[ivanpatriki]

This is a continuation of a discussion that started on the thread

original thread

If he gave us free will then that is precisely what he has done, aside from a few modern apologetic views where free will is basically defined as the magical ingredient that stops God from knowing what you'll do.

first off, St Augustine was the first to introduce the idea that we have no free will. It hadn't become a concern prior to him. Even then the argument was that human nature was enfeebled by the fall of human nature from the original sin but not destroyed as Luther and Calvin argue.

The conundrum that you are skipping over is that God is not just omniscient but also omnipotent. This is where logic just doesn't cut it in an argument about God. People tend to forget that logic, like all things, is created by God. Where God is the universal set of existence, logic is a subset within the universal set. A lot of people cannot accept this but I think that limits the power of God to confine Him to human logic. This goes back to the popular paradox that: can God create a boulder he couldn't lift? I would argue yes, if God wills that he would not lift the rock then he could not lift it though he has the ability. It is not that God is not logical but that is limited only by Himself as He wills.

If you're not a biblical literalist then that is a good indication that you should scour the relevant passages for metaphors to find a different interpretation. If you are a biblical literalist... well I guess changing what the Bible says by inserting words that just stand for "it magically works" if pretty much all you could have done.

I guess I should go ahead and define where I come from on this. I am an Orthodox Christian. So my thoughts and views come from that perspective. In Orthodox teaching, the faith as a whole comes from Holy Tradition which is passed down through Apostolic Succession guided by the Holy Spirit. So the Bible, though itself infallible, is part of Holy Tradition which is not confined solely to it. The argument is that there are thousands upon thousands of differing denominations of Christianity with many conflicting dogmas that all use the same bible (more or less), so only one can be right. Since there are only three churches (Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and Roman Catholic) which can trace it's lineage from the Apostles one of those Churches must be right.

Basically, as far as literalism goes, I believe both. I think that science shows us more about the universe God created, but also that there are parts of the bible that are literal in meaning.

No, that's just the popular contemporary reasoning. Many Christians haven't had any trouble saying that our existence is predetermined and still thinking that the voyage to hell is just or at least right. If you really can't conceive of how that could make sense there's a wealth of writings from various religious authorities on the subject and if they're a bit too wordy you can surely find some scholarly interpretations from specialists who'd want to write in a way that's easier to follow.

Again, the notion of free will and predestination derives from St Augustine in his writing condemning Pelagius. Pelagius argued free will to the point that God was not necessary for salvation because we are all created by God in His image. I, of course, don't believe this but I also don't adhere to the veiw that we inherit the "guilt" of the original sin and can only be saved by irresistable grace.



The notion of Human will as well as Devine will are the main focus of the Fifth Ecumenical Council in the late seventh century, called the Third Council of Constantinople.

There are also other ideas about what Christ's sacrifice means. If I recall it's mostly the writings of Mark that lead to the "accept Christ and repent and you won't have to actually live without sin," concepts. Other books of the Bible point in quite the opposite direction.

I certainly don't think that you are free from ever sinning again by accepting Christ. I do believe that Christ remitted our sins, ie. paid the debt for our sins, that we may live without sin despite the sins we have committed.

Not at all. If there is no choice there is not YOUR point. Or in better grammar you would be mistaken about the meaning of life. That's certainly always an option for any of the non-radical sects of Christianity so you should really prepare yourself for that possibility, or as others might say that inevitability.

We are created to praise God. When I say there is no point unless we have free will is that if we are created to praise God, have no free will to choose to praise God, then are we praising God or are we mechanical wind up toys incapable of doing anything else?

Immanuel Kant argues that without the notions of God and freedom, happiness and civilization cannot exist.

