Can anyone provide an alternative to determinism or non-determinism?

[nonaeroterraqueous]

But is the soul's nature a product of something? If so, then the soul is not responsible for it's own nature. If not, then there is nothing causing the soul's nature? That would not make any sense.

Unfortunately, invoking the supernatural doesn't make the issue go away

I was responding to your concern that the human soul could be held captive and manipulated by some manner of technology. I argued that it could not.

On the other matter I identify myself as a determinist in general, and a Calvinist in particular. The cause of the nature of the human soul can go two ways, depending on the level of reality with which you view it. If you've ever read a good work of fiction with a really bad villain, then you probably viewed the villain as worthy of punishment for his own deeds. All the characters of the book probably saw it that way. Hardly ever is a lynch mob formed with torches and pitchforks to punish the author for the misdeeds of a villain in her work. On the narrative level, the villain is the sole person responsible for his villainy. Likewise, you will be held responsible for your own decisions. The fact of there being a creator, omniscient and knowing ahead of time how you will be, and omnipotent, fully able to prevent you from becoming it, does not preclude your responsibility for being it. Otherwise, you look at it from a divine viewpoint. That is, you stop reading the work of fiction and you accost the author for making such a villain. Did the author do it? Yes. Is the author to blame? No. It's the author's story and the author's right.

Perspective is important, and one might easily dismiss it as a bad relativistic argument, but in a way it goes back to the old riddle of, "how long is the coastline of England?" If you measure on a scale of microns, around every edge of every grain of sand, then the coastline is enormous. If you take the measurement from very far away and measure on a scale of miles, then it is much shorter. The answer to the question often depends entirely on what level you view it from. I would hold that if you look at it from the divine level, then God is in control, but he is not guilty for the outcome, but if you look at it from the much smaller human perspective, then the answer would be that the human is in control, and that he is guilty for his sins.

Was the Frankenstein monster guilty for his murders and harassment, or was it the Doctor who made him? Or...was it Mary Shelly, who wrote about them? All of the above are true at some level, but the reader will come to hate the monster, pity the Doctor and forget about the author. From the monster's level of perspective, he was fully responsible and very much guilty on the highest degree. From the Doctor's level, he was fully responsible and indirectly guilty by virtue of his negligence, but he was not guilty in the same way that the monster was. All he did was experiment with biology, without intending to murder anyone. From the author's level, she was also fully responsible, but she wasn't guilty of anything at all. All she did was write a book.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

Ah. Believing in a soul/spirit (or 2 things, were the soul is what happens when a spirit is put into a body), then I think of the spirit/soul as the agent, the me who decides. Who is it that decided when I make a decision? My essential self is deciding, even if the choice is merely to go along with the impulse from the body, or the opposite, etc. So, therefore, the determinacy or indeterminacy of nature (physics) and thus the body/brain aren't the key piece for who has agency, since I think of the real agent, the human spirit, as not under the laws of physics (I think). Since I see our human spirit as in some way 'super'natural (not simply under nature, subject to nature, like a body), then the question of natural determinism is mute. I would not think that the spirit has to be deterministic, like a machine. I think the human spirit is not a machine-like thing, not like a robot.

Of course, now were are entering the realm of the transcendent, that which cannot be specified in full.

Thus this makes huge sense to me:

13 Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”
14 God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ ”

That which IS, and cannot be specified under nature.

------------
(*Relatively less important side note: About determinism in nature (physics) -- The totally normal, plausible, common sense presumption is that things have causes all the time, since we know that most anything has a cause when we search for the cause, and thus we want to quite naturally presume that would hold even in some vastly different scale, the quantum scale, and we want then, naturally to expect full determinism, a clockwork universe (and complexity will indeed prevent us predicting all the future of course). But even though this perfectly fits our experience, it doesn't have to be how nature works on the quantum scale (note that quantum mechanics has precise laws, but that doesn't mean full determinism, but instead a law of how probabilities evolve). The determinism we know and love only has to be how nature works on the macro scale we know, for reasonably long time frames (we don't know exactly how long that steel bridge will last without maintenance, even though we have some reasonable guess, which could fail, at some unpredictable time like a sudden bridge collapse, because we only have a reasonable guess about how long until rust progresses enough; and our guess can fail easily, like a weather forecast)

I appreciate this, but indeterminism is also not "free will". Am I more morally culpable when my actions are caused by quantum randomness?

