R
Ralph
Guest
I have a volume set of Calvins Institutes gathering dust I can loan you.
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V
valencia
Guest
So is future known in heaven as a present or unknown until moment it comes to usā¦
Is a part of present which comes or part which is?
Is tomorrow known to God in every little moment as a now?
Is a part of present which comes or part which is?
Is tomorrow known to God in every little moment as a now?
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F
Freddy
Guest
The question was ādo you consider rationality to be integral to the posession of a soul?ā. As in: Can they exist separately?Freddy:
That question tends to never get a response.
You never responded so I had to assume that you do indeed consider them to be inseparable.
F
Freddy
Guest
If you assume the world to be deterministic, you can then be a compatabilist or an incompatabilist: Compatibilism and Incompatibilism.Freddy:
Isnāt it the other way around? Determinism by definition incompatible with free will. Yes, Compatibilists provide for alternatives, but they are the ones providing that alternative.
I havenāt seen any that provide for such a viewā¦
I generally take Hobbes position as described in the paper.
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Freddy
Guest
You donāt agree with what? I didnāt make a statement. In fact, I specifically said that I wasnāt going to comment. And if youāve been following the thread I have already suggested that itās impossible to predict the future if the world is deterministic. So Iād actually agree with what you said.Freddy:
I donāt agree. If you predict that tomorrow at 1: 00 PM I am going to eat an orange, I can defeat your prediction by eating a hot dog instead.
That it doesnāt relate to free will in any case (which is why I didnāt comment - itās irrelevant) is the point I think youāre missing.
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Freddy
Guest
I note that you said āessentially identical circumstancesā and not āexactly the same circumstancesā.
And Iām pretty sure that changing oneās mind is not an example of free will. If thereās a reason why you choose vanilla then thereād be a reason for that. Then thereād be another reason why you then changed your mind. The circumstances might be essentially the same. But not exactly the same.
My point is that every decision we make is ultimately based on conditions external to our thought processes. What we think is a reaction to the external world. Hence we can justify our actions (I changed my mind and had chocolate instead becauseā¦).
If there were to be no reason, then it would be an arbitrary decision and weād not be able to justify them.
Think of the reasons why youād choose vanilla. Now think of the reasons why youād change your mind to chocolate. If it wasnāt an arbitrary decision then there would necessarily be some reasons external to you that would cause you to change your mind. If we could remove those reasons (or simply assume they hadnāt occured) then you wouldnāt change your mind.
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Freddy
Guest
Jesus is quoted quite a lot in the bible. Who was taking all the verbatim notes?
A
AlNg
Guest
That the prediction of human behavior does not impinge on free will.
So we agree. Great.
S
stoplooklisten
Guest
Mother Mary was there for many important events. She was there at the birth of Jesus Christ, at his first miracle at Cana, at the Crucifixion, at the Day of Pentecost. The Bible reports: āMary treasured these things up in her heart.ā Mary remembered. Also, Mary lived with the Apostle John during years of the early Church. Mary knew Jesus better than anyone. Mothers have an opportunity to be like that.
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Freddy
Guest
So she took notes is what you are saying? Because that was the question. Not who was present, but who was recording it all.Freddy:
Mother Mary was there for many important events. She was there at the birth of Jesus Christ, at his first miracle at Cana, at the Crucifixion, at the Day of Pentecost. The Bible reports: āMary treasured these things up in her heart.ā Mary remembered. Also, Mary lived with the Apostle John during years of the early Church. Mary knew Jesus better than anyone. Mothers have an opportunity to be like that.
L
Latin
Guest
There are two types of Free will.
LIBERTARIAN FREE WILL:
This is the type of Free will that most people consider Free will, which means the person choosing his choices and he is the writer of the script of his life, not controlled by others or by outside forces, naturally follows, he is responsible for he will spend eternity in heaven or in hell.
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In Catholic Theology there is another type of free will, called AIDED FREE WILL, which means:
Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott;
For every salutary act internal supernatural grace of God (gratia elevans) is absolutely necessary, (De fide dogma).
