Free Will

[cairaiii]

If God is all knowing and is not bound by time (his creation) than he knows the outcome of all events past, present, and future. From the moment of creation he knew that Adam would sin, that he would have to send his son to die on a cross, and even what everyone of us will eat for breakfast tomorrow, and how we will die.

Therefore if the outcome of every action and decision in our lives already has a determined outcome, we have no real choice in our lives, free will is just an illusion.

The only possible conclusions I can make from this are:

A) We are just "pets" if you will of God or some intelligent being, our lives have no real signficance sine we do not control them.

-or-

B) God does exist, but is not the God of the Bible, because that God could not exist because in order to be God, the being must be all knowing, and if our actions aren't predetermined it implies that there is something that God does not know. So if God did not know that Adam would sin, than he was not truly God.

I'd like to hear what you have to say, until then take chances -be a fatalist.

 

[Tenka]

Hey Cairaiii,

I've brought this is up at least 4 times over the past 2 years and numerous times in other threads.
I am yet to receive a sensible answer from those that require freewill as part of their doctrine.

The only conclusion I have come up with is that the people who came up with the original doctrine didn't take this into account when they checked the script for plot holes.

Calvanists will answer you that they don't require any such freewill.

 

[JohnLocke]

Cairaii,


I think you're wrong about knowing the outcome is the same as "determining" the outcome. For example, I understand that the odds of winning the 8-state Powerball lottery is 1 in several hundred million if not billion. The overwhelming probability is that I will not win. My knowledge did not in anyway cause my not winning of the lottery even if it was accurate. Another example, I have a pet peeve, I absolutely hate it when anyone suggests that my parents weren't married when I was born. I have in the past demonstrated a tendency to "reeducate" persons who make such allegations by punching them in the nose. If you heard someone make such an allegation in my presence you might know that I was going to punch them in the nose, but your knowledge doesn't cause me to punch them in the nose.

Seems to me, if you know anyone in your personal life well enough, you will get very good and predicting how they will act in future circumstances. If you knew every detail about those circumstances and really, truly, deeply knew their character, seems like you'd be really, really, really good at predicting how they'd behave. But none of that knowledge causes them to act that way.

So if God totally understands His Creation down to the subatomic level, then seems that if He were really, really smart and interested He could probably predict just about Everything even if He does actually cause any of it to occur.

Cheers

 

[DailyBlessings]

If God is all knowing and is not bound by time (his creation) than he knows the outcome of all events past, present, and future. From the moment of creation he knew that Adam would sin, that he would have to send his son to die on a cross, and even what everyone of us will eat for breakfast tomorrow, and how we will die.

Therefore if the outcome of every action and decision in our lives already has a determined outcome, we have no real choice in our lives, free will is just an illusion.

The only possible conclusions I can make from this are:

A) We are just "pets" if you will of God or some intelligent being, our lives have no real signficance sine we do not control them.

-or-

B) God does exist, but is not the God of the Bible, because that God could not exist because in order to be God, the being must be all knowing, and if our actions aren't predetermined it implies that there is something that God does not know. So if God did not know that Adam would sin, than he was not truly God.

I'd like to hear what you have to say, until then take chances -be a fatalist.

Say I know that my daughter will choose a slob for her first husband, just because I happen to know her well. Does this mean that she doesn't have the choice not to marry him if she so wished? If you are equating freewill with randomity or unpredictability I suppose you might be right, but that has never been the Christian viewpoint, predestinationist or otherwise.

 

[Tenka]

I think you're wrong about knowing the outcome is the same as "determining" the outcome. For example, I understand that the odds of winning the 8-state Powerball lottery is 1 in several hundred million if not billion. The overwhelming probability is that I will not win. My knowledge did not in anyway cause my not winning of the lottery even if it was accurate.

You've missed the point.

In a lottery draw like this:

There are factors that determine which balls will be chosen. Initial order of stacking, size and shape of the container, friction, gravity etc...
In life, God created all those factors.

