The fact we are born with the ability for empathy, as mentioned earlier, does not mean it has been put in our heart against our will – without it, we would have no will, as it is part of what makes our will possible. Studies show (21) that the reason certain individuals who lack empathy have such a hard time navigating through life is that they cannot empathize with their own self in the future, in planning, in order to act in their own best interest – this is a crippling obstacle to the will (an obstacle God can remove).

Even though our options are ‘given’ rather than chosen — we can shape which options will occur to us (as conceivable) — (and to that extent they are chosen). Knowing that you will only think about what you are exposed to and how you react to it, and that habits form by repeating attitudes/behaviors, you can willfully control what you are exposed to and/or how you react to it. You can therefore condition future reactions. Align your will with the will of God, so that by habit you will perform God’s will even when there is no time for thought. Actions performed as a matter of habit confirm a pattern of past intention. If you make an effort to behave against inclination, that inclination is not your will. That you want to make and do make an effort against it describes who you want to be (and therefore already are). Your inclination is an obstacle to who you want to be, like a broken leg is an obstacle to where you want to go. That inclination is just like a broken leg and does not describe your will. Who you struggle to be, and where you struggle to go describe your will. It’s like when you quit smoking cold-turkey, but still experience the pangs for nicotine — your body/brain wants it (but it is not your will) — it is not you who wants it. It is also like when you decide you are going to change your eating and exercising habits to permanently get rid of accumulated flab — that flabby body does not reflect the current state of your will. That flab is like the light of stars (lol) — it is like looking into the past.

There is an argument that centers around the narrative of the Fall found in the book of Genesis. This argument claims God failed to provide a consequence Adam and Eve would understand (because they had no idea what death was), and so they were acting in ignorance and didn’t mean to sin; they didn’t possess free choice, they didn’t ‘know’ what they were doing, until after eating the fruit from the Tree of the ‘Know’ledge of Good and Evil. However (if this narrative actually happened, and if we grant they had no idea what death was), in Eden, Adam and Eve knew the difference between eating and not eating the fruit. It is not that their freedom began when they ate of the fruit and God killed an animal to demonstrate death and make them clothing. Before they ate the fruit, they were freely following God. Understanding the consequences was not necessary for them to ‘know’ that they were doing something God warned them not to do, and we should not only do right when there is a reward for it or a punishment for doing wrong (our only motivation should be God’s unmerited love). Additionally, how would God have given a proper demonstration of the kind of death He meant—breaking unity with Him (essential life and goodness)? Adam and Eve could have had as much knowledge as God could give them if they had asked Him for it. That they broke unity to try to be like God apart from Him (essential love) is how they came to be able to distinguish good from evil, rather than only knowing good (though, before disobeying God, they didn’t know they knew good, like spiders don’t know they know webs and birds don’t know they know nests). Knowledge of good is the kind of intuitive, innate sense we discussed earlier which makes us capable of knowing the supernatural standard of God’s goodness. Some have said that we don’t know what good decisions are (and so are not free to make them) until we make ourselves capable of committing and empathizing with the opposite evil. Actually, we don’t know evil without knowing first the good which becomes corrupted (evil). The only good purpose of knowing evil is to develop antibodies against it, but our focus should primarily be to educate ourselves in God’s love. “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good,” Romans 12:21. For example, it is good to educate ourselves in CPR so that we are able to provide it when the need arises. If we don’t know CPR, we are not free to provide it correctly, though our free will is intact. Don’t get a guilt trip if you have no time or resources to learn CPR—God saves the world through us as He calls us and will provide the tools He deems necessary.

It should be noted that our sin does not affect God’s sovereignty. Everything we have ever experienced exists for only one divine purpose: to experience God (Love). Love is not love if it is not chosen, and so requires free will. Without the possibility of rejecting God’s love (at the root of all sin), there is no possibility to choose it. Love must be chosen – it cannot be forced upon us. With moral autonomy comes the ability to go one’s own way, set one’s own standards, yes — “become one’s own law-maker” — but the point of moral autonomy is to be able to adopt God’s requirement as our own: our ultimate fulfillment: love. Our freedom to reject love and responsibility to choose love is a built-in part of this grand creation over which God is sovereign. That we choose to reject love, that we choose to sin in His creation, does not equate to His endorsing what we chose – but it does equate to His endorsing “choice” (for He is not a dictator). C.S. Lewis writes, “(Our) Free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give (us) free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of (robots) would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for (us) is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that (we) must be free,” (18; 48).

It should also be noted that our freedom to do good does not affect God’s sovereignty, because apart from Him, we are not free to do good. Anyone who thinks they do good apart from God’s unmerited love is mistaken, because whatever they are doing, they are doing it from the wrong motivation. The only right motivation to doing good is unmerited love, God. If we think doing good makes us a good, worthy person, we are enslaved and reject God’s unmerited love. We cannot buy His love with good works, and works cannot really even be considered ‘good’ if not motivated by His unmerited love. Though some have argued that following Christ is stifling, the freest from the bondage of sin, from the mud, are those who walk the closest with God. “Freedom, then, is not the absence of [moral] limitations and constraints but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us. …What then is the moral-spiritual reality we must acknowledge to thrive? What is the environment that liberates us if we confine ourselves to it, like water liberates the fish? Love. Love is the most liberating freedom-loss of all,” (2; 47, 49, emphasis added). Jesus’ sacrificial love for all of us, His adjusting to us, His pursuing us, requires — motivates — our freely-willed sacrificial love of Him, our own selves, and each other. He is both the Lion and the Lamb, the first and the last, eternally (I AM). Being a Christian means growing in a relationship with Christ who is in us, forging us into authentic beings who acknowledge our sin and accept His unmerited love, freely building our identity on what we look like through His eyes.

