God has FINALLY heard my prayers . . .

[Amianthus]

Why should this even be necessary?

You'll have to ask God why he set it up that way.

[Xavier_Onassis]

You'll have to ask God why he set it up that way.

That won't work.

He's mute.

Or possibly not there.

Some say that he was deafened by the Big Bang.

[Amianthus]

That won't work.

Then I guess you'll never know.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Then I guess you'll never know.

=============================
I imagine no one will ever know.

Or ever has known.

Believed, perhaps.

Known, no.

[Plane]

If there is communication, it eliminates the element of faith.
==============================
So whucking fut?

Why should this even be necessary?

Even if God answers you verbally, you still have to believe that it was not a message from <turn on echo box> SATAN! <turn off echo box>.
That involves faith, does it not?

So we are disputing the amount of faith, not the presence of it.

The Supreme Being has attributes of being omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, omnibenevolent, and mute

One of these things is not like the other;
One of these things is not the same.
Can you find it, children?

What is omnibenevolent, and where is it promised?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Omnibenevolent is from I believe St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica, and refers to the concept that whatever God does is good, simply because he does it. This stems from the argument that God is not all powerful (omnipotent) because he cannot do evil. The word was basically invented to destroy that argument. If God were to do something evil (spit in the boss's coffee, kill a defenseless cute l'il bunnyrabbit, bite Miss America's head off, whatever) this would be a good act simply because God always does The Right Thing.

When theologians decide on a definition, they tend to smite reality until it is logically true.

When this cannot be done, they resort to calling it a "Mystery of the Faith".

[Plane]

Omnibenevolent is from I believe St Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologica and refers to the concept that whatever God does is good, simply because he does it. This stems from the argument that God is not all powerful (omnipotent) because he cannot do evil. The word was basically invented to destroy that argument. If God were to do something evil (spit in the boss's coffee, kill a defenseless cute l'il bunnyrabbit, bite Miss America's head off, whatever) this would be a good act simply because God always does The Right Thing.

Every bunny dies , some just so that an owl may live, did St Thomas Aquinas actually argue that everyone would benefit from everything?

Or did he just argue that an omnicient God would always make the right choice?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Every bunny dies , some just so that an owl may live, did St Thomas Aquinas actually argue that everyone would benefit from everything?

Or did he just argue that an omnicient God would always make the right choice?

=================================
Thomas Aquinas believed that the only being that has to contend with morality and choices based on morality are human beings. So yes, that bunnyrabbit died so that owl could live. It is all part of his divine plan.

God does not choose in the sense that you or I choose, because he has always known everything. He knows and has always known about that bunnyrabbit and every bunnyrabbit since forever, since God was not created and has always been and will always be. He knows when you have a lustful thought, and when you properly suppress it and beg forgiveness for it, and he known that you will be punished or pardoned for it, and has always known it.

You, Thomas Aquinas says, have free will. You have the POWER not to sin, but still God knows and has always known that you will or will not sin. Aquinas argues somewhat speciously that you still somehow the free will to act differently even though God knows you will not. That is where Aquinas starts getting rather silly, in my opinion.

I don;lt see how anyone can have free will if God knows the future. Not limited by the Bible, which I do not consider to be the word of God, I have decided that not even God can know the future.

[Plane]

Every bunny dies , some just so that an owl may live, did St Thomas Aquinas actually argue that everyone would benefit from everything?

Or did he just argue that an omnicient God would always make the right choice?

=================================
Thomas Aquinas believed that the only being that has to contend with morality and choices based on morality are human beings. So yes, that bunnyrabbit died so that owl could live. It is all part of his divine plan.

God does not choose in the sense that you or I choose, because he has always known everything. He knows and has always known about that bunnyrabbit and every bunnyrabbit since forever, since God was not created and has always been and will always be. He knows when you have a lustful thought, and when you properly suppress it and beg forgiveness for it, and he known that you will be punished or pardoned for it, and has always known it.

You, Thomas Aquinas says, have free will. You have the POWER not to sin, but still God knows and has always known that you will or will not sin. Aquinas argues somewhat speciously that you still somehow the free will to act differently even though God knows you will not. That is where Aquinas starts getting rather silly, in my opinion.

I don;lt see how anyone can have free will if God knows the future. Not limited by the Bible, which I do not consider to be the word of God, I have decided that not even God can know the future.

That God knows my mind and the consequences of my decisions before I make them seems natural to me. What about Gods knoledge prevents my mind and decisions from being my own?

[Xavier_Onassis]

That God knows my mind and the consequences of my decisions before I make them seems natural to me. What about Gods knoledge prevents my mind and decisions from being my own?

That would be because you cannot and will not decide in any fashion other than what God knows you will do?

