Jeremy Christian: Image of God and Free Will?

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Gen3:7 - Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Their response to this revelation was to cover themselves with make-shift clothes.

*being ashamed of nakedness is also something not familiar to indigenous humans.

That’s certainly one way to read it. I know that’s how it’s commonly read. But I disagree I’m making stuff up. I’m just reading it within the context of the story being told overall. The story begins by illustrating Adam and Eve disobeying a direct order, unlike anything else God has created up to that point.

Not at all. I find it all quite brilliant. It’s really the only way to create something like free will.

Right or wrong, here’s my view on this …

This is a God who wants companionship. Other minds. Living all eternity with a bunch of drone angels doesn’t sound appealing I imagine.

So, how do you realistically do that? Give others their own minds in your universe? They’re not you. They don’t know their way around and are sure to wreck the place with a will totally independent of yours, making and breaking stuff with reckless abandon, with no real way to comprehend the damage they are doing. Like toddlers with loaded hand guns running all around your house.

So, what do you do? Create a temporary habitat where nothing lasts. Nothing is eternal. It’s a safe environment in the sense that none of us can do any real lasting damage.

This gives this life we’re each living two purposes…

One, it gives us each a chance to experience for ourselves the effects of free will running reckless. With all of human existence being just the kind of knowledge base of experience one would need to wield free will responsibly.

Two, it gives each of us a chance to exist and agree to the conditions to participate in eternity. Because we each have a will of our own, we have to choose to agree that God is in charge. He is the alpha. Like the roadways. We’re all free to go where we wish whenever, but there are rules to ensure we don’t slam into each other and keep things moving. And there’s an authority that all have to acknowledge, respect, and obey. So salvation in that way is a license. Choosing to believe Jesus raised from the dead after three days is choosing to acknowledge God because He did something impossible. A requirement to pass from this temporary environment into the eternal place where it all really counts.

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I swear that you don’t know what “indigenous” means. I think I’m fairly indigenous myself.
And you know that “the eyes of both of them were opened” isn’t intended literally, right?

Yes; it’s the way it was written. You will note that they must be expelled from Eden lest they eat from the tree of life also and become truly as gods. Gods apparently are immortal beings who have knowledge, and having both of those qualities puts you in the club. And there’s a tree for each.

No, that isn’t how it begins. That’s somewhere in the middle. Hey, was the snake disobeying an order?

Cool story, though there’s nothing at all in Genesis to support it. Still, if the purpose is to have companions with free will, why create the Genesis 1 people? Why just make Adam later? Why wait 140+ thousand years before giving humans free will? For that matter, why wait 13+ billion years to have humans at all, if we’re the point of everything?

Also, way to diminish the real world to irrelevance. Is sin impossible in heaven, incidentally? Is there free will in heaven?

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Yes, exactly. Instead of a life which is purposeful in itself and for reasons one can understand, a life which is basically a farcical aquatic ceremony.

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+1 for the sly Holy Grail reference. I enjoyed it.

“Violence inherited in the system! Help! Help! I’m being repressed!”

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No, I’m using it correctly. A native. See, this is the history of free will’s impact on humanity on this planet. All of us here in these forums, we’re all the free will invaders. Free will makes humans the agressive party in the pre-Adam vs post-Adam human dynamic. Natives don’t last. See the history of civilization for support of this. This is why all the remaining “uncontacted peoples” live in the parts of the world that free willed civilization just don’t really want. If we decide we do, they’ll have to move or cease to exist.

That’s a good point about the tree of life. Something to think about. This is the whole reason I pester people with stuff like this.

No. The snake was playing the intended role. That’s another interesting aspect of the story. This debate going on between satan and God, that continues throughout the book of Job. He’s playing devil’s advocate, if you will.

Actually, that’s what’s really interesting about Genesis 6. The whole reason for the flood. The ‘sons of God’ (Adam’s kin) married and had children with the ‘daughters of humans’. It’s at this point that it says God regrets putting these humans on the Earth.

  • Re: the flood… Another aside. I find it a point of interest that God seems to have chosen to place this volatile new creation of his in a region of the Earth that’s the geological equivalent of a storm drain. Like a panic button you can press if things start going astray.

As for waiting billions of years, time isn’t relevant. None of that matters. But my answer to that. I think of our habitat like that of a lion in a zoo. There’s often that large chasm between the lions and the spectators. Time and space, the universe, is the kind of habitat you’d make for a human capable of all we are. We still can’t quite see the edges.

I don’t think I’m diminishing the real world’s relevance. I said this life serves two specific and very necessary purposes. In my view, this gives relevance and meaning to literally every living person. Even if that person died as an infant. It’s all part of the tapestry. It’s all of the utmost importance. The only thing that might make it seem ‘diminished’ is that this place won’t last. This we know. We all die. The sun will die. The universe will die. The story says as much.

Yes, I believe there is free will in heaven. This is why admittance requires

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I’m sorry. This strikes me as one of the most insane things I’ve read on the internet in recent memory (and I use twitter!), so I want to make sure I understand. You’re saying that there are different groups of humans living on the planet currently, some of whom possess free will and some of whom don’t? Is that correct?

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Yes, that is correct.

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Well, I’m very sorry to hear that.

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Why? You disagree? Does the history of civilization not tell us exactly that? As far as there being two ‘groups’ of humans?

I don’t mean to be disrespectful. There’s just a point somewhere in human history when humans diverged from our mammalian roots and begin charting our own path. After a while, we built armies and ships and spread our legs, so to speak, pushing the previous inhabitants aside

This is what I mean by free will. I’m not diminishing indigenous humans. Really, they’re the image of God. We’re the ugly ones in this scenario.

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Of course I disagree, and I trust that just about every single person you discuss this with will as well. It doesn’t matter who the “ugly” ones are.

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Okay, then what does matter? What do you disagree with specifically?

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Literally everything? There is no productive conversation to be had here, sorry.

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Not very specific. Let’s make this conversation productive. Teach me where I’m wrong. I’m open to it.

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It’s basically the Bicameral Mind hypothesis. If it’s crazy, it’s crazy with precedence.

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Lots of crazy notions have precedence. Probably the vast majority do. I haven’t read Jaynes. Does he argue that some humans lack consciousness?

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I’m pretty sure that violated the rules of this site. If I don’t know what “the time evolution of the universe” means, you can certainly help me by telling me what it means.

I’m suspecting that you don’t know what a Gish Gallop is or what a goalpost move is. Or if you do, at least you’re using them incorrectly here.

Let me explain just a little bit more: “free will” is incoherent, for one thing because you can’t define it except by using a synonym in its definition. “Choice” just means “free will”.

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I’m pretty sure that there is no distinction between “we” and “the previous inhabitants”.

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No, that isn’t it. He’s going for something quite different. For one thing, he’s talking about a much earlier event. But there is some resemblance; they’re both based on a dubious interpretation of a single document. The Bicameral Mind was based on the Iliad, and Jeremy is going with Genesis. Still, I don’t think the former allows for anyone in the current world to still have a bicameral mind, while Jeremy supposes that there are entire tribes without free will.

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Please quote that he believes some of these tribes persist without free will to this day.

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Just look three or four posts up. It’s not hard to find. And there are several places.

Oh, what the heck. Here:

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