God made His creatures to serve Him, not to fight temptation (resisting evil). Sin is an intruder in God's universe and so is temptation. So temptation is an obstacle you have to deal with in order to continue serving God (in the same way a stone is an obstacle you have to deal with in order to continue driving). If you overcome it, you continue serving God. If you don't, you serve Satan. At least this is how I see things.


?
What I said is, if serving God encompasses resisting evil (which is what you are saying), then resisting God should encompass going along with evil - if B=>A, then ~B=>~A; or: if serving God encompasses resisting evil, then going along with evil should encompass resisting God - if B=>A, then ~A=>~B. I gave the two options.
Are you saying the first argument is invalid? I don't know why, but anyway. The second one would be a contra-positive, as you say. Does it express what you believe?


You are not saying that A=>B, but that B=>A.

As for me, I don't compare the first pair with the second. As I pointed out earlier, saying that driving the car is more difficult than removing the stone makes no sense to me. So in fact I'm just saying that A>~A and ~B>B. Besides, A>~A because of the effort involved, while ~B>B because of the pain involved. So there is no way the two pairs can be compared.

Regarding serving God, since the fall, serving God has dynamically changed. It involves many things, such as repentance, prayer, confession, apologizing, to name a few, which didn't exist before sin. It also involves fighting evil. Fighting evil, and these other things, are a part of serving God, in the reality in which we live, as sinful human beings, and, as such, serving God requires more effort than merely fighting evil would.

I'm totally not understanding how you could conceive of serving God as not involving fighting evil.

Regarding the logical fallacy, I thought I explained it pretty well. The error you're making is to think that if A involves B, then not A involves not B. This simply isn't the case. I gave you an example to consider, involving health and rest, which may make it clear if you think about it.

Given that serving God encompasses fighting evil, the logical conclusion we could make from this is that if one is not fighting evil, one is not serving God, and that's it. We cannot conclude that not serving God encompasses not fighting evil (or, using synonyms, that resisting God encompasses going along with evil).

Just time for a quickie.

Statement 1: If A then B.
Statement 2: If not A then not B.
It is a logical fallacy to conclude #2 from #1. The 2nd statement might still be true, but it cannot be logically derived from the 1st statement.

"encompasses" does not necessarily mean "must always include"

"It is a logical fallacy to conclude #2 from #1" means precisely "#2 cannot be logically derived from #1." "To conclude" is "to logically derive."

Definition of "conclude":

I'm glad you agree with me.

Repentance and confession only occur after you've ceased serving God (for some moments at least), and they indicate you wish to return to God’s service. I think the same could be said about apologizing because, in order to serve God, you must be in harmony with your neighbor. As to prayer, I agree it is an integral part of serving God. But prayer is speaking to God, communing with Him - the same thing the unfallen beings do, except for the fact we can't see God.


Yes, I see it now. But I consider that you argument is also invalid. You said:

If serving God involves less effort than fighting God, then it follows that fighting evil involves less effort than going along with it, because fighting evil requires less effort than serving God (since fighting evil is a part of what's involved in serving God, which is "much more"), and fighting God (which one must do to go along with evil) involves more effort than not fighting God.

The problem is with the proposition “fighting God (which one must do to go along with evil).” You don’t have to fight God (resist the Holy Spirit) in order to go along with evil. Satan doesn’t do it.

I came across the following referenced in the March Review:
This seems to me to say that following God is harder. However, there is a qualifier saying, by uniting with the world and partaking of its spirit. If one doesn't unite with and partake of the world's spirit, could it be a possibility that it is easier to follow God?

Most of the foregoing discussion in the past few pages here amounts to a waste of time with a logic war which has no hope of resolving anything. I don't care to continue it.

It seems clear to me, from the scriptures which have been presented (thank you Mike and others), that it is not as easy to follow God, but the end result of doing so is much less troublesome.

The way to salvation may be hard, but the punishment of the lost is harder. Furthermore, the way of sin may be easier (no need to resist temptation, or peer pressure, or be any different from the world--i.e. go with the flow), but the results are rather difficult to bear (sorrow, pain, misery, death).

The path of life is hard. It is not easy to resist the devil. But it is very rewarding.

Thus, I conclude that the argument of "easy" versus "difficult" here is really focused on two things. A table illustrates this well.

	Path to Heaven	Highway to Hell
Difficulty of Journey	Hard; uphill battle	Easy; Go with the flow
Results & Effects	Easy; burden is light, reward is precious	Hard; kicking against the pricks, leads to misery and death

Therefore, in terms of labor, the path to Heaven is hardest. In terms of rewards, the path to Hell is terrible. Far easier overall to take the more difficult road, though temporarily (this life) it is the tougher experience.

Blessings,

Green Cochoa.

Ok, I'm glad you see it.



This is confusing the validity of an argument with the conclusion. The argument I presented is valid. That means that the logic from one step to another is sound, and if the assumptions are true, then the conclusion is true. You can take issues with the assumptions, in which case the conclusion might not be true.



You appear to be arguing that we, as humans, don't have to fight God in order to go along with evil because Satan doesn't have to do so. This isn't a reasonable argument to make because there are many things that don't apply to Satan that apply to us. Satan has long since passed the point of no return. He's committed the unpardonable sin. I suppose one could argue that a person who has committed the unpardonable sin doesn't have to resist the Holy Spirit to go along with evil, but every one else has to. That's because the Holy Spirit doesn't want anyone to be lost. He doesn't just allow people to go along with evil without pricking their consciences.

I'm curious as to what you're thinking here. You're saying one can go along with evil without resisting the Holy Spirit. Why do you think this?

The MB passage I cited earlier says that God's love has made it hard for the heedless and headstrong to destroy themselves. This seems to me to be equivalent to saying that one must resist the Holy Spirit to go along with evil. These seem to be speaking of the same thing. How is it that God's love makes it difficult for the heedless and headstrong to destroy themselves? Isn't it by the agency of the Holy Spirit? Aren't the "heedless" ones those who are "going along with evil"? (That's pretty much what "heedless" means).

I note the following:



This is dealing with the journey itself, which is clear from the context. It says, "Do not therefore conclude that the upward path is the hard and the downward road the easy way." "Easy way" is dealing with the journey.

Secondly, when Jesus said His yoke was easy and His burden light, this is clearly talking about the journey. This is how anyone would take what He said. He said to come to Him that we might find rest. This is the journey. We find rest in Christ.



Above we read, "Yet do not therefore conclude that the upward path is the hard and the downward road the easy way." So the "difficult road" is the downward one. The "tougher experience" is the downward road, just as proverbs tells us, "The way of sinners is hard."