Prior to sin, she'd never have seen it that way nor known it that way.
Morality is absolute. Meaning, it would still be wrong prior to sin.
Shouldn't have to. You're on a discussion forum. Present your arguments.
You were, if someone is 'taken care of' that's love.
Supra.
My kids came home from the hospital EXACTLY this way! My kids couldn't move away and frankly didn't want to do so O,o Moreover? They 1) knew they were loved and loved back, none of this 'they had to be free to choose or it isn't love' dilemma at all.
Yep. Not one of my children are mentally ill
and I'm not either (I hope its crickets, Lord please let the only come-back be crickets!). A child isn't able to leave my home until a certain age and I'm not ill.
I'm going to refer you to this thread on the age of accountability, and point out that children just come home from the hospital were not made fully aware and mentally developed like Adam and Eve were.
The following is an essay written several years ago by a poster here that went by the user name "Lion" (if memory serves me correctly!). He was a member of Bob Enyart's congregation at the time and may still be a member of that church. The point being that I am not the author of what follows but...
theologyonline.com
Additionally, your children are yours. They belong to you. You as their parent have the right to bring them from the hospital to your home.
The mantra that love must be able to choose otherwise is simply a sentiment against Muslim absurdity. IOW, you have to put the absurd in the proposition or it doesn't play out at all absurdly.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
Not necessarily. Stockholm syndrome is exactly that dysfunctional. Think of it more like the Garden of Eden: They were put in a place they couldn't leave, nor were they created to disdain the prohibition to stay away from one particular tree. That tree wasn't there as a way of 'giving choice.' They were specifically told not to touch it and given a very real warning of harm. Love existed prior to the disobedience. Love was disrupted specifically 'because' they 'chose otherwise.' It is exactly opposite your position.
Several problems with this:
1) Yes they could leave. The way out WAS the Tree.
2) The tree WAS the choice. They could either obey God and love Him, and not eat of the tree, and therefore live with Him forever, or they could disobey Him, and be thrown out of His presence and the garden.
3) NEITHER ADAM NOR EVE were told "do not touch" by God. You have believed the same cliche that Idolater did in another thread. God specifically said "DO NOT EAT." EVE is the one who said that God told her "do not eat or touch." She was wrong. It's likely that Adam told her "don't touch" as a way of putting a law around the law. See these posts here:
I still disagree I still disagree. You're the only person I know of who hold your position. You disagree, ostensibly based on a passage of scripture that JR just artfully removed from your use to support any such disagreement and yet you persist with your disagreement based on an appeal to...
theologyonline.com
I still disagree I still disagree. You're the only person I know of who hold your position. You disagree, ostensibly based on a passage of scripture that JR just artfully removed from your use to support any such disagreement and yet you persist with your disagreement based on an appeal to...
theologyonline.com
4) The very real warning of harm was the warning of what would happen if they disobeyed him, and thus, rejected loving Him. Which is literally what I've been saying.
5) No one is saying love existed prior to their disobedience. What I'm saying, and HAVE been saying, is that WITHOUT A CHOICE TO DISOBEY, their "obedience" is meaningless, their "love" is meaningless, just as meaningless as programming a robot to walk in circles while saying "I love you." That "love" has no meaning, because aside from the fact that robots are not living to begin with, the robot can literally not do otherwise! It doesn't have a choice! Humans are not robots, Lon!
'Nope.' (I disagree) It is "No" you don't need to 'choose' to do what you are made to automatically do.
Humans are not robots. Neither were Adam and Eve.
God told them in no uncertain terms that disobedience would result in death.
In doing so, He gave them the option to choose between life and death.
They (eventually) chose death.
EXACTLY opposite of your supposed scenario.
That IS my scenario, Lon!
The boarded up house is the Garden without a way out, without the command to not eat of the tree!
The unlocked and non-boarded up windowed house is the one with the tree and the command to not eat of it!
How did you get that mixed up?!
Do you realize you had to come up with dysfunctional and mentally ill and NOT the Garden for your analogy to even have traction?
The analogy was supposed to demonstrate that God is NOT a sadist nor mentally ill. Somehow you've confused yourself into thinking that God being a sadist and mentally ill is a good thing.
