will. There are smart people or rational with free will and there are dumb people or irrational people with free will. So your "answer" here is not a real answer at all, but instead dodging the real issue.

-7up

[Bill the Cat]

7up; Really you are just trying to weasel out of the problem. It is "weaseling out" because (your argument) is not logically consistent.



I have said this MANY, many times. It is amazing that you keep getting this wrong after the lengthy discussions we have had. I NEVER argued that foreknowledge is the same as causation. I argue that creation Ex Nihilo is the same as causation.

Since creatio ex nihilo is all about foreknowledge, then you are equating the two whether you want to admit it or not.

7up: The only way out of it is to say, as Joseph Smith did, that we are coeternal with God.



The concept is essentially the same, whether we existed outside of God's mind or inside of God's mind.

That is absolutely and demonstrably false. Existing "outside" of God's mind before creation would imply a separate and non-contingent existence, meaning that God Himself could be removed but that which existed "outside" of Him would remain in existence. The concepts are different.

7up: It appears that you are now trying to argue that God is forced (later you call it like being a "slave) to create what he creates, because God foreknew the creatures of creation and their outcomes, and by foreknowing something, God must actuate what He foreknew in his own mind. (note in parenthesis added)

7up: In other words, you appear to be arguing here that God is limited by God's own foreknowledge.



Creating rational beings with free will is not a logical contradiction.

Creating a different being than God foreknew is. It would be like having the blueprints for a Ferrari and building a Pinto.

Your rational leads you to something like: God first thought of ignorant and disobedient beings, therefore God was forced to create ignorant and disobedient beings.

Wrong. God foreknew that we would be how we are, ignorant and disobedient, and He created us based on those "blueprints". Changing the blueprints would violate what He foreknew, thus causing a logical contradiction.

7up: I just want to make clear that you are putting more limits on God.



God would be "limited" to creating the first kind of being that He comes up with, even if it is a crappy one.

You keep seeing this in Mormon linear thinking. God's foreknowledge is in the present. There are no "sequences" in God's foreknowledge of events. He always knew that I would be typing this response to you at this precise moment long before I ever existed in our time.

7up; Also, it looks like you are now denying what you said earlier about God knowing possible outcomes of worlds and creatures that He did not decide to actuate. ... God thought up the concept of Hitler, and then God was forced to create Hitler, because God thought of Hitler. Got it.



Hitler existed eternally within the mind of God ... is the implication of what you are saying here.

Yes. And any attempt by God to change what Hitler would do would be a violation of Hitler's free will, and a violation of God's perfect foreknowledge.

You are proposing that they existed as part of God.

As foreknowledge, yes. Not a tangible separate being, like you propose, but as knowledge.

And really, I think LDS theology would call eternally existing entities "interdependent" rather than "independent". Nobody is truly independent.

Your eternal existence is not reliant on anyone else for its existence. You just exist. Had Elohim never organized you, you would still exist. Had Elohim never been organized himself, you would still exist. THAT is what I mean by "independent".

7up: Is it God's foreknowledge that determines whether or not the creature's actions become actualized (God's foreknowledge is the first cause), or are the creature's actions "first causal" by nature and God foreknows those actions?

You did not answer this question.

Yes I did. The answer is neither. God creates as the "first cause", but His creation is limited to the parameters of His foreknowledge of our decisions. They both work together simultaneously for God to be our cause while our decisions are our own to be judged.

The answer (either way) falls in line with Mark Hausam explained in his article.

7up: Your solution then, is to argue that our WILL (the will of human beings) is COETERNAL with God.



If our wills essentially existed IN God's mind and then the actualized Universe is an external manifestation of what existed within God, then you can see why I previously mentioned how Ex Nihilo is drawn back into a form of Pantheism.

And why I said you were wrong. You are stretching Pantheism well beyond what it really is.

7up: ... at one point you were criticizing my theology, saying that you were appalled by the idea that God would have to bow to the will of the creatures that God Himself was creating, thus putting the will of created creatures on existential par with God's will.



It doesn't make much of a difference when compared to what you just proposed. You essentially proposed that God's unembodied mind included the unembodied minds/wills of those that God had not actuated yet, but our minds/wills existed within God's mind nonetheless.

AS FOREKNOWLEDGE. That's what you simply refuse to grasp. As foreknowledge, we did not exist as temporal created entities who aged, experienced things, or any of the other things that come along with created existence. We existed merely as perfect foreknowledge.

Yours does worse than that. Yours creates us to be disobedient, ignorant, etc, and then condemns us for being that way.

Because if He changed any of that, He would be violating our free will to do so.

First of all, I gave the POSSIBILITY that God would be violating free will if He denies them progression. The other options include the idea that it is impossible for God to know the nature of a spirit child that has not yet been created OR that all spirit children are created in a single event. We don't know. I was just giving you a possibility to work with.

And you complain about my theology?? At least I have a response that is logically coherent. All you have is "we don't know", which is typical for the on-the-fly crap Joseph Smith made up.

LDS don't usually view it that way. People choose not to progress. They will end up in the kingdom that they are most suited for and that they are most comfortable in.

But when they see that they are not in the presence of the Father, why would they not desire a higher kingdom? And then why would He deny their progression?

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7up: In my theology, there already existed a flawed intelligence from eternity.



