Free will, and original sin --a discussion continued

[JAL]

2 Because logically First Cause, whether you want to call it God or whatever, and whether you want to say it is possessing of personhood and intent or is mere mechanical fact, or something in between, and whether you want to say it does so by "the seeds of the universe" by beginning things, then leaving it alone, or whether you want to say it interjects itself into its creation, or whether you want to say it inhabits and upholds every motion and force of its creation--indeed its very existence-- --it causes ALL \things,

This is supposed to be a debate. To assert that God exists, therefore determinism is not an argument. It is assuming what is to be proven.

3 And as for the Gospel, it denies God as the one who does the whole work of grace.

Again, our exchange has not been about the nature of conversion.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Yes. Precisely because I believe the Bible to be true, I reject that cause and effect are absolutes. If we are made in God's image, we certainly are more than the sum of our genes. Determinism is a notion taken from non Christian sources.

May well be from non-Christian philosophies, that long precluded the birth of Christ. That doesn't make them false. Job knew God. Cause-and-effect was a logical rule from the beginning. I am not just talking about physics either, but only God exists without precluding cause. He is not an effect, or he is not God.

Where did I say or imply that we are not more than the sum of our genes?

By the way, I fully expect to be as astounded by the final truth of the matter as I expect you to be. I am not saying there is no more to any of this than what I expound.

 

[Mark Quayle]

But you admitted that God is free!

Yes. (sigh), of course he is free. What is your point?

 

[Mark Quayle]

This is supposed to be a debate. To assert that God exists, therefore determinism is not an argument. It is assuming what is to be proven.

Again, our exchange has not been about the nature of conversion.

good night. I've had enough.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Not at all. Whenever I make an assertion about God that you don't like, you say, "You have no right to that conclusion because you don't understand God. He is beyond your understanding."

Meanwhile you deny my conclusion! Thus you insinuate the right to the OPPOSITE of my assertion!

But it's the same category! If I don't understand God with respect to that category, then neither do you!

How is that an exaggeration? It's a fact of this whole discussion - it's one of your favorite ways of dancing!

good night

 

[Mark Quayle]

(Sigh) That was never an answer. You're still dancing. All governments put people in prison and WE, as Christian members of those governments and societies, cast our vote and contribute our input. YOU have to cast votes for and against leaders with beliefs. Also we have to practice justice with our kids. And it's not only justice, it's the question of what defines honesty. Is it honest to call someone guilty for decisions beyond their control?

Basically every time I show you a scenario that contradicts your whole position, you pretend that the scenario isn't valid and doesn't apply to you. Even when it's just a hypothetical, you pretend that the essence of the hypothetical doesn't apply.

For example I asked you about surgery on Jesus. Your response was basically, 'Current doctors aren't skilled to do that kind of surgery.' Dodging the question. Then I asked, 'Ok so what if God the Father does the surgery' - and I still don't get a straight answer!

Whatever I say, you just dance and dodge.
So sad. All this intellectual dishonesty - and you're only hurting God.

Good night

 

[Mark Quayle]

Mark, why do you talk as though the notion of First Cause necessarily implies 100% determinism? Why can't reality be a mixture of cause-effect in some scenarios, and libertarian freedom in others, and a mixture of the two in still others?

Good night, and God bless you JAL

 

[JAL]

Yes. (sigh), of course he is free. What is your point?

When I talk about real freedom, you write it off as a self-contradictory concept. But when it's convenient for you in this debate, you ascribe real freedom to God.

 

[renniks]

Where did I say or imply that we are not more than the sum of our genes?

That's the logical conclusion of one denies free will.

 

[Mark Quayle]

When I talk about real freedom, you write it off as a self-contradictory concept. But when it's convenient for you in this debate, you ascribe real freedom to God.

It is self-contradictory when ascribed to our ability --again, depending on what you mean by real freedom. It is ludicrous, however, to claim that God is subject to the same principles to which he has subjected us. He is uncaused. We are not. He is not under anyone's authority, we are. He is free, we are cheap Night, again.

 

[Mark Quayle]

That's the logical conclusion of one denies free will.

I disagree. But I suppose I can add to your point by saying what we do is the result of causes, including our genes. Responsible Choice, if that is all you mean by free will, or even Real Choice, does not deny causes. At the end of thinking about it, what can make choice "causeless"? To me, at least, that makes no sense.

 

[JAL]

Mark, asserting your position doesn't make it true. You do understand that, right? This is supposed to be a debate. You say that freedom:

is self-contradictory when ascribed to our ability.

How is it self-contradictory? You haven't pinpointed any contradiction. Freedom is in fact the only way to avoid self-contradiction. A man should not be punished for actions beyond his freedom to control. If I were able to monitor a day of your own life, I'd see your own actions confirming this principle time and again, because I'm confident you don't go around blaming a given individual for an incident obviously impossible for him to have caused. I'm confident you try to treat your family, friends, relatives, and coworkers according to this basic principle because it defines justice as universally understood by both Christians and most non-Christians as well.

