Kip

Merriam-Webster
Main Entry: free will
Function: noun
1 : voluntary choice or decision <I do this of my own free will>
2 : freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention

Obviously the relevant sense of free will here is the second definition. According to this definition, we do not have free will, considering that all of our decisions are the result of prior causes exterior to our body and brain.

Magus55

No, your soul didn't exist before you were born. God creates your soul at conception. Once the soul is created however, it exists for eternity.

Magus55

God doesn't send children to Hell. God doesn't condemn people who can't make the concious decision to reject Him or accept Him. This is commonly reffered to as the age of accountability. Same with the mentally retarded. If they can never truly comprehend the world, and accept or reject God's sacrifice for their sins - they aren't held accountable. God judges fairly and mercifully. They only people in Hell deserved it, and chose to be there ( by rejecting God). Children can't choose to be some place they don't understand, and can't accept or reject God's gift.

Writer@Large

I challenge you to prove this, Magus55. Show me where in the Bible it says this is true. Show me where in Scripture it talks about an age of accountability, or about God not condemning who haven't *consciously* decided to reject him.

Truth is, I know you cannot, because I looked for it, back before I was an atheist. It bothered me--no, it pissed me off--that a deity worthy of worship would have rigged a system that would send a soul without a chance of believing to Hell. But it isn't in there. Besides a vague quote from 1 Corinthians (which would seem to contradict the entire doctrine of Original Sin) the Bible never says a word about saving babies or an "age of accountability." It's all apologetics talk from believers who don't like the idea that Yahweh could condemn a baby to Hell.

But by all means, make your case.

--W@L

Nowhere357

I would say it's the first definition. Our decisions are the result of our application of will (or free will), an ability which arises or emerges as the result of prior causes to our body and brain.

Our decisions are not preordained.

Anyway, we can use "will" and know what we mean, but then what does "free will" mean? To what observations do we apply the term?

I think it's reasonable to use "free will" to describe our ability to choose - per the definition and per standard usage.

Kip

So what distinguishes your "free will" from "will" itself? The "free" seems to be gratuitous. Or what would be a "will" that is not free?

You assert that our decisions are not preordained without providing an argument. The word "preordained" implies someone who ordains but surely our behavior is, in some sense, inevitable. The argument for this is that we live in a universe with laws that govern the matter within the universe, our bodies are not exceptions to these laws, and these laws are only compatible with a single future state, or at best, a random choice from among various future states.

Of course there are multiple meanings for the term "free will" and the "standard usage" of ordinary people may differ from that of philosophers. My own problem with the weak sense of "volunary choice" is that this condition can be satisfied in situations in which we would be reluctant to say a person had free will. For example, if a hypothetical God manipulated a person's brain so that he would "voluntarily" choose A instead of B at moment X, that choice would have every appearance of being voluntary, and yet we would not say that the person had free will. This suggests that the requirements for free will are stronger and something similar to the second, more philosophical definition.

wordsmyth

Do we have the free will to choose whether or not we have free will? Did God grant us free will or was it forced upon us?

Wyrdsmyth

Those are paradoxes. You can't ask a being that doesn't exist yet if it wants to exist. And you can't freely accept or choose to have free will that is offered to you, unless you have it in the first place.

Most theologies are Cosmic Shell-games... God made us, but somehow he's not responsible for the predicaments we get ourselves into, because we mysteriously acquired 'free will' along the way. In Judeo-Christianity, did God give free will to us? Hmmm... not exactly. Adam and Eve were forbidden to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But if they hadn't eaten of it yet, how could they distinguish good from evil decisions? So, we could say they chose disobedience, but how could they have chosen otherwise, not being able to tell right from wrong? It's a paradox. But nevermind, just put something in the collection plate when it comes to you.

Wyz_sub10

I second this.

Once again, I think we are seeing an example where morality developed independent of the bible has been injected back into religious dogma to avoid an unpleasant reality.

As I have said many times before, I was a "good", praticing Christian for many years (many more than some of the theists posting here). I have had inummerable discussions with people of many Chrisitan backgrounds. It never ceased to amaze me how often someone would take their morality and somehow infuse it into Christianity where it didn't exist, in an attempt to bridge teachings with common sense and human empathy.

Magus55

Why does needing to know the meaning of good and evil necessary in the case of Adam and Eve? God told them, don't eat from this tree. Adam and Eve knew what that meant - whether they understood the consequences or not. A young child doesn't understand good and evil, yet when the parents tell them not to do something - they listen ( well sometimes) and don't do it. Knowledge of Good and Evil isn't necessary to know not to do something.