IOW, you had to describe 'not love' to rebel against for something you believe is 'love by choice' to work.
Without the ability to "not love", love by choice is meaningless, because there is no choice. A = !A
It's literally irrational to assert that one can love by choice when there is no choice to be made.
When they chose the tree, it was NOT love.
Yes, that is ENTIRELY MY POINT!
In fact they were loving 'before' that choice.
You either don't seem to be understanding my position at all, or you're being intentionally obtuse.
You're conflating the choice being presented to Adam in Genesis 2 (and subsequently via Adam to Eve), with the making of the choice in Genesis 3.
They are NOT the same thing.
Prior to God commanding Adam in 2:15-17, Adam had no way out, no choice, no option to love freely, because he was not aware of any choice to do otherwise. After that command, his love had meaning. However, the amount of time between his creation and God telling him "do not eat of the Tree" was inconsequential.
Prior to Eve being told (most likely by Adam) to not "eat or touch," her love for God had no meaning, because she was not aware of any choice to do otherwise. Afterwards, her love had meaning. However, the amount of time between her creation and being told "do not eat of or touch the Tree" was likely inconsequential.
The moment Eve made the choice to eat of the Tree, she sinned, and disobeyed God. In fact, the moment she broke the law she was told, to not touch it, she sinned.
The moment Adam ate the fruit of the Tree, he disobeyed God.
So yes, there was time enough for Adam and Eve to be able to meaningfully love God before they made the choice to disobey Him, but prior to being GIVEN the choice, they did not love Him, nor could fully comprehend what love is.
Barring the Serpent, there would have been no disobedience.
And yet, the option was still there, should they ever decide to leave.
Which is entirely my point.
They were made 'without' the desire to do otherwise.
Because you say so?
You virtually are doing what many Open Theists accuse Calvinists of: Creating people with a bad-switch capable of doing otherwise already built in
Uh, what?
Calvinists say there is no switch, that a person is created to do exactly what God predetermined they would do, and that they would want to do it, not because of their own desire, but because God desired it. Calvinists teach that humans are God-programmed robots.
I'm saying that a human is capable of doing either good or evil, regardless of what God wants.
as if 'choosing' makes love more virtuous somehow.
Choosing to love when you have the option, the ability, to hate, does in fact give that love meaning.
Whether it's virtuous or not, that's a different matter.
How could the ability to hate make love virtuous?
If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without proof. And of course that is the only way it could be...
www.goodreads.com
You are Adam, you are in a good place, a paradise. You have only good thoughts. You have only awareness of a good God. You are made 'to' love and you cannot love more virtuously because you are perfect. Your wife eats of a tree, you choose to do so, to not lose her, because she convinces you it tastes good etc. You 'just' messed up your ability to love virtuously ever again barring God's redemptive intervention. THAT is the ACTUAL scenario.
You forgot the part where that good God told you that if you eat of a specific tree, you will die, thus giving meaning to your choice to love Him.
It never was needed to 'show' love.
Saying it doesn't make it so.
It didn't matter, they were loving perfectly already,
Supra.
now they aren't and neither are we. Our 'choice' to do otherwises stinks!
Hence God's warning.
You didn't quote a verse that says love must be free to choose otherwise for love to be love (maybe one doesn't exist?)
Supra.
Right, NOT love! JR, you can 'love me' Matthew 22:39-40, or you can despise me.
Because I have the ability, the option, to choose.
Do you, as a believer and lover of Christ, really (really?) have a choice?
Yes.
Now for the important part: Do you believe you'd love me 'more' by being able to despise me as a choice?
Stolen concept fallacy.
I couldn't love you at all if I didn't have the ability to hate you. It simply wouldn't be love, and calling it love would make it meaningless.
My argument is emphatically: not a whit!
And therefore you are wrong, because of the above.
Love is love with or without that other! It is totally unnecessary for one who is made to love! The 'ability to do otherwise' is a huge fail! It does nothing for you or me but rather gets 'in the way' of loving more effectively!
Saying it doesn't make it so.
Not correct. Love 'can' lock you up to protect others from you if you are a menace.
Yes, it is more loving to punish the criminal than it is to let the criminal run free, because the criminal made... you guessed it... A CHOICE to be evil.
