Hitler: Part of God's Plan?

It seems to me that the larger issue isn't why God "allowed" the Holocaust to occur, or why he allows innocent children to starve to death, but why does he allow death at all? Which further leads to the question, why did he create life? Unless one believes that God was obligated to create life, then God has no obligation to allow it to continue.

Originally posted by duecer
An astronomer has the ability to predict an eclipse with 99.9999999% accuracey. Being omnicient would mean we have no free will, and that our acts are predetermined by an outside force. God didn't make hitler do what he did, nor did he make people collaberate with the nazis. That was a choice humans make. Horrible choices happen everyday. People abuse childre ...[text shortened]... erring, pain, healing, etc....The badness makes the goodness that much better by comparison.

An astronomer is not omniscient, however.

Apparently your God is. Or do you deny this?

If God is omniscient, Hitler had no free will. Even if God was to preserve free will there are a billion ways he could have prevented the halocaust without infringing upon free will.

So far, you haven't given me a credible reason to deny that.

The badness makes the goodness that much better by comparison.

This is a horrible reason to condone bad things. An absolutely vile sentiment. Not only can your God not live up to secular morals, it appears you cannot either.

Originally posted by duecer
Is it God's fault that you got a speeding ticket? After all he knew it would happen, and could have spared you. Gte the picture?

No, it probably isn't Gods fault. But he still shows his poor moral values by not stepping in. If I can stop my son from speeding I will (for safety reasons as much as avoiding speeding tickets). In fact that is why we have speeding tickets - to try and stop people speeding. Obviously the government (and presumably enough voters) believe it is a good thing to stop speeding. God should be able to stop speeding. Why doesn't he? If it is some sort of violation of free will and free will is so important, then why don't we stop giving speeding tickets?
Any no-intervention argument regarding God leads to the obvious conclusion that we to must not intervene - no law enforcement of any kind.

Our world is a rich tapestry of joy, happiness, hate, anger, love, sufferring, pain, healing, etc....The badness makes the goodness that much better by comparison
So if I kill all your family your life after that will be better by comparison? Maybe this whole world of sin is just a way for God to make himself feel better? He cant feel good unless he can see a crappy world to make his goodness that much better by comparison!

I'm curious. Did you actually think that argument through? Or did you perhaps look at it on the surface and decide that it was good enough to explain evil and avoid digging deeper for fear of the results? Or do you not actually believe it yourself but thought you could fool us with it? I am just trying to understand why so many theists use such ridiculous arguments over and over.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, it probably isn't Gods fault. But he still shows his poor moral values by not stepping in. If I can stop my son from speeding I will (for safety reasons as much as avoiding speeding tickets). In fact that is why we have speeding tickets - to try and stop people speeding. Obviously the government (and presumably enough voters) believe it is a good thin m just trying to understand why so many theists use such ridiculous arguments over and over.

any no-intervention argument regarding God leads to the obvious conclusion that we to must not intervene - no law enforcement of any kind.

How so? God's reasons for respecting free will are probably not applicable to law enforcement.

Originally posted by Conrau K
[b]any no-intervention argument regarding God leads to the obvious conclusion that we to must not intervene - no law enforcement of any kind.

How so? God's reasons for respecting free will are probably not applicable to law enforcement.[/b]

Keeping a close watch on him, they [the teachers of the law and the chief priests] sent spies, who pretended to be honest. They hoped to catch Jesus in something he said so that they might hand him over to the power and authority of the governor. So the spies questioned him: 'Teacher, we know that you speak and teach what is right, and that you do not show partiality but teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right for us to pay taxes to Caesar or not?'

He saw through their duplicity and said to them, 'Show me a denarius. Whose portrait and inscription are on it?'

'Caesar's,' they replied.

He said to them, 'Then give to Caesar what is Caesar's and unto God what is God's.'

They were unable to trap him in what he had said there in public. And astonished by his answer, they became silent. (Luke 20:20-26)

Apropos of nothing, look at this great stuff!!!
http://www.revelation2seven.org/WebPages/SideLinks/GiveUntoCaesar.htm

Originally posted by Conrau K
How so? God's reasons for respecting free will are probably not applicable to law enforcement.

How so? Who are we to try to do better than God. If God respects free will should we not do so too? Although I concede that it is possible that they do not apply to law enforcement, your claim that the 'probably don't' is ridiculous without giving any specific reason. The reasons I have seen given in the past, have all applied equally to law enforcement, can you suggest one that doesn't?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
It does when you are an omniscient creator God. He (apparently) created the world in just such a way that Hitler would be born, and Hitler would murder all those people. He could have created it any other way, or intervened to prevent this, but he did not. He allowed it to happen in just the way he foresaw. He was certainly complicit.

This arguement only works if one visualises God as "foreseeing" things on a timeline. But there's a problem here. If God could foresee the holocaust was going to happen then that would mean that the holocaust must have actually happened in the "future". If it has not happened in some future time then how can it be "foreseen" ? How is it possible to foresee a future that doesn't actually exist in reality? You tell me.

Can even God foresee a future that doesn't really happen? Doesn't foreseeing the future require that said future exists? Otherwise (if Hitler had free will) it would be impossible for God to completely foresee Hitler's actions because they were inherently unpredictable and at least partly free of pre-deterministic forces. The only way he could possibly have perfect foreknowledge of the holocaust would be if the holocaust actually took place in some future time. BUT...if the holocaust takes place in 1939-45 how can God make it "un-take place" because it's already happened.

