long winded fool

I was responding to the op. Isn't that the point of this thread? We have free will. How do we know God wants us to have free will? And on into my response. If the implied premises, then my conclusion. It wouldn't make much sense to say: "We don't have free will. How do we know God wants us to have free will?"

Do you agree that you can't be forced to love someone by their will? That, if you are, you aren't really loving, you are simply simulating the behavior and reactions of love without choice in the matter? If you could program your child's brain to do everything you wanted him to do whenever you wanted him to do it, would you? Would this be a loving thing to do, or would it be the result of a mistaken idea about what love really is? "Do what I say and never what you want" isn't love and also cannot possibly induce love in another unless the possibility exists to reject it. Therefore free will is required for love to exist. Without free will, God is a "cosmic rapist." He forces his "love" down everyone's throat. Not very loving.

Jobar

If you could program your child's brain to do everything you wanted him to do whenever you wanted him to do it, would you?

Well, I wouldn't, but I know plenty of people who would.

The problem here is that a truly omniscient being can't be surprised. No matter what we do, God will already know that's what we were going to do. From everlasting, to everlasting- knowledge like that simply precludes freedom, from God's viewpoint. If He has that sort of knowledge, then He knows all our choices. If He also cares for us, then He will have designed us to suit his plans.

Thing is, if he has designed some of us so that we will choose eternal torment, how can he be said to be benevolent?

Philosoft

This all presumes both that we are in a position to make this judgement, and that "love" metaphysically necessitates free will. Presumably, it is a possible state-of-affairs that we might have been created to be mindlessly God-loving automatons. What then? Would that have been a "wrong" or "evil" action on God's part? If so, why? There woudn't be anyone else capable of judging our state-of-affairs, after all.

long winded fool

This is very true. I don't know how free will can coexist with omniscience. If this is a barrier, then my argument fails. If we accept the coexistence of free will and the God of the Bible for the sake of argument, then I think free will must exist for true love as humans define it to exist.

This is a good point. The reason I presume that love necessitates free will in a divine sense is because, experientially, this seems to be how it works in human culture. (Don't know for sure, but it seems to be the most reasonable assumption, given the evidence.) Since mindless automatons can only simulate free action, we don't really think of them as being able to love. I'm not necessarily arguing that we as humans must first not experience love, and then have the conscious choice as to whether we want to love someone or not. (I think this is Llyricist's point of contention.) Babies don't have the "choice" to love their mothers in that sense. Neither does "falling in love" represent a conscious intellectual decision. We simply must have the ability to abandon this love, should we decide to. Children stop loving their parents sometimes, (for better or for worse.) They must have this choice. Mindless automatons do not have the choice to stop acting. They are nothing but puppets for the one who they are programmed to act as though they love. If we are incapable of choosing not to love, then I think this contradicts the very definition of love. We are robotic slaves in a harem, using our brains solely to carry out pre-programmed instruction, not free thinking people. Perhaps we are, in reality, the former. For the sake of argument, I'm presuming that we are the latter, since that is what experience forces me to conclude.

wordsmyth

I think this whole idea that God is hiding so that we have freewill to believe or not believe is nonsensical. It also seems just a little convenient that every deity in the world requires exactly the same amount of faith to believe in their existence.

Nobody seems to doubt the existence of the Pope and yet how many people are Catholic. Every non-Catholic has demonstrated that they still have freewill, despite the obvious existence of the Pope. There is no reason to believe that if the xian deity made his presence known to all mankind that everyone would suddenly lose their freewill.

It seems to me that it would be more important to follow God, rather than to believe in his existence and making his existence known certainly would not preclude people from choosing not to follow him. But why should anyone follow the xian deity when there is no more evidence for his existence than for any other deity.

In fact, if God were to make his presence evident to everyone, it would give us more freewill because then we could make an informed choice rather than one based on Pascal's Wager.

Llyricist

Yes, and that in itself is suggestive of how little love has to do with will, much less free will.
Have you been paying attention at all?? I've NEVER had any "choice" in the matter regarding love, so what difference could it possibly make if it was the result of THEIR choice?
What does this have to do with love?? Someone can love someone else without doing EVERYTHING that other person wishes, in fact many times quite the opposite (friends don't let friends drive drunk...etc..)
Yeah so??? what does this have to do with anything?
No, Free Will has nothing whatsoever to do with love, unless you redefine will to have nothing to do with conscious intention....... which renders the whole idea meaningless.
No, God (at least the Christian God) does not exist. And free will has nothing whatsoever to do with love as we know it.

