Steven Carr

As is well known, many theists like William Lane Craig repeat the mantra ' Everything that begins to exist needs a cause'.

However, theists know that our free will decisions being to exist, and they tie themselves in knots to avoid saying that our free will decisions are caused.


In
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/ theological-dictionary/TD3W1100.pdf/

Geisler says our decisions are 'self-caused'.

So do our free will actions cause themselves to begin to exist?

In
http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/_PDFArchives/ theological-dictionary/TD4W0899.pdf/

Geisler states 'Self-caused is impossible withrespect to existence; we can't bring ourselves into existence. '

So a self-caused thing cannot bring itself into existence!

So how do our free will decisions begin to exist?

It is hard to believe that these sorts of contradictions exist in the work of somebody claimed to be a leading Christian philosopher.

Amos

Our decisions are self-caused because we are in charge of the body human wherein we are divided between our self and our God identity (left and right brain).

We are not the cause of our existence because with our human left brain identity we procreate also our right brain God identity wherein is contained the essence of the existence that we procreate.

ReasonableDoubt

This may be an inconsistency but I believe the Augustinian-Calvinist theology does not believe in free will but holds to a type of compatibilism, for one reason being the one you've brought up here.

Steven Carr

To say our decions are self-caused means that our decisions are caused by our decisions.

To say that our decisions are caused by ourself is entirely different from saying our decisions are self-caused.

If our decisions are caused, what causes the cause?

(Remember an uncaused cause cannot begin to exist, according to Kalaam, and William Lane Craig)

Grumpy

That's the first thing I've ever read by Amos that halfway made sense. Halfway.

Amos

[
Sorry, and you are correct in saying that our decisions cannot be the cause of our decisions . . . as if they are made for the sake of decision making without cause! That is absurd, isn't it.

Our decisions are always a response to a prompt-- here called a "cause"-- and this cause does not have to be an external influence such as impulses received through our senses but can easily be made by the second identity wherein we are divided as human beings. In fact, when our conscious mind is at rest (when we are not thinking) pondering thoughts can and do appear to us that originate from our subconscious mind and they can also become the cause of our actions.

So I was hoping that Geisler meant that even if they are caused by our 'other' self that they were still our own cause because both identities belong to the same human being. Kind of like "our right hand (brain) tells the left hand (brain) what to do" while in the end the left hand (our ego) takes credit for it.

This, then, is not possible with the cause of our existence because the right hand holds the key to procreation in the creation-conception-incubation sequence of events with conception being an exclusive right brain activity in both males and females (including conception of sperms in males).

I like the explanation for this in Gen.3:15 "I will put emnity between you (the lesser serpent) and the woman (the greater serpent) and between your offspring (thoughts) and hers (her thoughts); she (the greater serpent) will strike at your head (give rise to cause), while you (the lesser serpent) will strike at his heel (to provoke decision and action to follow).

The emnity between the offspring is caused by the soul nature of the greater serpent (Mary) as opposed to the unconnected identity of the lesser serpent (Magdalene).

Amos

Come on Grumpy, it isn't that bad or else you are to blame.

xoc

Well I had trouble following the links, but-

I don't see how it could be argued that decisions are "self-caused." Decisions don't bring themselves into existence, we (apparently) do. We could be an effect of our parent's decision, but our decisions are "children" of ourselves. We do not cause ourselves, nor do our decisions cause themselves... we cause them. (or..

However Decisions may be considered a "non-entity", not having any existence in themselves but as contingent upon the decision-maker. It helps in analysis to view a decision like a "thing" instead of merely a motion of the will. That is when considering the decision related to ourselves. If we consider a decision as an "existent thing" it is merely another type of event(the action of the decision here)- there is no apparent physical distinction between an event that is a "decision" of a free will and one that is an effect of physical causes.

A decision could be considered merely a "flexing of the will." Awareness and the will form the discrete distinction between different "selves". Without these, the materialistic distinction between different people as "distinct entities" is arbitrary. A will without awareness could be called merely the progression of physical laws and relationships(the ball wills to fly because it is hit). An awareness without a will... another story.

The basic picture of the "human" in Arminian Christianity is a creation of God, being caused, and being granted a variable will which can act according to a variable awareness/intelligence. However the power of the will is a power into itself, not caused by the "awareness" of the person but nevertheless always tied into our awareness. We are not describing things in themselves when talking about decisions and awareness, but merely aspects of ourselves.

Being "Made in the Image of God" makes sense in our power of a free will, which can approximate, but not reach, total arbitrariness. Our understanding is usually framed by how things are dependent upon another, following logical lines of determinism. This brings about the confusion we have when meditating over the concept of will; it seems self-evident and necessary that we have some kind of free-will, but impossible to explain the mechanism of how such a power could ever be "caused", because that would seem to violate the principle of what we figured free will was in the first place.

Both the model of free will as a "power-in-itself" or something caused by an other force seem to fail. The power of a free will could not be construed as something "caused by God" the way the bat "causes the ball to fly"; it is better construed as a "personal investment." We must accept the level of the "personal" as being something real in itself, impossible to remove or reduce to mere cause-and-effect. The inherent Reality of the "person" is relevant and expected in the world view that starts with a personal Creator. It is simply derived. The personal is both wrought from the outside(created by God->nature->) and self-formed, by the imputed power of a free will.

Steven Carr

Thank God our actions are not totally arbitrary, unlike God's.

rainbow walking

that being, how do you distinguish between cause and effect? Every "event" that you label as a cause, upon closer examination, turns out to be nothing more than a sequential effect stemming from a previous cause. Are thoughts actually the cause of an event or merely one element in a sequence of previous events? Certainly you can isolate any event and arbitrarily label it as the cause of the succeeding effect but does that arbitrariness actually make it true that the event is the actual cause?

For instance, a loud explosion is heard in the sky. Everyone rushes outside to determine the cause. They see what appears to be a meteoric substance burning through the atmosphere. They learn it is the debris of the space shuttle Columbia entering the earth's atmpsphere. Now, was the noise actually caused by the debris entering the atmosphere? In one respect you could say yes, however, had there not been a space shuttle launched there would have never been debris, had the space program never been initiated there would have never been a launch etc. etc. so that you end up with infinite regress in determining the cause of the sonic boom.

The space shuttle Columbia was the effect of launching the space program, as was the debris that now litters the countryside, as are all the succeeding human thoughts that followed and will continue to follow from that tragic event. Just as the search for the cause of this trajedy is itself an effect.

I maintain that the concept of "cause" is nothing more than an illusion that serves only to satisfy our curiosity and quell our fears. We created the concept just like we created a god to stuff the cracks where no other explanation yet existed. Gods are not the cause of existence but only the effect of humanities desire to exist.