Typhon

Free Will and a Free Choice

How many times do we hear some theist rattle on about the nature and necessity for free will in their god's salvation plan, and how this explains away all the lack of evidence in the world for his existence? Frequently, but I don't see why they bring up such an obviously nonsensical point about their collective delusions. I know this may be old hat, but it has come up several times in very recent threads, and I'd love to have some input.

Look at what they are saying:

1. Belief in god = salvation
2. Non-belief, or denial of the worship/existence of god = eternal, everlasting damnation
3. Free will = the freedom to choose either, and suffer the consequences

Now, there is a HUGE flaw in this, big enough to drive a small planet through. A couple actually.

In a system where the outcome is dependent upon the choice made, and the two outcomes are different in such a way that one is a reward, and the other is an almost unimaginable punishment (billed as worse than the worst thing a human could possibly imagine, and we can imagine BAD quite well), there is absolutely NO choice in the matter, unless one is a sadist, and even this, I suppose by the laws of hell, wouldn't work out, you'd just suffer, no gain.

The ONLY way that there could be said to be free will in such an equation was if the same thing happened to you whether or not you chose 1 or 2, as is what you might expect from a just and loving god.

In other words, it is only non-coercion of the worst sort if god says, "Hey, worship me or not, it's your choice. If you choose not to, nothing bad happens to you, I promise, if you choose to worship me, nothing good happens either, it's just a matter of choice for you guys. Choose freely."

Now Christians often retreat back into saying, free will is only the choice to choose between salvation and damnation. If so, then god has a very odd sense of what a free choice is, certainly one that is vastly different from our definition of it.

We would not hold a court that openly allowed a confession of any sort to be taken from a suspect with a gun pointed at their head, and the permission (not just the threat) to fire if the suspect refused to say what was being demanded they confess to, to be a fair or just court. And yet, god, supposedly the paragon of both justice and fairness, demands just this, but on a far more damning and horrific scale.

So then if free will is only the free choice to confess or die (or in this case, be saved or suffer eternal and everlasting torment), god can not be either just or fair, let alone benevolent or merciful.

Perhaps that's why theologians try so hard to obfuscate this point. No one in their right mind would want to worship such a god, out of anything but abject fear, if they really understood this equation. This doesn't even touch on the issue of that for an intelligent, reasonably rational person, to believe in a canonical Christian god is at best difficult and more commonly, ludicrous, but I'll save that for some other post I suppose.

.T.

[ April 11, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>

beachbum

Great post Typhon.

It reminds me of the foolishness of the religious rights attitude about gays. That gays 'choose' a life where they are beaten, ridiculed, denied, hated, scorned and generally mistreated in more ways than even I can imagine. Yet people 'choose' to be gay.

Thanks for your thoughts. Nice to have you on the II

Stan the thinking beachbum

ps. I just had a horrible thought, what about the gay atheist - That poor bastard chose to be gay and not accept this loving god. What a fucking joy his life is going to be.

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: beachbum ]</p>

Hondo

Typhon

Great post, I fully agree, xtian free will is a huge load of festering shit. Your argument is right on the money. I hope you wouldn't mind if I borrowed it from time to time.

Thanks

Hondo

Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

Typhon,
It is important to point out that this is not an accurate description of the theists viewpoint. It is more accurate to say that Judeo-Christian theology holds the following as truths:
1. Free will = The *ability* to make a choice...not the actually choice itself.
2. We are judged by the *choice* we make on the following issue.
Do we choose to seek God or not.


At first this may seem the same as above. However when one more careful analyzes the two it becomes evident they are quite different. First, a major difference between your description of JC theology and actual JC theology is the total lack of action. You describe what free will is but say no more. You leave out a very, very important aspect of salvation...that a person must actually make a choice. It is not clear whether your description implies this or not. Regardless, the important distinction is that the concept of salvation is based upon action...not soley upon belief as you imply.

Second, and most importantly, your version of the actual choice we must make is quite inaccurate. The choice each person must make is not really 'Do you believe in God or don't you?' This should be obvious. Even within JC theology there are persons who believe in God but go to Hell...Satan is one of them. The choice each person must make is 'Do I seek God or do I not?' Salvation can be described many ways: 'Belief in God', 'Personal relationship with God', etc. However these things really only come *after* one chooses to seek God. At no point in God's judgement of man does God charge man to blindly believe something THEN judge him on that.


Thoughts and comments welcomed,


Satan Oscillate My Metallic Sonatas

daemon

What does this mean, however? Is not the atheist, in asking the Christian to explain their theology, seeking God, if said entity exists? This seems to be an extraordinarily vague criteria...

Id

But the real question in Christian theology is not "Do we choose to seek God or not?", but "Have we found God or not?" A great many of the people here have tried to find God, but, obviously, they've all failed (and wouldn't be here as an atheist). According to mainstream Christian theology, these people would not go to heaven: only those have have found God will.

Of course, this brings about the oft-argued question of why God should punish those who have tried, but failed, to find him.

Jayhawker Soule

Except in Exodus 4:21, where "The *ability* to make a choice...not the actually choice itself" is preempted ...

Technos

I do hate when people speak as if christianity and/or islam are the only religions in the world though.

