By What Authority?

by Orthodox1 183 Replies latest jw friends

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  King Solomon

  if God did not directly interfere in the lives of the ancient Hebrews, don't you think His Word would have vanished into obscurity? And how would that have fared for the future freewill of humans?

  It's seems highly likely to me that you don't understand what "free will" is, either from the Biblical or philosophical perspective....

  You DO realize that from the Biblical perpsective, God's Divine Will and Man's Free Will are all there is in the Universe, and are in two different domains, where the expansion of one domain occurs at the cost of contraction of the others? God's Divine Will trumps man's exercise of Free Will, which is another way of saying that whenever God says "thou shalt not", that action is instantly removed from being a matter of exercising man's conscience (Free Will)?

  That's another way of saying that God does NOT consider his Divine Will as optional for man to follow: He didn't ask if you wish to comply, and he doesn't give mankind His permission to sin (i.e. defying His Divine Will IS the basic definition of sinning).

  And you DO realize that Adam and Eve's original sin WAS to defy his command, taking wisdom from YHWH (in the form of the Forbidden Fruit)? God never intended for man to HAVE free will, since they had to defy Divine Will in order to TAKE the neccessary ingredient that they were missing, in order to exercise free will (wisdom).
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  rather be in hades

  and money! let's not forget about the mooolah

  the pope has a MAYBACH??? baller lol
• 

  tec

  If they had no free will, Sol, then they could not have made the choice to TAKE something from God. If He never intended them to have it, then they could not have gone against his will to take it... to have the ability to go against his will, lol

  Peace,

  tammy
• 

  King Solomon

  Tammy,

  If they had no free will, Sol, then they could not have made the choice to TAKE something from God.

  Unfortunately, common sense and the principles of law wouldn't agree with you, since it's quite possible to say, kill someone without having any intent to do so. That's the difference between manslaughter and murder: having intent. Drunk drivers kill people routinely without having any intent to murder the person who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...

  What was criminal in the account is that YHWH saw fit to punish childlike Adam and Eve so harshly, when they were operating under a diminished capacity, lacking in wisdom, AKA fools (the antonym used in the Bible, for those lacking in wisdom). God created them as fools, and then was surprised when they acted foolishly: who's the real fool there?

  If He never intended them to have it, then they could not have gone against his will to take it... to have the ability to go against his will, lol

  Uh, are you forgetting the VERY FIRST EXPRESSION OF DIVINE WILL given to mankind? "Thou shalt not eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil"? It was the ONLY law recorded, up to that time.

  They disobeyed Divine Will in order to obtain the missing ingredient needed to exercise free will (AKA conscience): wisdom. Obviously, fools may have free will, but make foolish choices. In order to stand a chance using their free will, or even to DECIDE which actions were in God's domain vs theirs (as free will choice), they had to steal wisdom from God.

  God made them as imperfect, unless he really DID want to make them as robots (and even there, God made them as bad robots, as they quickly fell down the steps like Asimo....)

  Asimo
• 

  NewChapter

  Good point, Sol. Had man never touched that tree, they would have never had free-will. God never intended for them to touch that tree, so he never intended them to have free-will. When they did, he punished them for exercising free-will, and free-will turned into a weapon against the weak and vulnerable. It's kind of like god said, "You wanted freewill---well here you go! You got it! How do you like it now?"

  So I was thinking about Adam/Eve/Angels/Demons etc. There is a serious double standing and unfair stacking of the odds. Think about it. Satan sinned, of his own free will, and only Satan was punished. He had no innocent offspring to pass his sin onto. None of the angels did, because their father remained perfect, and they are unable to pass their imperfection on. Their world did not deteriorate and fill with horrors. No. They still get to hang out in heaven. And each angel is punished ONLY for his own sin, not the sin of others.

  Then we look at the far weaker and more vulnerable humans. A couple of humans sin, and their entire home goes to shit. Unlike the angels, they have absolutely no choice in the matter. Only god can kill an angel, so even in their imperfect state they are not victims of murder, starvation, war etc. but humans who had no choice have to live in pure misery as they are being 'tested'. It just seems unfair.

  Why does god like angels better than humans? I mean, an angel is skipping along in heaven, la la la, and all perfect and stuff, no pressures, and he has a choice. WOW, big deal if he can resist temptation! He lives in HEAVEN! He is already at HIS eternal destiny! He already sees his god and has tasted the reward! He has a question---he only need ask. He doesn't deal with sickness and hunger. HOW EASY it is for the much stronger angel with full self determination to be obedient.

  Then we look at wretched humans, and expect similar devotion with 1/10 of the answers and no taste of heaven at all.

  Tragic.
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  King Solomon

  NC said:

  Good point, Sol. Had man never touched that tree, they would have never had free-will. God never intended for them to touch that tree, so he never intended them to have free-will.

  Well, technically they STILL would've HAD have free will, it's just that without wisdom they'd not be able to use it responsibily (which is almost as bad as not having it, in the first place). They couldn't form a rational intent lacking wisdom (being the fuel that drives decision-making: Solomon prayed to be given wisdom, and hence was considered being blessed with good decision-making capabilities, leading up to his being an excellent Judge).

  But YES, it's true that the very action needed to use free will was one that would violate the only Divine Will expressed to them up to that point, so in essence, it's fair to say God clearly didn't want man to have or to exercise free will.

  When they did, he punished them for exercising free-will, and free-will turned into a weapon against the weak and vulnerable. It's kind of like god said, "You wanted freewill---well here you go! You got it! How do you like it now?"

