Why is life a test? Why need it be a test? What good does a test serve?
Also, how does free will coexist with a being that knows your every choice? How does free will coexist with god's plan? Does his plan just take into account your every choice, essentially negating your free will?
I believe life is a test so it can determine where you go after you die. Christians believe in heaven and hell. Others believe in reincarnation. It is all connected with the search of the meaning of life. We all want to know why we exist and we want to know what happens after that. We also want to know if our choices have consequences in the long run.
For example, if you are a Christian the test will determine if you go to heaven or hell. With the reincarnation, the test determines what will your next life be. If you are a mass murderer here, your next life you will need to suffer for what you have done before.
The point is that you know you exist, you just know. So it means you have a soul in a body. So that soul must go somewhere else and it must come from somewhere else.
Do free will coexist with an all-knowing being? It is possible. Here in this post, I talked about that https://steemit.com/life/@krisstofer/if-there-is-fate-do-we-have-free-will but I will explain it here too.
One of the theories of free will and fate coexisting is that only the ultimate consequences are a part of fate. It means that there is a goal that you must accomplish and all of your bad decisions that are connected with your free will are preparing you for that goal.
For a simple example. You have a choice of going left or right. You choose left. But for an unknown reason, the left path is closed so you are being forced of going right. That means that you have free will and fate.
It is more complicated but that is a simple example.
You have to complete your fate. How you complete it does not matter. And also it does not matter how long it takes.
And part of your fate has been determined from the start. If you are born in a Christian family there is a high chance of you being Christian.
These are my thoughts on your questions, have a nice day.
Good thoughts @krisstofer. A person's FREE WILL is like everything one owns; and it will profit them if and only if they used it wisely. Planting a seed on the ground, it should obviously germinate and have the root on the ground and the tree branches pointing upward. But if the tree chooses or decides to have its branches under the soil and the root coming out of the ground, this tree will surely dry up and die. Man can therefore, be comparable to a tree that when planted in good soil, will give its fruit if well taken care of. Has anyone ever seen a tree planted in the air, and growing upside down (with the root in the air, its branches stretching downward) and still surviving?
Please read some special insightful topical study/teachings on “A MAN’S FREE WILL” at https://www.biblelearnersministries.org/node/78 and
https://biblelearnersministries.org/bible-studies/hearing-and-not-doing
@krisstofer - If I give you a choice between $5 dollars in one hand, and $10 dollars in another, but I take away the $10 dollar choice as you reach for it, then I did not give you a real choice at all.
@abrotherskeeper - Your metaphor is a bit of a stretch. A tree cannot choose those behaviors. Roots follow gravity and moisture. Leaves and branches search for light.
To your question - yes, there are plants that are able to grow just fine like that:
Thanks for the insights and the time to respond .
On this topic, out of curiosity, do you both feel that Judas had free will?
If he did have free will, then what if he selected righteously and god's plan wasn't fulfilled?
If he did have free will, and god knew his would ultimately be a betrayer, then didn't god set him up for failure so his plan could be met?
If he didn't have free will, then none of us do, and a more Calvinist answer would be required here.
We have free will but because God is all knowing, he knows before hand what we will do. He has designed each one of our lives to be exactly what we need to have the best chance of returning to him. Judas was given every opportunity to live a righteous life but still failed to do so because he couldn't change the evil desires of his heart. God knew that would be the case, that no matter how many chances Judas was given, he would never choose correctly.
So how does "fate" work? Again, because God knows everything, he can perfectly predict what everyone will do in every situation. Our "fate" is God predicting what will happen based on the choices we freely make. It's like the weatherman saying it will rain, he is not taking away the weather's free will, he is just predicting what will happen. (If only our weathermen could predict perfectly) :)
The weather doesn't have free will. The weather is deterministic.
Of course :) just a poor analogy. I hope it still conveyed my meaning.
The thing is - there is no good analogy. You are trying to describe a paradox.
For example, if you were a movie director - all the characters in your story have no free will. You know their every move. You know how the story begins, what the middle looks like, and you know how the story ends. This is your benefit as a omniscient story teller directing everyone else.
Now, if you wanted your characters to have 'free will', then you would essentially be describing an improv show. The characters are welcome to go off script and riff off one another. They can improvise the beginning, middle, and end, and you, as an the movie director would not be able to know 'the ending' if you respected their free will.
So, as a director - if you have a plan, and you want your story to end a certain way, then free will cannot exist. If your actors can truly improvise (i.e. express free will), you, as the director, cannot know how your actors will improvise and have already worked it into your "plan".
By definition, there cannot be both a plan and improvisation.
Your argument is that on the off chance that you are able to predict an actor's improvisation with 100% accuracy and work their behavior into your story to acquire the ending you want, then it all magically works. But, that is not the case. In reality, you've simply turned the actor into a robot.
So, back to my original question:
Either:
Judas had no free will. He was selected by god from the beginning of time to betray Jesus and fulfill the plan. His evil action served the greater good and was therefore a necessary evil.
Judas had free will. He was capable of improvising. He was actually fully capable of resisting the necessary evil. And yet, had he improvised successfully, the entire plan would have been moot. The ending would've had to be very different.
Please, take some time to really think on that question. Go read up on Calvinism and how others have tried to square the circle.
Me - I recognize the entire thing is a fiction made up by frightened little humans.
No, you are just predicting what they will do with their free will. Perhaps a better analogy would be a parent and a child. Of course, the parent doesn't know their child perfectly, but they can often predict what the child will do in certain situations.
God gave Judah the best chance he could knowing full well that he wouldn't be able to go through with it. Now Judah knows that his punishment is just. This "test" of life is about showing ourselves what our true desires are so that we will know that God's judgements are just.
Oops