This applies mostly to life forms with efficient reproduction. Something like a lobster can afford to have tons of it's babies die because it makes so many but humans- well, a lot of us only have 1 chance during our lives to produce children that grow to adulthood. If you abandon them very early there's time for a second round a couple of years later when they're better prepared but if a woman loses her children when they were nearing adulthood she may have already entered menopause so there's no chance left there and even if she hasn't older mothers have phenomenally higher rates of birth defects for things like autism. In many of our societies it's even harder to have children late and woe unto anyone who lives into old age without getting some grandchildren.

I can think of several cases of people having large families in their lifetime. I saw a couple on television the other night that had seventeen babies and one on the way. It is average that a couple has 2.5 children and that is modern society where there are several couples that choose not to have children.
This really is beside the point though.

I have never limited this to external stimuli. Internal stimuli seem like they are so obvious I didn't need to explain them in more detail that that little mention of how a person's memories change so you can't put them in the same situation twice.

The only thing your example shows definitivly is that it is impossible to contruct an ethical experiment to prove free will's existence.

Which fits entirely within the social framework I had just described. Did I leave out something important or are you saying that unless everyone does something the same way it must not have anything to do with the way our body is set up?

true, but you are saying life is nothing but a build up of stimuli that programs us to make certain choices at certain instances. I am saying that it is not incompatible with free will. Otherwise, regret wouldn't exist. If your stimuli has programed you to know right from wrong then how can you do the wrong thing in such a tense situation? How could someone regret such an action and do it again? Like with revovered drug addicts who slip off the wagon again. Sometimes people do it once and it's enough. Some people go back over and over again. I know you are arguing that it is the continual build up of all the chemicals that make us up, our brain, and all the experiences we have in life to the point of the decision. I am saying that none of that dictates that we will make those decisions given we are created by an eternal, benevolent, merciful God as the one described in the Christian faith.

This is sort of an odd thing to say about choice but you are anthropomorphizing this too much. That doesn't really matter though because if you were right about this then our free will would only show when we don't have strong feelings one way or the other and that would mean that for views like atheism of theism, which you rarely ever see people take weak wishy washy stances on, would all still be predetermined and since you're unwilling to let anything predetermined guide people to heaven or hell you shot this argument down yourself without me having to do anything besides point it out.

The point I was making was that the decision is a tough one. Of course religion is a much more important choice than what to have for dinner (I certainly didn't roll a d12 to pick a church), but that doesn't mean it's any less difficult a choice to make. I'd say it's a tougher decision simply because there are so many options and they can't all be right about everything.

My argument that there are only the options of un-free will or no will functions as evidence against free will unless someone manages to compromise it's legitimacy. You shouldn't have any trouble guessing how much I like having people say there's no proof/evidence/explanation for something right after I have given one since we both have a decent understanding of INTPs.

My argument is that you didn't show proof. You gave examples of how everything in our lives is based on reaction to stimuli.

I am saying that the stimuli we each receive, by necessity of God's plan in that it isn't His "will that a sinner should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should be converted from his ways, and live" (Ezeikiel 13,21). Dictates that we must be able to choose either to die in wickedness or turn from it and live.

After this post you should probably be starting to catch on that a lot of my argument against free will relies on there being a God. If not your Christianity lens is a lot harder to push to the side for a bit than I've been thinking but there's a second route to it so that won't be too much of a problem. You'll have to prepare yourself to discuss the nature of time though and a lot of people treat the shallow popular version of that kind of stuff like it's so difficult it should give anyone a headache but to do it this way you'll need to visualize quite a lot more than any of that.

Ah yes, the nature of time. Time is, first and foremost, a creation of God who is eternal, meaning outside of time. I really don't see the point of time without free will and I see free will as contingent on time's existence.

So when God creates us he is doing so eternally, with no forethought because forethought requires a before for a being where before as a concept doesn't exist. There is no before for God because He simply is. This is where the argument starts to muddy because we truly cannot fathom the idea. We can think about it but once we pierce the layers of what it is? and go to how it works? we lose our thoughts. the best way I can phrase it is: God created us with free will to choose either to be with Him or against Him and knows each of our decisions eternally as we make them past, present, and future all at once for everyone involved on earth. That is the beauty of time. I've had it described to me that I should always live for God in each moment because that is the only time when I am truly connected to eternity, in the present because I am not in the past or the future, only in the present can we touch God in his eternity.