... At which point, the criminal should be punished, not locked up like an animal. God authorizes locking people up ONLY while they are awaiting punishment for a crime. God frees Prisoners, tells believers to visit those in prison, and tells us that Hell is the real prison, where those who have rejected Him (a choice, by the way) are punished for their unforgiven sins, after which they will, by their choice, be sent to the Lake of Fire.
For references, see:
Leviticus 24:11-12; Numbers 15:34; Exodus 22:8; Ecclesiastes 8:11; Psalm 142:7, 146:7; Isaiah 42:7, 61:1; Zechariah 9:11-12; Acts 5:19, 16:25-26; 1 Peter 3:19; Ephesians 4:8; Matthew 25:36; Revelation 20:1-4, 7.
Love can make your kids stay inside and not play outside today because there is arsenic in the soil or acid rain or a coyote will eat them. Before you call foul, let me visit 'ever' also: I 'can' lovingly lock you up to protect you from a toxic sun if you have a skin disease will die (boy in the plastic bubble). There 'can' be a compelling reason to let that one lovingly die, but I actually think, in love, I can talk that boy into staying in his plastic bubble.
And yet... EVERY SINGLE ONE of your examples is not taking away the ability of the one you are "locking up" to disobey you by going outside anyways, in spite of your command not to.
As far as I was aware, there was no lock on the bubble that prevented the boy from opening it.
It is not loving to intentionally kill someone who is not dying, that includes removing life support (in whatever form that may take) from someone whose health is not deteriorating with it.
Nope, not if I've shown otherwise and I believe I have. You've offered an idea that simply doesn't hold true. You CAN be loving. Let me posit an idea and ask you to weigh in: Could God have 'lovingly' put the tree in a different garden?
Answer:
To give you a specific example, Genesis 1-3 (yes, all three chapters) shows God giving Adam and Eve a choice to freely choose Him, without hiding the way out. He put the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil right in the middle of the garden, so that it could never be said that God tried to conceal the exit. He gave the two a way out of His perfect paradise that He created for them in order to fellowship with each other and with Him.
.
Would that have been 'unloving' of God?
If not unloving, then certainly deceptive.
But God wanted the choice to be clear, just like how He said:
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them.”
I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is...
www.biblegateway.com
I'll try and remember that next time one of the grandkids run out in the street?
That's a question?
CAN you possibly have this make any kind of sense? There are a LOT of people that believe exactly as you do, I'm frankly not getting it. What am I missing? I've been arguing over this for a long time, I'd love to see somebody finally prove the point: How is letting my kids run into the road (their choice) without stopping them from getting creamed in the road seen as loving? Further, does it really look 'less' than loving to run out there and save them?
You seem to have come up with a straw man.
Of course it's loving to not let your kids run out into the road.
In fact, if you didn't care about your kids, you would let them. You have the choice, to love them or to be apathetic (a form of hatred) to them. The very fact that you DON'T hate your children, gives meaning to not letting them run out into the road.
I'd even go so far as to say that if your kids ARE running out into the road, you don't love them enough, since 1) you haven't taught them to obey you when you tell them not to do something, and 2) you aren't paying enough attention to them when they're outside the house!
But that's not what is being discussed here. To use your analogy (assuming you HAVE taught your children to obey you when you tell them not to do something), Adam and Eve are like the children who run out into the road, in spite of being warned not to.
By choosing to run out into the road, they chose not to love you, in that instant, by rejecting your command not to do so.
That's not love. That's disobedience.
Sounds VERY odd to me that you have to have the ability to hate me, for you to love me!
Appeal to incredulity.
If I do not have the ability to do otherwise, then it's not love to begin with.
I 'think' as a believer you have no choice but to love me, your brother in Christ
You think wrongly. The choice exists. It's simply NOT LOVING to not love you as a brother in Christ. By definition.
AND I believe your love might actually be better without the 'hate' giving you a double mind.
By definition, if it's not freely given, in other words, if I have no ability to do otherwise, then it's not love at all.
Let me ask you: does it matter if I 'choose' to love as much as 'if' I love you? Does it even need a contrast?
There's no distinction. You either choose to love someone or you choose not to love someone.