  Close, but not quite.

  The act of eating the fruit was NOT an exercise of man's free will, but a VIOLATION of God's Divine Will, AKA a sin (the Original Sin, in fact). So it cannot rightly be called an exercise of man's free will, since God doesn't give mankind permission to sin under the cover of calling it an exercise of man's free will. That excuse doesn't fly with God. He punished them for violating His Divine Will, as it wasn't within their Free Will domain after he said "thou shalt not eat fruit".

  Man's free will domain is INSTANTLY reduced by the act of X whenever God expresses his Divine Will ("Thou shalt not do X"). So the action of X is instantly removed from being a conscience matter into God's "thou shalt not" ledger, and it no longer is a conscience matter.
• 

  tec

  Unfortunately, common sense and the principles of law wouldn't agree with you, since it's quite possible to say, kill someone without having any intent to do so. That's the difference between manslaughter and murder: having intent. Drunk drivers kill people routinely without having any intent to murder the person who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time...

  Yes, well, they both knew and intended to disobey God by eating of the tree he told them not to eat from.

  So... free will.

  What was criminal in the account is that YHWH saw fit to punish childlike Adam and Eve so harshly, when they were operating under a diminished capacity, lacking in wisdom, AKA fools (the antonym used in the Bible, for those lacking in wisdom). God created them as fools, and then was surprised when they acted foolishly: who's the real fool there?

  "Eat... and die."

  Not...

  "Eat... and i will kill you."

  Death was a consequence.

  They disobeyed Divine Will in order to obtain the missing ingredient needed to exercise free will (AKA conscience): wisdom. Obviously, fools may have free will, but make foolish choices. In order to stand a chance using their free will, or even to DECIDE which actions were in God's domain vs theirs (as free will choice), they had to steal wisdom from God.

  So they had free will. We are in agreement upon this point.

  You are saying that they did not have the wisdom to use their free will wisely?

  (Never mind for the moment that it was not the tree of wisdom, period. It was the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (not the difference between... knowledge of both) )

  Mankind has kinda shown what sort of track record he has of using that wisdom to show love for one another... over serving one's self. So eating from that tree didn't exactly teach them how to use their free will responsibly, so this theory makes no sense to me.

  Peace,

  tammy
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  NewChapter

  So I guess they could have freewill as long as it was practiced within strict boundaries. Like deciding if they should slice the fruit today, or eat it whole. Free will. Skip through the flowers, or run. Free will. Tell a joke about a grasshopper or not. Free will.

  And if they used their free will to devise some kind of writing system, just what would they write about? All good plots must have some conflict. But what if you lived in a conflict free zone, and the very knowledge of conflict was bound up in a tree that well, you are free to eat from, but then all hell would break loose?

  Adam's Journal Entry:

  Woke up. Day was sunny and warm. Perfect. Ate some fruit, it was perfectly ripe. Wife is happy and healthy, baby didn't cry. dum, dum, dum, OH yeah, decided to mix it up a little and climb a tree---not THE tree---but plenty of other trees to choose from. Drank some water, it was clean and sparkly. hmm hmm hmmm. Built a hut, it went up perfectly. yep. uhm. skipped through some flowers. Pet a lion. Sang a song about a grasshopper and celebrated how he has food all year long. do do do. Sun set, perfect sleeping weather. Had sex with Eve, all went perfectly. Fell into a restful and happy sleep. Dreamt of grasshoppers.
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  King Solomon

  NC stated:

  Satan sinned, of his own free will, and only Satan was punished. He had no innocent offspring to pass his sin onto. None of the angels did, because their father remained perfect, and they are unable to pass their imperfection on. Their world did not deteriorate and fill with horrors. No. They still get to hang out in heaven. And each angel is punished ONLY for his own sin, not the sin of others.

  Remember that we have no idea if Satan had used free will to do so, or if fact if he sinned (i.e. there is no equivalent story of Satan's original Sin, with a divine proclamation issued beforehand, eg "Thou Shalt Not Question My Divine Authority", or "Thou Shalt Not Fool the Mortals into disobeying my Divine Will").

  Kind of a big oversight, no?

  Or course, the Satan character was introduced much later, and Xians introduced the whole "the serpent is Satan" interpretation into the mix, when it had never existed in Judaic interpretations before. In fact, many of the aprocyphal works contain such accounts of the story of what happened before Adam and Eve in Heaven (I was looking at a book by Ehrmann which discusses many of these lost books of the Bible, the ones that didn't make the cut of canonization; it's called "Lost Scriptures: Books that Did Not Make it into the New Testament".)

  Why does god like angels better than humans? I mean, an angel is skipping along in heaven, la la la, and all perfect and stuff, no pressures, and he has a choice. WOW, big deal if he can resist temptation! He lives in HEAVEN! He is already at HIS eternal destiny! He already sees his god and has tasted the reward! He has a question---he only need ask. He doesn't deal with sickness and hunger. HOW EASY it is for the much stronger angel with full self determination to be obedient.

  Remember that angels are actually the prior Gods of polytheism, so God has to be more respectful of fellow (although less powerful) Gods... Same thing happens in the Zeus pantheon, where the same alliances, power struggles occur. It's good to be a God, for the most part....
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  frankiespeakin

  By the authority invested in me by the state of Caliphornea I here by pronounce the Catholic church the only true religion and bless its Holy Crusades against the heathens who worship other Gods.