Also, I don't think it's helpful when we use phrases like "like a machine". I do indeed think that even the spirit must be deterministic, because if it's non-deterministic, what can that mean but "random"? Yet still I would certainly not say that that makes it "like a machine".

 

[Halbhh]

On a side note, which is not about the human spirit or soul, but about nature and the body in nature, and physics:
We naturally want to think nature is fully deterministic because everything we experience in life has a findable cause. But nature is only clearly deterministic in the everyday world we are living in with our normal senses -- the "macro" scale, meaning the scale where large numbers of particles are together (like a body, a drop of water, a bridge, a planet, a DNA strand, etc.), enough particles (atoms) so that any quantum randomness averages out (one fluctuation cancels out with an opposite one) to no effect. Usually.

It's not a given though that the fact that normal things we know and experience act according to laws predictably in turn guarantees that all things are fully deterministic, so that everything (really everything) in the Universe to come is already rigidly predetermined, fixed, like a computer program, with not one thing open to being changed.

The other sometimes-presumption to question and be aware of is when one presumes the soul or spirit must be subject to nature (be natural or contained in nature, or subject to the laws (even unknown laws) of nature. It might not be.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

I was responding to your concern that the human soul could be held captive and manipulated by some manner of technology. I argued that it could not.

Do you think that it will never be possible to replicate the brain with technology? We are nearing such things with simiple brains already. If you don't accept this, you are not among people who work and study these fields. If it is possible, then such a being would also feel pain like the brain (as do animals, which I doubt many christians believe to have souls). Would telling it that you don't believe it has a soul be any comfort to it?

Suppose someone did go through such an upload. Now their soul is blissfully living out eternity in heaven, but a consciousness identical to theirs in any meaningful way could be subject to the most horrific torture imaginable, until the end of the universe, with no afterlife to look to for hope, because it has no soul. This thought is still extremely disturbing to me.

Was the Frankenstein monster guilty for his murders and harassment, or was it the Doctor who made him? Or...was it Mary Shelly, who wrote about them? All of the above are true at some level, but the reader will come to hate the monster, pity the Doctor and forget about the author. From the monster's level of perspective, he was fully responsible and very much guilty on the highest degree. From the Doctor's level, he was fully responsible and indirectly guilty by virtue of his negligence, but he was not guilty in the same way that the monster was. All he did was experiment with biology, without intending to murder anyone. From the author's level, she was also fully responsible, but she wasn't guilty of anything at all. All she did was write a book.

I would not hate the monster. Even if I did decide to blame it for anything, rather than Frankenstien or the author, I would not remotely think it "good" for the monster to be eternally tortured. In fact, if I were to be forced to pick someone to blame, why not pick all three and have all of them recieve equal torture?

 

[Halbhh]

I appreciate this, but indeterminism is also not "free will". Am I more morally culpable when my actions are caused by quantum randomness?

Also, I don't think it's helpful when we use phrases like "like a machine". I do indeed think that even the spirit must be deterministic, because if it's non-deterministic, what can that mean but "random"? Yet still I would certainly not say that that makes it "like a machine".

I agree perhaps -- if you are simply subject on the one hand to biochemical forces and 2nd to cultural learning, and 3rd perhaps subject to random fluctuations, then you are not to be held responsible. I'd agree with that.

But I think you are a spirit, autonomous, and able to choose - no matter even in an extraordinary situation, like choosing to risk your life in an instant for a stranger -- in a transcendent way.

I don't think the idea of determinism or indeterminism is useful to try to specify something about the human spirit.

I think it is more like an "I AM" -- transcendent to what we can specify.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

On a side note, which is not about the human spirit or soul, but about nature and the body in nature, and physics:
We naturally want to think nature is fully deterministic because everything we experience in life has a findable cause. But nature is only clearly deterministic in the everyday world we are living in with our normal senses -- the "macro" scale, meaning the scale where large numbers of particles are together (like a body, a drop of water, a bridge, a planet, a DNA strand, etc.), enough particles (atoms) so that any quantum randomness averages out (one fluctuation cancels out with an opposite one) to no effect. Usually.