ScumDog

If he doesn't show himself because he gave us free will, I have two points:

1. He showed himself to everybody like it was an Alcoholic's Anonymous meeting over 2000 years.

2. This isn't violating our free will. Is it violating our free will that we know President Bush exists? It's just a known fact that he does. If he was kept in the closet with his advisors writing speeches "inspired" by Bush, where is the free will we gain from not seeing that he exists? If you mean we are forced to not believe he exists, of course - because we would be able to decide that he does exist, not that he might. But how is that love?

long winded fool

Well, the argument seems to have changed a little. This is where I see the argument:

If God exists, (as he is described in the Bible, I presume,) then how do we know he wants us to have free will?

So: Omnibenevolence is a premise. Free will is a premise.

I say: Love is good. Omnibenevolence is maximum good. Therefore love is a prerequisite for omnibenevolence. Therefore love exists because omnibenevolence is presumed.

Everything that is capable of love has free will. (The ability to love or not to love.) Nothing without free will is capable of love. (Rocks can't love.) If we are programmed to love something regardless of any outside factors, we do not have the ability not to love and thus the definition of love is compromised. (How can you be said to love something with absolutely no other choice? This isn't love, it's merely reality.) The existence of free will is a prerequisite for love to exist, even if the emotion of love is not an intellectual decision.

Therefore, we know that God wants us to have free will because God is omnibenevolent and omnibenevolence requires love, and love requires free will.

Llyricist

Right off you are putting words in his mouth, (your parenthesis) but let's go with it....
Well as long as you suppose the Christian God...
No... it is part of the QUESTION, the question says nothing of the actual existence of free will, it just asks how we would know God wants us to have it. And the question arises because the Bible says nothing about it.
In spite of all the pain it causes?
What does "maximum good" mean? Does it encompass it All that is good? Or is it Nothing but Good?
Only if Omnibebevolence encompasses all that is good, and love actually IS good (which you haven't shown, only asserted)
Even assuming free will exists, you haven't shown this to be true, in fact a little later you seem to contradict this, at least using your definition in parenthesis (The ability to love or not to love.) .
If Love requires Free will...which requires the ability to not love, then God MUST have the ability to not Love, but God CAN'T have that ability because of his Omnibenevolence, Which REQUIRES Love ONLY.
Another assertion, you CANNOT Know this.
How do you know? Has a rock told you this?
Only YOUR definition is compromised, Heck it's even directly CONTRADICTED by your definition of God. And previously you actually said that our love for our parents is probably instinctual... what is instinct if it is not a "program"???
LOL, you ALMOST have it... It should be: This is merely the reality of love!
Nice try, but you can't wriggle out of the definition of WILL that easily.
Nowhere is intellectual decision left out of the definition of will. CONSCIOUSNESS is the difference between a person and a rock that allows us to love and a rock not to, Free Will has NOTHING to do with it.

long winded fool

What definition would free will have in the total absence of free will?

Omni means all. Benevolent means doing or producing good. Omni-benevolent means all that is good. Are you challenging my assertions because you disagree with them or simply because I can't prove them? The op takes the form of presuppositions and then asks what we can learn from them. I am granting common assumptions and showing where they logically lead. (In a different direction than some atheists believe.)

Omnibenevolence can exist along with free will, friend. If God decided to no longer love, he would no longer be omnibenevolent. This is not a logical contradiction. It's not that God can't not-love. It's that, without fail, he always loves.

Relax! I'm not proving there is a God, I'm just showing how some common atheistic arguments don't stand up as well as is commony believed. This has no bearing on whether or not there is a God. It is meant to help atheists think more critically and to argue more responsibly. You sure are touchy about this kind of thing.

Okay. Rocks are capable of love and you win. Give me a break Llyricist. When speculating on abstract philosophical concepts, an accepted method of arguing is to make unproven, yet widely held assumptions about the thing, (omnibenevolence, free will, love is a good thing) that your opponents can grant and then logically seeing what would be the case. If a problem then manifests, then at least one of the assumptions was wrong. (This is the format for the op, as it is for most of the posts on this board, even if it is not directly stated.) So far, you haven't pointed out a problem, you've merely challenged the assumptions by pointing out that I haven't proven them. If you don't like the conclusion, you don't have to grant the premises. The point is, if you do, then there is no problem.

I should elaborate. A being with free will can be programmed. It just must have the ability to reject its program for something else if it so chooses. We are programmed to love our parents. We don't have to love our parents if we don't want to. There are many human beings who choose to stop loving their parents.

Okay. Consciousness is required for love. Free will at some level will is a prerequisite for consciousness. (We have to make some choice, even if its just to choose what we want to look at in the crib.) Therefore free will is required for love.