Seems to me, if you know anyone in your personal life well enough, you will get very good and predicting how they will act in future circumstances. But none of that knowledge causes them to act that way.

They react certain ways because of reasons. And eventually all those factors which caused them to react certain ways can be shown to be beyond their control and in Christianity the root cause is God.

So if God totally understands His Creation down to the subatomic level, then seems that if He were really, really smart and interested He could probably predict just about Everything even if He does actually cause any of it to occur.

If I honk the horn of my car in a city street to clear a stray dog from the road then the dog becomes startled and bites the face of a child whose modeling work was the family's only source of income who then become homeless and die in a winter cold snap.
Did I kill that family? Of course not.
If I knew the chain of events that would follow my honking the horn and I still honked am I responsible?

In Christianity, God not only knows what is going to happen he set the whole thing in motion knowing what would happen.

 

[ExistencePrecedesEssence]

If God is all knowing and is not bound by time (his creation) than he knows the outcome of all events past, present, and future. From the moment of creation he knew that Adam would sin, that he would have to send his son to die on a cross, and even what everyone of us will eat for breakfast tomorrow, and how we will die.

Therefore if the outcome of every action and decision in our lives already has a determined outcome, we have no real choice in our lives, free will is just an illusion.

The only possible conclusions I can make from this are:

A) We are just "pets" if you will of God or some intelligent being, our lives have no real signficance sine we do not control them.

-or-

B) God does exist, but is not the God of the Bible, because that God could not exist because in order to be God, the being must be all knowing, and if our actions aren't predetermined it implies that there is something that God does not know. So if God did not know that Adam would sin, than he was not truly God.

I'd like to hear what you have to say, until then take chances -be a fatalist.

Every choice is a possiblity that has a possiblity all in itself...death is the only possiblity that is an impossiblity. Possiblity other then death is actually a possiblity with a "nothingness" of restriction.

 

[Lehr]

Him lets see if i can remember what i was told... and what i have come to believe..

We don't have full free will, we have partial free will with partial destiny..

Its like a movie that you already know the beginning and ending but how we get to the end is our choice, but god knows where we will come to.. its a very complicated and i can't remember what my deacon told me that made perfect sense to me. Sorry i will try and remember to private message you when i ask him again.

 

[ExistencePrecedesEssence]

Him lets see if i can remember what i was told... and what i have come to believe..

We don't have full free will, we have partial free will with partial destiny..

Its like a movie that you already know the beginning and ending but how we get to the end is our choice, but god knows where we will come to.. its a very complicated and i can't remember what my deacon told me that made perfect sense to me. Sorry i will try and remember to private message you when i ask him again.

Who ever is telling you that is totally wrong.

 

[Dylock]

Him lets see if i can remember what i was told... and what i have come to believe..

We don't have full free will, we have partial free will with partial destiny..

Its like a movie that you already know the beginning and ending but how we get to the end is our choice, but god knows where we will come to.. its a very complicated and i can't remember what my deacon told me that made perfect sense to me. Sorry i will try and remember to private message you when i ask him again.

Ok now take your movie and take the beginning and the second scene of the movie. Since god is all knowing of past, present, and future and is infallible he knows 100% what will happen in scene 2.

Lets say the hero has the following options available to him in scene 2:
-Walk to the north
-Get stabbed in the face
-Pick up ye flask.

God knows that you are going to get stabbed in the face. Due to Gods infallible nature there is no way you could of ever picked up ye flask.

Alas the problem of free will.

 

[Aradia]

If God is all knowing and is not bound by time (his creation)

Is god all knowing? What is your working definition of "all knowing"? Is he bound by time? What is your working definition of being bound, or not bound, by time?

than he knows the outcome of all events past, present, and future.

Based on your answers to the above, does this necessarily follow from your premises? How so?

It's that word in the very beginning of your post -- "If" -- that is the real question here. Before examining free will, examine your initial premises.

 

[JohnLocke]

Tenka,

I think you straw manned me.

"They react certain ways because of reasons. And eventually all those factors which caused them to react certain ways can be shown to be beyond their control and in Christianity the root cause is God."

