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tonyrey
Guest
Why not indeed? Otherwise God would be incapable of sharing power - which amounts to rejecting divine omnipotence. What could prevent God from giving us free will?
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tonyrey
Guest
The same reasoning applies to natural evil…
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Bahman
Guest
Determinism from God point of view means that state of creation in a given time is known given state of creation in earlier time.
It does conflict with the concept of free will. To understand the conflict one has to understand what is implication of God’s omniscience on free will. Omniscience of God requires full knowledge of our actions in every possible situations. This means that from God point we are simple agent who just respond to different situation accordingly. This reduce us to very complex robots who are capable of performing different tasks but lack free will.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
Indeed it will set you free. But you also know that you can always decide not to search for truth. If you think he has designed you with determinism not to search for truth then you can easily disprove that yourself by searching for truth.
Ok, so lets say we’ve disproven your version of determinism. You are always free to choose. As for omniscience;
I know both of those choices you can make. To search or not to search. but that does not mean I designed both those choices. I also know which choice you will make. But I have not told you or forced you to take either choice. I can intervene though if I wish and draw you towards a search for truth, but you are free to resist and refuse. That is my omniscience . Because I know does not make me the designer of your fate. I wish one thing, you may wish another.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
Perhaps you should define or redefine determinism. Because if he doesn’t determine our action, what do you mean. That he knows our action? That is omniscience, isn’t it?
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Bahman
Guest
By determinism I mean that your actions in every given situations is known from God point of view. First lets see if you accept the previous sentence.
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Bahman
Guest
I believe on free will in strong sense meaning that God doesn’t know my actions, future is undetermined and we are responsible for our action for freedom we have given.
This lead to determinism. Lets talk what is the consequence of this knowledge is. If God knows the outcome of your decisions in every possible situations then that means that you are an agent with very well define behaviour from God point of view. This means that your behaviour is determined from God point of view so one of the main question is that why you should be responsible for action if your behaviour is already known form God point of view. You couldn’t possibly be responsible for your fate/actions since your actions follows accordingly depending on who you are, how God create you, and how he expect you to behave.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
So you don’t believe in determinism? Is that final?
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Bahman
Guest
I don’t believe in determinism in weak and strong form. By weak I mean that our actions are known from God point of view and by strong I mean that God causes our actions. I also think that omniscience in strong from (God knows our actions) has conflict with the concept of free will in strong form. Free will in strong form means that we can individually perform decision whereas free will in weak form means acting accordingly depending on sole situation.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
Ok. can we forget about determinism then, you don’t believe in it and I don’t understand it.
So whats left. Freewill. I’ve never heard of strong or weak forms of it. I assume that if you are free then you are free. I don’t know what sole situation means.
Omniscience is a Dogma of the Catholic Faith. If you are not catholic then its not something you are probably going to worry about. If you are catholic you hopefully will understand why its there and why you physically cannot understand more than your creator understands.
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Bahman
Guest
We cannot forget about determinism. As I mentioned omniscience means that we lack of free will in the way you understand free will. As it was mentioned omniscience means that your action in a situation solely depends on situation, in anther word there is no me who decide on a situation.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
And you’re free to decide on any action in any situation or on no action at all. So you are even independent of situations.
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Bahman
Guest
Any persons is free to decide on a situation and God cannot know the outcome of decision since it is against free will. If you wish we can discuss it in more details.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
No, what is against freewill is deciding for you which decision you make. He obviously knows all possible decisions and even which you will choose.
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Bahman
Guest
This as it was mentioned leads to determinism meaning that we are an agent with known behaviours which is against free will.
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Paddy_Walker
Guest
As we’ve said before, you don’t believe in determinism and I don’t understand what you mean by it.
We’ve also mentioned that I know what your next post will say. But that does not mean I make you write it or that what you are going to write is predetermined by me. You could always write something else or something else or something else or something else or something else or something else… or throw a dice and write something random.
Our behaviour is known and knowledge does not compromise freewill.
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John_Martin
Guest
Just to help end the idle curiosity, free will is about choice of “means to an end”, not about an end in itself, which can be either loved (then willed) or coerced (then against the will). Even a slave, required to perform services, has free will to some extent in how to effect those services, thus actualize the “end”.
Arguments about free will largely overlook the reality that “will” is about the “term” or “end” and “free will” is about the “means”. The will is actually “bound” to love whatever the reason presents as good to be united to, and to hate whatever might be an obstacle to being united with that object. The reason looks for truth, then looks for what is good to be united with, then the will loves (desires union) with what is presented as good and asks the reason to find the best means to this end of union.