If there's no choice, then it's not love.
Yes, my daughters are women. When we had acid rain, I "locked" them up.
And they could have unlocked the door and gone outside, in rebellion against your love. No?
Further, do you think Adam and Eve would have felt 'locked up' in the Garden? I'm fairly positive in their perfect nature, they'd never have thought that.
Again, stolen concept fallacy.
You're using the concept of love freely given to deny that they had a choice in the matter.
The choice being to eat or not eat of the Tree.
Them being locked up would resemble a garden without any forbidden fruit.
Do I need to be able to choose something more atrocious than 'not loving you' for my love to be actually love?
All you need is the ability to hate, for you to have the ability to love.
Robots do not have the ability to hate, therefore they cannot love.
How does that equate or make sense?
You are once again making an appeal to incredulity.
Love, BY DEFINITION, must be freely given. There must be a choice available to do otherwise, or else it's not love.
Is that the reason or is the reason because literally they didn't want to, weren't created that way until the Serpent entered the Garden? IOW, wasn't it love 'before' they even had the actual choice/inclination and not after?
Supra. God created Adam and Eve with the ABILITY to love and to hate. He gave them the OPTION to love or to hate Him by placing the Tree in the garden.
Also, the Serpent was in the garden from the beginning. His name was Lucifer.
They were literally choosing not to love at that point, but unless God made Adam with a 'disobedience switch' which looks 'faulty' on paper and oddly Calvinistic to the double-pred degree, they couldn't have done otherwise. At that point, prior to the fall, wasn't it genuine love? Or do you believe they necessarily had that switch placed into them? Double-pred Calvinists would totally agree with you if you say yes, I'm just trying to follow because it troubles my theology and God said creation 'was good' which to me, means no faulty switch.
There was no "switch" that had to be flipped.
Again, Adam and Eve were created fully formed with the ABILITY to both love and hate from the moment they were created. They were given the OPTION to love or to hate God when presented with the command to not eat of the Tree.
Being called to love your neighbor doesn't mean you will love them. Hence proving my point. You can choose to love your neighbor, or you can choose to hate your neighbor.
and unbelievers really don't know how.
Unbelievers don't know how to love? They're not human?
John 15:16 (Jesus said they didn't, but did they?)
John 15:16 says nothing about an unbeliever's ability to love. He's not even talking about unbelievers!
He's talking to and about the Twelve Disciples... presenting them with the choice to keep His commandments in order to abide in his love... Huh, that sounds an awful lot like my position!
“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and your joy may be full. This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you. These things I command you, that you love one another.
Love and Joy Perfected - “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love.
www.biblegateway.com
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Knowing God Through Love - Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
www.biblegateway.com
"let us love..."
"we ... ought to love..."
Those don't sound like phrases one would use if there was no ability to do otherwise.
Should we? Yes.
Will we? No.
Which proves my position.
Says nothing about men loving. It's talking about God.
For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him. For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. And not only that, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.
Christ in Our Place - For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.
www.biblegateway.com
But it raises the question, again, could God have chosen to not love us? Could He not have chosen to destroy Adam and Eve when they sinned, or to not tell them about His future plans to save humanity?
If He cannot do otherwise than to love us, then does He really love us?
I say no, He could not. He is like the woman in the previous examples I gave, the one who is locked up, unable to leave, a prisoner of His own nature.
No.
Love and hate is a common Hebrew idiom that means to love and love more. It means that you love someone or something so much it's as if you hate someone or something else.
Jesus used this same idiom in Luke 14:26:
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple.
www.biblegateway.com
Not in dispute.
John is clear on that, so at that point yes, because I show John said so, because I say so! (It is an interesting way of arguing, you could politely ask: Why do you assert this? Where are you getting the idea? it helps move the conversation along better - Because I say so? Yeah, I think so, but experience seems to be on my side on this so try it).
I have no idea what you're even talking about here.
Second question: God MUST love (us)? Yes God is, so 'must' be consistent with His own being.
Supra, RE: Is God free
You're asserting that God is not free to do otherwise.
It is like asking if I "must be a man?" Yes, because I am. Some would believe otherwise, but I cannot change my gender. Yes, I MUST be a man.