1. How do you get from here to determinism? I created, or at least help create my child, does that mean I cause all of that child's decisions in the future?

Your dog argument is a problem of proximate cause. You did not murder the family because the chain of causation is too attenuated. Suppose, you did know that honking the horn would ultimately cause all those effects? You're still not guilty of murder under the laws of Georgia and New York. Anymore than you are guilty of the deaths of those girl students in Saudi Arabia who were burned to death in the school because they were not allowed to leave the building for want of appropriate clothing according to the religious police, which police would not have any power if not for your driving a gas guzzling S.U.V.

Prediction is not causation. In fact, free will tends to crop up just about everywhere if you think of it as any divergence from the prediction. The Uncertainty principle, the observed fact that probabilistic events tend to approach but never exactly match their expected outcome lines.

And of course we can always resort to St. Augustine's freedom. Each of us has a choice to do nothing. It may be a hard choice, a wrong choice, a painful or maladaptive choice, but we do have it. To presume we do not have it, one would have to prove a way to force a choice on a human being (100% of the time) and nobody can do that. I'll admit that free will probably is just one factor among many in human behavior, but to assert that it is not a factor at all?

I seem to perceive that I am now exercising my free will to write this response. According to you, what is causing me to write this response and have that perception? And if we can't trust our perceptions then why are we talking? If perceptions are valueless then so too is everything derived therefrom, which leaves precious little, and nothing linguistic.

Cheers

 

[DailyBlessings]

God knows that you are going to get stabbed in the face. Due to Gods infallible nature there is no way you could of ever picked up ye flask.

Why not? Is there something preventing you from picking up ye flask? You've failed to convince me that God's knowledge of the universe has anything to do with free will. You yourself know now that Napoleon foolishly decided to invade Russia in 1812- Does this necessitate that he had no free will in the matter?

 

[elman]

=cairaiii;33798430]If God is all knowing and is not bound by time (his creation) than he knows the outcome of all events past, present, and future. From the moment of creation he knew that Adam would sin, that he would have to send his son to die on a cross, and even what everyone of us will eat for breakfast tomorrow, and how we will die.

Therefore if the outcome of every action and decision in our lives already has a determined outcome, we have no real choice in our lives, free will is just an illusion.

Wrong conclusion. What God knew ahead of time was what my choice would be.

The only possible conclusions I can make from this are:

A) We are just "pets" if you will of God or some intelligent being, our lives have no real signficance sine we do not control them.

-or-

B) God does exist, but is not the God of the Bible, because that God could not exist because in order to be God, the being must be all knowing, and if our actions aren't predetermined it implies that there is something that God does not know. So if God did not know that Adam would sin, than he was not truly God.

I'd like to hear what you have to say, until then take chances -be a fatalist.

Or God knew ahead of time if I would respond to His love with love and created me with that ability and allowed be to have physcial life so I could mature into the being that God is willing to allow into His presence and a being with whom He could have a relationship.

 

[Lehr]

Existence, the reason you don't understand is because i basically messed up the hole example. I will get back to one next time i see my deacon.. Sorry i could only remember alittle bit of what he told me... I'll post again with the correct example.

 

[traversinginfinity]

I believe that all of our choices and actions are "determined" by pre-existing factors, like our personality and memories and how we have developed and that kind of stuff. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "free will". I am still able to choose my own actions.

If a God exists and it knows everything we will ever do and everything that will ever happen, that would not necessarily take away our free will. I don't believe the Christian God exists, but my reasoning has nothing to do with free will.

I kind of think that the issue of free will is an altogether irrelevant question, because whether or not an omniscience being out there knows everything we will ever do, it makes no difference from our perspective.

 

[ExistencePrecedesEssence]

I believe that all of our choices and actions are "determined" by pre-existing factors, like our personality and memories and how we have developed and that kind of stuff. I guess it all depends on what you mean by "free will". I am still able to choose my own actions.

