The Laughing Man
February 26th 2003, 02:08 AM
I found this article while wasting time browsing around infidels.org/secweb.org tonight. I feel like deconstructing it. :yipee:
The Dilemma of Heaven (http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=265)
To sum the article up, the author is attempting to create a dilemma between the existence of Heaven (specifically, our existence in Heaven) and free-will. Naturally, the author only offers up points that he deems "correct" or "legitimate" and which conveniently fall under his comfortable umbrella of skepticism and criticism of Christianity. No theist-friendly points are explored or even considered. (I guess that comes with the territory, though.) So beyond that, let's see where else the author went wrong.
However, I find that heaven must, by it and God's very nature, be a place in which the believer has all free will stripped from him.
I find it difficult to believe that this person understands the full natures of God and Heaven when no one else does. What has been currently revealed to humans is a mere drop in an infinite ocean. Notice that the author is very careful not to say what God's and Heaven's natures are. Doing so would probably reveal a great deal of misconceptions and falsehoods, which are actually evidenced in the entire article starting with this sentence. The author baselessly presupposes the removal of free-will in Heaven and goes from there.
Otherwise, should free will remain, it is obvious from the biblical tale--in fact the entire prospect of having arrived at heaven in the first place--that men and women would sin in heaven.
This is a non-sequitir. Just because humans with free-will have sinned on earth does not automatically mean they will sin in Heaven, which the author is trying to argue. It would be more correct to say that we could sin in Heaven. Having the choice to sin is not the same as actually sinning.
This thought naturally leads us to the only remaining option available--the absence of free will in heaven.
First, that is not "the only remaining option available. Also, it doesn't "naturally" lead to that conclusion. That conclusion was drawn well before the author wrote that sentence.
Yet, if free will is not removed, we can only assume that heaven will be filled with the same proclivities, the same crimes, the same demeaning and pitiful acts that we find humans with free will on Earth partaking of.
Hardly. The author "only assumes" that because that's what he wants to conclude.
Perhaps God would then have to strip us of our knowledge of good and evil.
Perhaps or perhaps not. If He did, I don't see the problems that the author concocts in the subsequent sentences. Knowledge does not cause sin. Adam and Eve had the knowledge that disobeying God (which is what sin is) was wrong (and no, knowing what is right and wrong does not necessarily equate to knowing what is good and evil) and that it would carry severe punishment.
No matter how we might consider it, heaven must be a place of moral knowledge and of free will to commit moral acts or immoral acts.
The author has suddenly switched positions! First it was, "There can be no free-will in Heaven." Now it's, "There must be free-will in Heaven."
In the end, heaven and its very concept is a wholly unsatisfactory one.
This statement is laughable considering that it is not actually Heaven he is taking issue with but his own inept ideas about Heaven.
Any understanding that we have for it is simply inconsistent.
Not inconsistent, yet it is incomplete.
God must, by necessity, peel from those who enter heaven the very things that constitute them as individual, free-willed, and knowledgeable beings.
Not in the least.
He would have to cause us to become as unwitting animals of the dumbest sort, like puppies who are always glad to greet their master, with tongues lagging from their mouths and utter dereliction in recognizing the harm they cause by urinating on the divine floors.
Colorful, but entirely false.
Is this what I, or any of us, should look forward to as a proper Christian? I should hope not,
Of course not.
but that is what is offered.
No, it's not. That is what the author made up.
Here's an alternate idea that the author never considered. In this life, we are greatly separated from God and suffer the results of sin everyday. When we get to Heaven, we retain our free-will, but also have the memory of what life under the curse of sin was like as well as more complete knowledge and understanding of God, Jesus' sacrifice, Heaven and the reward of having full and perfect communion with God once again. We will, in essence, have learned from our mistakes and will never again rebel/sin against God.
The Dilemma of Heaven (http://www.secweb.org/asset.asp?AssetID=265)
To sum the article up, the author is attempting to create a dilemma between the existence of Heaven (specifically, our existence in Heaven) and free-will. Naturally, the author only offers up points that he deems "correct" or "legitimate" and which conveniently fall under his comfortable umbrella of skepticism and criticism of Christianity. No theist-friendly points are explored or even considered. (I guess that comes with the territory, though.) So beyond that, let's see where else the author went wrong.
However, I find that heaven must, by it and God's very nature, be a place in which the believer has all free will stripped from him.
I find it difficult to believe that this person understands the full natures of God and Heaven when no one else does. What has been currently revealed to humans is a mere drop in an infinite ocean. Notice that the author is very careful not to say what God's and Heaven's natures are. Doing so would probably reveal a great deal of misconceptions and falsehoods, which are actually evidenced in the entire article starting with this sentence. The author baselessly presupposes the removal of free-will in Heaven and goes from there.
Otherwise, should free will remain, it is obvious from the biblical tale--in fact the entire prospect of having arrived at heaven in the first place--that men and women would sin in heaven.
This is a non-sequitir. Just because humans with free-will have sinned on earth does not automatically mean they will sin in Heaven, which the author is trying to argue. It would be more correct to say that we could sin in Heaven. Having the choice to sin is not the same as actually sinning.
This thought naturally leads us to the only remaining option available--the absence of free will in heaven.
First, that is not "the only remaining option available. Also, it doesn't "naturally" lead to that conclusion. That conclusion was drawn well before the author wrote that sentence.
Yet, if free will is not removed, we can only assume that heaven will be filled with the same proclivities, the same crimes, the same demeaning and pitiful acts that we find humans with free will on Earth partaking of.
Hardly. The author "only assumes" that because that's what he wants to conclude.
Perhaps God would then have to strip us of our knowledge of good and evil.
Perhaps or perhaps not. If He did, I don't see the problems that the author concocts in the subsequent sentences. Knowledge does not cause sin. Adam and Eve had the knowledge that disobeying God (which is what sin is) was wrong (and no, knowing what is right and wrong does not necessarily equate to knowing what is good and evil) and that it would carry severe punishment.
No matter how we might consider it, heaven must be a place of moral knowledge and of free will to commit moral acts or immoral acts.
The author has suddenly switched positions! First it was, "There can be no free-will in Heaven." Now it's, "There must be free-will in Heaven."
In the end, heaven and its very concept is a wholly unsatisfactory one.
This statement is laughable considering that it is not actually Heaven he is taking issue with but his own inept ideas about Heaven.
Any understanding that we have for it is simply inconsistent.
Not inconsistent, yet it is incomplete.
God must, by necessity, peel from those who enter heaven the very things that constitute them as individual, free-willed, and knowledgeable beings.
Not in the least.
He would have to cause us to become as unwitting animals of the dumbest sort, like puppies who are always glad to greet their master, with tongues lagging from their mouths and utter dereliction in recognizing the harm they cause by urinating on the divine floors.
Colorful, but entirely false.
Is this what I, or any of us, should look forward to as a proper Christian? I should hope not,
Of course not.
but that is what is offered.
No, it's not. That is what the author made up.
Here's an alternate idea that the author never considered. In this life, we are greatly separated from God and suffer the results of sin everyday. When we get to Heaven, we retain our free-will, but also have the memory of what life under the curse of sin was like as well as more complete knowledge and understanding of God, Jesus' sacrifice, Heaven and the reward of having full and perfect communion with God once again. We will, in essence, have learned from our mistakes and will never again rebel/sin against God.