Koyaanisqatsi

Nice try, SOMMS, you revisionist old bean you, but Free Will is not so simple as "the ability to make a choice," it is the notion that humans are separate from God's Will--free agents--in that we can assert a will of our own, thereby absolving God of any culpability for our actions (i.e., it's ultimately God's fault we're such evil mofo's, because he created us this way).

It is not biblical, it is not logically consistent and it does negate the entire concept of punishment for our "choices."

If we are in fact free agents separate from God's Will so that God is not ultimately to blame for our inherent evil tendencies (aka, programming) then God cannot punish us for exercising that free will or else it isn't free nor an expression of our will!

Semantics dances will not get you out of this, because the construct is inherently and fatally flawed from its core apologetics and will always fail.

So here's your choice: Accept that a "free will" necessarily entails no punishment for exercising that will or declare that we ultimately have no such thing as a "free" will and God is a dictator and what he says goes and the ultimate blame for our sins is his for creating us sinful.

That's a choice offered to an individual with free will. You can tell because there are no threatened consequences to your choice, thereby making the whole idea of you having a choice to begin with a thinly veiled shell game.

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: Koyaanisqatsi ]</p>

Typhon

Er, "Satan" I'm not certain you are correct here.

I said Free will = the freedom to make a choice between the two positions, you can just as easily call freedom the "ability" or the leave, or the right, or any other number of terms that mean the same thing under the circumstances. So I don't know what it is you're trying to say here, perhaps.

We are judged by the choice. I disagree that "action" is the key to salvation in the JC faith, or at least, that it differs at all from my use of "believe." To believe is as much an action as anything. The canon dogma of the Christian faith calls for not works or acts, but belief, belief in god, belief in JC as a bridge of salvation, and the desire to be granted that said salvation. I think you are splitting hairs where there are none, but then I may just not have been clear either, if so I hope this helps.
Again, I'm somewhat confused by your remarks. Perhaps you'd wish to clarify. My point was to set up a discussion about the nature of free will, and whether or not it really was a free choice, when you compare the reward/punishment outcome of that choice. I argue that free will in this case, clearly does not exist in a vacuum. There is a negative choice and a positive choice, and any believer well versed enough in JC theology, knows this, and thus, his free will is impacted by this strongly pre-biased condition.

Also, I defined belief in god/salvation or non-belief in god/salvation as being two choices, the act of belief in one or the other, IS the action. Considering that the canon of the major sects of the Christian faith do differ, I have kept from arguing a specific formula for salvation. I'm not concerned with salvation in this case, only the position that by biasing a potential believer's free choice with the presence of a vastly unequal reward/punishment (and to pull on another thread, this is not IMO, a choice between strawberries and chocolate, hell and heaven are polar, ETERNAL, opposites whose reward value and punishment index are off the scale), the existence of free will is highly suspect and not, a free choice without threat on one side, and reward on the other.

I am not a theist, and certainly not a Christian, and so have no interest in the particular's of their salvation plans, regardless of what sect they may come from. If you wish to look at two differing approaches to this, feel free:

<a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13407a.htm" target="_blank">http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13407a.htm</a>

<a href="http://www.billygraham.org/spiritualhelp/steps.asp" target="_blank">http://www.billygraham.org/spiritualhelp/steps.asp</a>

I disagree that this is true. There is nothing, for example, in the two approaches to salvation given above, one Roman Catholic, the other Evangelical, which require one to "seek god." Both require merely that one recognize the fallen state of man (which is one of the key tenets of both sects), accept that good works alone can not change this state of sin (another shared tenet), believe in god and the bridge/sacrifice of his role as Christ (again, part and parcel of the many Christian sects), and from there it gets a little muddy, but neither for example, require "seeking." Your use of the term her is misleading IMO, and inaccurate.
I refute this, especially your remark about "blindly believe(ing)." Belief in the Christian god canonically requires the belief and knowledge of those basic tenets I remarked upon above. One either "believes" that they are true, and chooses salvation, or disbelieves, and by default, chooses damnation. Technically, one could believe in the veracity of one's faith, and still choose 2 over 1, but I would argue that this is NOT what typically happens. The reward/punishment setup of the "choice" is such that any sincere believer, who is not mad, will choose the reward. The nonsense about Satan only works, because like god, he is a fictional character, and his rebellion is written into the script. Besides, he obviously felt informed (or perhaps misinformed as the case may be) enough that he thought he could lead some kind of successful rebellion, not because he wanted to suffer damnation in spite of knowing he would not win. Certainly under the right circumstances, for example among the early church and the Roman Catholic one of today, believers CAN suffer damnation, if they die unshriven, falsely confess, or are inattentive. Evangelicals don't typically have this problem however, as they seem to have gone for a "one wash" permanent ticket to salvation plan. Once they've "accepted" the plan, they can only lose it if they lose their "belief" in the plan itself.

I still hold that there is NO free choice for the believer, only for the believer vs. non-believer, accidental damnation or damnation by lack of timely repentance aside. It is the Christians that thus postulate that this free choice, works out to either salvation or damnation.

Gods are made, not born.

.T.

[ April 12, 2002: Message edited by: Typhon ]</p>