Freewill or not; a headcount

[Chany]

Determinist. Non-compatiblist. Even if you prove determinism false, I would become an indeterminist.

 

[Radagast]

Which or the four options are you?

Poll coming, patience grasshopper.....

It would help if you distinguished different versions of free will.

I'm a Calvinist, so I believe in a version of determinism and in a version of (compatibilist) free will. This doesn't fit into your poll at all. Free will and determinism are not opposites!

It's particularly strange to me that someone who claims to also be a Calvinist would set up a poll that way. I don't think you fully understand either what philosophy has to say about free will or what Calvinist/Reformed theology has to say about it.

 

[Inkfingers]

It would help if you distinguished different versions of free will.

I'm a Calvinist, so I believe in a version of determinism and in a version of (compatibilist) free will. This doesn't fit into your poll at all. Free will and determinism are not opposites!

It's particularly strange to me that someone who claims to also be a Calvinist would set up a poll that way. I don't think you fully understand either what philosophy has to say about free will or what Calvinist/Reformed theology has to say about it.

The only determinism is hard determinism. Everything else is a twisted definition of word games.

It and freewill are not compatible, unless you redefine freewill as well.

 

[Radagast]

The only determinism is hard determinism. Everything else is a twisted definition of word games.

It and freewill are not compatible, unless you redefine freewill as well.

In that case, I am certain that you understand neither what philosophy has to say about free will nor what Calvinist/Reformed theology has to say about it.

To quote one standard Calvinist reference work:

"But now the question arises, Is the predetermination of things consistent with the free will of man? And the answer is that it certainly is not, if the freedom of the will be regarded as indifferentia (arbitrariness), but this is an unwarranted conception of the freedom of man. The will of man is not something altogether indeterminate, something hanging in the air that can be swung arbitrarily in either direction. It is rather something rooted in our very nature, connected with our deepest instincts and emotions, and determined by our intellectual considerations and by our very character. And if we conceive of our human freedom as lubentia rationalis (reasonable self-determination), then we have no sufficient warrant for saying that it is inconsistent with divine foreknowledge."

 

[Davian]

The only determinism is hard determinism. Everything else is a twisted definition of word games.

It and freewill are not compatible, unless you redefine freewill as well.

"The type of [deterministic] free will that Dennett thinks we have is finally stated clearly in the last chapter of [Elbow Room] (book): the power to be active agents, biological devices that respond to our environment with rational, desirable courses of action."

Elbow Room (book) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Inkfingers]

In that case, I am certain that you understand neither what philosophy has to say about free will nor what Calvinist/Reformed theology has to say about it.

Firstly, I am aware of what Philosophy has to say on the subject (My degree grade says so - as my degree is combined honours RS and Philosophy). There is a lot of nonsense and goalpost shifting that happens in the discussion of freewill as people seek to twist the definition because they are terrified of a determined universe.

Secondly, on the subject of Calvinism....Calvinism accepts that there is no Freewill, and that all is predetermined, and that is good enough for me.

The will of man is not something altogether indeterminate, something hanging in the air that can be swung arbitrarily in either direction. It is rather something rooted in our very nature, connected with our deepest instincts and emotions, and determined by our intellectual considerations and by our very character."

That is what I have been saying. We choose, in a manner determined by God, through our nature which we then express.

 

[Metal Minister]

Which or the four options are you?

Poll coming, patience grasshopper.....

It's not that simple...my view is the biblical one, in which we have a will, but it's enslaved to sin. In other words, even had we "free" will, we would choose to embrace sin. So I guess none of the above...

 

[Davian]

Firstly, I am aware of what Philosophy has to say on the subject (My degree grade says so - as my degree is combined honours RS and Philosophy). There is a lot of nonsense and goalpost shifting that happens in the discussion of freewill

Then you should have defined those goalposts and set them down in the OP.

as people seek to twist the definition because they are terrified of a determined universe.

Why would one fear a determined universe?

 

[Chesterton]

FREE will is randomness.

No.

There is only determinism; and God acts as His nature directs.

Again, what directs His nature? The same four fundamental forces which you claim direct ours? If so, you worship a different god than I.

Events, and that includes choices, either happen because they are caused or they happen independently of being caused.

If they happen because they are caused, they are determined and not Free.

If they happen independently of being caused, they are random and not Will.

There is only one possible scientific hypothetical solution to the problem, and that is Judeo-Christianity. A sovereign God who has will and imparts it to His creations made in His image. (Okay there might be others but I'm not an expert and they would also have to be religious in nature.)

There is no evidence that randomness exists; everything that happens does so under cause and effect.

Thus, there is no Free Will and no Randomness.

Hence, there is only determinism, and everything acts as its nature directs.

I don't claim that randomness exists. But you're the one saying God is "directed" by something other than His own eternal Divine Reason, of which we partake. You're saying there is no will, so you're in effect saying the Judeo-Christian God is impossible. Little wonder you are "somebody's heretic".

 

[Radagast]

Firstly, I am aware of what Philosophy has to say on the subject (My degree grade says so - as my degree is combined honours RS and Philosophy).

Well, you don't seem to understand about compatibilist free will. What kind of university is your degree from?

Secondly, on the subject of Calvinism....Calvinism accepts that there is no Freewill

That's simply wrong, as my quote (from Berkhof's Systematic Theology, in support of a Calvinist understanding of compatibilist free will) demonstrates.

You personally might deny free will, but that's going outside mainstream Calvinist/Reformed doctrine.

 

[Davian]

...
There is only one possible scientific hypothetical solution to the problem, and that is Judeo-Christianity.
...

How did you get "scientific hypothetical" and "Judeo-Christianity" in the same room together? What would you test, and how?

 

[Cute Tink]

Atheist and free will.

 

[Chesterton]

How did you get "scientific hypothetical" and "Judeo-Christianity" in the same room together? What would you test, and how?

It's possible to have a scientific hypothesis without having the ability to test it.

 

[Chany]

It's possible to have a scientific hypothesis without having the ability to test it.

Define "ability".

 

[Chesterton]

Define "ability".

The power or skill to do something.

 

[Davian]

It's possible to have a scientific hypothesis without having the ability to test it.

Then it should be, at minimum, falsifiable. God-concepts usually stumble over that little speed bump.

 

[Chesterton]

Then it should be, at minimum, falsifiable. God-concepts usually stumble over that little speed bump.

Not necessarily. A hypothesis is at bottom a supposition, an idea in one's head. It's nice when you can falsify it, but it doesn't necessarily make the idea less legitimate or less probably true if you can't.

 

[Davian]

Not necessarily. A hypothesis is at bottom a supposition, an idea in one's head. It's nice when you can falsify it, but it doesn't necessarily make the idea less legitimate or less probably true if you can't.

Then your "scientific" sticky label just fell off of it.

 

[Chesterton]

Then your "scientific" sticky label just fell off of it.

Okay. Then it's a hypothesis. The only one that could possibly be true.

 

[Star Adept]

Okay. Then it's a hypothesis. The only one that could possibly be true.

You can't have a hypothesis that is the only one that can possibly be true and not have it be testable. That's just an assertion. You can have a hypothesis that does not have to be testable. It can be found to be true, subjectively as philosophy, or objectively as scientific. Since the hypothesis itself claims a null objectivity, we are left with a hypothesis that is subjective in its truth. Which, duh?