Does God need excuses?

[F1fan]

“Every act ye meditate is as clear to Him as is that act when already accomplished. There is none other God besides Him. His is all creation and its empire. All stands revealed before Him; all is recorded in His holy and hidden Tablets. This fore-knowledge of God, however, should not be regarded as having caused the actions of men, just as your own previous knowledge that a certain event is to occur, or your desire that it should happen, is not and can never be the reason for its occurrence.”
Gleanings From the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh, p. 150

Then the writings are irrational and should be rejected. You can't have it both ways.

You can't have a God that knows what you are going to do before it creates you, but creates you nonetheless. The God IS the cause. The human is just the agent. There is no free will to act any way other than what God knows will happen. God doesn't get surprised, does it?

 

[F1fan]

"God gave man free will"? And how is that working out for him? It's like I told my son not to drive fast and especially don't drink and drive. And then said, "But I know you will, because you always choose to do your will and not mine. So here's the keys and twenty bucks. Have a good time." Then later that night, "Gee, officer I told him not to drink and drive. How fast was he going when he plowed into that crowd of people? 100?" Officer, "Well you told him not to, so I guess it's not your fault.. even though you say that he's never obeyed you yet. And you knew that and still gave the keys and some money."

There is no free will.

If you kill a guy on your 30th birthday and God knew you were going to do this before you were born, what choice did you have? You might have the illusion that you made a decision freely and impulsively, but God knew you were going to do it. It was set as fate, and you had no alternative choice since God is perfect and what it knows WILL happen.

 

[Trailblazer]

Then the writings are irrational and should be rejected. You can't have it both ways.

You can't have a God that knows what you are going to do before it creates you, but creates you nonetheless. The God IS the cause. The human is just the agent. There is no free will to act any way other than what God knows will happen. God doesn't get surprised, does it?

The writings are perfectly rational. Knowing does not cause anything to happen.

God that knows what you are going to do before he creates you but creates you nonetheless.
Why wouldn't God create you all the while knowing what you are going to do?

God is not the cause of anything humans do because God does not cause humans to do anything at all.
Knowing does not cause anything.

“Question.—If God has knowledge of an action which will be performed by someone, and it has been written on the Tablet of Fate, is it possible to resist it?

Answer.—The foreknowledge of a thing is not the cause of its realization; for the essential knowledge of God surrounds, in the same way, the realities of things, before as well as after their existence, and it does not become the cause of their existence. It is a perfection of God........

Therefore, the knowledge of God in the realm of contingency does not produce the forms of the things. On the contrary, it is purified from the past, present and future. It is identical with the reality of the things; it is not the cause of their occurrence........

The mathematicians by astronomical calculations know that at a certain time an eclipse of the moon or the sun will occur. Surely this discovery does not cause the eclipse to take place. This is, of course, only an analogy and not an exact image.” Some Answered Questions, pp. 138-139

35: PREDESTINATION

 

[Trailblazer]

There is no free will.

Tell that to the judge and jury.

God knew what I was going to do so I am not guilty.

 

[F1fan]

You are the one who has no understanding if accountability.
Humans are fully accountable for everything they do because God gave them free will.

No they don't. Since your God knows exactly what future people will do they don't have ANY freedom to decide some other way. Or can your God be wrong, and surprised?

There is absolutely no correlation between God's foreknowledge and evil acts. The cause is humans choosing to do evil because they choose to not follow the Law of God.

Since your God creates humans who do evil, and it knows they will do evil, it is complicit, if not entirely to blame since humans can't act in any way other than what your God foresees. Otherwise your God isn;t perfect.

 

[Trailblazer]

If you kill a guy on your 30th birthday and God knew you were going to do this before you were born, what choice did you have? You might have the illusion that you made a decision freely and impulsively, but God knew you were going to do it. It was set as fate, and you had no alternative choice since God is perfect and what it knows WILL happen.

Since God knows everything that will ever happen to us, everything that will ever happen to us has already been written on the Tablet of Fate, but we can alter some of what will be written on the Tablet of Fate by the decisions we make and the actions that ensue. In other words, we can alter what would have been written on the Tablet of Fate by the decisions we make. It is however important to note that we can ONLY alter a conditional or impending fate, not a decreed fate.

Question.—Is the predestination which is mentioned in the Holy Books a decreed thing? If so, is not the effort to avoid it useless?

Answer.—Fate is of two kinds: one is decreed, and the other is conditional or impending. The decreed fate is that which cannot change or be altered, and conditional fate is that which may occur. So, for this lamp, the decreed fate is that the oil burns and will be consumed; therefore, its eventual extinction is a decree which it is impossible to alter or to change because it is a decreed fate. In the same way, in the body of man a power of life has been created, and as soon as it is destroyed and ended, the body will certainly be decomposed, so when the oil in this lamp is burnt and finished, the lamp will undoubtedly become extinguished.

But conditional fate may be likened to this: while there is still oil, a violent wind blows on the lamp, which extinguishes it. This is a conditional fate. It is wise to avoid it, to protect oneself from it, to be cautious and circumspect. But the decreed fate, which is like the finishing of the oil in the lamp, cannot be altered, changed nor delayed. It must happen; it is inevitable that the lamp will become extinguished.” Some Answered Questions, p. 244

68: FATE

 

[F1fan]

The writings are perfectly rational. Knowing does not cause anything to happen.

It does when you are the creator. You can't have it both ways. You're making excuses. Your argument is fatally flawed. Rather, your prophet's claims are fatally flawed. You repeating them is equally flawed.

God that knows what you are going to do before he creates you but creates you nonetheless.
Why wouldn't God create you all the while knowing what you are going to do?

If you're referring to Hitler it's because God wants Hitler to do what it knows Hitler will do. God knows Hitler will form a government that will destroy europe and murder 6 million Jews. And that is what God creates.