Because you were created as a man.
God loves because He wants to love, not because He has no other choice.
No. He rejects all that is not love, which is also loving necessarily. You and I, as believers, don't really have a choice either. We may think so and futilely exercise indifference, but it is not a valid option nor does it mean more 'when' you do love.
Thank you for contradicting yourself. You make my argument for me.
If we don't have a choice BUT to love, then all we will do is love. It's as simple as that. The very fact that you have to add "we may think [we have a choice] and futilely exercise indifference" shows you inherently recognize our ability as free agents to do otherwise. Which is entirely my position.
WE CAN AND DO choose not to love, even as Christians. We SHOULD love, but it doesn't mean we will. And therein lies the point. Love must be freely given.
I don't appreciate your love 'more' when you tell me you'd rather 'hate' me and in fact, makes love seem insincere, not contrasted or better.
Straw man.
If I were telling you I'd rather hate you, then obviously my love for you would have no meaning.
But that's not what we're talking about.
We're talking about HAVING THE ABILITY to hate, and choosing to love given the option.
"One would rather do X than Y" when Y should be done is desire to do X. We're talking about desire to do Y, even given the option of doing X.
See the difference?
God loved us while we were yet sinners.
Not in dispute.
God doesn't ever choose against His nature and His love is more meaningful for us who aren't consistent because of it.
In other words, you're asserting that God's love has meaning because He has no other option than to love us, He is a prisoner to His love, and sent His Son to die for us because He MUST love us, and couldn't do otherwise.
That doesn't sound like the God of the Bible. That sounds like the god of Calvinism! Worse, it sounds like the stone idols God mocked for not being able to do anything!
Moreover, when we were lost, we were flabbergasted by that kind of love. We didn't have to know (and it wasn't true anyway) that "God could have chosen not to love you, you know! You beastly thing! You are just lucky He chose to love you!" It actually means more to tell someone: "God SO loved the world..."
So God would not be fully justified in sending everyone to Hell in punishment for sin?
Do you mean: Is God in the position that He must love us 'because' of sin? Or are you asking "Is God stuck in the position of loving us, even with our sin?" To the first, no. To the second, yes, but please clarify if I missed it.
You said:
In this instance, it is a redress of our sin condition and it is precisely because we are separated from Him in sin that such is needed: No sin/no appeal needed. We are in this predicament because of sin. God can do many things to 'love,' one is to address us 'in' our sin condition but reckoning with sin isn't necessary for love to be love, it just is and better understood in sin's absence.
It was two questions.
The first is, "Is God in the position that He must love us?"
The second is a follow up, assuming you say yes, "because of sin?"
It will be the permanent case with the unbeliever, and only as a 'separation from' all that is good.
That doesn't answer the question.
Can God do otherwise than love us? "CAN He," not "Will He."
Until then, He is unwilling that any should perish
I'm not asking about what God wants. I'm asking about His capability. CAN HE choose not to love? If not, then He is not free.
Open Theism is primarily focused on the freedom of GOD, not man, despite most of the discussions Open Theists have being about man's freedom.
In order to advance your position, you must say that God is not free to do otherwise. For Him to be truly free means God has the freedom and ability, in this case, to love or not to love. You are essentially taking the settled view theist's position that God cannot do otherwise than what has been predetermined. You think that God is essentially stuck loving His creation, similar to how Zeus is stuck within fate. You believe God no longer, if ever, has the ability to do anything other than love.
Am I wrong?
and oddly I'm having deja vu of a conversation I had with a double-pred Calvinist on TOL about pretty much the same thing 0.o They think God can 'hate' who is not predestined. He calls us to love our enemies and do good to them to be perfect as He is perfect etc. The command is a reflection of Who He is, for us to be like Him (Matthew 5:43-48).
He also commands us to hate evil (as in, those who do evil).
Does that make Him a hypocrite?
Yes, exactly. I'm still not seeing it (not the only one, but there are not many of us).
I've been trying to show it to you, but you've been covering your eyes.
Argument by assertion is a fallacy for a reason, Lon. Don't base your position on logical fallacies.
