Brian Greene and Richard Dawkins Discuss God

[Magical Realist]

Again, a certainty in the existence of God would coerce moral behavior, violating free will.

Then you're saying reality would coerce moral behavior, violating free will as it does in thousands of other ways. Oh well, one less thing to worry about choosing. And one less thing for God to hold humans morally accountable for.

[Syne]

Again, a certainty in the existence of God would coerce moral behavior, violating free will.

Then you're saying reality would coerce moral behavior, violating free will as it does in thousands of other ways. Oh well, one less thing to worry about choosing. And one less thing for God to hold humans morally accountable for.

No, again you seem to be conflating God with things like chairs, which don't function as any kind of moral coercion. The vast majority of reality is morally neutral, as IS (facts) doesn't define OUGHT (how things should be morally).

[Magical Realist]

No, again you seem to be conflating God with things like chairs, which don't function as any kind of moral coercion. The vast majority of reality is morally neutral, as IS (facts) doesn't define OUGHT (how things should be morally).

All reality and facts are morally neutral. There is thus no "ought" in the "isness" of God if he were real. If he existed, the choice to serve him is entirely separate and based on choice. But that is a moral choice, not factual knowledge.

[Syne]

No, again you seem to be conflating God with things like chairs, which don't function as any kind of moral coercion. The vast majority of reality is morally neutral, as IS (facts) doesn't define OUGHT (how things should be morally).

All reality and facts are morally neutral. There is thus no "ought" in the "isness" of God if he were real. If he existed, the choice to serve him is entirely separate and based on choice. But that is a moral choice, not factual knowledge.

If God exists, it is the source and arbiter of morality, thus it's known existence is a coercive force over moral choices. The factual knowledge of God would coerce otherwise free moral choices, as you'd have zero doubt about the consequences. IOW, you couldn't play the "it's not wrong if you don't get caught" game... or any other justification for immoral behavior.

[Magical Realist]

If God exists, it is the source and arbiter of morality,

That doesn't follow at all. A God is simply an all-powerful being and so is amoral and not subject to our values. It's like Q in the Star Trek Next Generation series---omnipotent and not constrained by any human standards of right and wrong.

[Syne]

No, if there is a God, it is the source of everything, including any moral standard, and it is the final judge of all morality. You conflating the creator of the universe with a near omnipotent sci-fi being within the universe is what doesn't follow.

[Magical Realist]

No, if there is a God, it is the source of everything, including any moral standard, and it is the final judge of all morality.

If he is the source of everything, he's the source of good and evil. Being defined as an exclusively moral character would be to limit him to man's preconceptions. He would be beyond all moral categories.

[Syne]

No, again you prove how little you understand Christianity (at the very least). Free will allows man to depart from good. Man creates evil, not God. God only created freedom, in which genuine, uncoerced love and good can exist. Do you even know that a traditional trait of God is omnibenevolence? Arguing your personal, idiosyncratic, and heterodox takes on God is a non-starter, as you're just setting up strawmen.

[Magical Realist]

So God has no freewill--he's just a robot for doing good? Doesn't sound like much of a God to me.

If God foresees everything, that means everything is his doing, even evil. And incidentally, no freewill either. Everything that happens is predestined to happen.

[Syne]

So God has no freewill--he's just a robot for doing good? Doesn't sound like much of a God to me.

How do you get that out of anything I said?! God didn't have to give anyone free will and has infinite ways to do/bring about good.
Why would you even think that freedom requires doing evil? What is wrong with you?

If God foresees everything, that means everything is his doing, even evil. And incidentally, no freewill either. Everything that happens is predestined to happen.

That's a classic theological issue known as "the theological problem of free will" or "the paradox of divine foreknowledge." The most mainstream/Biblical view is eternalism, where God exists outside of time, so it doesn't "look forward" in time, but sees an eternal block universe. Just because you've watched a movie doesn't mean you had any hand in shaping its events. In this scenario, God just instantly sees the full results of granting free will, but does not control the choices. It's akin to dropping a pebble in a pond and watching the ripples. While you provide the initial impetus, you do not make the water ripple yourself. You just set in motion something which had its own consequences.

Another view is where God knows all the possibilities, but does not know the actual choice until made... akin to many worlds theory.

My own view is that God knows everything possibly knowable, which due to quantum uncertainty, means that God knows the future in a probabilistic way that does not perfectly predict every single choice, but does accurately know the overall results. Akin to predicting the outcome of a quantum experiment, where single photon strikes cannot be predicted, but the overall distribution can.