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Does free will truly exist?

Bushido216

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Not sure you got that last bit I just edited in. Say energy at the quantum level acts in a truly chaotic/unpredictable/random manner. If you apply this to higher levels of reality, then our actions are due to chance. Chance is still something outside of our control. And say our every move were determined by a roll of a dice, would we be accountable then?

The idea that accountability only applies when we have free will is without any basis.

God has a system of morality because He despises evil. It doesn't matter that the Pharaoh was, as Paul describes, "raised up" for God's purposes. Our lives, our destiny, are totally up to God and His mercy. The Pharaoh still went to Hell, even though God took credit for hardening his heart on a number of occasions.

Your turn to do the explaining. If the Bible specifically says that the Pharaoh was created to be an object of God's wrath, why does the Bible also hold Him accountable? And what does it mean when it says that God hardened the heart of the Pharaoh and his officials in the context of free will. Why does the Bible say that God hated Esau even before he was born (Romans 9:11-15)?

I did get the edited part.

The point remains though: If our actions are the result of chance, then there is no basis for morality. Only subjects with fully realized agency can make moral decisions. This is the reason why children are generally considered exempt from severe punishment in the afterlife, as they haven't yet realized their full agency. Presumably the same applies to the mentally infirm.

By deciding that our actions are the result of forces beyond our control, whether they be chaotic or determined, you are removing our agency. Without agency, we aren't subjects, we are tropisms. A plant isn't good or evil. It's a plant. A person who cannot make decisions isn't good or evil, they're a plant.

The ability to choose is 100% necessary for any judgment on morality, or do you suppose that plants and roaches get judged in their afterlives as well?

As far as explaining away God's actions, I don't have to. God decides the rules. If He says that I shouldn't murder people, but then decides to Flood the Earth, there's no contradiction. The Law is in God's mouth.
 
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GrayAngel

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I noticed you didn't respond to my questions. Do you believe in the Bible? If you don't, then there's not much more I can say. But if you do, I would appreciate it if you would give me your interpretations, your rational for the message the Bible teaches in relation to choice and accountability. As I see it, the Bible teaches that we do not have free choice, but that God is ultimately in charge of our destinies. Yet the Bible also teaches that we are accountable for our actions.

Who are we to question our maker? If He wants to create some as objects of His wrath and others to be saved from the fire, then who are we to question it?

This is the reason why children are generally considered exempt from severe punishment in the afterlife, as they haven't yet realized their full agency. Presumably the same applies to the mentally infirm.

Children and the mentally challenged are not legally accountable (in most situations) because we assume they lack the mental (ie biological) ability to make good decisions.

By deciding that our actions are the result of forces beyond our control, whether they be chaotic or determined, you are removing our agency. Without agency, we aren't subjects, we are tropisms. A plant isn't good or evil. It's a plant. A person who cannot make decisions isn't good or evil, they're a plant.

Didn't Jesus kill a fig tree because it wasn't producing? Also, bulls were punished with death if they gored a person. Accountability has nothing to do with free will.

The ability to choose is 100% necessary for any judgment on morality, or do you suppose that plants and roaches get judged in their afterlives as well?

What does the afterlife of a plant have to do with anything?

As far as explaining away God's actions, I don't have to. God decides the rules. If He says that I shouldn't murder people, but then decides to Flood the Earth, there's no contradiction. The Law is in God's mouth.

I never asked you to explain away God's actions. I asked you to explain scripture to justify your beliefs in free will and accountability. It looks, to me, like you're dodging.
 
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Bushido216

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The 10 Commandments are the only scripture I need to justify my beliefs. If we're accountable to our actions, it follows that we have free will. If we don't have free will, then we don't have accountability. I need you to justify how it is the case that we have no say in our actions but yet are held accountable for them? Does God just decide who He doesn't like for kicks?
 
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GrayAngel

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The 10 Commandments are the only scripture I need to justify my beliefs. If we're accountable to our actions, it follows that we have free will. If we don't have free will, then we don't have accountability. I need you to justify how it is the case that we have no say in our actions but yet are held accountable for them? Does God just decide who He doesn't like for kicks?

The 10 Commandments tell you what sin is. It says nothing about who is in control of your actions. So no, this is not enough to justify your beliefs.

This, for me, is enough to justify my position:

Romans 9:14-21 - What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?
 
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GloryBe!

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Bushido216 said:
The 10 Commandments are the only scripture I need to justify my beliefs. If we're accountable to our actions, it follows that we have free will. If we don't have free will, then we don't have accountability. I need you to justify how it is the case that we have no say in our actions but yet are held accountable for them? Does God just decide who He doesn't like for kicks?

