The word "random" is indeed problematic, because of the reaction it receives. I equate the two because I consider that anything with an underlying process to be determined, and anything without an underlying process to be undetermined.
A more accurate dichotemy would be "determined or NOT determined." This isn't something I need to prove because it's simply a tautology.
If you reduce random to "not determined" then do you admit random to be "free"?
But here again we are simply circling back to the initial point of my last post. what you are working with here are assumptions. They are not, in my opinion, self-evidently true. The two assumptions I see here are the one we have already discussed, that there are two and only two categories, and that process necessarily equals determined.
If you reduce your two categories to "determined and not-determined" then of course it is obviously logically valid and true. However, it also says little of value because I can agree with that completely and still believe in freedom. Freedom would simply exist as a subset of the "not-determined" category.
Consider for the moment that a your two categories of "process" and "random" can actually be mixed together. It is possible for there to be a process in which some components are part of the process but they themselves occur randomly.
This bears on your insistence of getting to the atomic event of choice, but I'll comment on that later.
Where I fail to follow is the insistence that intellect is not a process. This seems to be the insistence of libertarianism but the argument seems to be "nothing external is constraining me, therefore my intellect isn't determined". Intellect itself is a process.
Intellect generally is a process but it isn't clear that it is only a process. In classical philosophy "intellect" is divided into passive intellect and active agent intellect as well. To be honest, I'm not well versed in that distinction enough to discuss it at the moment.
The issue I see with "will has the real power to choose any of the available options" is that it seems it just is failing to look closely enough at what's going on. Imagine that I could see this "will" as it goes about deciding between options. If I zoom in, I will either see that the will itself is following some process by which it decides between chocolate and vanilla, or I will see that it has no process whatsoever.
This is an example of how assumptions determine conclusions. You assume those two categories, which we have discussed already, thus all evidence that you see is interpreted in the context of those to assumptions. You might say it is interpreted BY those two assumptions. Consequently evidence is incapable of contradicting them, and you can never conclude anything else. It is fundamentally a circular argument. You assume it to be true, therefore the evidence shows that it is true.
I don't think this is accurately framed as a problem with the material world - because the problem is inherently conceptual, not physical. If I look at the will choosing chocolate, then I see it suddenly veer off to choose vanilla instead, I can only concieve of that veer being caused by something, or not being caused by something.
I agree that the question goes beyond the material world. However, the problem modern people face here is that our minds are so conditioned to think materially that we find it very difficult to think any other way. As a result, unless we have specifically trained our mind to be able to stop out of our normal material way of thinking then we will apply materialistic thought to the non-material simply by default.
Previously I used the example of math and poetry. Imagine if someone is only capable of thinking mathematically and sees everything in terms of quantities. When they come to look at a poem, there are some things they could see. They could see the quantity of the syllables, of the words, the lines, they might be able to grasp the meter etc. But they could never grasp the meaning. They could never grasp why one word is qualitatively better in a given context than another. They could never grasp the feeling that is evoked by certain words or even certain sounds.
Then we haven't gotten to the atomic part of the choice yet. Zero in on the non-influence part.
This is a good opportunity to discuss the difference between material thinking vs. metaphysical thinking. Material thinking views the world and everything in it fundamentally as machines or machinery. A machine is a composite entity that can be divided down into smaller and smaller parts. This kind of thinking is reductionistic and it in this kind of thinking reduction is good. Reduction, in this model makes each part progressively simpler the smaller it gets, or the lower level we get. The simpler it is, the easier it is to understand. Further, and this part is the key... in a machine you can understand the function of the whole, if you correctly understand each individual part.
Each part, in and of itself, retains the exact same identity and function whether it is part of the machine or not. Gears do exactly what gears do whether it is in a machine or by itself. This means they can be studied independently of the whole machine or process. We can rip a machine apart and come to understand it by studying each individual part individually.
This does NOT work when we view the world metaphysically. One of the basic qualities of a metaphysical being is that it is a complete unity. It can't be subdivided. You cannot rip a metaphysical being apart and study it's components because if you rip it apart, it no longer exists and the individual components that are left are now totally different things.
The best example of metaphysical thought in the physical world deals with living creatures, and particularly human beings. You can study the human body by cutting it up and looking at the individual pieces because the body is material, it can successfully be viewed as a machine. But you can't gain knowledge of the actual human being that way. Studying an arm can tell you nothing about a person because a person and an arm are two different things.
