-
Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Life is pre-determined?
- Thread starter CushBabylonian
- Start date
I believe my life has a purpose and a direction but fate is flexible, not set in stone, and tempered by what we ourselves choose.
Upvote
0
Since it's kind of a moot point whether causality (determinism) holds true or not, why not take hold of the comforting notion of free will. You can't lose (either you're happy and wrong or you're happy and right...).CushBabylonian said:
Upvote
0
The one verse in the Bible that intrigued me is the one that states that Christ was the lamb slain from before the foundation of the world. That puts a lot of planning and destiny on the part of God for our lives and existence.
Upvote
0
No our lives our not pre determined. God does not hand out what your life will be and your choices. He gave us the freedom of choice. We can choose ourselves, he only shows us the road he doesnt force us on it. Though he knows our choices before we were. He knows exactly how are life will go and who will come to him or not.
Upvote
0
Apollonian
Anachronistic Philosopher
I have long been fascinated by this discussion because it is so easy for people to have long heated debate about nearly the same subject and yet be speaking about two entirely different things: "free-will" and "determinism".
The real question here is not "am I truly free?" or "is my life planned out?" The real question is: "what is the nature of 'choice' and what is the nature of 'determination'?"
First, I assert that God exists outside of time for otherwise He would have been unable to create time as an element of the universe. As such, God is omniscient not because He is clarevoyant but because He is ultimately aware of the entirety of His creation, "at a glance" if you will, including all events everywhere throughout all time.
This being the case, God is aware of every decision that I have ever or will ever make. Is it conceivable that this means that God planned it this way? Yes. Conceivable, but not true. What is "planning?" If God created me the way that I am, then here I am. Yet, suddenly we make the jump to say that we are no longer free simply because we were created by a God who knew how we would live. This does not seem to yield the idea that God "planned" our lives, but rather that we had already lived our lives when God created us.
Now, truthfully, I am interpreting slightly here. The trick is this: are you considering the question from your own perspective or that of God's? If you consider the question of free-will from your perspective within time then it is impossible to know with absolute certainty what will happen in the future. Most poignantly, psychology has shown us that we may not even be certain of what decisions we will make in even the very near future (esp. given extreme circumstance). As such, the concept of "free-will" is not a concept born out of a physical interpretation of the universe. Otherwise, it would be conceivable to say that an mobile object chooses to move the way it does. Instead, "free-will" is a human concept, a subjective concept which defines the process by which we perceive ourselves making decisions. We are "free" because we perceive ourselves to be free.
Ultimately, after some inquiry, the conclusion comes to the fact that this perception is sufficient to uphold the reality of "free-will" while we retain the simultaneous reality of determination (though only when considered from a theoretically absolute reference frame).
In other words: We are free to make the choices that we were destined to make and nothing will ever stop us from doing so.
The consequence? - I'd say it is best to consider ourselves as having free-will without determination simply because it is more useful to eliminate the confusion of trying futilely to conceptualize an absolute God-like reference frame without accidentally including subjective elements. ie - projecting onto God that He planned things "for" or "against" our free will simply because things did not end the way we had planned.
The real question here is not "am I truly free?" or "is my life planned out?" The real question is: "what is the nature of 'choice' and what is the nature of 'determination'?"
First, I assert that God exists outside of time for otherwise He would have been unable to create time as an element of the universe. As such, God is omniscient not because He is clarevoyant but because He is ultimately aware of the entirety of His creation, "at a glance" if you will, including all events everywhere throughout all time.
This being the case, God is aware of every decision that I have ever or will ever make. Is it conceivable that this means that God planned it this way? Yes. Conceivable, but not true. What is "planning?" If God created me the way that I am, then here I am. Yet, suddenly we make the jump to say that we are no longer free simply because we were created by a God who knew how we would live. This does not seem to yield the idea that God "planned" our lives, but rather that we had already lived our lives when God created us.
Now, truthfully, I am interpreting slightly here. The trick is this: are you considering the question from your own perspective or that of God's? If you consider the question of free-will from your perspective within time then it is impossible to know with absolute certainty what will happen in the future. Most poignantly, psychology has shown us that we may not even be certain of what decisions we will make in even the very near future (esp. given extreme circumstance). As such, the concept of "free-will" is not a concept born out of a physical interpretation of the universe. Otherwise, it would be conceivable to say that an mobile object chooses to move the way it does. Instead, "free-will" is a human concept, a subjective concept which defines the process by which we perceive ourselves making decisions. We are "free" because we perceive ourselves to be free.
Ultimately, after some inquiry, the conclusion comes to the fact that this perception is sufficient to uphold the reality of "free-will" while we retain the simultaneous reality of determination (though only when considered from a theoretically absolute reference frame).
In other words: We are free to make the choices that we were destined to make and nothing will ever stop us from doing so.
The consequence? - I'd say it is best to consider ourselves as having free-will without determination simply because it is more useful to eliminate the confusion of trying futilely to conceptualize an absolute God-like reference frame without accidentally including subjective elements. ie - projecting onto God that He planned things "for" or "against" our free will simply because things did not end the way we had planned.
Upvote
0
You ever see the Matrix? Would you say those humans in the Matrix where free just because they thought they where free? What you discribe is a Illusion of freewill not freewill.
Upvote
0
Similar threads
