Free Will

[renniks]

ImCo:

Not total, no, but the sin taints every good thing the person wills...no decision is clean or righteous or good; all is tainted. And no, no sinner can choose Christ - - - without the help of the Holy Spirit.

Of course not. It's still a choice regardless. God doesn't wait until we deserve salvation to offer us salvation. Again, the metaphor of slavery doesn't deny the freedom to choose between available options, either before or after salvation.

 

[Bradskii]

I decided not to spend money on a life coach currently. Lots of reasons pro and con. Why did I decide against? IDK. I could say that it was the cost, but that's not an absolute. I could have made it work. I could say it was pride, but honestly I don't think that's it. I could go on for a long time with the reasons. The reasons didn't cause my decision. I did.

Lots of reasons pro and con. So lots of reasons why you might have chosen one path and lots that would tend you to choose another. You balanced those pros and cons. You perhaps made a mental list with two columns marked 'pro' and 'con'. Eventually you decided that the cons outweighed the pros. That one set of reasons held sway.

'You' made the choice you say. But you didn't without all those pros and conns being considered. Without thinking about the good reasons and the bad. And eventually, some of the reasons held sway. I'll say that again...some reasons held sway. Some of those reasons convinced you to make a decision.

If I ask you what made you make that decision, you'll tell me (you just did) that it was partly the cost. You've just told me that you had a reason, maybe many more, for making the choice. You are telling me that you made the choice because of various reasons.

And I'll bet that your response will again be 'I made the choice'. And you'll ignore yet again all the reasons you had that made you choose.

 

[renniks]

Lots of reasons pro and con. So lots of reasons why you might have chosen one path and lots that would tend you to choose another. You balanced those pros and cons. You perhaps made a mental list with two columns marked 'pro' and 'con'. Eventually you decided that the cons outweighed the pros. That one set of reasons held sway.

'You' made the choice you say. But you didn't without all those pros and conns being considered. Without thinking about the good reasons and the bad. And eventually, some of the reasons held sway. I'll say that again...some reasons held sway. Some of those reasons convinced you to make a decision.

If I ask you what made you make that decision, you'll tell me (you just did) that it was partly the cost. You've just told me that you had a reason, maybe many more, for making the choice. You are telling me that you made the choice because of various reasons.

And I'll bet that your response will again be 'I made the choice'. And you'll ignore yet again all the reasons you had that made you choose.

Your first paragraph makes me laugh, because that's not what I did at all. Not everybody works that way.
Maybe that's why I could use a life coach, I don't put things in neat little categories and reason everything out. It's more of a gut feeling, right or wrong, that's how I work. When it comes right down to it, I think God said "wait." So now we have a supernatural reason, which doesn't fall into any neat little category. Once you introduce the supernatural, all appeal to logic alone goes out the window.

 

[TedT]

If you believe that our slavery to sin is complete, when we are unbelievers, then why do you still sin now, if you are now a slave to Christ?
You can't have it one way and not the other.
Obviously the talk about slavery does not eliminate free will, it's a metaphor.

I am moved by 2 ideas:
1. our free will is an absolute necessity
2. if being enslaved to sin has no meaning curtailing our free will it is an irrelevant teaching akin to babbling.
My faith is tending to support our enslavement to sin is curtailed by our rebirth and our free will restored so we can make a real choice with freedom between indulging in the flesh or serving each other in love, Gal 5:13.

My problem is that I understand our sanctification to be by a method of trial and error so to speak in which we chose sin then are brought back to righteous choices over and over as is described in Hebrews 12:5-11 which encourages the legitimate children of GOD to not despise the harsh and painful discipline in our being trained in righteousness.

Would we be ever be painfully chastised for non-sinfulness? Never! So these reborn children of GOd are sinning, being chastised over and over until they learn to quit choosing the remembered pleasures and profits of sin and choose only righteusness.by their free will.

But if we are enslaved to sin by sinning, are we re-enlsaved each time we sin though reborn? IF our rebirth is not the end of our enslavement to sin, why then are we not re-enslaved when we sin?

Either our rebirth has no efficacy against our enslavement to sin or in our sanctification in general or after rebirth breaks our enslavement to sin we do not become re-enslaved because we are not being internally forced by sin, forced to choose sin but choose it from the memories of its pleasures and profits only...