Stamping your foot and demanding that what you say is true because you say it is just makes you out to be a spoiled brat and petulant child who thinks he can get whatever he wants simply by demanding it.
EVERY parent here will tell you they were very loving when they told their child to not touch the stove.
That they were loving when they say that is not in dispute.
What's in dispute is that both the parent and the child have a choice in the scenario.
The parent has a choice to NOT tell their child to not touch the stove, and they have a choice TO tell their child to not touch the stove. The former is not loving, the latter is. Having the choice between the two is entirely my position.
The child has a choice to obey their parents, and not touch the stove, and they have a choice to not obey their parents, and to touch the stove. The former is loving of them, and the latter is not. Having the choice between the two is entirely my position.
If there was no choice to make, for EITHER the parents or the child, then there is no love to be shown, for they are just robots following their programming, doing what they have been predetermined to do.
Further, I absolutely did not need something in the house that would harm them for them to know about love.
Disobedience is itself harmful.
You may not need a stove, but simply giving a command to not do something makes DOING that something harmful to the child.
Just like the Tree and its fruit themselves were not harmful (cf. "very good" Genesis 1), but disobeying the prohibition against eating of the Tree is what made it harmful.
They didn't need a 'to do otherwise' to either experience or give love.
Stolen concept fallacy, again.
Love is the commitment to the good of someone. Obedience by definition must be freely given. God commands us to love. Therefore love must be freely given.
Meaning there is always an "otherwise" to do when it comes to love. For example, you could simply not love. You could hate. You could be apathetic, indifferent. You could disobey.
In fact love does a pretty good job of producing love in others.
Not in dispute.
Giving a choice to do otherwise generally has my kids not doing chores, (the desired response).
You didn't give them that choice, though.
They already had that option, simply by you giving the command to do their chores.
“If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without proof. And of course that is the only way it could be. If it could be somehow proved, then we would have no choice but to believe. We would lose our freedom not to believe. And in the very moment that we lost that freedom, we would cease to be human beings. Our love of God would have been forced upon us, and love that is forced is of course not love at all. Love must be freely given. Love must live in the freedom not to love; it must take risks. Love must be prepared to suffer even as Jesus on the Cross suffered, and part of that suffering is doubt.”
If we are to believe he is really alive with all that that implies, then we have to believe without proof. And of course that is the only way it could be...
www.goodreads.com
"By definition, obedience must be freely given. Likewise, God commands men to love, and if they are to obey, they must do so freely."
kgov.com
Similarly, a choice to 'do otherwise' is not a good options because I actually learn 'not' to love by going that route.
Yes, constantly disobeying will result in learning not to love.
That doesn't do anything to argue against my position, though, because my position is that you have the ability to either obey or disobey, to love or not to love. You're taking the "disobey" part and acting as if there's no other option.
It in fact, does completely opposite the desired response.
And yet, you and your children have the ability to do either.
Are you telling me Adam and Eve needed to sin in order to learn what love was really all about?
No. They needed the ability to do otherwise.
Did they need the 'option' to sin in order for their already perfectly working love button response to work better?
Supra.
What is the contrast actually saying? What are you trying to say? HOW can a choice 'not to love' be a must before I can appreciate you just loving me by your new nature, for instance? Or even you able to 'appreciate' your own ability to love? While scripture does say "He who has been forgiven much, loves much," It doesn't mean you are a better 'lover' because you have been a greater sinner at one time does it? Isn't it rather that you recognize what it took Christ in God to save us? Is it diminished if you believe God did or didn't have a choice? Jesus did ask for a pass, but does that make it 'more loving' or is it just that same incredibly love just with more context and expression? Did Jesus 'have' to have been able to 'choose otherwise' or it wouldn't be 'as loving?' Love against the backdrop of sin definitely contrasts brightly and especially unsaved grabbed my attention, but ever after I've always been blown away at the immensity and unfathomable richness of His love for us.
Supra.
Yes, but 1) is it really?
Yes, it really is.
I'm not offering my kids a choice when I tell them "don't touch this hot stove, it burns!"
Yes, you are, by definition.
Yes, by definition.
As a father I simply chose not to put in a woodstove. If I got one, I may have placed a barrier around it, etc.
Ok?
See, those actions 'removed' even the possibility of a bad choice.
