Is Creation ex nihilo

[seven7up]

7:


But you don't factor everything; you're not all-knowing. God is. God doesn't ask for our finite-knowledge-based, fallible opinions to decide these things. The Bible has a few things to say on that if you recall.

And here we are.

You admit that , at least from our perspective, Ex Nihilo theology doesn't make sense. You just have to fall back on your false interpretation of the Bible.

The quote you were responding to was reminding you that you were, once again, ignoring (purposefully?) the limitation of logical necessity in what God does. He doesn't do nonsense like making everybody always perfect, 7. I've been over why, and you've continued to ignore it.

I didn't ignore it. I explained exactly why your explanation fails.

7up wrote: GOD has total control with ex nihilo creation.

Total potency, but he also cannot sin (he's perfectly holy), so he cannot do what he knows from his omniscience is wrong. So, while nothing is impossible for him in and of itself, it has to be in his will.

Yes. With Ex Nihilo creation, EVERYTHING that happens IS God's WILL. That is one of the problems with the theology. Get it?

7up wrote: With Ex Nihilo, God is the ONLY cause.

Not sure what your point is. God is ultimately causally related to everything. Since time isn't merely linear; future knowledge also "loops" back to play a part in the causing of creation, at least in the sense of God knowing the future, and since we are not part of him, he's not literally the only cause....

So... God is NOT the only cause.

We might finally be getting somewhere. Where does the cause of our free will decisions come from? .... if not from God?

Answer? The free will of each individual IS ETERNAL, thus God does NOT create Ex Nihilo.

Thank you , and good night.

-7up

[seven7up]

I left it out because it was immaterial to the point I was making.

You left it out because it CONTRADICTED the point you were trying to make when purposefully trying to misuse May's words. Or , you copied and pasted from someone else, without reading it for yourself.

If May, and other scholars, say that the doctrine of Ex Nihilo developed in the mid to end of the second century A.D. , then obviously, he is NOT claiming that Ex Nihilo was the original intent of the original authors of the Hebrew text / Old Testament.


-7up

[One Bad Pig]

You left it out because it CONTRADICTED the point you were trying to make when purposefully trying to misuse May's words.

Balderdash. That would mean May contradicted HIMSELF!

Or , you copied and pasted from someone else, without reading it for yourself.

I told you I read it.

If May, and other scholars, say that the doctrine of Ex Nihilo developed in the mid to end of the second century A.D. , then obviously, he is NOT claiming that Ex Nihilo was the original intent of the original authors of the Hebrew text / Old Testament.

-7up

I just acknowledged May said that in the very post you're replying to!

Is May in the majority? No. What scholars (scholars, not apologists) have agreed with him?

[logician bones]

You admit that , at least from our perspective, Ex Nihilo theology doesn't make sense.

Some definitions of it (like yours) wouldn't make sense. But the one I have been suggesting, analogous to first instantiation of a kind of "thing", does make sense, and is consistent with much biblical use of language that later terms like "ex nihilo" may have been based on. (Such as that "all things" does not literally mean all things in some cases, but all things relevant to the topic at hand.)

With Ex Nihilo creation, EVERYTHING that happens IS God's WILL.

Within the constraints of logic, which means he has to do some things that he doesn't want, while still being legitimately omniscient, omnipotent, etc. You're just arguing in circles around this.

Where does the cause of our free will decisions come from?

Keep in mind that I don't invoke the phrase "free will" usually, unless others bring it up, but if they do, then I point out that seemingly the only useful, logical definition of it is free to carry out your inherent nature (which ultimately comes from God's omniscient planning within constraints of logic, for how to set up the original "domino field", plus whatever direct intervention miracles he has done along the way) without direct puppeteering from God that comes in and overrides the nature he gave you.

Thus, as Paul wrote, he makes some people for "ignoble use", and does not force them to choose salvation with direct, real-time overriding. And ultimately he did not want it that way, but had no choice for reasons explained in detail earlier.

BTW, you claim you've disproved those reasons, but if so, it hasn't been in your posts that I've read, and I've been following all of them. It seems you're trying to stake everything on the assumption that God could let us know how bad sin and all its consequences are without us actually experiencing a world where its natural consequences are simply experienced. This is silly in light of common sense, and not consistent with the Bible's emphasis on experiential familiarity.

And yet you also do not propose God leave us ignorant of such things, and you don't seem willing to face that if he were to let us fully understand what it would feel like, it is functionally the same as if he let us actually experience this world, so why not just do that? It seems like you want to have it both ways and can't face that.

Your reasoning just isn't sustainable to an honest thinker, 7. I completely understand why you want to try to prop it up -- yes, it feels bad to have to admit a holy God allows these things, even for a time only. But God calls us to be more mature than that and face that this is the natural result of our free choice to sin, and he wants us to look past it and see Jesus' salvation, and what it means that Jesus was willing to save even people like us who actually did, in the real world, sin, even knowing some of the consequences.

If he didn't allow us to experience what in his omniscience he knew was possible, we could not have become so intensely aware of how strong Jesus' redeeming love is even for horrible creatures like us.

He could have explained it to us as an idea, but true loyalty requires more than mere intellectual assent. Admittedly, this becomes harder to understand when you consider that so many die before experiencing this world, but even with them, they have our natural ability to read body language and emotion as genuine as those of us who did go through horrors in this world yet still love Jesus can tell them about it -- so it's still not the same as if he had merely explained the idea to us.