God as the First Cause of that chain of cause-and-effect...

Here I must apologize. It's been over 20 years since I did any reading in philosophy and thus I had confused "First Cause" with "First Mover". Yes if God is "First Cause" (defined as the one who pushes the first domino in a series of dominoes), then everything is cause-effect.

So is God "First Cause"? That's what is in debate, here, right? You can't just assume what is to be proven.

He is uncaused. We are not.

Now that's a different claim. To say that God is uncaused doesn't prove He is "First Cause". Secondly, that premise can't be used to "prove" distinctions between man and God in this debate. Why not? I already told you I don't buy into traditional metaphysics. In MY metaphysics, both God and man are equally uncaused.

It is ludicrous, however, to claim that God is subject to the same principles to which he has subjected us.

Actually, that's the only position which is NOT ludicrous, for five specific reasons stated in post 275 for example. Traditional metaphysics is beset with problems. For example:
(1) God is immutable. Therefore He cannot become man.
(2) God is incorruptible. Therefore He has never had free will.
(3) God is incorruptible. Therefore Christ's temptation in the wilderness was a lie and a farce.
(4) God's knowledge is infinite and innate. Therefore the ignorant fetus in Mary's womb could not have been God.
(5) A God who foreknew the Fall would have created Vincent, Bob, and Sally instead of Lucifer, Adam, and Eve, if He is kind.
(6) A God who has foreknowledge has no free will. Free will means deliberating over possible choices in a state of indecision until resoluteness. It doesn't make sense to say, "I already foreknow my choice, but I have not yet decided on my choice. I'm still free to decide."
(7) Real love isn't mere words (Jam 2:16). It intervenes. Therefore if God is infinite love, His intervention (i.e. atonement) would be without limit. It would cover the devil, his angels, and anyone guilty of the sin of rejecting Christ. No one would go to hell.
(8) It is self-contradictory to speak of an existing reality as infinite. If God knows infinitely many languages today, and tomorrow knows less (say 1 billion less), how many are left? Infinite? This makes no sense. You'll reply that God can't forget/unlearn languages. Yes He can. It happened in the Incarnation.
(9) Infinite power contradicts suffering and therefore contradicts the cross. Impassibility is a doctrine in decline but is still IMPLIED by infinite power.
(10) The doctrine of creation ex nihilo is a contradiction in terms. You can't create something out of nothing. It also violates the law of identity. Why so? Suppose I sin and then, temporarily, God extinguishes me into nothingness. Later He extracts three JALs from nothingness. Why not? Ok which JAL is the real JAL? Which one should be punished? This metaphysics is complete absurdity. I prefer to be rational.
(11) The Reformed God is self-contradictory in the sense alleged by the Problem of Evil.
(12) The concept of immaterial substance, known as Spirit, is at variance with all the biblical data. In order to hold to this Platonic notion, the theologians had to dismiss all the biblical data as anthropomorphisms.
(13) An immaterial Spirit is, by definition, too intangible to even push a pencil and is therefore impotent.
(14) Spirit is defined as indivisible into parts, which contradicts the Procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and Son - in a nutshell it contradicts outpourings sent from the Son to the earth.
(15) Omnipresence in Reformed theology is defined as repleteness, which also contradicts outpourings.
(16) Merit is a status achieved by freely choosing to labor/suffer for a righteous cause. The Reformed view of God's qualities as innate (i.e. unearned by labor) implies that He merits no praise.
(17) Reformers perpetuated the incoherent Doctrine of Divine Simplicity (derived from Plato). Plato held that concepts/properties exist as immaterial substances. Thus each dog is a lump of matter influenced by the ONE dogness-substance. If the dog has brown hair, this is caused by the ONE brown-ness-substance. God is the God-ness concept. This is absolute gibberish. The God of the Bible is a person, not a concept. What's the difference? I'm a person. I like pizza. You perhaps prefer hamburgers. What kind of food does a CONCEPT prefer?

At post 332, I recapped four more objections.

That's 26 unresolved objections to the Reformed view of God - that's not even to mention the earlier disproof of the Reformed doctrine of Sola Scriptura plus the objections raised against the Reformed definition of Adam.

In this debate you keep asserting your conclusions, whereas I actually prove my position by raising objections.

 

[JAL]

And lest you speculate that an appeal to the hypostatic union can stave off some of these objections, let me disabuse you of that delusion. The hypostatic union is admitted by theologians to be humanly incomprehensible. For example, "No sane study of Christology even pretends to fathom it" (Charles Lee Feinberg, "The Hypostatic Union: Part 2," Bibliotheca Sacra, (1935), p. 412).

You know what that means, right? It means for all practical purposes it is gibberish. I don't speak that language. Neither do you. And I can't go into a point-by-point critique of the hypostatic union because a Mod might shut down the thread claiming that I am attacking the Trinity. This has happened to me several times, despite the fact that I'm a staunch Trinitarian.

