The Debate: Is God to Blame? Part 1
This post is for Glo, she asked about the debate mentioned in yesterday’s Simple Woman Daybook. It was the result of a conversation with my favourite atheist. We have been discussing free will and predestination the past few weeks. Last night I asked if he thought free will (or the perception) of free will mattered.
This was the argument he set up:
And that was the start of the debate, we're still discussing it, next step my response.
His response: “I think free will is only important insofar as it might impact moral blameworthiness; I'm not sure how we can be morally blameworthy if a god exists.”I disagreed stating that we and not God are accountable for our moral actions/choices and asked how did he had reached the conclusion that God was responsible for our actions.
This was the argument he set up:
*assuming god exists
1) God is omnipotent
2) God created the initial conditions of the universe
3) God is omniscient
4) God created the initial conditions of the universe knowing what would happen (from 2 and 3)
5) The universe as it unfolds is how God intended it (from 1 and 4)
6) If the universe is how God intends, then it is God’s responsibility
7) God is responsible for how the universe unfolds (from 5 and 6)
8) People are finite
9) Finite beings cannot obstruct the will of an omnipotent being
10) People cannot obstruct the will of God (from 1, 8 and 9)
Therefore, God is responsible for the universe and people are not
And that was the start of the debate, we're still discussing it, next step my response.
Comments
Your friends key words are 'initial conditions' (4) and 'intended' (5). What if God's initial conditions included self-limitation (giving people freedom to make their own decision rather than be puppets?). What if God's intention was to create real relationship (which requires freedom) rather than a robotic world?
The argument is a pretty good argument against hard-core calvinism, but not a very good argument against arminianism. And, if there is any strength to the open theist position (which redefines omniscience significantly, indicating that God doesn't know the future b/c it is impossible to know what hasn't happened yet), this argument would be even weaker in the face of it.
Most forms of calvinism (exlcuding hard-core), all forms of arminianism (including open theism) reject 9 in some form for the very reason that this particular omnipotent being voluntarily limits His control.
Where does one get the idea of moral blame if there is no God? If there is no God, there are no moral absolutes, are there?
As far as this being an argument for moral responsibility resting solely with God, it's reaching. From the beginning man was offered choice. Ignore the tree stay in the garden live forever with a being that loves and cares for your every need in Paradise, eat the fruit gain the knowledge of what it means to disappoint the one who loves you and die with the possibility of never regaining what was lost. Again if we are dealing with an omniscient being then it already knew what choice would be made, and if that being was looking for a relationship and not a blind follower then the only way to accomplish it would be to put the follower in a situation that would result in said follower making a choice of what or who to believe in. God chose to create, we chose to disobey, God chooses to forgive.
I'm gonna go a head and stop the stream of consciousness writing now...my job is making me conversation deprived...