What is clear is that we must be reborn in/with a new spirit AND we must be trained in righteousness, both. Being trained in righteousness cannot bring us to rebirth and being reborn does not train us in righteousness or it would be the end of our suffering.

 

[Bradskii]

Your first paragraph makes me laugh, because that's not what I did at all. Not everybody works that way.
Maybe that's why I could use a life coach, I don't put things in neat little categories and reason everything out. It's more of a gut feeling, right or wrong, that's how I work. When it comes right down to it, I think God said "wait." So now we have a supernatural reason, which doesn't fall into any neat little category. Once you introduce the supernatural, all appeal to logic alone goes out the window.

I also doubt that you actually made a real list. But you had a number of reasons why you should have chosen one option and others why you would have made another. Including you believing that God might have wanted you to wait. That's not a supernatural reason. That's just another reason (perhaps post hoc).

You balanced one set of reasons against the other and that gave you your 'gut feeling'. Which isn't anything other than a feeling that you should choose one path over the other. Based on the reasons for and against which you obviously considered.

 

[renniks]

I also doubt that you actually made a real list. But you had a number of reasons why you should have chosen one option and others why you would have made another. Including you believing that God might have wanted you to wait. That's not a supernatural reason. That's just another reason (perhaps post hoc).

You balanced one set of reasons against the other and that gave you your 'gut feeling'. Which isn't anything other than a feeling that you should choose one path over the other. Based on the reasons for and against which you obviously considered.

Why do you think it's based on the reasons? That's only your perspective. And no, I did not balance one set of reasons against the other, at least not consciously. Strangely enough, I might do that for less important decisions but for the biggest decisions in my life, I go by my gut and what I think God is saying.

 

[Bradskii]

Why do you think it's based on the reasons? That's only your perspective. And no, I did not balance one set of reasons against the other, at least not consciously. Strangely enough, I might do that for less important decisions but for the biggest decisions in my life, I go by my gut and what I think God is saying.

Then you make the decision unconsciously. There is no conscious debate. There are no immediately apparent reasons for doing something. It's just a gut instinct.

And you are saying that this somehow shows that you have free will? When you can't even tell us what caused you to make a decision? You've gone so far down a rabbit hole trying to defend it, you have ended up using the very arguments I would use myself to show that it doesn't exist.

 

[renniks]

Then you make the decision unconsciously. There is no conscious debate. There are no immediately apparent reasons for doing something. It's just a gut instinct.

And you are saying that this somehow shows that you have free will? When you can't even tell us what caused you to make a decision? You've gone so far down a rabbit hole trying to defend it, you have ended up using the very arguments I would use myself to show that it doesn't exist.

Then your logic is flawed.

 

[durangodawood]

Then you make the decision unconsciously. There is no conscious debate. There are no immediately apparent reasons for doing something. It's just a gut instinct.

And you are saying that this somehow shows that you have free will? When you can't even tell us what caused you to make a decision? You've gone so far down a rabbit hole trying to defend it, you have ended up using the very arguments I would use myself to show that it doesn't exist.

You could say he chose to let it be a gut (intuition) decision.

"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice."

 

[Bradskii]

Then your logic is flawed.

You are literally saying that you make choices for no reason that you are aware. And that somehow this indicates free will?

 

[Bradskii]

You could say he chose to let it be a gut (intuition) decision.

"If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice."

Exactly right.
I choose to do X.
I choose not to do X.
I choose not to make a decision on either.

And, not to beat the rotting corpse of this horse any further, but....there will be a reason for each of those options.

 

[renniks]

You are literally saying that you make choices for no reason that you are aware. And that somehow this indicates free will?

It certainly indicates that reasons aren't the cause of actions. So what is?

 

[Bradskii]

It certainly indicates that reasons aren't the cause of actions. So what is?

If, as you suggested, there are no reasons for making a choice, then that's pretty obvious. It will be an arbitrary choice and free will isn't a concern. But if you do make a choice and you have a reason for doing so, then it's madness to suggest that the reason wasn't the justification for it.

I know it's 'you' making the choice, but it's for a specific reason.

 

[renniks]

If, as you suggested, there are no reasons for making a choice, then that's pretty obvious. It will be an arbitrary choice and free will isn't a concern. But if you do make a choice and you have a reason for doing so, then it's madness to suggest that the reason wasn't the justification for it.

