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True. And if it has a cause then it is. There are no events without causes (we've skipped the big bang and/or God's creation of the universe), therefore everything is determined. It's how we know there was a big bang (or that God created everything - the uncaused cause).
The issue is that OP thinks he's presenting an argument when all he is doing is asserting the consequent. His "argument" essentially boils down to the following:
You can't call subconscious decisions as being made by the mind. Your mind is the conscious part of your brain. The first dictionary definition: the element of a person that enables them to be aware of the world and their experiences, to think, and to feel; the faculty of consciousness and thought.
That can happen. I used to like whisky but I had a very bad experience with it when I was 17 and couldn't touch the stuff for years (although, as I said earlier, you can educate your palette so yes thanks, I'll have a double). But that's an event that overrides your natural likes and dislikes. One antecedent condition was that I happened to like the drink - I had no choice in that. And another was getting seriously hungover which overode the first. Either way, me liking whisky or not was determined.
It's not up to you whether you like it or not. From here: Your taste preferences could be down to your genes, new study reveals
I see what you did there.
That's correct.
That wrong. Compatibilism states that free will and determinism can be true. So what you just said doesn't hold.
Nope, compatibilism asserts that whether or not we have free will we have responsibility for our actions. It still denies free will as a genuine state of affairs. It's more properly called "soft determinism" because it's a statement about moral culpability and not metaphysical reality. In asserting that determinism and free will are mutually exclusive, it is fair to reverse your conditional statement or else your original premise is also false.That's correct.
That wrong. Compatibilism states that free will and determinism can be true. So what you just said doesn't hold.
Compatibilism - Wikipedia
en.m.wikipedia.org
The strongest argument for free will is your post about the ZaZa murder.
The only cause is the will of God
From the perspective you're coming from, I can appreciate why you would think so. But in reality, the best argument for free will is that denying we have it requires our ability to exercise it. If we can't exercise free will, then our affirmation or denial is meaningless since whatever we think leads us to our conclusion it isn't true.
Would you make God the author of sin?
You've sort of got my position, though it's not as though God gave the keys to Satan and is struggling to get them back. He handed us over to the accuser for a time, and when the moment is right we will feast on the corpse of the beast.(See God's speech in Job)
Good grief. I can link the information for you. But I can't read it for you. The very first sentence says:
It actually says that if compatibilism is true then so can free will exist. Your second 'argument' is therefore wrong.
So by this same argument, your conditional statement is false so what is your argument?
Free Will
I wouldn't expect us to be able to, but every model we create is false in some way. Just because we can't wrap our heads around how it works doesn't mean we must deny its reality.
Not necessarily, determinism is a very specific model that cannot have a single exception. Modeling whatever it is that exists beyond my little corner I am immediately aware of is of practical value but I don't expect an accurate model of creation to be comprehensible to the human imagination. We can improve our models, and deterministic modeling allows us to function but when we forget that such models are working fictions and take them to actually be a true representation of the reality we are attempting to model we over extend their epistemic merit.
Determinsim is an everyday assumption and a working fiction.
Free will isn't really a model, and determinism isn't an everyday assumption. Determinism is a sweeping declaration about the whole of reality, and it's one that is demonstrably false even if we only consider what is known of the physical sciences. We persist with it because through some magic it is relatively reliable.
That's conflating meanings of the word "cause"...in the strict sense, determinism requires a cause and effect relationship. It has nothing to do with having rationalizations or reasons for action. It is all about mechanical action, wind up the chattering teeth and watch them move. It's sloppy semantic games, because it moves between meanings of cause as if they were the same just because the word employed is the same. It's a word-concept issue.
Determinism isn't about "why" at all, it's an attempt at explaining "how"...by reducing all action to some imagined unbroken chain of causes that make any action on our part inevitable from some primal first cause. For some, it's due to an inability to account for anything apart from imagined physical laws which cannot have exceptions and hold. It's modeling the world as purely mechanical, and ignoring the ghost in the machine because he doesn't fit into their model. It can't be a fundamental issue with the model, because then the entire worldview of the person holding such a model falls apart and they are left staring at the face of God unshielded.
When I try to experience myself putting it to work, it gets all tangled up in the fact that if I free will myself to do something, the phone rings.
Do you not find yourself choosing between the available options?
No one said anything about men being able to save themselves. But that doesn't render man's free will void, we are not little machines or marionettes only differing in who it is turning the gears or pulling the strings.
Everything is then an available option.
You're obfuscating.
Sequences aren't important to the question at hand, all that matters is whether or not our sense of making choices is an illusion created from our lack of knowledge or if we have the freedom to, at least to a limited degree, change course of our own volition or if we are merely instruments acting out a drama created either by irrational physical laws or a micromanaging deity.
God is in no way missing in the discussion, as free will is only possible if there is omniscient agency behind it that desires to create beings after His own image.
This is true Only from MAN'S perspecctive, Jesus Lord and creator does not have our perspective. NOT ONLY DOES HE HAVE ACCESS TO ALL THOSE EYE AT FATHERS THRONE. HE HAS ACCESS TO FATHER WHO HOLDS EVERYTHING TOGETHER AND PLANNED OUT HOW THIS IS GOING DOWN. ONCE THEY SET IT IN MOTION HE KNOWS EVERY MOVING PART AND HOW IT WILL MOVE FOR HIM OR REBEL AGAINST HIM. SO THE GREATEST QUESTION HERE IS ARE YOU PRACTICING MOVING WITH THEM OR REBELL8NG AGAINST HIM ?
