Are Christians necessarily compatibilists?

[JDaniel]

But that is not a different way. I did not specify what the external causative factor might be. What you say is that our behavior is caused by “X” and God’s knowledge is caused by “Y”, whatever “X” and “Y” might be. First, if our actions are caused by some outside agent, then we have no free will. Second, if God’s knowledge is caused by some outside agent, then there is no difference compared to the first scenario. God’s knowledge is caused by something external to God, whether it is our actions, or this unspecified “Y” causative agent.

Hmmm? If in fact this were the case, then there isn’t any “creativity,” in the real sense of that word, in the world - none whatsoever. Excellent art would be nothing more than an everyday re-arrangement of extant stuff extracted from a seemingly infinite effluence of some sort. And, even such a re-arrangement must follow the precise dictates of all that has happened in the historic past that would tend to color such performance fully, or, at least, the entirety of the tendencies of an artful “creator.”

We can’t, on the one hand, say that we do not entirely own what we do, but say, on the other, that we do entirely own what we do. Wouldn’t that be contradictory?

God bless,
jd

 

[Alindawyl]

So how come that God’s knowledge happens to reflect our actions? This is where we started…

But God’s simplicity says that God has no “parts”.

First, I use the word part because we don’t have a special word that expresses the same concept for an indivisible subject. So here is my definition of part, attribute, piece, or whatever when I talk about God:

“It means a smaller thing that belongs to a bigger thing. Only the bigger isn’t really bigger because it isn’t made of matter. And the smaller isn’t really smaller because you can’t remove it from the bigger like you can remove a spleen from me. Only don’t because my spleen works and I don’t fancy being cut into. And you can’t really say belongs because it’s not like the bigger actually owns the smaller. They’re kind of blended together, so to speak. But we can sort of talk about the smaller by itself because it describes something about the bigger. It’s meaningless on its own, though, so doesn’t really make sense when we talk about it without referring to the bigger.”

Yeah, something like that. Now I need to do the same thing for bigger. And smaller. And belongs

Anyway, we were talking about how God’s knowledge reflects our actions. I already said why - God is omniscient. Omniscience must, by necessity, include everything which has happened, is happening, and will happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s something caused directly by God or caused indirectly by something caused by God. God will know about it because He is the first cause. He caused whatever caused whatever caused whatever caused… you get it.

That indirectly part is where this whole thing gets messed up in so many people’s minds, including your own. You want to treat our actions as if God is directly causing them. He isn’t. He causes us to have free will, and then we use that free will to cause our actions.

Let me try to explain with a very silly and probably not very good analogy. Say God is at the top of a hill with a big beach ball. He yells out “Beach ball, incoming, get out of the way!” and lets it roll down the hill. There are several people in its path. All of them heard and understood God’s yell. Some of them chose to pay attention and get out of the way. Some of them did not. They had a variety of reasons for not getting out of the way. They may have felt like ignoring the warning because they don’t trust God. They may not see a beach ball as dangerous and don’t mind being hit by one. They may think the warning doesn’t matter because they’re certain the ball will miss them. They may think it’s more important to stand fast than run. They may be so angry at the fact that God chose to roll a beach ball down the hill that they refuse to move out of spite. And so on. But God doesn’t know what any of them will do in advance.

Same thing, but now God knows exactly who will choose to move or not move and why. How can it logically be claimed that knowledge which is possessed by God and only God suddenly replaces the free will of those people as the cause for whatever action they will take when the ball is rolled and the warning given? Especially when God hasn’t chosen to share that knowledge with them in advance. And even more especially when half the time they choose to not heed God’s warning even when he does share that knowledge with them?

And now I absent myself from the forum for a few days. Vacation time with the wife coming up tomorrow evening :choocho:

 

[Prodigal_Son]

Should we start another thread on what is meant by “God’s simplicity”? What say you?

 

[JDaniel]

Should we start another thread on what is meant by “God’s simplicity”? What say you?

What will you call it?

God bless,
jd

 

[R_Daneel]

Hmmm? If in fact this were the case, then there isn’t any “creativity,” in the real sense of that word, in the world - none whatsoever. Excellent art would be nothing more than an everyday re-arrangement of extant stuff extracted from a seemingly infinite effluence of some sort. And, even such a re-arrangement must follow the precise dictates of all that has happened in the historic past that would tend to color such performance fully, or, at least, the entirety of the tendencies of an artful “creator.”

I am confused. I disagree with the concept of “abstract objects”, and the idea that we do not “create”, rather “discover” something; so it seems that we are in synch in that respect. What I don’t understand, what does that have to with the problem at hand.

We can’t, on the one hand, say that we do not entirely own what we do, but say, on the other, that we do entirely own what we do. Wouldn’t that be contradictory?

I don’t understand the word “own” in this respect.

The point of this conversation is the question of the “correspondence” between God’s knowledge and our free actions. Is either one of them caused by the other? Are they fully independent and just “somehow” happen to coincide? Or does some external causative agent “produce” both of them?

 

[R_Daneel]

First, I use the word part because we don’t have a special word that expresses the same concept for an indivisible subject. So here is my definition of part, attribute, piece, or whatever when I talk about God:

“It means a smaller thing that belongs to a bigger thing. Only the bigger isn’t really bigger because it isn’t made of matter. And the smaller isn’t really smaller because you can’t remove it from the bigger like you can remove a spleen from me. Only don’t because my spleen works and I don’t fancy being cut into. And you can’t really say belongs because it’s not like the bigger actually owns the smaller. They’re kind of blended together, so to speak. But we can sort of talk about the smaller by itself because it describes something about the bigger. It’s meaningless on its own, though, so doesn’t really make sense when we talk about it without referring to the bigger.”

Yeah, something like that. Now I need to do the same thing for bigger. And smaller. And belongs

Anyway, we were talking about how God’s knowledge reflects our actions. I already said why - God is omniscient. Omniscience must, by necessity, include everything which has happened, is happening, and will happen. It doesn’t matter if it’s something caused directly by God or caused indirectly by something caused by God. God will know about it because He is the first cause. He caused whatever caused whatever caused whatever caused… you get it.

That indirectly part is where this whole thing gets messed up in so many people’s minds, including your own. You want to treat our actions as if God is directly causing them. He isn’t. He causes us to have free will, and then we use that free will to cause our actions.

I think that you are misunderstanding my point. I don’t say that God’s alleged “omniscience” causes our free actions - either directly or indirectly. A free action cannot be free if it is caused.

 

[R_Daneel]

Should we start another thread on what is meant by “God’s simplicity”? What say you?

Sure. Why not?