Seanc

Thanks for the replies, any other thoughts or scriptures that apply here?

Ephesians 1:11: “In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will." Proverbs 16:33: “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Proverbs 20:24 “A man’s steps are from the Lord; how then can man understand his way?” Proverbs 16:9 “The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.” Just wanted to open this up to hear peoples thoughts on how God uses His sovereignty. Or in other words at what extent does God apply His sovereignty in our lives? depending on your answer some follow up questions; Does the answer change if we are talking about believers or unbelievers? How does this go along with our accountability and free will?

I agree. Do you have any titles in mind so I can check them out?

Looking for recommendations for a study guide for an adult group. Anyone have any that they were particularly fond of? Thanks

Didn't want to start a topic for this but I couldn't find any answers anywhere. Would there be a reason I'm not aloud to reply to topics( even my own) in the worthy Q&A forum? The box to reply just doesn't show up. Thanks

Haven't been on here in awhile but I appreciate everyone's responses. Sammaiel I agree with your post that evert persons opions are subjective, without God there would be no defense for objectiveness. But your above post confused me. If all morality is subjective how can consequences be objective? Who is giving the objective judgement or consequence? If not God and not subjective people?. . . nature?

In reference to Luke CH 4 when Satan tempted Jesus, was it possible for him to give in to that temptation and sin? To clarify, could(not would) Jesus go against his divine nature? Have an idea of the answer but would love to hear your responses and scripture to support it. Thanks

I can understand where your coming from about other gods and the views held by the individuals who follow them. My stance is something you probably understand already since your on this forum but the gods they follow are not gods at all only idols made up by man so they will always cater to human deffecencies and world views since they were created by men. This is why I am a christian and follow the only true God of the universe whose plans and views are above my own so far that I could never have come up with them out of my imagination. They also do not align with what I would choose for myself mainly because I am a sinful being. I'm going to have to refuse to get into slavery in the O.T. I'm assuming this wouldn't be your first time discussing it and I've also had that discussion. I don't believe I could add anything that you haven't already heard in it's defense.

Nature doesn't justify homosexuality either since we live in an imperfect world where nature is affected by it just as we are. I also have a gay brother so we have this in common. Please don't think I hate all homosexuals or something, but you have to see where I'm coming from. Our bodies were not designed for it no matter if you believe in creation or not and no further life can come from it. That's as far as I will go as we are changing subjects. This is not a Muslim forum nor do we believe in the Muslim god Allah from the koran. We are talking about Jehovah the God of the Bible who is a God of love, mercy, kindness and yes justice. You can't have one without the other just as a parent couldn't truly love their child if they allowed to do a certain thing which would harm themselves or others. The things you might feel are subjectively wrong in the O.T are from your limited knowledge of the circumstances and certainly God almighty. Sounds like the conversation is about to hit its end where we will have to agree to disagree since I doubt I could convince you any further

Not trying to answer for Shiloh but will address your reply. Objective morality is self evident just as homosexuality is evedintly wrong for obvious reasons as it goes against nature and halts further life. As for the Muslim comment most who believe in objective morality believe in a moral lawgiver who has to be the definition of perfect and just otherwise there would be no standard for good or evil. So although many evil things have and will be done in the name of god it doesnt at all mean it was his will.

Thank you both @Pie. And @Fran C

If thats all I took into account then I would agree but morality is more than preferences. Morality is the distinction between right and wrong. You could protect your life, your pleasure and your health and still commit terrible acts to others. I think what your trying to get at is that since the human race can agree on those 3 aarea, morality is only needed for human preservation and therefore it originated within us for that reason. Please correct me if I'm wrong just a guess

I was only pointing out the flaws in the vague descriptions that you gave, I cant go into anymore detail unless you do also. Not trying to be sound confrontational which is hard through text. only trying to be clear and direct.

If this applies to all humanity then at some point in time someone's life will cause another to lose his and someone's pleasure will cause someone else pain. Where does you theory fit in then? Seems your talking more about natural instincts more than morality

if the reason and rationality applies only to yourself then sure, but how does "your" morals explain situations where your life takes another's or your pleasure causes another pain?

@luftwaffle. Great explanation, thanks for that.

I wasn't putting down his answer in any way at all. I responded to it saying I completely agreed with him. I only said that his comments were getting away from the point of my thread and more toward how to minister. I do understand this is the outer court and any nonbelievers are welcome to answer, however if there were an "inner court" apologetics forum I would have posted this there instead

Once again I 100% agree with you which is why I said I always back it up with scripture, there is nothing wrong with discussing morality, logic, intentionality or anything else for that matter as a means to starting a discussion geared toward witnessing. Now since this forum is about apologetics let's get back on topic with any examples of objective morality.

Of course I agree with that but when talking with an atheist you can't always simply quote scripture. Sometimes I use other means to get the point across and then follow up with scripture to back it. I also agree with you Shiloh, that most who oppose objective morality use it and expect it in other parts of life as long as it doesn't have to do with God or Christianity. I also like what you said about it being simply a self evident truth. Any mor examples of objective morality so I can better explain it to a non believer?

I'm sure this has been discussed many times but the few active discussions I saw went off topic with evolution and such so I decided to start a new thread. I have been reading different apologetic books and pondering an answer from an atheist perspective(which I am not). To start off I believe that C.S lewis explains best in that objective morality is not instinctual. His example goes like this: You see a man drowning, he's a stranger. Two instincts come up. The first being the "herd instinct" to save the man. The second is the "survival instinct" to keep yourself safe/alive. The second instinct is the stronger of the two but morality pushes you toward the weaker one. It tells you that you ought to save the man because it is "right". The other point he makes is that its more than just a "social convention" that its more than just what is taught to you and that if you can judge two different peoples morals and say one is better and the other lesser then you are implying there is a Real morality or a Real right independent of what people think. So my question is and I'm basing this off a question I was posed with is would we only lean closer to what "you" were taught? Does it surpass my understanding and learning? Is it objective? Before I submit this I want to say that I believe in an objective morality but I need help to further understand it before i even try to explain it to someone else. Anyone got an answer?

Exactly. Couldn't agree more