It's not a given though that the fact that normal things we know and experience act according to laws predictably in turn guarantees that all things are fully deterministic, so that everything (really everything) in the Universe to come is already rigidly predetermined, fixed, like a computer program, with not one thing open to being changed.

The other sometimes-presumption to question and be aware of is when one presumes the soul or spirit must be subject to nature (be natural or contained in nature, or subject to the laws (even unknown laws) of nature. It might not be.

I understand. But this is a mis-framing of the issue. It's not "free will vs. determinism", it's "free will vs. (determinism AND indeterminism)". Indeterminism is also an enemy of "free" will, as it just makes the will a slave to indeterminism.

It's also not "natural vs. supernatural". Nor is this a "side note". The dichotomy is equally problematic to the notion of moral responsibility in both natural and supernatural worlds.

 

[Halbhh]

I understand. But this is a mis-framing of the issue. It's not "free will vs. determinism", it's "free will vs. (determinism AND indeterminism)". Indeterminism is also an enemy of "free" will, as it just makes the will a slave to indeterminism.

It's also not "natural vs. supernatural". Nor is this a "side note". The dichotomy is equally problematic to the notion of moral responsibility in both natural and supernatural worlds.

Ok, we are using words just a bit differently I think. Trying to make it less ambiguous -- either our actions are already predetermined, or they are not. I think not, and offer some ways that seem likely to me. But, even if it turned out nature is fully deterministic, it might turn out the Spirit is able to alter nature, so if all spirits are in some way independent of nature (of physics), then that causes a kind of unpredictability even apart from physics.

We believe that God isn't subject to nature as we are used to nature, but able to alter nature (or alter nature's path). And that we ourselves have a spirit/soul (which I only know some things about), but thus this human spirit -- originating/given from God -- isn't subject to this mere determinism.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

Ok, we are using words just a bit differently I think. Trying to make it less ambiguous -- either our actions are already predetermined, or they are not. I think not, and offer some ways that seem likely to me. But, even if it turned out nature is fully deterministic, it might turn out the Spirit is able to alter nature, so if all spirits are in some way independent of nature (of physics), then that causes a kind of unpredictability even apart from physics.

We believe that God isn't subject to nature as we are used to nature, but able to alter nature (or alter nature's path). And that we ourselves have a spirit/soul (which I only know some things about), but thus this human spirit -- originating/given from God -- isn't subject to this mere determinism.

Let's assume they are not deterministic. Then what are they?

For agrument, let's imagine a decision that is fully non-deterministic. If it's determined by nothing, what can it be but random?

 

[Halbhh]

Let's assume they are not deterministic. Then what are they?

For agrument, let's imagine a decision that is fully non-deterministic. If it's determined by nothing, what can it be but random?

I think our human spirits are something 'transcendent', meaning beyond our full understanding vis-a-vis how they(we) work (we have only a partial understanding then).
------

In the hypothetical, if it's to be analogous to what I think spirit is (something partly not understandable), then I can't conclude that if our spirits are able to be non-deterministic (unpredictable in an absolute sense) then that means they are surely random. Might be non of the above. Enter Mystery.

 

[looking_for_answers_]

I think our human spirits are something 'transcendent', meaning beyond our full understanding vis-a-vis how they(we) work (we have only a partial understanding then).
------

In the hypothetical, if it's to be analogous to what I think spirit is (something partly not understandable), then I can't conclude that if our spirits are able to be non-deterministic (unpredictable in an absolute sense) then that means they are surely random. Might be non of the above. Enter Mystery.

This is the only conclusion I can come to as well, if I accept that God can justly allow suffering and hell. This isn't very comforting, though; if I accept that such a thing can be justified, that means that, upon my death, if I were to be confronted by Zues, Allah, or some other god that I may never have even heard of, then I must accept that they would be justified in allowing my eternal torment, in spite of the fact that I was never truly capable of believing in them, much less following them.