I know it's 'you' making the choice, but it's for a specific reason.

I guess you are incapable of seeing the third option.

Even if there is a reason on a subconscious level, you can't claim you did it for a reason, because you don't have access to that information.

But I don't think there even has to always be a subconscious reason. If freedom of the will is a real thing, you just pick a path...it may seem arbitrary but you are not factoring in the supernatural influences either.
As someone who is in the process of trying to understand his motivations, I have to tell you, it's not so black and white.

 

[Bradskii]

...but you are not factoring in the supernatural influences either.

I will when someone shows that they exist. Until then...I will most definitely not factor them in.

 

[Bradskii]

It certainly indicates that reasons aren't the cause of actions. So what is?

No reasons - arbitrary.
Not arbitrary - reasons.

It doesn't get much simpler than that.

 

[FredVB]

Regarding free will, it is molecules that do the thinking. Since those molecules together make up a person, Daniel Dennet says that we, that is, the physical collection of matter that makes up our brains, choose to do things and are free to do what "we" want. Sam Harris, for instance, would not call that free will. But I think both are essentially saying the same thing: Molecules form our brains, and that mind that comes as a result of that mass of matter between our ears is free to do what it chooses. Whether we should call that free will is a question of semantics.

Regardless, our molecules are running the show. They create the illusion after the fact that there is a consciousness in charge. But that consciousness actually occurs a split second after the fact, so that consciousness is not in charge.

None of that removes responsibility. I am still the same me, regardless of whether I am made up of atom-stuff, consciousness-stuff, or soul-stuff. Either way, if that stuff inside me were to choose to act in unacceptable ways, then the resulting me would need to take responsibility for that decision.

Do other animals have free will? Ask my dog. It is clear to me that he had a mind of his own and choose to do what he wanted to do when he wanted to.

We are not just the sum of molecules that we have making us up. Of course what molecules do make us up are changing, elemental atoms are frequently changing places, and are taken in and incorporated as others are expelled, throughout our lives, and, at any time if molecules that we consist of were arranged in a significantly different way we would not be the persons we are. But we are more than that. We have our own personality. Each and everyone does, another person will not make the same choices, even in the exact same environment early on and even with the same genetic make up. Even identical twins have a distinct personality each, even Abby and Brittany who are the most conjoined and surviving each have their very own personality. And other animals do. If you have a dog you could see it, if you have more than one dog, you would know it. Or likewise with a pig, or with a number of other animals.

With distinct personalities we each make our own choices. And we each can respond as we would do to coming to know that God loves us.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

... if molecules that we consist of were arranged in a significantly different way we would not be the persons we are. But we are more than that. We have our own personality.

Our personality is determined by the way our molecules are arranged (the way the neurons in our brains connect to and communicate with each other). If this arrangement is changed, personality can change.

Each and everyone does, another person will not make the same choices, even in the exact same environment early on and even with the same genetic make up. Even identical twins have a distinct personality each, even Abby and Brittany who are the most conjoined and surviving each have their very own personality. And other animals do. If you have a dog you could see it, if you have more than one dog, you would know it. Or likewise with a pig, or with a number of other animals.

With distinct personalities we each make our own choices. And we each can respond as we would do to coming to know that God loves us.

Each and everyone, even identical twins, has a unique arrangement of molecules (the way the neurons in our brains connect to and communicate with each other), as a result of subtle random influences during development and a unique set of life experiences. Consequently, we all have unique personalities.

Simples.

 

[SelfSim]

Our personality is determined by the way our molecules are arranged (the way the neurons in our brains connect to and communicate with each other). If this arrangement is changed, personality can change.

Each and everyone, even identical twins, has a unique arrangement of molecules (the way the neurons in our brains connect to and communicate with each other), as a result of subtle random influences during development and a unique set of life experiences. Consequently, we all have unique personalities.

Simples.

Curious. Where elemental uniqueness of personality amongst the set of all personalities is so, then isn't the set of all personalities, therefore, unbounded(?)

 

[Bradskii]

Curious. Where elemental uniqueness of personality amongst the set of all personalities is so, then isn't the set of all personalities, therefore, unbounded(?)

Effectively, yes.