[Trope]

Why'd you make a new thread for this?

[ivanpatriki]

Why'd you make a new thread for this?

I had a mix up with the naming and using my browser... basically being goofy. It is my first new thread though so please give me some slack.

[shanoxilt]

The conundrum that you are skipping over is that God is not just omniscient but also omnipotent. This is where logic just doesn't cut it in an argument about God.

Then, it can not be discussed. It leads to the principle of explosion.

People tend to forget that logic, like all things, is created by God.

If there is no empirical evidence of a deity, we can not attribute anything to it.

Where God is the universal set of existence, logic is a subset within the universal set. A lot of people cannot accept this but I think that limits the power of God to confine Him to human logic. This goes back to the popular paradox that: can God create a boulder he couldn't lift? I would argue yes, if God wills that he would not lift the rock then he could not lift it though he has the ability. It is not that God is not logical but that is limited only by Himself as He wills.

Ah, I understand you now. You have no knowledge of philosophy, logic, or mathematics. That explains your theology.

Since there are only three churches (Eastern Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, and Roman Catholic) which can trace it's lineage from the Apostles one of those Churches must be right.

That is an obvious fallacy of false choice.

Immanuel Kant argues that without the notions of God and freedom, happiness and civilization cannot exist.

This is another false choice fallacy.

The only thing your example shows definitivly is that it is impossible to contruct an ethical experiment to prove free will's existence.

“Free Will” Does Not Make Sense As a Concept

The point I was making was that the decision is a tough one.

How so?

Of course religion is a much more important choice than what to have for dinner

Not really.

(I certainly didn't roll a d12 to pick a church),

Hail Eris?

but that doesn't mean it's any less difficult a choice to make. I'd say it's a tougher decision simply because there are so many options and they can't all be right about everything.

All theistic religions are based on the same fallacies. They can all be excluded from consideration.

[snail]

I believe in free will, which is a necessary condition for authentic love, the purpose of existence, and I would agree with the person who said that allowing freedom is a case of God intentionally limiting His control over His creation without limiting His awareness of its choices throughout time. How is that not being counted as a rational argument, since it seems like the most probable one?
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[Trope]

I had a mix up with the naming and using my browser... basically being goofy. It is my first new thread though so please give me some slack.

Nevermind. What do you want the title to be?

[ivanpatriki]

Then, it can not be discussed. It leads to the principle of explosion.
If there is no empirical evidence of a deity, we can not attribute anything to it.

all the world is your evidence. where do you explain existence?

Ah, I understand you now. You have no knowledge of philosophy, logic, or mathematics. That explains your theology.

First off, you have no understanding of Theology. Secondly, assuming a creator deity exists then he is universal set and all knowledge and understanding are subsets within the universal set. Thirdly, there is a universal set that contains truth we don't know (of which all knowledge is a subset), else we would have all the answers to everything unexplainable.

That is an obvious fallacy of false choice.
This is another false choice fallacy.

baseless opinions;

How so?

have you been keeping up with the argument at hand? I know I've been backbiting you in the other forum and here but now I am asking out of curiosity.

Not really.

another baseless opinion. I'm glad you spent so much time deciding to be an atheist.

All theistic religions are based on the same fallacies. They can all be excluded from consideration.

how so? Even by your standpoint, logic and syllogism cannot prove the statement "the sky is not green"

[shanoxilt]

Nevermind. What do you want the title to be?

Doomy McDoom Doom and the Quest for Theological Noncognitivism!

[ivanpatriki]

Nevermind. What do you want the title to be?

Is free will possible?

[ivanpatriki]

Doomy McDoom Doom and the Quest for Theological Noncognitivism!

my faith is based on finding out more about myself and my species. I am not a christian because I fear hell.