Now to the text.

James 1
12 Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am tempted by God”; for God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He Himself tempt anyone.
14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed.
15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.
16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures.

God will always be good.

Malachi 3
5 And I will come near you for judgment;
I will be a swift witness
Against sorcerers,
Against adulterers,
Against perjurers,
Against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans,
And against those who turn away an alien—
Because they do not fear Me,”
Says the LORD of hosts.
6 “ For I am the LORD, I do not change;

God will always be just.

Numbers 23
19 “God is not a man, that He should lie,
Nor a son of man, that He should repent.
Has He said, and will He not do?
Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?

God will always be true.

Hebrews 13
8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
9 Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them.

God’s word does not change.

None of these mean that God can never change anything. That would be silly. I think you will want to point out biblical inconsistency by looking at the nature of God in relation to change. I’ll concede that you do not accept God as presented in the Bible if you will accept that the accounts of God responding to His people completely swamp the idea that God might be incapable of changing a few rules.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Heb. 13:8)

Actually, there aren’t any that say He is unchanging.

Try James 1:17, Malachi 3:6, Numbers 23:19. Look ‘em up.

The thing about having a holy book that is so large, and written by so many different people, is that you can usually find a verse to support any position you want to take.

Well if you want to understand you’re just going to have to accept it as I explain it. In one timeframe the executioner was under one set of rules and then that changed.

I can’t accept ethics as just simply adhering to a bunch of rules somebody handed you. You have to work it out for yourself to some extent. If you don’t, then all you have is blind obedience, not ethics.

Ubi: God changing the rules from time to time is one of the problems I have with religion. And if he has changed to rules in the past – he could change them again if he wants, right?

Right. but it’s generally a once-in-a-thousand-year thing…

There are bible quotes that say god is eternal and unchanging

Actually, there aren’t any that say He is unchanging. That would be silly. Some describe His attributes as unchanging…

and others that say he changes his mind.

Sure.

Well, in this case, I’d call what the executioner was doing “legal”. This does not speak to whether it was “just”. …

OK. Well if you want to understand you’re just going to have to accept it as I explain it. In one timeframe the executioner was under one set of rules and then that changed.

(all emphasis mine)
Post 278-

How does your alogical belief stack up against a logical source for logic like mine? I say that God exists and that God is logical therefore Logic exists (as a non-physical part of reality).

Post 294-

And, as you suggest, I cannot use logic to prove that logic exists. All I can do is presuppose that it does. Fortunately I have a logical source for logic, namely God.

Post 370-

If you presuppose God then you have a logical source for logic.

Post 387-

I have a logical source for logic. Richard does not.

These are all statements you have made, Grant, and I have quoted them every time I have challenged you. Every one of those statements begs the question, and all but the first one are statements you have made after I called you on the fallacy.

Can you see why I’m frustrated, Grant? It’s maddening. I have clearly pointed out where you are begging the question, and you keep insisting you are not by defending a different statement, and then you go right on to beg the question again. We’ve got over 400 posts in this thread now, and you still can’t grasp it.

You have to understand the rules God had in place at the time. You know that God has changed the rules quite a few times, right?

God changing the rules from time to time is one of the problems I have with religion. And if he has changed to rules in the past – he could change them again if he wants, right? There are bible quotes that say god is eternal and unchanging, and others that say he changes his mind. That kind of thing is much more consistent with god being something people made up to suit their needs at the time. If I were inclined to follow a religion, I’d prefer to follow one where god was more consistent in what he expected.

I’m sorry, but I cannot explain God without using the bible very well

Grant, it’s OK for you to use the bible to explain why you hold a particular belief. What doesn’t fly is to use it to establish something as objectively “true” in an argument. Do you see the distinction here?

…when the death penalty was in force an executioner was justified by law in killing those convicted of a capital crime. After the laws changed he was no longer so justified.

Well, in this case, I’d call what the executioner was doing “legal”. This does not speak to whether it was “just”. Two different issues. There are many things which are permissable to do under the law, but which I would find it unethical to do myself (like cutting down old growth forests, or training a child to be a street-corner evangelist.) There are other things currently illegal in my state (like medical marijuana, gay marriage, and assisted suicide) that I find to be highly ethical, and I support people’s right to fight for them. Changes in civil law do not change my own internal sense of what is actually “just”. Nor do the changing whims of an ancient tribal sky-god. Killing an entire city of innocent civilians is wrong, and I don’t care if your god told you it was OK or not. It’s still wrong.

I can’t even tell if your muddled mess is Van Tillian or Clarkian presuppositionalism – both are bad enough as it is, but when clueless people like yourself mangle even those concepts and have no idea what logic actually is, it’s offensive to educated senses to wallow through your garbage.

Go take it up with Rhology – he’s a reformed baptist and a YEC, and he’s a few steps ahead of you (i.e. he’s only half-clueless). Go learn your craft before you try being a journeyman.

Or be called on it.