xeren

wiploc, i personally don't see a problem with free will and divine foreknowledge either. God just knows exactly what choices we are going to make before we choose of our own free will to make them.

But i don't think that that is T.E. LORDS main point, i think it is this:

Quote:

So, we now understand that God had full knowledge that Adam and Eve, with the information, warnings and commands given them would in fact make the wrong decision and doom mankind to the curse of original sin.

I think he's saying that God knew that, given the abilities and resources and warnings and everything else that he gave them, God's foreknowledge allowed Him to see that, the way he would set up things in the garden of eden, man would still sin. So, if god knew what the outcome would be, based on the way he would set things up, and still set things up the way he did, how could He blame Adam and Eve for sinning? He couldn't, not rightfully, and yet he still did. Bad God! BAD!

-xeren

Darkblade

1. All events are either caused or uncaused.
2. Caused events are predetermined in their outcomes.
3. Uncaused events are random and arbitrary in their outcomes.
4. Events that are predetermined are not acts of free will.
5. Events that occur at random are not acts of free will.
6. All events are predetermined and/or random in their outcomes. (1, 2, 3)
7. All events are not acts of free will. (4, 5, 6)
C. Free will does not exist. (7)

True, 6 could exist on its own, but it's easier to understand with 1, 2, and 3.

fishbulb

This is a problem for the usual philosophical framing of the notion of free will as the opposite of determinism. If someone is able to predict with certainty what you will do at some future time, it means that all of the factors that will affect your decision have already come to pass. You cannot change it at the time of the decision. In effect, you don't make the decision of your own volition; you make the decision as a result of events that were put into motion long before. However, I think that this is a weird way to think about free will.

Apart from some philosophers, I don't think that people generally conceive of "free will" as being the opposite of determinism. Additionally, it is an abstract concept. Like all abstract concepts, it becomes nonsensical when you try to instantiate it literally. The idea of "free will" is like the idea of the "perfect Saturday afternoon." Abstractly, we can understand what sort of thing it refers to, but while some Saturday afternoons are better than others, it seems to me that it would be impossible to accurately and concretely define the perfect Saturday afternoon, though we may euphamistically refer to any number of different Saturday afternoons that have gone quite well with no significant problems as "perfect." Likewise, we may fantasize about spending the "perfect afternoon," but we are using the term loosely or euphamistically.

The same thing holds for free will. We make decisions all of the time. We can say in general that we have free will if we can make the decision we want to make without coercion. But that is a highly abstract concept, in no small part because we are not just coerced in our decisions but it our wants too. Biology coerces me to want to eat, and the threat of starvation coerces me into deciding to eat. Yet we still tend to say, loosely speaking, that someone who chooses to eat when he is hungry is exercising free will, whereas someone who chooses to eat maggots, even though he doesn't much relish the idea, because he is a contestant on Fear Factor and wants a shot at the prize money is operating under at least some coercion to do what he doesn't want to do. The contestant could choose not to eat, but there is a lot more pressure to do what he doesn't want to do because of the TV cameras, peer pressure (not wanting to be the only one who wimps out) the prize money, and presumably coaching and egging on from the producers.

On the other hand, even if someone holds a gun to your head and commands you to eat, you still have the option of refusing, though it may cost you your life. In that sense, you can exercise choice, but it is clearly a Hobson's choice and most people would see the obvious coercion taking place.

When we talk about having free will in any meaningful sense, we are talking about how closely our situation approximates the abstract concept of free will. It is not something you have or don't have; it is something you approximate to one degree or another.

Free will isn't the opposite of determininsm; it is the opposite of coercion. But if you understand free will in this pragmatic, all of the God wanting us to have free will arguments seem to fall apart because no one ever has or loses free will in the abstract sense. All that changes is the degree to which our situations approximate the concept.

mike_decock

The conflict between free will and foreknowledge lies at the moment of creation. God, knowing the future, would have had an infinite number of "decision-trees" to choose from:

A "decision tree" is the set of "free will" decisions in every possible universe. Out of the infinite number of available "decision trees", god chose to create this one.

The issue is not a matter of god "causing" you to make a specific choice, the issue is that god CHOSE which "free will" choice you would make.

-Mike...

Wiploc

I agree that if god knew the future, then he chose the Fall. Traditional Christianity agrees too. I never heard this from a modern Christian; I learned it in Humanities class: The traditional Christian theory is that god had something more important to attend to than human happiness. He decided to glorify himself by causeing our fall (the "fortunate fall") and then sacrificing Jesus in order to save a few of our unworthy selves.

That explanation doesn't make god look at all good to me, so I'm on your side: Bad god!. Bad!
crc

Spenser

In the words of Dan Barker:

The Christian God is defined as a personal being who knows everything. According to Christians, personal beings have free will.

In order to have free will, you must have more than one option, each of which is avoidable. This means that before you make a choice, there must be a state of uncertainty during a period of potential: you cannot know the future. Even if you think you can predict your decision, if you claim to have free will, you must admit the potential (if not the desire) to change your mind before the decision is final.

A being who knows everything can have no "state of uncertainty." It knows its choices in advance. This means that it has no potential to avoid its choices, and therefore lacks free will. Since a being that lacks free will is not a personal being, a personal being who knows everything cannot exist.

Therefore, the Christian God does not exist.

Family Man

I'm not sure that 2 is correct. Granted, a caused event may be aiming at a predetermined outcome, but it doesn't hold that the outcome will always be the predicted one. A pitcher might throw a curveball with the aim of generating a out, but if he hangs it it could end up a home run.

T. E. Lords

"Accidents" do not fit into the deffinition of an all powerful all knowing Diety.

long winded fool

An interesting question for those who see no problem with free-will coexisting with omniscience is: "If God told you that you were going to go to Burger King tomorrow at two in the afternoon, could you possibly be free to choose not to go to Burger King tomorrow at two in the afternoon?" Assuming God was telling the truth, either free will must be taken away along with human responsibility for going to Burger King at two, (since there was absolutely no way of choosing not to go) or a supposedly omniscient deity must be capable of making a mistake, thus negating its omniscience. No matter how you look at it, true free will always contradicts true determinism. And the Bible clearly states that humans both have complete free will and freedom of choice and that their fates have always been at the same time completely predestined since the beginning of time.

The only reasonable apology I have heard is that, since the experience of every human being points solely to having freedom of choice, we ought to logically take responsibility for our own actions, even if they are ultimately predetermined. In other words, believing in predestination doesn't necessarily absolve one from taking responsibility for his or her actions. From God's point of view there can be no free will. Nothing can exist outside of his responsibility. From our point of view there is only free will. God cannot possibly be responsible for our choices by our understanding, since we cannot comprehend omniscience and free will coexisting. While it is still a paradox, it doesn't present a problem in regards to how one should behave. The only problem it raises is in the understanding of the nature of God, which no one can fully understand anyway, according to the Bible.

diana

Excellent post, fishbulb! You just helped refine, in simple terms even I can understand, the concept of "free will."

True, but I wouldn't take the position that free will is the opposite of determinism--just incompatible with it.

And you seem to have hinted so I'll go ahead and say: if free will is the opposite of coercion, which seems reasonable to me, then how can we have both free will AND "fear of him who is able to burn both body and soul in hell"?

d