You see the problem here is you either see God as

1) looking into a real and actual future

Or

2) being a master bookmaker will incredible predictive abilities

If you choose 1) then God must by definition be looking into a future that exists and that future would be unpreventable because it would have to happen in order to be the "future".

If you choose 2) then you are accepting that God is trying to "predict" (as opposed to foresee) and if he is the great predictor then he can only be perfect at this if the universe is entirely deterministic . Once free will is introduced then that's a whole new ball game and even God is unable to predict.

The problem becomes even more difficult if you consider that if God is utterly infallible in his foreseeing of a real and actual future then there's no way he can stop it from happening. Why? Because the only way he can change the future is if it is not set in stone and he has made some kind of mistake. If he perfectly foresees the holocaust then it's too late at that point to stop it. If he predicts it perfectly then free will cannot exist because the only way things can be perfectly predicted is if they are governed by totally perfect deterministic forces , which free will is not by definition.

My overall point is that it's illogical and incoherent to suggest that God can prevent a future he has perfectly foreseen. It's also illogical to suggest that free actions can be perfectly predicted. This inevitably leads us to wonder how God actually knows the future . The answer is that for him it's not the "future" nor a prediction . He neither foresees NOR predicts.

Originally posted by twhitehead
How so? Who are we to try to do better than God. If God respects free will should we not do so too? Although I concede that it is possible that they do not apply to law enforcement, your claim that the 'probably don't' is ridiculous without giving any specific reason. The reasons I have seen given in the past, have all applied equally to law enforcement, can you suggest one that doesn't?

Perhaps God wants to respect free will because He wants unconditional worship or because He made man in His own images and wants to maintain that through free will. I am sure these arguments are popular among Christians. I cannot see how law enforcement could use them to justify non-intervention.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Perhaps God wants to respect free will because He wants unconditional worship or because He made man in His own images and wants to maintain that through free will. I am sure these arguments are popular among Christians. I cannot see how law enforcement could use them to justify non-intervention.

Well isn't it obvious? If law enforcement intervenes then it is restricting peoples free will and thus going against the will of God. If law enforcement restricts your free will then you can no longer give unconditional worship. Or if law enforcement restricts your free will then you are no longer in Gods image.

Originally posted by knightmeister
My overall point is that it's illogical and incoherent to suggest that God can prevent a future he has perfectly foreseen. It's also illogical to suggest that free actions can be perfectly predicted. This inevitably leads us to wonder how God actually knows the future . The answer is that for him it's not the "future" nor a prediction . He neither foresees NOR predicts.

In other words God is illogical. Yes we know that, and we know that you accept that. So why the complicated explanation to try and make it more logical?
Your whole argument of course falls over when you admit the existence of prophesy.
And even worse, you appear to be saying that God does not infact know the future and is not omniscient.

Originally posted by Conrau K
Perhaps God wants to respect free will because He wants unconditional worship or because He made man in His own images and wants to maintain that through free will. I am sure these arguments are popular among Christians. I cannot see how law enforcement could use them to justify non-intervention.

He could still have used any of the methods I suggested to avoid the holocaust AND not affect free will in the slightest.

Originally posted by twhitehead
In other words God is illogical. Yes we know that, and we know that you accept that. So why the complicated explanation to try and make it more logical?
Your whole argument of course falls over when you admit the existence of prophesy.
And even worse, you appear to be saying that God does not infact know the future and is not omniscient.

God knows the future but he does not "foresee" it. To "foresee" something requires that you are in some present moment in sapce/ time looking along a timeline to some "future" event. God logically cannot exist completely in time and has to exist in some further dimension otherwise how could space/time be created? It's silly to think that God can only exist within the thing that he is creating because you are in a chicken and egg situation.

The argument does not fall over with prophesy because God can pre-destine certain things to happen.

God does indeed know your future precisely because it's not HIS future. He is omniscient of all events that have occurred in time. The great difficulty you have (and personally I think it's because you prefer not to put the effort into it) is contemplating that there is not some great universal timeline which applies to both you and God. What has not occurred for you , has occurred for him. You need to think about what you mean by the term "the future".

I do understand that this is tricky because another feature of this is that God is both knowing and unknowing at the same time (via the trinity). In Jesus he is partially unknowing of the future (as jesus admits) but the "Father" is omniscient.

The main point here is that God is omniscient but nevertheless he cannot know of an event that doesn't exist in time.

So when people say "If God knew in advance that Hitler was going to start the holocaust then why did he create him?" my initial thought is " if God does not create Hitler then how is he supposed to know what Hitler does in 1939-45? , because if Hitler never exists then the holocaust never happens and God would not know about the holocaust. God can only find out how Hitler's life is to pan out by creating him."

Originally posted by scottishinnz
He could still have used any of the methods I suggested to avoid the holocaust AND not affect free will in the slightest.

But don't you see the contradiction? In order to prevent a future event from occuring God would have to know that event as an actual event in time , but if it has actually occured it's too late then because it's already happened in time. An actual known future event in time is unpreventable because in relative terms it's already happened.

Maybe you think God should have tweaked events in Germany to avoid that future but that only works if you believe in multiple time lines , which I do not. What exactly were these "methods" anyway?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
He could still have used any of the methods I suggested to avoid the holocaust AND not affect free will in the slightest.

According to you, the mere existence of an omniscient God precludes free will.

Originally posted by twhitehead
Well isn't it obvious? If law enforcement intervenes then it is restricting peoples free will and thus going against the will of God. If law enforcement restricts your free will then you can no longer give unconditional worship. Or if law enforcement restricts your free will then you are no longer in Gods image.

Surely law enforcement is an act of free will performed and regulated by society?