It’s official: July was Earth’s hottest month on record

The general Christian jist, often twisted by evangelicals and fundamentalists (in my opinion), but still preserved and well-recorded in the annals of Catholic thought is that God is both personal but also perfect.

Let's go back in time. Aristotle, from whom a lot of (Western) Christian ideas come, believed that the universe obeyed certain laws and that behind these laws there was an 'unmoved mover', i.e., an entity whose power permeated the universe and who followed the laws of the universe. To paraphrase, God is that which has no cause. Now to be clear, a lot of human language is predicated on things having causes; we are not used to dealing with that which has no cause, which is why these linguistic paradoxes often pop up and cause confusion.

Broadly speaking, God is Aristotle's unmoved mover. While he could override free will, he won't, because he promised us he wouldn't and as a perfect God, he follows his own law. It actually doesn't make sense to identify 'God's law' as separate from God himself, because God is subject only to himself. God cannot 'cause' himself to do something because God has no cause.

In the same way that God created the universe, but the universe follows certain laws that cannot be broken (save, of course, in Christian thought for exceptional circumstances, although even then it's unclear -- happy to discuss this in more detail). People ask silly questions like 'can God create a square circle', but fail to understand the nonsensicalness of the question. The universe we inhabit was created by God and does not permit square circles. 'Could' God create a universe in which some laws could be broken... sure, but (1) to presume that we have the linguistic ability to speak of such universes is human hubris, and (2) moreover, to 'could' do something requires that one have a cause to do such a thing, but God has no cause and nothing can 'cause' him to do something, since God is his own cause, and the quality of having no cause is one that is necessary for God to be God. If some thing had the quality of needing a cause (like the potential we're talking about to create a new universe with this new set of laws), it could not possible be the same thing as God. If God had willed such a universe to exist, it would already, and maybe it does, but we wouldn't know.

> Can we make choices that effect the outcome of things or is it all part of Gods plan?

Yes, we can make choices that affect the outcome of things. In fact, large portions of the universe is the result of human choices. But we cannot deviate from God's plan, simply because God will manage to fix it, no matter what we do. This is like how humanity can do whatever we want, but the universe will end in heat death basically no matter what choices we make today. The trajectory of the universe towards the apocalypse and the final judgement is inevitable (just like the absolute increase in entropy), even if the choices we make today are not.

> Did God create everything including free will or does it exist outside of his control?

God cannot change his mind (what cause would he have to do so). His will is perfect. Thus, since he's given us free will and guaranteed it, he cannot 'take it back'. In our human conception of 'free will', we grant ourselves -- as imperfect being -- the action of being able to change our mind. God doesn't change his decisions, because his will is perfect. God is not the only creature with this particular nature. The angels also have perfect will, which is why lucifer will not change his mind and reconcile with God.

This conception of God differs drastically from yours which envisions God as simply a very powerful super-hero-like entity. It even differs from the Old Testament view of God, which often has him changing his mind. The Christian conception of God (at least that present in the Western church) is very different from Judaism and extremely different from evangelical, Protestant Christianity.

I'm engaging in good faith (and I am giving my best understanding; many much smarter than myself have thought about this and I am trying to summarize), please no trolling or flaming here.

Sources:

https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1083.htm https://www.newadvent.org/summa/1019.htm http://www.catholictheology.info/summa-theologica/summa-part...

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2018RG00...

Uh oh, we are currently going through a Geomagnetic Excursion. Why are we not doing anything about it? Why is the population at large not alerted?

https://www.sciencealert.com/new-study-shows-that-earth-s-ma...

The countries that contribute most significantly to greenhouse gas emissions almost always have very low demography. Because of that, if we were to change demography to reach strict population equilibrium in every country without changing countries' emissions per capita, we would actually emit more greenhouse gases.

Those last two are the common rhetoric from non-scientist who doomsay about climate change and it turns people off or in the worst case makes them think it’s all lies.