I have a book that explains how  God's foreknowledge and your free will are irreconcilable from several angles.

[Plane]

That God knows my mind and the consequences of my decisions before I make them seems natural to me. What about Gods knoledge prevents my mind and decisions from being my own?

That would be because you cannot and will not decide in any fashion other than what God knows you will do?

I have a book that explains how  God's foreknowledge and your free will are irreconcilable from several angles.

I don't have that book , I don't see why such a concept would require a book length explanation.


Suppose that there were a subject you knew better than I , Language skills seems likely.

I consider it quite possible that you would be able to predict some of my mistakes as I began to explore your territory since you would hve seen that bad grammer or poor pronounciation before , this does not make those mistakes your mistakes , they would still be mine even if you predicted them perfectly.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I have no foreknowledge to what you know or might learn or say.

It there any logical reason why God should know the future?  I don't see any at all.

If there is free will, then it should be truly free of all interference.

[Plane]

I have no foreknowledge to what you know or might learn or say.

It there any logical reason why God should know the future?  I don't see any at all.

If there is free will, then it should be truly free of all interference.

It is free ,of the interference that would prevent us from haveing a real choice.

I am sure that you have had someone tell you "I told you so" it is a very common experience , if someone ever tells you not to do something but you do it anyway they have interfered in your free will?

I might tell someone not to grab that hot iron and they might still do it , they have burns that are not my fault then even if I heated the iron myself. 
Once ,one of my sons got burned on some Iron I heated , then because I had not warned him , I felt terrible on top of terrible not only that he was hurt but also that I could have so simply prevented it.

I can't make that complaint against God , the warning was put where I could find it for everything that I have ever done badly or chosen poorly , but not in such a way to make choice impossible even when the diffrence between the better and worse choice was clear.

[Xavier_Onassis]

I am sure that you have had someone tell you "I told you so" it is a very common experience , if someone ever tells you not to do something but you do it anyway they have interfered in your free will?
=================================

They have, of course, tried to interfere in your decision-making process, but being as they are not an omniscient God, both you and they know that the decision might actually turn out pleasantly.

There have been many incidents in my life where I was warned and did something despite it and everything turned out fine. On other occasion, the reverse was true.

If and only if the doomsayers were known to have inerrant future-predicting powers would this be a valid argument.

It does not say anywhere in the Bible that God can see into the future all the time. Joseph dreamed a parable about the future, but that was not God and was not the same thing. It is the theologians of the Roman Catholic Church that decided on the definition of God as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

God being mute has been my own observation, but that of many others as well.

[Plane]

I am sure that you have had someone tell you "I told you so" it is a very common experience , if someone ever tells you not to do something but you do it anyway they have interfered in your free will?
=================================

They have, of course, tried to interfere in your decision-making process, but being as they are not an omniscient God, both you and they know that the decision might actually turn out pleasantly.

There have been many incidents in my life where I was warned and did something despite it and everything turned out fine. On other occasion, the reverse was true.

If and only if the doomsayers were known to have inerrant future-predicting powers would this be a valid argument.

It does not say anywhere in the Bible that God can see into the future all the time. Joseph dreamed a parable about the future, but that was not God and was not the same thing. It is the theologians of the Roman Catholic Church that decided on the definition of God as omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolent.

God being mute has been my own observation, but that of many others as well.

I have not been given that gift , but Prophacy is still with us .

Is it genuine and from God?  Not always , but last time I nearly fell to my death I remembered my wife telling me that morning that she had dreamed my death.

It was pretty funny , I was on top of the aircraft working on the fuel tank sensors in the outer wing tank , I was wearing my safety harness and thought myself safe. A co-worker next to me dozed off , I noticed he was partly sprawled on ths aleron so I woke him and as he woke the Aleron moved beneith him like a trap door. One mad scramble later he was safe but shaken. that was when I noted the safety cable we were both hooked to was not fastened on one end !

I had a vision of makeing the Darwin award for being killed by my personal safety gear.

When I got home I learned that my wife had been praying hard for me all day , wasteing her time from your point of view , I suppose.

I also recall a bout two months ago I was trying inexpertly to cut down a tree on our churchyard, I was not really worried , but I was haveing a hard time. In the Chapel my wife and the Pastors wife were praying that we would not get killed .  A pulpwood truck rolled up and two lumberjacks got out to ask if they could have a log or two. They finished cutting down the tree expertly , pleaseing our wives quite a lot , was that also a close brush with death? I don't know , but it was the only time in my life that a lumberjack pulled off the road and asked me for a tree. No we coouldn't be seen from the road and no one called the lumberjacks to come .

God isn't insistant that you listen , but that isn't mute.