long winded fool

The Bible does state that God knows the future. Prophesying is speaking the word of God, which often is describing future events. "Modern Christians" didn't come up with this to defend their faith. This has existed as part of Hebrew faith even before Christianity.

T. E. Lords

I was refering to the modern christian assertion that god exists out side of space time. Which is how they describe how it is possible for him to know all events and be eternal.

mike_decock

I'm not saying we need to experience evil to know what is evil. I'm saying that evil does not need to exist in order for us to know or pursue good.

Did not learn what?

To discourage those behaviors.

-Mike...

Darkblade

Caused events do not “aim” at predetermined outcomes, they cause predetermined outcomes. Even if the outcome can not be predicted by people, it is still predetermined. I never said that the event had to have an easily and infallibly predictable outcome, just a predetermined one.

I’ve noticed people saying that God would be responsible for everything because we don’t have free will. However God could not logically have free will either, so nobody would be responsible for anything. God would have been forced (via deterministic and/or random factors) to make reality as it is.

long winded fool

But assuming for the sake of argument that he is eternal i.e. no beiginning and no end as is stated in the bible, isn't it logical to assume he exists outside of space and time? This doesn't seem like a modern assertion, merely a modern description of an ancient assertion.

Family Man

If you're saying events caused by God, I'd agree. If there is no God, then all bets are off.

T. E. Lords

I maybe wrong but doesn't the bible say along the lines of, I am the Alpha and the Omega the Begining and the end. I don't think the bible ever actually claims that god has no begining only that he IS the begining.

Spenser

There is nothing logical in assuming anything exists outside of space and time. Perhaps it is logical to make such assumptions / assertions when the defense of the almighty falls flatly in the face of reason.

7thangel

So incarceration and discouragement are necessities for others to learn.
incarcerate = Evil
discourage = Evil
But you said we do not need evil for men to learn.
Do you now see the flaw of your argument?

fishbulb

I wouldn't say that the two are incompatible, just that they are different kinds of things altogether.

Of course, a lot depends on how one defines these things. For the most part, the concepts are defined poorly. I would say that free will and coercion form a sort of scale. There is no such thing as perfect or absolute free will, nor is there such a thing as perfect or absolute coercion. They are abstract concepts and can only be approximated. They are also really matters of perception and consciousness. I don't think it's the sort of thing that can be objectively measured, though there can be consensus as to what sorts of situations are coercive and which ones are free. Sometimes, we might say we don't have free will because we are threatened, coerced, physically restrained, or otherwise overtly discouraged or prevented from making the choices we want to. Other times, we might say we don't have free will because we are being manipulated in ways which we cannot consciously detect, yet which are just as coercive. For example, saturation advertising, psychological manipulation, pheramones, and so forth. And, of course, often we will use the term "influenced" or even "unduly influenced" instead of coerced, because we recognize that coercion comes in both regular and extra-strength forms (and everything in between). We also tend to use the phrase "I had no choice" figuratively; it is hard to conceive of anyone literally not having any choice at all.

In short, "free will" doesn't seem to be a hard concept that can be concretely defined. It is downright wishy-washy, in fact. But it is a useful notion and we seem to intuitively understand that we are frequently influenced in making decisions that we don't really want to make. On the other hand, anyone who knows even a little bit about psychology or biology knows that we can be made to want to do things just as surely as we can be made to do things we don't want, and that this sort of subversion of our conscious desires is also a form of coercion.

The only way that determinism makes sense to me is if it is the opposite of randomness. Unlike free will, absolute determinism and absolute randomness seem to me to be concrete, clearly-defined concepts. If the universe is deterministic, it means that everything follows as a direct result of what happened before. If it is random, it means that there is no causality. If it is partly deterministic and partly random, it means that either some but not all things are exclusively caused, or that everything is partly the result of preceding events and partly the result of completely random factors. If we use this definition, whether the universe is deterministic, random, or a mix of both doesn't seem to make a difference vis a vis the notion free will, because whether things came about through random or deterministic phenomena shouldn't affect how free or coerced your actions can be said to be. Even if the presence of random factors make it impossible for someone to predict what choice you will make, it doesn't mean that your decision wasn't inevitable. There is only one actual outcome; if you throw the dice once, you only get one actual result, even though you can't predict ahead of time what that result will be. But talking about free will/coercion vis a vis determinism/randomness is an awkward thing to do because one is a precise concept and one is abstract.

Certainly. If one operates under the threat or perceived threat of severe punishment, one cannot be said to be acting of her own free will, at least not in any meaningful way.