God knows from eternity that when we see the temporal (sensitive physical reality) we will reason that it is good, love union with it, and then “freely” choose whatever we think are the best means to attain union with that object, such as taking the fruit and eating of it. Our culpability is in the fact that we willingly participate in this knowledge that God has from eternity, while he is the primary cause, we are the efficient cause (our left hand willingly grasping and our teeth purposefully biting into the fruit to cause the union with the knowledge of good and evil).
As to the Will, which is in the intellect, it is “bound to love” what it sees as “Good to be United to” by the reason. Also knowing this from eternity, our God also knows from eternity that his messengers will come to men, delivering words, signs, and finally the presence of God Himself in the person of the Son of God as an objective reality (Jesus and then the Apostles and the Church, the Eucharist, etc.) This objective reality is now “visible to the reason” through the senses temporally and really, even though it also carries the eternal “end” or “term” as the reality of these temporal objects sent by God. We hear these words, see the signs, meet the Christ, and are touched by these which are bearers of the Spirit of God. And we reason about them upon being touched, and some recognize the truth, then conclude it is good to be united to these objects of the word and the person of Christ, and in the Will, we love the word and the person of Christ, desiring union. Then come the “means to that end” of union with Christ. We could pretend that just because we believe in him we have union, or we can choose to seek to be baptized per the command of Jesus, etc. We can choose to go to Mass. (Note: while true and good, there is no sensitive beauty in the Christ, such that we would be “compelled” to love by the sight of him. He was uncomely, nails in hands and feet, bloody, “not God” in appearance. Thus it required the intellect, reason, to consider him as an object to present to the will rather than the sensitive appetite craving him automatically without pondering him as to truth and goodness. Our intellectual soul is our likeness to God).
Free will, however, in its best, as ordered by Reason, comes to play when choices of conflicting appetites present their desires. If I am desiring food, I am presented with images of filling my mouth and stomach, and of continued good tastes. But the reason, guided by the love of the will for the eternal good, asks “is this good for reaching my goal of union with God?” And it then “governs the sensitive appetite” (virtue) by “choosing” a portion of food that will keep the body fit to hear more of Jesus, strong to spread the news of Jesus, or, either apart from or contrary to reason, chooses to pig out (vice) to a greater or lesser degree.
A roll of the dice is about chance, though God knows the result from eternity, and whether or not the dice will be loaded by a person acting to be like God and know the outcome (but be unlike God in forcing the outcome).
Free will is about getting to union with what you love, and the reason is required or the term “will” would not be part of the phrase. The free will is dependent on the reason deliberating over the love of the intellectual appetite (the Will) and the desires of the sensitive appetites, and deliberating on what is true, what is good for reaching the goal of the Will, and what would hinder the goal.
Omniscience: God does know from eternity all the choices we will make, but to him there are no “possible decisions”, and eternity is not a temporal progression. He knows our choices because they are all (from our birth to our death not yet here) present to him “now”. He does not know the progression of time from a vantage point at its beginning, how it will play out). He knows the progression because it is all now to him, every choice is happening right now, and is done right now, to God, even though to us is has yet to come. Everything is fully complete in him and how he knows. Our “fee agency” is in that we have intellect, reason and will, and desire to do what we do. His interaction in our “free agency” is not compulsion, but presentation of a new, “super-human” object to desire (the Christ, Union with Him) and being touched by that object. Determinism has a view of God being a temporal being, starting creation and aware of its results, then temporally being present as each event occurs, but not being present at the end at the same time as the beginning and at all intermediate moments, with all being done and all being started and all happening in between at the moment of Now to God.
John Martin
meltzerboy
New member
It does NOT mean that. Admittedly only an analogy, but think of a fortune teller who can predict and thus KNOW the future. This does not mean the fortune teller CAUSES or DETERMINES the future or that they constrain the free will of the agent. Knowledge of something is not the same thing as acting on it.
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MPat
Guest
Unfortunately, that is still ambiguous. Is it enough for such “determinism” that God knows the state of creation at time t1 and at time t2? Or is something else needed - for that part “given state of …”? Is some kind of relationship between two states necessary?
In other words, if I look at the chess game and know all its moves, would you count it as “deterministic from my point of view”…? Why or why not…?
By the way, I am afraid that your proof only works if it actually is “deterministic from my point of view”…
It would require a much stronger kind of “determinism”, than the one you prove. You only prove that God’s omniscience implies the kind of “determinism” that also results from us knowing past events. If that kind of “determinism” conflicted with free will, we wouldn’t need to discuss God and omniscience to disprove free will. For example, the fact that I can read all previous posts in this thread would prove that none of us who participated in it had free will and used it. I hope you will agree that it is at least somewhat suspicious…
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Bahman
Guest
I didn’t say that God determine the evolution of creation. All what was said was that creation evolves deterministically from God point of view and these two expressions are different.
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