7up: That flawed and imperfect intelligence progressed into humanity



7up: , and to deny any step of that progression could have been a violation of that individual's free will.



(Oh and in the previous post, after I said that we could assume for the moment, to make the debate more fair for you, that God knows which spirits will be good and which will be bad, you responded to this:)

7up: In LDS theology, the physical existence is a parallel of the spiritual existence. We believe that our spirits chose to enter physical bodies, and therefore, the possibility exists that the eternal intelligence had some kind of will to enter a spiritual body.



So Bill, now you are arguing to me that God cannot help but create from nothing those beings which God foreknows. In other words, you are now arguing that God is incapable of saying no. (A concept which you were previously mocking.)
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Please re-read what you wrote here. It pretty much summarizes the best that you can come up with in this debate.

And this is the best that you have... "We don't know"

What reason would that be?

Incompetence.

7up: Is the idea that God's own foreknowledge causes God to create what He creates your final answer on this?
If you had this concept from the beginning, you would have said ... "You know what 7up, I agree with you in the sense that I agree that "the will of human beings is coeternal with God." Then we could have skipped the whole first argument, and simply moved on to the second one.



The argument you just attempted would require that the characteristics and will of each individual would have had to co-eternally exist in God's mind.

Only as perfect knowledge, not as a separate entity.

Otherwise, you can not attempt to use that argument. You have no alternative logical choice.

I agree. There is no other logical choice that can manage foreknowledge, free will, and contingency.

7up: You didn't start to agree with some aspect of a coeternity of will until after an entire month of debate.



See above and below.

All I see is that you still don't get how perfect foreknowledge works. Or you are intentionally ignoring it.

7UP: So, on to the next part. Second, I argue that God has power over outcomes by designing every single aspect of who and what we are, as Hausam explains above, "the choices we make are the results of the motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who we are, that make up the real essence of our actual being. That is why our choices reveal who we are. If our choices were not produced from the essence of our being, they would not be our choices fundamentally and would not reveal anything about who we are. Therefore, if God were the creator of our being or the essence of who we are, as a logically consistent account of creation ex nihilo would affirm, he would also be the creator and cause, at least indirectly, of the actual choices we make."

7up: Do you expect God to act contrary to God's nature?



And thus you are forced to admit my point, that our nature, which God created (in your theology created out of nothing), is why we are flawed (ignorant, disobedient, etc.) In other words, we act according to our nature, just as God acts according to God's nature. If God would have created Adam and Eve with a different nature, then they would act according to that nature.

And that would have meant that He would not have foreknown their original nature, which is a contradiction of His perfect foreknowledge. In order for God to CHANGE something about their initial created nature, He has to violate His foreknowledge of what He was changing in the first place.

There can be different kinds of beings, with different kinds of natures, and all of those different kinds could have free will. So why create a being with the nature of disobedience, ignorance, and so easily deceived?

Because that's what He foreknew.

7up: And therefore you must argue that God is incapable of creating a being with a pure and moral nature.



And who's fault is it, that God did not actuate this potential?

Ours.

Why is it that ALL of the human souls turn out wicked if there were other possibilities or potentials?

My soul isn't wicked. It has been redeemed, blood-bought, saved, sanctified, and washed clean.

7up: You must argue that God's imagination is only capable of producing impure beings.



In that case, what comes first?

Neither. They are simultaneous.

Are you saying that the free will of the being that God foreknows comes first, BEFORE God's imagination?

No.

If so, then our WILL and character is just as eternal as God is. Welcome to thinking like a Mormon.

I'm sorry, but Mormons think that our very existence is eternal, and that we are no more reliant on God for our essential existence than we are for the existence of coal.

7up: For starters, what is our nature?I agree that we are sinful by nature. However. I would qualify the statement "unable to do good". Anyways, the point is that we are sinful by nature. .... When a child is born in this world, what is the nature of that child? ... Are you going to put another limitation on God, by saying that God's imagination is not strong enough to come up with a morally superior creature?



A God creating any kind of apple out of God's own imagination can create any kind and color of fruit that God wants to.

If He foreknew that apple would exist, yes. It is what limits what gets actuated and what doesn't, not His desire for "better" or "different". Therefore His will is limited by His foreknowledge. Your god has no excuse why he won't create a rainbow colored apple. It's just a matter of taste for him.

7up: Why not? When God created Adam and Eve, where did they get their motivations, desires, loves, values, priorities, beliefs, etc., that constitute who they are, that make up the real essence of Adam and Eve's actual being. Where did all of that (their whole being) come from?



7up: Correct. In Ex Nihilo theology, all of these characteristics come from God Himself.



7up: If Adam and Eve were rational , why did they make such an obvious blunder with such immense consequences?



7up: So, God is omniscient and omnipotent, but the best thing God can come up with from God's own imagination is a being who is so dumb (or sinful) that they will fall for the first trick that is thrown at them?



Being "dumb" is not a matter of free will. Being rational is not a matter of free will.

They are matters of foreknowledge.

There are smart people or rational with free will and there are dumb people or irrational people with free will. So your "answer" here is not a real answer at all, but instead dodging the real issue.

My answer is consistent with God's foreknowledge, with free will, and with contingency. It is not dodging anything. It directly addresses your attempt at a rebuttal.