True. The ten commandments, as well as the commands of Christ, teach us to choose RIGHT and informs us of what "right " is. If we couldn't choose either, why bother outlining it? Why bother telling us to "DO unto others... " "do" is an action word, and a command to perform the action. It is very simple to me. Why have so many people complicated it?

Glory be!
 
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M

Mordokaj

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If God knows what is going to happen and our life choices, isn't this an obstacle against free will?


Probably you know tomorrow it will be Tuesday. And after all you can t change that. God knows everything but you still have free will.

that is philosophy of existentialism, the man is not happy with free will he is response for evrything :preach:
 
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Lord Emsworth

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Bushido216

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1. Argument from consequence.
2. Doesn´t follow.

It does follow, depending on what type of morality you subscribe to. If you take the ability to choose as the condition of possibility for morality, then determinism absolutely takes a hatchet to morality.
 
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Paradoxum

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tell me your arguments against free will. Today every philosopher says the man have free will. as before; Kant, Hegel, Satre, Camus... :)

Every philosopher today thinks we have free will?

1) The brain produces the mind. The brain is physical. All physical things are determined or random.

2) When I make choices I make them for reasons. The reason I make one choice rather than another is based on my environment and state of mind. My state of mind comes from past states of mind environment. This goes back until I am no longer something.
 
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Lord Emsworth

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It does follow, depending on what type of morality you subscribe to. If you take the ability to choose as the condition of possibility for morality, then determinism absolutely takes a hatchet to morality.

If you think libertarian choice is necessary for morality, you already are looking at a hatchet job. And compatibilists would hold, on top of that, that determinism (at least wrt decision making) is necessary for morality. I happen to agree. How else would you connect a given choice to a person if you can't point at anything about that person?
 
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GrayAngel

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True. The ten commandments, as well as the commands of Christ, teach us to choose RIGHT and informs us of what "right " is. If we couldn't choose either, why bother outlining it? Why bother telling us to "DO unto others... " "do" is an action word, and a command to perform the action. It is very simple to me. Why have so many people complicated it?

Glory be!

Yes, "do" is an action word. It does not follow that an action word denotes a free will choice.

You're grasping at straws. The Bible says nothing about free will, but you're determined to twist the Word of God to your own purposes. Meanwhile, you ignore passages which teach specifically against your beliefs, such as the one from Romans 9 that is repeatedly ignored.

Romans 9:14-21 - What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses,

“I will have mercy on whom I have mercy,
and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.”

It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For Scripture says to Pharaoh: “I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.

One of you will say to me: “Then why does God still blame us? For who is able to resist his will?” But who are you, a human being, to talk back to God? “Shall what is formed say to the one who formed it, ‘Why did you make me like this?’” Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for special purposes and some for common use?


tell me your arguments against free will. Today every philosopher says the man have free will. as before; Kant, Hegel, Satre, Camus... :)

Every philosopher? Somehow I doubt that.

Since when do we consult philosophers to find truth, anyway? All they do is ask questions. Which is more important, the Word of God or the word of Kant?
 
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Lord Emsworth

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Every philosopher today thinks we have free will?

1) The brain produces the mind. The brain is physical. All physical things are determined or random.

Strike out physical.
 
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Bushido216

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If you think libertarian choice is necessary for morality, you already are looking at a hatchet job. And compatibilists would hold, on top of that, that determinism (at least wrt decision making) is necessary for morality. I happen to agree. How else would you connect a given choice to a person if you can't point at anything about that person?

I can connect a person to a choice by way of the fact that they made it.
 
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quatona

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It does follow, depending on what type of morality you subscribe to. If you take the ability to choose as the condition of possibility for morality, then determinism absolutely takes a hatchet to morality.
"Doesn´t follow" means "doesn´t follow as the argument is presented". If you add further premises or logical steps it might follow.
And, of course, if your premise is that morality depends on freewill "without morality there can´t be freewill" is not even a logical conclusion but merely a rewording of the premise.
 
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Bushido216

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"Doesn´t follow" means "doesn´t follow as the argument is presented". If you add further premises or logical steps it might follow.
And, of course, if your premise is that morality depends on freewill "without morality there can´t be freewill" is not even a logical conclusion but merely a rewording of the premise.

P1: Morality only if choice
P2. There is no choice.
C. There is no morality.

Modus Tollens. I was speaking to an audience, not a seminar.
 
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