A metaphysical being may have "components" in the sense it is a composite, but the compisite nature is not divisible. For example, humans exist as a composite of body and soul. However if you take the body and the soul apart, then the being is no longer itself. This is one of the reasons that orthodox Christianity has always rejected dualism of matter and spirit. It recognizes that human beings (and the world itself) are a composite being and that being can't truly exist as itself unless both parts of the composite are together. This is why there is going to be a bodily resurrection. It is our nature to be composite. We do not exist in the fullness of our nature unless we are composite.
For this reason you cannot fully understand a human being by only studying the body and you cannot fully understand a human being by only studying the soul. The two things are really distinct, so we can think of them separately, but only when you consider them as a whole are you actually thinking of a real human being.
So, when you insist on reducing a choice to an atomic event, it is not clear to me that this is possible or desirable.
I can't 100% say that a choice can't be viewed this way, or shouldn't be viewed this way because I have never thought about it before. At this time I don't have the ability to come to a reasonable conclusion on this point.
This is a false dichotemy. At the moment you go to make a decision, your are simultaneously making and experiencing the process of making it. The decision is determined, but your experience of making it is still real, because you are experiencing that decision being determined. It would not be possible to compute the outcome of a conscious entity's decision with 100% accuracy without simulating that very same conscious entity. The decision making process and the experience thereof are inextricably interwoven.
I don't think this is a false dichotomy. Here is my logic
When you make a choice, the choice is either determined or not determined.
Our experience of making choice indicates that the choice is not determined. (it appears to us we could choose either way)
If the choice IS determined then our experience does not reflect reality.
Therefor our experience is an illusion.
You say that the experience is "real" and I would agree in the sense that the experience exists, it occurs, but it is not "real" in the sense that it is true, or accurately reflects reality. It gives us a false impression or a false vision of reality.. thus an illusion.
The feeling I have when I make a decision isn't precisely one of libertarian free will, but rather, one of lack of external constraint, combined with the inabality to full look internally. That combination makes a full, 100%, understanding of why I make my decisions impossible.
I would agree with this partially, but I would add a point. We can and do experience internal constraint as well. Such as chemical addictions, or chemical imbalances in the brain or physiological conditions like depression. People who experience these things are aware of them and they are differentiated from the normal circumstance of thought.
What remains then is that you are deriving a conclusion from the lack of evidence. Portions of our mind/intellect/will are a black box to us. We can't see what goes on there. You are assuming that what goes on there matches your two assumptions from earlier.
I would argue, on the other hand, that we clearly experience what it is like to be constrained both internally and externally, and we experience what it is like to not be constrained. Therefore, in the lack of clear knowledge about the black box areas, it is more reasonable to assume that our experience of not being constrained is genuine and in fact accurately reflects reality.
To be more precise, i would argue that we actually experience a spectrum of influence with freedom on one end and complete constraint on the other. We can make choices but depending where they are on the spectrum it becomes easier or more difficult. Habit, for example, makes some choices easier and other choices more difficult.
It has always been Christian teaching, as well, based on Romans 1 and 2 that sin darkens the intellect and weakens the will. Thus making certain things harder to understand and to see, and certain choices harder to make.
Perhaps, but there are still challenges here too. Can God do something that is less than the most God-ly thing to do? Of course not. You could argue that whatever God does becomes the most God-ly thing to do, but then I could counter that therefore the other options were less than the most God-ly.
We can talk about God's actions in restrictive language, such as "things God can't do" God can't lie. God can't sin. etc. However, this is a way of thinking about it that makes sense to us, because it fits our frame of reference, but it actually obscures accurate thinking about God. Sometimes we don't have a choice because our language and our frame of reference only permits referring to it that way.
The reason that this obscures accurate thinking of God is because we see these things as a range of possible actions... I could lie, I could tell the truth, I could be silent, I could be evasive, etc. Metaphysically, however, to be unable to lie is not restricting an option, because lying is itself a restrictive act. What telling a lie actually is, is to lack the truth. Thus lying is a privation. It doesn't mean that you have a positive act or option you can do.. it means you lack the fullness of what you should have.
As for restrictions, I'm not convinced it is restrictive any more than saying "God can't microwave a burrito so hot He can't eat it" is. God is still infinite and omnipotent without being able to burn his own mouth.
This is accurate. There are two categories of things. Those that are possible but do not exist (potential) and those which are possible and do exist (actual). There is a third group of "non-things" which is those that are impossible. They are merely logical contradictions. Not only do they not exist, they don't even have "thingness". We can linguisticly express them, but we can't actually even truly conceive them in our mind. Example, square circle. You can say it, but you can't even think of what it would actually be, because it isn't a thing.
With things like the hot burrito and the giant rock, it is tempting to think "well yea, I can think of that" but it's not just a super big rock, thinking of just a super big rock, or a super hot burrito doesn't satisfy the conditions.