If a God exists and it knows everything we will ever do and everything that will ever happen, that would not necessarily take away our free will. I don't believe the Christian God exists, but my reasoning has nothing to do with free will.

I kind of think that the issue of free will is an altogether irrelevant question, because whether or not an omniscience being out there knows everything we will ever do, it makes no difference from our perspective.

It was by our free will and the choices that result from the nothingness of consciousness that our personality and memories are created....They are transcendents of the transcendence of consciousness...and since consciousness is because it has nothingness, our consciousness then governs the rest of our being....the being-in-itself, and the being-for-others so thus our actions are based off nothingness, unpredetermined concepts, no human nature or premade essence.

No being controls us because were are free, condemned to be free, to create a will of our own...and even if god did exist, it could not take away that realization, thus we deny the existent, and overall purpose to god, through a negatite that makes its entire existence entirely irrelevant to our existence.

 

[DailyBlessings]

I kind of think that the issue of free will is an altogether irrelevant question, because whether or not an omniscience being out there knows everything we will ever do, it makes no difference from our perspective.

I've often tried made to that point, to little avail. What does one do with the knowledge that one has no free will? One still has to make decisions as though one did have free will.

 

[Tenka]

"They react certain ways because of reasons. And eventually all those factors which caused them to react certain ways can be shown to be beyond their control and in Christianity the root cause is God."

1. How do you get from here to determinism?

What do you mean "How do you get from here to determinism?" We are already there.
What is there to suggest we are anything but a biological computer reacting to what we can experience and that our personality is the product of that learning? If this is true then the body (and brain) we are given is not of our freewill nor are the conditions of our formative years which serve to program us. Even if we have an intangible personality or soul or spirit which is us regardless of what our life experience is that isn't freewill because we couldn't have chosen what personality it was.

I created, or at least help create my child, does that mean I cause all of that child's decisions in the future?

And this is your strawman again, comparing your abilty to a God's.
You can't do what God can do so your comparison is not applicable.

You did not murder the family because the chain of causation is too attenuated. Suppose, you did know that honking the horn would ultimately cause all those effects? You're still not guilty of murder under the laws of Georgia and New York.

Who cares about the laws of Georgia and New York? I was trying to bring your example closer the abilities of God, we don't judge God under the laws of New York.

What would you think of me if I knew what effect I would have and still did it?

And of course we can always resort to St. Augustine's freedom. Each of us has a choice to do nothing.

I think we have the possibility to do 'nothing' although we still have no choice to breathe, get hungry, thirsty, bored, tired etc... Even remaining totally passive we still have a lot going on. I don't agree that it is simply a choice we can just make, there would need to be reasons we would compare against our experience in order for us to do it.

I'll admit that free will probably is just one factor among many in human behavior, but to assert that it is not a factor at all?

Is it really so hard to do? Imagine we are a complex biological computer dealing with innumerable experiences reacting to them according to biology and previous learning all the while developing further. Freewill just seems like a completely unnecessary addition, can you even explain how it works? or how to evidence it?

 

[Aradia]

Is it really so hard to do? Imagine we are a complex biological computer dealing with innumerable experiences reacting to them according to biology and previous learning all the while developing further. Freewill just seems like a completely unnecessary addition, can you even explain how it works? or how to evidence it?

How does this complex biological computer make decisions? What is the process? When you're done with that, explain the difference between statistical randomness, cryptographically secure randomness, and true randomness, and how that pertains to the decision-making process.

 

[Dylock]

Why not? Is there something preventing you from picking up ye flask? You've failed to convince me that God's knowledge of the universe has anything to do with free will. You yourself know now that Napoleon foolishly decided to invade Russia in 1812- Does this necessitate that he had no free will in the matter?

Yes there is something preventing me from picking up ye flask. The fact that god infallibly knows that I'm going to get stabbed in the face. Free will states that given options A, B, and C I can pick freely between any of them. But my options are really only limited to one, the one that an infallible god knows is going to happen.
To say I can pick from the others would cause a contradiction of god's infallible nature.