No, they didn't, except in the most immediate sense. They just made the "bad choice" harder to do.
Moreover, I don't think them touching the stove or not the best way to show me they love me anyway (the contrast that is insisted upon, the "ability to do otherwise)."
So let's move to a different command.
God said "you shall love your neighbor as yourself."
By obeying God's command, you love your neighbor.
By disobeying God's command, you do not love your neighbor.
Point in case.
It doesn't really accentuate love at all so it still puzzles me that 'the ability to sin' must exist for love to exist or be appreciable or demonstrable.
Not "the ability to sin," though not loving one's neighbor is a sin.
The ability to do not love must exist for love to exist.
In the case of Adam and Eve, disobedience of the command "Do not eat of the tree" was in fact sin, because God commanded them not to eat of it, and disobeying God is sin.
Exactly, but the people on your side are saying that the child must 'have the ability to touch the stove' for love to exist, if I am following the argument.
They DO have the ability to touch the stove. If they didn't, children wouldn't get burned by touching the stove in disobedience of their parents.
That to me doesn't make sense.
I'm sorry you can't grasp this simple and foundational concept.
Hmm
▼ where? ▼
Only that they 'had' to be able to choose for it to be of any kind of appreciation? That I have to be able to 'choose' rather than just 'love' a person?
Stolen concept, again.
Supra.
Let me ask which you prefer:
Your wife: Out of all the males in the world I could have chosen, I chose you!
Or
Your wife: I love you.
Both.
Now, if the first was instead "should have chosen," then you'd have an argument.
Me? The second, every time. It doesn't need to distraction of 'not love' to qualify her love, just 'if' she does.
Stolen concept, again.
It is implicit that she could have done otherwise.
The "if" only reinforces that.
It doesn't matter if she had to consciously gone out of her way to have said it.
She could have chosen not to say it. No?
It matters rather if actions follow the statement.
Irrelevant to this discussion.
The 'choice to do otherwise' simply doesn't matter and isn't part of our everyday conversation.
So what? Doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
You make choices every second of every day of your life. Some important, some not important,.
You choose to either love your neighbor or not. That choice must be freely made.
"You know, I could have chosen not to love you today" actually detracts from just doing it.
Supra. RE: desire to do X
The 'abilty to choose' just gets petty and distracting at that point.
Straw man. Supra.
Because we are fallen, it is a moot point:
No, it's not.
ALL HAVE SINNED and fallen short of the glory of God.
Supra, RE obedience by definition
Thank you for conceding the entire discussion.
My contention is rather if it must be so for love to exist and especially because it hasn't a lot of traction in scriptures.
Yes, it does. Supra.
No scripture says that 'choosing' is important for love.
False.
See Deuteronomy 30:19
We do have to choose, that's certainly true, every day.
Supra.
I don't like it, however.
Facts don't care about your feelings.
I'd much rather wake up and say "I love my brothers and sister on TOL" than "God you want me to love this person?"
That is the decision you make every day, whether you ask the question or not.
Choice, as I said, doesn't really do much, just shows a dilemma.
Choice makes a world of difference.
"I do" before the altar, versus "get away from me you pervert" on the street.
It is the doing of the thing that is important and choice to do otherwise is a distraction.
And yet, the choice remains, whether you like it or not.
That's literally why Paul said "we ought to love one another..." Not because we will, but because he knew that some would choose not to.
I simply want to please God and simply want to care for my fellow man.
That doesn't meant there is no alternative.
There might be some virtue to 'wanting' but it is still the 'doing' that is ever the better contrast.
Supra.
I don't believe I need an 'ability to do otherwise' when I am doing the thing the matters most
Whether you believe you need it or not is irrelevant, because you do, in fact, have the ability to do otherwise.
and I don't believe you on your end are any better off knowing I 'chose you' to care for over some other unloving thing.
So what?
Love is understood better, just being done. I don't have to 'be able to sin' to show God love.
Supra. RE: obedience by definition
I'm uncertain why the tree was in the Garden,
I literally told you why it was there.
It was "the way out" of God's love.
but 'so love can be love at all' or 'a better expression of love' is the right idea.
Whatever that's supposed to mean...