Just want to take this opportunity to say that I really appreciate this discussion. Thanks for helping me think through all this

 

[Halbhh]

This is the only conclusion I can come to as well, if I accept that God can justly allow suffering and hell. This isn't very comforting, though; if I accept that such a thing can be justified, that means that, upon my death, if I were to be confronted by Zues, Allah, or some other god that I may never have even heard of, then I must accept that they would be justified in allowing my eternal torment, in spite of the fact that I was never truly capable of believing in them, much less following them.

Just want to take this opportunity to say that I really appreciate this discussion. Thanks for helping me think through all this

We have the One who commands
"Love your neighbor as yourself"
"Love one another"
"So in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you, for this sums up the law and the prophets"

We have the One who demanded the total end of child sacrifices and that we love our children, or if we would not love our children even after Christ came, He would come and destroy the land.

That's the One that will be the true One.

I enjoying too. This has helped me clarify in my thoughts about the role of the spirit in agency.

 

[CGL1023]

Awhile back while reading about the philosophy of free will, I was deeply struck by the point that any event is either determined by the events before it, or it is random.

I think there is more to knowing the end point of a process than just the starting point. For a strictly mathematical process, such as the physical laws of motion, the result is largely determined by the starting point and initial conditions. For more complex processes, the relevant probabilities have to be factored in. A good example is the Kalman model. I believe it is used to take the jitter out a camera shot.

 

[Radagast]

But this is a mis-framing of the issue. It's not "free will vs. determinism", it's "free will vs. (determinism AND indeterminism)". Indeterminism is also an enemy of "free" will, as it just makes the will a slave to indeterminism.

Unfortunately, most of what people say about "free will" is incoherent.

To have a meaningful discussion, you have to explore the different kinds of "free will" recognised by philosophy.

 

[Yahchristian]

This is the only conclusion I can come to as well, if I accept that God can justly allow suffering and hell. This isn't very comforting, though.

You may want to spend more time outside looking up at the vastness of the universe in order to maintain proper perspective on the depth of your knowledge. I also suggest you ponder on this a while...

When all is said and done, there will be a group in Heaven that God ultimately determined would be happy and focused on the good they found in God's creation, and there will be another group in Heaven that God ultimately determined to be depressed and focused on the bad they found in God's creation. Which group will you be in?

I think about this all the time and choose to be in the first group, whereas a friend of mine that took his own life this year chose to be in the second group.

 

[Paul of Eugene OR]

Awhile back while reading about the philosophy of free will, I was deeply struck by the point that any event is either determined by the events before it, or it is random. "Free will" has to fit into that, somehow.

This realization has shook me very deeply as it makes the fact that God would even allow hell to exist extremely disturbing. Those conscious entities did not to believe either based on prior causes, or because of quantum randomness that somehow trickles into the brain. Why would God allow them to suffer for eternity because of this?!?

I would love to accept libertarian free will but honestly it is so riddled with incoherencies that I just cannot, but even if it were true somehow, it is still not a satifying answer.

Compatablism ultimately seems like it's just a semantic re-working of incompatablism. Sure, you are the "ultimate" factor in that your brain ultimately sends the signal to make a decision, but even that is either caused or random...

I've been struggling with this and looking for a satisfying answer for nearly a year now. I am deep in a crisis of faith and don't understand how we can consider God "loving". Most Christians who write on this subject do so from the wrong point of view, or just do not seem to grasp the "determinism and indetermisim" vs "moral responsibility" dichotemy. A lot of the Christians I've read seem to think that indeterminism somehow answers the problem, but quantum die-rolling still doesn't seem to justify having a person suffer for eternity.

I feel so alone in this. I've only brought it up with a handful of people in the real world and none of them were able to grasp this so I gave up. The Christians online are the same, and generally seem to think that the discussion is Calvanism vs. Arminianism, which is entirely missing the point.

Thanks and God Bless to all.

Well, lets see if we can construct a theology that is more satisfactory, using our own imaginations.

Lets say everyone is judged in the next life not on the basis of any past moral events, but rather on how safe they are to be around others. If they are safe to be around others, they are given freedom and powers. If they are not safe to be around others, they are given training. Training might have to be unpleasant for some, or rewarding to some, depending on what training they need. Perhaps most of us need some training in the next realm. Perhaps those in need of only a little training can be granted quite a bit of freedom and powers.

