On the way back from St. Louis for my guild’s trip, the people in my car had a brief but potent discussion on the concept of whether the Christian faith (ie, it’s God) allows for the existence of free will.
While both of the other people disagreed with me, I still feel my position is correct. It was around 2:00am and I felt we kept circling around the concept of taking the bible at face value for the discussion and not taking it at face value.
Let me spell out my argument very simply. In logical steps. If you see something wrong, please let me know.
A) For the purposes of any theological discussion, the source material must be seen as a perfect representation of what actually occurred. Otherwise, there isn’t any discussion, for anyone can claim “How do you know” and no progress is achieved.
B) Given A, the God described in the discussion is omnipotent, that is to say, all powerful. This necessitates omniscience, the property of knowing all. For if he wasn’t omniscient, he would not be omnipotent.
C) Given B, God knows the future. Knowing all, and being all powerful, this knowledge is by definition, perfect. Because if it was wrong, he wouldn’t be all knowing.
D) God creates man with specific mental characteristics expressed by DNA.
E) Given C and D, God creates man and every successive man’s mental traits and how those traits will and won’t cause the brain to operate in the situations that are already known.
F) Given E, God creates the universe and all you actions are prescribed by his decisions.
G) Given F, you have no free will. Mind you, this also shows that you cannot sin, because the actions of God are by definition (due to A) good and holy.
So the way I see it, we're little more then highly complicated computer programs designed by God. However, this is one of those arguments that can go either way. What are your thoughts?
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