I don't necessarily disagree with the idea that if there is such a thing as libertarian free will, God would be able to give it to us - however, I'm not sure that's a safe assumption either. It's basically saying, "God can do it, so therefore I can too". However, there are a lot of things God is capable of that he did not make me capable of, though I am still made in His image. For instance, I am one entity, not three in one, and I can't speak universes into existence (unless we wait a few more decades and get into simulations... but that's a different topic for a different time lol).
I agree that your assumptions only leave you with two possibilities. A God who does not himself have free will, or a God who is completely random. I don't agree that your assumptions are correct, so I don't think that either of those conclusions are necessary.
as we've amply covered I'm sure.
But, if we lay aside randomness for the moment. The uncaused cause and unmoved mover arguments defeat the idea that God does not have free will.
In the determinism view, all things are determined because they are part of a huge chain of causality. every event in the chain is caused by the events that went before it, etc etc. Both of these arguments show that such a causal chain my have been begun by something that is outside of the chain itself. In other words, the chain of causality must have been started by something that was itself, uncaused.
Even if you assume that every event in the chain of causality is determined, the event that caused the chain is not itself not caused, and therefore not determined.
Given your framework of the two assumed categories, this would mean that it was random.
I don't think, however, that in itself is a defensible position, for a variety of reasons that would be a whole host of other conversations.
Do you consider your dog's love to be "real"? If "yes", was your dog also made in God's image and given libertarian free will? If "no", do you care? I personally don't. I know that the dog is still experience subjective qualia of love whenever she sees me. The fact that it's her brain chemistry doesn't really bother me.
Which brings into question what real love is. I would posit that it is more linked to consciousness. My friends and family have a subjective experience of happiness when they're around me (most of the time...) and just like the dog in the example above, it's the knowledge of their subjective experience of that that makes me happy.
This could also be argued against with the same argument I made in question 2 ("Couldn't I just argue that I never chose to be given free will?"). I may have chosen to love God... but that choice was caused by His giving me libertarian free will. So I could validly argue that He forced me to have free will, and therefore I still cannot be truly credited for loving God.
No, animals do not love. This is a sentimentalist abstraction. Love requires a rational soul. Animals do not have a rational soul and are not capable of love in the divine or human sense.
Animals can feel a kind of affection, but affection and love are not the same thing. What an animal experiences is positive feelings, when in the presence of certain things or people. Say you have a pet dog. You feed the dog and pet the dog and play with the dog. The dog's brain builds a conditioned response to you. When you are present the dog feels good, and thus displays behaviors associated with good feelings.
One of the great problems of our time and our culture is that we have reduced love to a feeling. We have confused affection (the feelings we get about someone) to love which is a totally different thing.
Love cannot exist without intellect and will. Love is defined by freely giving yourself for the good of the other. If you do not know that you exist, ie a conscious awareness of self, then you cannot truly love. If you do not know the other in the metaphysical sense of knowing that there is a metaphysical being there, not just a collection of atoms etc. Then love is not possible. Lastly, if you can't choose freely to act, then love is not possible.
You are correct that we do not choose who and what we are. this again is a major problem point for our culture today. You do not get to radically define your own identity. You are given an identity and you can develop it within certain bounds.
However, the fact that you were given an identity, which includes free will, does not mean that you aren't responsible for what you do with that identity and that will. The argument "I didn't ask to be made, therefore I am not responsible for what I do" is not logically valid. The conclusion doesn't follow from the premise.
When it comes to merit or as you say it "credit for loving God" you are right in a sense. There are different kinds of "merit". True merit would be when you actually earn something. you put someone in your debt and they are obligated by justice to pay you back. So I get a job, I work for my boss, he is obligated to pay me.
There is another kind of merit which is perhaps best explained by making reference to a parent and a child. Your dad gives you an allowance, and says "you are free to do with this as you wish, but these uses are good, and these other uses are not good." So instead of spending the entire allowance on candy and making yourself sick, you put a portion of it into a bank account, you use another portion to help your friend, and then after all that you by a couple pieces of candy.
Your dad comes and sees what you've done and he is proud of you because you did well so he gives you a reward.
In that example, your dad was not obligated either to give you an allowance in the first place, nor obligated to give you a reward. At no point was your dad ever in your debt. He owed you nothing. Without your dad giving you the allowance in the first place, you couldn't have done anything either good or bad. However, even though all that is true, you still did well, and there is a real kind of merit in that fact. It is not the kind where you "earned" a reward. The reward was completely gratuitous on your father's part. He would not have done wrong if he didn't reward you, but what you did was still good and had merit and it was fitting to reward it.