If that were the case, would your objections be removed?

 

[Thir7ySev3n]

Thanks for this, it is quite well thought-out. I have three thoughts:

1) God is calculating which universe is "best" by tweaking parameters. Why is not powerful enough to produce a universe with no suffering or torment? Can he only tweak certain parameters, and not others?

Read this whole answer carefully if you are sincerely seeking resolution to your frustration. I am not saying that with condescension. I anticipated this question and answered it in my post you quoted when I said this:

"It could then be rightly asked 'well then could God have not provided a precise set of circumstances that would be those which are necessary to win the soul of every person?', and the answer would be no. For some people, there is no such set of circumstances that would be sufficient for them to freely receive the salvation of Christ by the Holy Spirit's testimony. This is affirmed doubly in the Scriptures. First, in Daniel 12:10 concerning the course through to the end times Jesus says: "Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand." Again, concerning God's providence Paul says in Romans 9:22: "What if God, although choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction?"

It may also seem confusing to think that God has among His human creation "objects of wrath" which He prepares for destruction, until you comprehend these points and Scriptures collectively. There are some souls which God would create that will freely reject Him under any and all circumstances, but are still necessary in the grand scheme of world history to play a role in drawing all those who will be freely saved into that salvation. God Himself illustrates this wonderfully in His statement to Pharaoh in Exodus 9:15-16: "For by now I could have stretched out my hand and struck you and your people with a plague that would have wiped you off the earth. But I have raised you up for this very purpose, that I might show you my power and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth."

See Acts 17:26-27, Genesis 50:20, Jeremiah 25:8-14and Judges 14:4 for more Scriptural examples on the providence of God and how it works."

2) This assumes God's intent in creation was to create the "best" universe, which still ended up being one with eternal torment, and an extremely low ratio of saved / unsaved souls. If he wasn't powerful enough to avoid this, would it not make more sense for his motivation to be the "least bad" universe instead? Let's say you were a scientist who was working on brain-computer interfacing tech. You had 100 subjects, who were forced into this expiriment. If you push the hypothetical button, 99 of them will experience the maximal amount of pleasure for five minutes, but one will have their pain neurons prodded with maximal pain that a human experience for the same amount of time. Would you push the button? I cannot imagine doing so, and I don't see how anyone who would could be called "loving".

Similar to the forced test subjects, I did not consent to being brought into existence, I only found out about being in this after already being born...

Acts 17:26-27, Hebrews 9:26, Galatians 4:4-5, among other Scriptures, make clear the our settings in time and location are established for the exclusive purpose of preparing us to receive the Gospel. Combining this with the content of my answer in original post, and my answer to point one, it is clear that God had the best world in mind in terms of bringing the largest number of souls freely to salvation.

It seems your complaint is more concerning the utility, so to speak, of the mass quantities of the unsaved and their allowance into existence despite God's foreknowledge of their inevitable condemnation, more so than a problem ith this point being ultimately true. Regardless, it is clear that more people will be unsaved than saved (Matthew 7:14), and I would find it a bizarre complaint that this point is true (which Scripturally, it is clear that it is) because it is the only resolution that make's man inevitably responsible for his own condemnation. Under all alternatives, God is not allowing those foreknown to be unsaved to exist, but is actually causing them to be unsaved.

So based on the content already provided in my answer, your complaint seems to be summarized in the idea that God is showing partiality by creating a soul He foreknew would be condemned if they existed for the purpose of playing a role in leading another soul to salvation.

There are two points to consider in answering this question:

1. To be partial is to show special favour towards someone or something. God is not being partial in the grace He extends towards any individual at any time in any place, but rather places us each in our contexts with the exclusive purpose of maximizing the number of souls that freely accept the salvation found through Christ alone (again, Acts 17:26-27). The circumstances vary because the individuals placed in them do, and thus their courses are plotted according to how they will affect other courses and respond to their own. That being said, those who accept salvation and those who reject it do so freely, and those who reject it would do so under any circumstances (Daniel 12:10, Revelations 9:20). Thus, God would be partial if He did not create the wicked who will be self-condemned rather than create them, as He would be favouring souls that would freely choose wickedness over souls that would freely choose righteousness, thereby precluding the one who would choose rightly from enjoying the eternal knowledge of God on account of a reprobate individual who would incessantly reject Him.

