Christians, did Yahweh plan everything that would ever happen?

I'm very keen to know your personal position on this. As always, I'm not interested in scripture, only personal interpretations.

Thanks in advance

 

Should I assume this question is too confronting?

 

I am going completely theistic on this. Whats the point of PF otherwise, it would be pretty boring.

The mind of god has to be different than our own. If its really just an all powerful man with a long white beard who is exactly like you or me then the whole idea of god is comical.

So lets accept that god could be different. If so then all of the logical concepts we use would be meaningless, either god is real or not. No proof is applicable because it just doesn't work. (We cannot even prove our own meaning or existence, do we even really understand or know what we are? How can we then judge the reality of god?)

So Gods view of reality could exist without our understanding of time. The future and the past could all be one thing. Like a painting the planning could have started in the middle, the end, or the beginning from a human point of view.

So maybe god created everything that can happen. And the creation is something of its own.

 

thanks for your contribution!

all very interesting, and good to have a different perspective. of course if the gods are so remote and removed, they have little to no relevance.

I'd still like to have a Christian response, though.

 

The christian response you are looking for is predictable. Instead why don't you try to prove why Jesus was wrong? What in particular that he preached was wrong?

Its easy to look at the writings of John and so forth to find fault. But what did Jesus say specifically that offends you?

curious...

 

it's not at all predictable. I hear just as many claim god didn't plan everything we'd ever do, as claim he did.

what do you mean by 'why jesus was wrong?'. wrong about what? and how does this pertain to the plan thing?

 

Jesus is the whole god thing to christians, so him being wrong is pretty relevant to their interpretation of god. He is also a big part of "the plan", so if he said anything completely contradictory it would make the whole christian view irrelevant.

If you cant think of or find anything he said that was wrong then it makes it hard to form an argument against christianity.

About anything, just find one thing that Jesus said that was completely wrong.

 

I'm afraid I still have no idea what you mean by wrong. Untrue? Evil?

Meantime, I'm only seeking a yes or no answer to the question. Did god plan everything that would ever happen, or not? I hadn't realised, given how keen christians seem to be to attribute a grand plan to god, that it would be such a difficult question.

 

Aren't those arguments quite predictable too? I've been on this forum and in the religious debate for some time and I'll agree that I'm getting a bit fed up with predictable discussions.

 

Crank, we have had this discussion before but it is an important one so lets look at our options.

1. God did plan everything from the start for some reason that is as of yet, unknown to us or......

2. God created the world and because he is omnipotent he of course knows all the outcomes but he did not influence them and does not actively influence them to any great degree.....he basically lets the world march on as is.

So either God specifically laid out a plan for everyone from the start or he created Adam and Eve, saw how the world would eventually turn out, and said "Let It Be".

Either way, humans have no idea what their role in the grand scheme of things is so it does not and should not alter their behavior. The choice and freewill are still ours and even though God knows the outcome, we still have the choice to follow him or not.

 

Another, "not a Christian" here but some thoughts.

If God is:
Omnipotent (all powerful)
Omniscient (all knowing)
Omnipresent (in all things)

then He is one mean S.O.B.

Just my thoughts.

 

But if God knows the outcome - then He knew the outcome at the moment of creation and could have altered the perimeters of said creation to achieve any result He desired. Therefor, Free Will is an illusion, it was all determined at the moment of creation.

This is one of the problems I have with an omni-potent creator. If a creator IS omnipotent, then said creator would know all possible outcomes from any act of creation - rendering the actual act of creation redundant - why bother with the actual creation. It's a re-run to the creator.

 

Of course it has a plan, that plan is to troll humanity for eternity.

[video=youtube;jARp24AJWLk]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jARp24AJWLk[/video]

 

many have been over this before, but no one seems willing (when the question is buried inside a larger topic) to say yay or nay. I'm still not even sure which you're saying :/

the idea, incidentally, isn't to force a yes or no answer from those who are undecided (how could I, anyway), it's to get the perspective of those who have a firm position. so often I see theists assert that god planned everything, ya see.

 

Excellent vid !

Poor old Beelzebub gets such a raw deal from the Dark Side.

 

I am sure your children think that very same thing when you punish them for misbehaving also.

 

Well the simple answer would be that since God is omnipotent that yes he either planned everything or created a scenario where he saw the beginning and the end and considered acceptable and let it be.

He could have created a world where everyone followed him or where no one did and he chose what he chose.

However, and this is extremely important......we are dealing with an intelligence that is so far beyond our comprehension that to even attempt this question is bound to be fruitless. You are assuming that humans have the ability to get into the mind of God and understand him and I simply do not even see that as a possibility. There may be things going on with God that are so confounding that until we get to Heaven there is no possible way to understand how he goes about his decision making process.

That is important to keep in mind.

Its like a little virus cell sitting on a glass slide trying to understand the purpose of that big guy in the white coat looking at him through that microscope....do you think that virus cell has the ability to comprehend what is actually going on?

 

I found the authors question interesting. I sense hostility towards Christians, am I wrong? Im wondering why is the question directed towards Christians only and why not towards people of faith in general? Also, the line of questioning, "Id like to know your opinion but I dont want scripture". Well, in other words, I want to know your opinion but I dont want to know how you arrived at it. That would be like asking someone I want to hear why you think the world is warming but I dont want to know how you came to that conclusion.

Here is my answer in two words "Free Will" ..

 

But you do not know what that plan is do you?

Right now you have the choice to follow God or not....that choice is entirely yours. Can you sit there and tell me if God has decided you will follow him or not or are you going to use that as a justification for not following him in the first place?

YOU have the choice right now to go either way and even though God knows what you will do he is not making your choice for you.

 

So if god knows that I am going to the store tomorrow, how is that free will?

 

The age old "Why do bad things happen to good people" question. The best discussion I have heard on the subject is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MqlgwZF3EDs

 

Do you think CC punishes his/her kids by torturing them infinitely for finite 'crimes'?

 

So you do believe in Heaven and Hell and therefore believe in God.

Good to know.

 

It's directed to Christians because Christians are the ones most often heard asserting that Yahweh planned everything that would ever happen. Mysteriously, though, when this oft-heard assertion is confronted head on (as in this thread), silence or obfuscation is the response. I'm trying to untangle this apparent conflict of positions.

Further, if I wanted to know what the bible said on the matter, I would read it. However, that's not what I want to know. I want to know what living breathing Christians believe, in practice. It's the day to day, walking around, worldview which I'm interested in. If I wanted to ask what inspired same, I'd have titled my thread "why do Christians think god planned everything?"

Finally, is your answer "free will" a yes or a no?

 

Since you're position is effectively "no idea", I'll move to your middle point.

If, as you say, we're dealing with an intelligence that is so far beyond our comprehension that to even attempt this question is bound to be fruitless, how is that Christians assert so very much on behalf of Yahweh? Especially the plan thing (bringing us back on point)! A god such as you describe must necessarily not even be understood as a god. It can barely be understood as an idea of something inexplicable. It can barely be understood to be understood as the slight suggestion of an idea of something entirely incomprehensible. Yet Christians tell us that not only does this 'thing' has an animal gender, but was once married, had a child, lives in the sky, hates homosexuals, feels upset if people pick up sticks on certain days, is obsessed with our genitalia, and doesn't like women very much ... amongst a myriad of other super-personal anthropomorphic identifiers.

- - - Updated - - -

Not if he planned everything that would ever happen