 

[BarnyFyfe]

In MY metaphysics, both God and man are equally uncaused.

But wasn't man caused by God forming him from the dust of the ground?

 

[JAL]

But wasn't man caused by God forming him from the dust of the ground?

I just updated my post to add a point #10. That should get you thinking in the right direction.

 

[renniks]

It is self-contradictory when ascribed to our ability --again, depending on what you mean by real freedom. It is ludicrous, however, to claim that God is subject to the same principles to which he has subjected us. He is uncaused. We are not. He is not under anyone's authority, we are. He is free, we are cheap Night, again.

See, this is exactly why I think determinism is a pagan concept. It takes away all of our worth. It makes us just the sum of our material parts and nothing more. According to scripture, we have an eternal soul. We live forever. We are worth so much to God that he died to save us from being separated from him. If God is just moving all the peices on the board and we are just along for the ride, we are just pawns, and none of this really matters. Over and over again, we are told that our choices matter and matter a lot. That if we remain in Christ, we will reign with him. Determinism reduces it all to a farce, a simulation, a game God is playing where everything is actually pre rigged and nothing is really at stake.

 

[renniks]

I disagree. But I suppose I can add to your point by saying what we do is the result of causes, including our genes. Responsible Choice, if that is all you mean by free will, or even Real Choice, does not deny causes. At the end of thinking about it, what can make choice "causeless"? To me, at least, that makes no sense.

The fact that it isn't logical to some people should not bother us in the least. What is a miracle? It defies all natural laws. We are miracles, and we can change the universe because that's what God created us to be. By free will, I mean free choices made without coercion from any outside force. Every choice has lots of influences, but those influences don't choose for us.

 

[JAL]

I can add to your point by saying what we do is the result of causes, including our genes. Responsible Choice, if that is all you mean by free will, or even Real Choice, does not deny causes. At the end of thinking about it, what can make choice "causeless"? To me, at least, that makes no sense.

Here you again argue that real freedom doesn't make sense. Yet you claim that God is free. When I object to that contradiction, you always respond that freedom is self-contradictory for men, but not for God. First of all, my metaphysics, for example, allows no qualitative distinctions between God and man. Secondly, you fail to name a SPECIFIC distinction that might warrant your claim. Thirdly, as renniks just noted, determinism reduces all biblical justice and jurisprudence to a lie and a farce.

Here again, it is plain that you merely dogmatize rather than prove, ignore rather than resolve, and ambiguate rather than clarify.

 

[Mark Quayle]

Mark, asserting your position doesn't make it true. You do understand that, right? This is supposed to be a debate. You say that freedom: is self-contradictory when ascribed to our ability.
How is it self-contradictory? You haven't pinpointed any contradiction. Freedom is in fact the only way to avoid self-contradiction. A man should not be punished for actions beyond his freedom to control. If I were able to monitor a day of your own life, I'd see your own actions confirming this principle time and again, because I'm confident you don't go around blaming a given individual for an incident obviously impossible for him to have caused. I'm confident you try to treat your family, friends, relatives, and coworkers according to this basic principle because it defines justice as universally understood by both Christians and most non-Christians as well.

Perhaps I have argued by assertion (I have not gone back to see what else I said besides what you quoted), which granted, is illogical. That does not invalidate my claim --only my argument. But you do the same thing, when you say, "Freedom is in fact the only way to avoid self-contradiction. A man should not be punished for actions beyond his freedom to control." You have nothing but human examples of behavior, human philosophy, by which to say such a thing. (Meanwhile God speaks differently <THIS, I have been trying to demonstrate, and you say I am categorically wrong --wrong in principle --you try to demonstrate that I am only specifically wrong because I am categorically wrong.)

Not only does God claim the right to punish for his law broken, and that, without respect for how much a person knows, but his law is altogether righteous and pure, needing no affirmation from man. If a man doesn't know "thus saith the Lord", it does not make his trespass invalid. His conscience is not his judge --God is. I suppose it could be said that to the degree that he is ignorant of the law, he is wrong in relation to God.

I can't, to the satisfaction of human-based feeling, answer your human-based feeling of incongruity concerning God holding man responsible for sin when he has bound man over to sin, except perhaps to point out that in the end, we CAN INDEED count on it that the Judge of All The Earth will do what is right. He is altogether just. I hope we can both agree on that.

 

[Mark Quayle]

The fact that it isn't logical to some people should not bother us in the least. What is a miracle? It defies all natural laws. We are miracles, and we can change the universe because that's what God created us to be. By free will, I mean free choices made without coercion from any outside force. Every choice has lots of influences, but those influences don't choose for us.

Miracle is a word we use to describe what defies natural law. I like to point out that if God made all things, it is all miracle, or maybe all natural, since he made what we consider natural. That being said, for the sake of discussion, I would say that miracle is defiance of "usual". We hardly know what is natural anyway, judging on the past. Radio is a miracle, based on 1500's level of knowledge. What makes us so smart that we would know?