2. This question also neglects to consider that the inadvertent benefit of this self-condemned person’s life will likely extend beyond the salvation of one individual. The person who finds themselves lead to Christ by the direct or indirect causes of this person’s existence will, in many cases, have the broad opportunity to intentionally direct others to the salvation found in Him, resulting in potentially dozens, to hundreds, or even thousands more saved souls. To reemphasize the first point, partiality would be the cause for not creating the self-condemned person at so large an expense, which would be true even if it were only for the one, which is unlikely.

In summation, God being unwilling to create the self-condemned to spare the freely saved would be like a man who refuses to spare the lives of his family in defending them from an armed attacker, who has had many warnings not to enter his house and threaten them, because he does not want to choose between defending their lives and taking the assailant’s. The devil has come to steal, kill and destroy, but Christ has come to destroy the devil’s work (John 10:10, 1 John 3:8).

3) The word "free" is used a lot, but not defined. "free" from what? From God's control? Perhaps. But even if so, my decisions are still based on the events that precede them. There is no way for anything that exists in time to be "free" from that.

Appreciated and God bless

You are free to respond to God's initiative, and if you ever will, you are placed in a time and location that you will freely do so. Again, this indicates that all unsaved are not salvageable under any circumstances. God's power does not entail the logically impossible, such as creating a rock too heavy for Himself to lift, or being able to force someone to freely choose something they never would.

 

[Radagast]

The question isn't "How can my decisions be considered 'free' if God knows what I'll decide?".

The question is "How can my decisions be considered 'free' if they are caused by prior events?"

And the answer to both questions is compatibilist free will: Free will - Wikipedia

 

[hedrick]

Some random comments on postings above:

• I think compatibilism is sound. I do believe people can be responsible for their actions even in a deterministic universe. But if you don’t think God should create people intending them to go to hell, it doesn’t solve that problem.
• Annihilation has some support among evangelicals these days, but CF considers it heretical. So it can only be discussed in controversial theology.
• Quantum randomness saves us from a fully deterministic universe, but it doesn’t change the theological issue unless God is within time. If he’s outside of time, he sees all of history “at once.” Thus he can see what the results will actually be when he does things.

As I see it there are a limited number of alternatives:

• God chose damnation for certain people, and that’s OK. (Even from a Calvinist perspective, I don’t think we have to say that he specifically had as a goal damning those people -- though Calvin seems to have said that. But he knew it was going to be a result of his choices, and thus I think we have to say he chose it.)
• God doesn’t fully determine history. Either he’s not omnipotent, there’s genuine indeterminacy (and God is within time), or he has limited himself.
• No one ends up in hell, either because of universalism or annihilation.

I think proper exegesis of the eschatological passages in Scripture suggests annihilation, but I’m only prepared to make that case where it’s within the rules (i.e. Controversial Christian theology).

I also don't think the Bible says anything about omnipotence other than that God is able to bring his will about. I don’t think it says that he chooses every event. I also don't think it says he is out of time. However that seems to be an implication of creation, since time is his creation.

 

[Tayla]

any event is either determined by the events before it, or it is random. "Free will" has to fit into that, somehow.

There is a third option. The so-called random events of quantum mechanics are not random but, rather, guided by entities in the spiritual realm. (Hopefully by spiritual entities who serve God.) Thus, free will is considered by physical science as merely random events; in other words, they see it as deterministic. But these random events are actually free will actions of the soul or spirit working in the spiritual realm. Science ignores the spiritual realm, so they don't see this occurring.

 

[hedrick]

There is a third option. The so-called random events of quantum mechanics are not random but, rather, guided by entities in the spiritual realm. (Hopefully by spiritual entities who serve God.) Thus, free will is considered by physical science as merely random events; in other words, they see it as deterministic. But these random events are actually free will actions of the soul or spirit working in the spiritual realm. Science ignores the spiritual realm, so they don't see this occurring.

It's not impossible, but they would have to cooperate so as to produce a random distribution.