Christianity Oasis Forum

[dnb1007]

Hi everyone, I've been struggling with this for a while so I decided to see if I could get any other views on it. I was always raised to believe that the Bible is the entirely error free (although the metaphors within are obviously open to interpretation) and I think I'm slowly coming to the conclusion that this can't be.

This thought process first started when I was about 10 or 12 and I had asked the question that so many had asked before, "Why did God create us knowing that millions, or rather billions, of people would be going to hell?" My parents told me, that while He knew the unfortunate destinies of many, we all had free will and hell wasn't an absolute destination for anybody. And I was fine with that up until about a year ago when I had the following logical deduction.

If God is omnipotent and omniscient (all powerful and all knowing) like the Bible says He is, then we can't have free will which the Bible also says we have. This is because we all make decisions based upon our environmental stimuli and past experiences which isn't necessarily free will if God is putting everyone of us into specific situations with specific stimuli. Now try and stay with me here, it's kind of hard for me to explain, but if God knows how we will react given certain situations (all knowing) and he puts us in those certain situations (all powerful) because of how everything happened to be orchestrated according to His plan, where is our freedom to choose? He knows which people are going to hell before they are even born and he has put them into situations where they make the decisions that put them there.

The weakest part of my point is honestly saying that people make decisions based upon their past experiences and current situational stimuli. But this DOES seem to be the way people make decisions, unless somebody has another idea?

I guess the main fallout from these ideas I've been having in my head is that either we don't have free will or God isn't all powerful and all knowing. And from that, the Bible is flawed with a contradiction, and so how many other flaws are there?
I wasn't there in biblical times to see with my own eyes, and it would just seem arrogant to blindly follow a flawed text without trying to gather evidence. I think most people say, "that's where faith comes in" but I can't accept that. God made me as a logical being who craves proof.

I'm really rambling here, but this stuff has been cooped up in my head for a while.

[grandma dolittle]

dbn,
I think you are confusing free will. God does not[b][/b] put us in situation to have to choose what he already know will happen. God does not want any to go to hell. It was not made for us, but for the fallen angels. Your free will comes in making your choices. You are the one who put yourself into situations where you have to make a choice. For example, (I am supposing you are a man?) anyway, lets say your wife's best friend is a looker and you feel vibes when you are around her. Now, you have the free will to manage times to be alone with her, have an affair with her, etc, or you can walk away and pray for God's help. If you have children, you may leave some money lying on a table. Your child walks in and sees it. They have the free will to pick up some of the money or walk off and leave it alone. God did not set up either scenario. Man did.

[dnb1007]

But didn't God technically put us in every situation we've ever been in if He created the universe being omnipotent and omniscient? Like for the money lying on the table for the child to choose whether to take it or not; you can trace the child's decision making process back to his upbringing, back to his parents, back to their upbringing, all the way back to Adam and Eve and how God made them. God KNEW every situation we would be in and how we would react if He is all knowing and all powerful, right? So then God has put us into every situation we have ever been in.

God knew Eve would take the apple if she was put into the situation to choose, but He put her in that situation anyways.

[dema]

God is outside of time. For us, everything is happening and happening in order.

Picture a library. There is a book for every person. God can open that book at any place. We think we are on page 56, going through line by line and page by page - but God can flip to another page and see what happened. And not only that - God can change any page, talk to us on any page. He can talk to us on page 3 or on page 96. And then he can go to the next book and do the same thing.

We are inside of time - God is outside of time. So, God can look up our future, change our present, change our past. But for us, our memories are what is written in the book. If God changed our past - then it would have happened to us on that day. And all our memories would be that way.

This idea is from CS Lewis. I have pondered it a bit.

We are writing our book. God's changes are done by influencing us - not by taking away our free will. We choose, based on where we are and what is around us. But God can LOOK at all of every book in the universe. He knows what is in every book even though he allows each of us to write our own book. He can see the end - even though we haven't written it yet. There is no "yet" with God. He is in all times at once.

Is your head spinning?

[dnb1007]

That is starting to make a little sense, but I'm definitely going to have to spend more time with it. Thank you for that.

Another thing I've been playing around with has to do with physics (I'm a physics / engineering major) and there is this theory called the many worlds interpretation. It sounds like something out of a sci fi movie, but essentially every time an event takes place where there is more than one outcome (I'll use a coin being flipped for this example) the universe splits into different realities. So if I flip a coin, every time I do so, a universe is born where the coin landed on tails and another where it landed with heads facing up and I wind up in one of them. I know this sounds weird, so if you're curious just google Schrodinger's cat and then Everett's Many Worlds Interpretation, but it is actually getting backed by some evidence.

Anyways, the book analogy made me think back to this theory and kind of imagining God has this endless library of all the different realities for a person (if every time a decision is made more universes are created you can imagine just how vast it would be). There's some other ideas coming from this that relates back to free will in support of Christianity, but I feel like I'd just be too confusing to follow, unless someone was interested. At the very least, people might learn something about quantum mechanics

[JohnR]

I looked at your profile & noticed you’re pretty young, especially compared to me. I have to tell you brother I don’t know if you have accepted Christ as your Savior or not but it sounds like you’re VERY influenced by the world & the world is Satans domain! Take it from me you’re in a world of trouble (no pun intended) if you follow what the world has to say because this is a fallen world & you can NOT trust what this world has to say. I have had A LOT of trouble in my life because I DESIDED to follow what the world had to say & used that to justify everything I did! If you look at my posts you’ll see that I’m still struggling BECAUSE of DECISIONS I MADE when I was about your age. Now I’m in a VERY bad place in my life because of those decisions. You are at a crossroad in your life & you can CHOOSE to follow what the world has to say or GOD! Just look around you & look at history & where MAN’s decisions have gotten him. I hope you will pray about this & I will pray that God will give you WISDOM, HIS WISDOM not the worlds! You have your whole life ahead of you, please CHOOSE wisely!!!
God Bless
Choose Life