Justhuman wrote:Many talk about God's plan, that He has some sort of plan for us humans, to which we are (ultimately?) 'bred' into this world. How about God wants that desired result by an evolutionary process? He lets our will roam freely (in our void) until it reaches itself to the desired result. Maybe sometimes with a little push or hint into the right direction.
But what result does He want? If one has the power to do everything, why let something evolve into something which you could have created directly? Why not create the end-result directly?
On God's plan, let me introduct a little thinking from Irenaeus (
c. 130-
c. 202 AD), an early Christian thinker. He saw two stages to God's creation of human beings. In the first stage, Irenaeus saw human beings as being brought into existence as immature intelligent creatures with the capacity for immense moral and spiritual growth and development. The second stage of creation was believed to consist of gradually being transformed through their own free responses from human animals into "children of God." Accordingly, God's purpose in creating this world was not to construct a hedonistic paradise whose inhabitants would experience a maximum of pleasure and minimum of pain. Rather this world is to be viewed as a place of "soul making," where free beings can still enjoy life's pleasures, while having to grapple with life's pitfalls in order to become be furnished into "children of God."
There is an important point to be gleaned here. Spiritual growth and maturing appears to be possible because of pain and suffering. As parents know, there are many cases where allowing pain and suffering to occur in their child's life is beneficial in order to bring about some greater good, or because there is some sufficient reason for allowing it. In James 1:2-4 we are told perseverance through trials matures us and makes us complete. Additionally, 1 Peter 1:6-7 acknowledges some as suffering all sorts of grief, because they are being refined as though by fire, to prove their faith is pure and genuine towards God.
Within Christianity, it is believed this process of maturing and testing will come to an end when this temporary world passes away. Yet, God promises to set up a new world wherein He will dwell with His people, and "
He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." (Revelation 21:4)
You're dealing very much in the realm of theology here, and so a good theological is allowed. If we believe in evil, that is evil really exists in the world which makes some actions really wrong even if everyone believed otherwise, then this points to the existence of an
ultimate good i.e., foundationally the source of such goodness is found in God. You talk of "God's plan" like you know something of it. BUT, if we believe in a good God, yet evil exists in our world, then there must exist creatures God endowed with a will of their own whom God empowers to act in their own right. If God didn't empower creatures to act according to a will of their own, then I'd expect a
good good God who simply "programmed" us like a game you earlier described to only plan everything all roses.
Yet, the one thing missing in such a world, devoid of creatures ability to act freely, is often was we consider to be the greatest good - love. All of us would simply be borg-like, following our programmers instructions. There'd exist no love in such a world. It's impossible without the response of a creature to freely love back. Love can't be forced or coerced. Therefore, if in part of our world, God "planned" for love, then equally to have any such plan successfully had He must allow creatures to freely respond to and choose Him.
Let me tell you something of God's plan which Christ revealed a little about. This whole life we live is about whether we will love God and love others (Matthew 22:37-40). That, is ultimately what Christianity is about, what our life is about here. What other meaning, if we take secular thought, is there for life? For a species to simply survive and carry out towards an ending which ends in eventual oblivion? What is the point? What is the final meaning to such? Does it even really matter? There is no real meaning if God doesn't exist, just enjoy life and live it to the fullest, whatever that means.
Anyway, God's plan to create creatures like us, God's plan to bring about a good world even one with the greatest good (LOVE) requires also allowing creatures to have a will of their own. This means God must also honouring the will of such creatures when they turn against Him in the worst ways.
THAT, is part of God's plan, to allow for love. This is something also I'd argue must be had even through a process where we shape ourselves and can freely respond, rather than the "end result" just being created wherein nothing ACTUALLY happened. If nothing
actually happened, like the process of life in our world, then any "end result" produced in the beginning would only be one potential outcome and a lie if nothing actually happened that lead to such results.
