felixthecoach
New Member
I have not posted here in a while, but I wanted to present a short discussion I had with a Christian the other day. Just for some background. She is a somewhat liberal calvinist (not sure how that works). She believes in evolution. She thinks God chooses who goes to hell and heaven before they are born but that they have the free will to choose which place they go.
Alright now that I got the philosophical contradictions out of the way... Here's how the conversation was going (i'm paraphrasing)
Christian: God loves everyone, but He still sends some people to hell.
Me: How is this a good thing? I mean, if he knows who is going to hell before he creates them, how do they have free will?
Christian: Well, he still lets us make a decision even though He knows it is a bad one.
Me: okay, well lets put that aside for a second and just focus on the Free Will perspective. You like math right? [she nods] Okay, lets look at some calculus. Look at this equation:
1/∞
"¦in calculus, we know that this is technically undefined, but that as our denominator approaches infinity, the number equals zero. Now lets put some rules that God has placed on us into our equation:
For 1, we say that is the number of years or lifetimes God is giving us to make a decision to follow him. For the infinity sign, note that it is the number of years God is rewarding or punishing us for making a decision. In other words, we can say that God is giving us so many years to make a decision per so many years of reward/punishment.
1(decision_years)/∞(reward/punishment_years) = approaches zero.
In other words, this equation shows exactly how much time God gives us to make a decision compared to how much time he rewards us for making a decision. You've been pointing out that he gives us an ENTIRE LIFETIME to make a decision to follow him, but according to the math that God created, we're actually getting essentially zero years to make that decision. What do you think about that?
Christian: [long silence in which I think she gets the point] Well, he's giving us a huge reward for doing nothing if we choose Him then"¦That just makes him better.
Me: [Mental Face-palm, change subject]
Anyway, I wanna know what some people think of this argument. I've tried it a few times and always seem to get a similar response. Also, I could probably improve the wording or make it more coherent. What do you guys think?
Alright now that I got the philosophical contradictions out of the way... Here's how the conversation was going (i'm paraphrasing)
Christian: God loves everyone, but He still sends some people to hell.
Me: How is this a good thing? I mean, if he knows who is going to hell before he creates them, how do they have free will?
Christian: Well, he still lets us make a decision even though He knows it is a bad one.
Me: okay, well lets put that aside for a second and just focus on the Free Will perspective. You like math right? [she nods] Okay, lets look at some calculus. Look at this equation:
1/∞
"¦in calculus, we know that this is technically undefined, but that as our denominator approaches infinity, the number equals zero. Now lets put some rules that God has placed on us into our equation:
For 1, we say that is the number of years or lifetimes God is giving us to make a decision to follow him. For the infinity sign, note that it is the number of years God is rewarding or punishing us for making a decision. In other words, we can say that God is giving us so many years to make a decision per so many years of reward/punishment.
1(decision_years)/∞(reward/punishment_years) = approaches zero.
In other words, this equation shows exactly how much time God gives us to make a decision compared to how much time he rewards us for making a decision. You've been pointing out that he gives us an ENTIRE LIFETIME to make a decision to follow him, but according to the math that God created, we're actually getting essentially zero years to make that decision. What do you think about that?
Christian: [long silence in which I think she gets the point] Well, he's giving us a huge reward for doing nothing if we choose Him then"¦That just makes him better.
Me: [Mental Face-palm, change subject]
Anyway, I wanna know what some people think of this argument. I've tried it a few times and always seem to get a similar response. Also, I could probably improve the wording or make it more coherent. What do you guys think?