God is not the cause of anything humans do because God does not cause humans to do anything at all.
Knowing does not cause anything.

But since God knows what the humans will do they have no freedom to choose some other option. Or God would be wrong.

 

[F1fan]

Since God knows everything that will ever happen to us, everything that will ever happen to us has already been written on the Tablet of Fate, but we can alter some of what will be written on the Tablet of Fate by the decisions we make and the actions that ensue. In other words, we can alter what would have been written on the Tablet of Fate by the decisions we make. It is however important to note that we can ONLY alter a conditional or impending fate, not a decreed fate.

Since God knows what changes we will make it still isn't absolved by the illusion of free will. God still knows Hitler will do his thing. Right?

 

[F1fan]

Tell that to the judge and jury.

Juries don't assume a God and creation exist. They deal with facts.

God knew what I was going to do so I am not guilty.

If you are OJ then your God knows you did it.

 

[F1fan]

But since God knows you will murder someone you have no choice to change your mind, correct?

 

[Trailblazer]

No they don't. Since your God knows exactly what future people will do they don't have ANY freedom to decide some other way. Or can your God be wrong, and surprised?

We can only do what God knows we will do because God knows what we will do. But God's knowing is not the cause of what we do.
We choose to do what God knows we will do.

Since your God creates humans who do evil, and it knows they will do evil, it is complicit, if not entirely to blame since humans can't act in any way other than what your God foresees. Otherwise your God isn;t perfect.

God is not to blame for ANYTHING humans choose to do because humans have free will to choose.
What God foresees does not cause anyone to do anything.

If you insist you know and you don't want to understand you never will. I cannot do anything about that.

 

[Trailblazer]

But since God knows you will murder someone you have no choice to change your mind, correct?

You can change your mind right up till the last second.
What God knows is fluid; it changes along with what we decide to do.

 

[Aupmanyav]

"Truthful words are not beautiful; beautiful words are not truthful."

A take from Hindu scriptures (Brihadaranyaka Upanishad):
Truly Dharma is the Truth. So, when a man speaks the Truth, they say "He speaks Dharma"; and if he speaks Dharma, they say "He speaks Truth!". For both are one.

 

[Trailblazer]

If you are OJ then your God knows you did it.

If OJ did it then God knows he did it because God is all-knowing.
That's why we believers say that if justice is not served in this life God will serve it in the next life.

 

[F1fan]

nn

We can only do what God knows we will do because God knows what we will do. But God's knowing is not the cause of what we do.

So you claim that God isn't the creator, now? A creator IS the cause.

We choose to do what God knows we will do.

Only if God didn't create us.

God is not to blame for ANYTHING humans choose to do because humans have free will to choose.
What God foresees does not cause anyone to do anything.

Unless God is the creator (cause) of us.

If you insist you know and you don't want to understand you never will. I cannot do anything about that.

I know your claims are inconsistent.

 

[F1fan]

You can change your mind right up till the last second.

You can have the illusion of changing your mind. But God knows what you will ultimately decide, so you can't deviate from what Good knows.

Or can God be wrong?

What God knows is fluid; it changes along with what we decide to do.

This is new, so now God can be wrong? God doesn't know all? God can be caught off guard?

 

[Truthseeker]

Okay, Baha'is do believe man evolved. The last animals that were to become human, did they have two natures? Were they already evolving the capacity to live as spiritual creatures doing good, or follow their lower nature and do what we call bad, but for an animal, they are just doing the things they need to do to survive in a hostile world?

Then, one day, those animals evolve into humans. Those first humans, if as animals they didn't have dual natures, did they now have the higher and spiritual nature?

There are Writings about evolution in the Baha'i Faith, but is up to each to each Baha'i to interpret those Writings individually, and also there are gaps in what these Writings say about the evolution of man.

I don't know personally when animals became human with a soul and dual nature. I suppose it's possible for parents to be animals without a dual nature without a soul and their offspring to be human with a soul. I have no idea when this happened, but my hypothesis, and it is only my hypothesis, is that this happened after the two lines of chimpanzee and human diverged from their common ancestor. I reason that if the common ancestor had a soul, the chimpanzee would also have a soul as well as humans.

 

[Truthseeker]

Maybe the first humans only had an animal nature and no spiritual nature, I don't know, but after they had a soul they had two natures, an animal nature and a spiritual nature.

For me, the word "human" or "man" means having a soul.

We cannot say, then, that there was a time when man was not. At most we can say that there was a time when this earth did not exist, and that at the beginning man was not present upon it.
‘Abdu’l-Bahá, "Some Answered Questions", 50.4

To me this clearly shows that "man" is not dependent on the physical form it has, but on having a soul. There have been other "men" in this vast universe with a completely different form but with a soul.

But that's okay, it's just a difference of opinion, and in the end it does not matter. It doesn't materially change the spiritual situation.

 

[Truthseeker]

Again, why do Baha'is say they believe in the NT?

The NT is not to be taken literally sometimes, and sometimes the events it portrays did not happen to way it's described, but still the Gospels provide sufficient spiritual guidance for the Christians after Jesus was gone. It's up to Baha'is sometimes to decide what is symbolical in the Gospels and what didn't happened the way it's described. The person also has to decide if the whole of the Gospels is symbolical. There are different opinions.

 

[Truthseeker]

Unaffected? What about when someone prays to him? Maybe then? But then, what if a Trinitarian prays to him. Surely the real God doesn't listen to them. But anyway, I thought God was compassionate? I guess not. He's invisible and is unaffected by what we do. And we're supposed to love and worship him? For what?

He's unaffected by what we do, but that does not mean He does not care about any of us. Don't you sometimes do things out of compassion for others even though you gain no advantage from it? Even if you don't that's what God does.