There is a supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul, which precedes the free act of the will, (De fide dogma).
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CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Free Will explains;
āGod is the author of all causes and effects. Godās omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.ā
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God Designed, Decreed, Preordained from all eternity and causes all choices and acts of every person, which acts are tailor made to every member of the human race.
God is the writer of the script of the life of every member of the human race, naturally follows, God is responsible for to take up to heaven the entire human race.
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CCC 2022; The divine initiative (supernatural intervention of God in the faculties of the soul) in the work of grace precedes, prepares, and elicits the free response of man.
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St. Thomas teaches that all movements of will and choice must be traced to the divine will: and not to any other cause, because Gad alone is the cause of our willing and choosing. CG, 3.91.
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The Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III, summed up, the way God DETERMINED THE UNIVERSE.
For Augustine says (De Civ. Dei v, 1) that the "Divine will or power is called fate.
But the Divine will or power is not in creatures, but in God. Therefore fate is not in creatures but in God.
The Divine will is cause of all things that happen, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 1 seqq.). Therefore all things are subject to fate.
The same is true for events in our lives. Relative to us they often appear to be by chance.
But relative to God, who directs everything according to his divine plan, nothing occurs by chance.
Hence if this divine influence stopped, every operation would stop.
Every operation, therefore, of anything is traced back to Him as its cause. (Summa Contra Gentiles, Book III.)
As we see above Valencia, every our acts down to its minutest details, Designed, Decreed, Preordained by God from all eternity and He causes us to perform every our preordained acts. ā CCC 307, CCC 308, CCC 310, CCC 314, etc.
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God bless
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Freddy
Guest
You and me both. But responsibility is something I struggle with even more. Should we punish someone for drawing a bad hand?
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Freddy
Guest
Iām with you there.Freddy:
I think we need to distinguish between punishment and prevention. Punishment in and of itself is immoral and useless. The past is the past, and the punishing someone for choices they had no responsibility for (as determinism would imply) cannot be justified.
However, the act of placing individuals in situations that would benefit future human beings - prevention (or deterrent) - IS justified. This could be equivalent to punishment as seen by an outside observer, but it is not the same.
In other words, placing a person in jail for an act they commit is justified because it would prevent them from performing similar unlawful acts in the future, as well as being deterrents for the rest of us. For significant acts you could also add in the recovery benefits for the victims. But in general, doing it just for the sake of punishment alone in unjust.
This is why I believe the entire premise of Hell as defined by traditional Christianity is immoral. A loving God cannot in any way justify ANY punishment for souls after they leave this material world, much less justify eternal, unlimited punishment.
There are 3 reasons for punishment (say incarceration). As a deterrrent to others (look what happens if you do this), protection from further criminal acts by the same person and retribution.
Retribution has me thinking how much can we punish an individual if she is not entirely to blame. We have the concept of mitigation. But that only takes us so far. It may reduce a sentence but in rare cases will absolve someone of punishment entirely. Although the French concept of ācrime de passionā does head down that track.
L
Latin
Guest
The answer is an absolute yes, God knows the events will happen tomorrow and in the future of all eternity, includes heaven down to its minutest details, He knows it from all eternity and He knows it from today in every little moments as a now.
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God is the author of all causes and effects. Godās omnipotent providence exercises a complete and perfect control over all events that happen, or will happen, in the universe.
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God Designed, Decreed, Foreordained and He causes every event, He also causes us to perform every our preordained acts.
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Nothing is outside His creating, sustaining and governing will.
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Events relative to us often appear to be by chance. But relative to God, who directs everything according to his divine plan, nothing occurs by chance.
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God bless
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O
o_mlly
Guest
The choice of vanilla over chocolate is preceded by the choice to eat or not eat ice cream. The former is merely a matter of taste and not one of free will. The latter, an actus humanus or deliberate act, engages oneās free will.
Normally, the decision to eat is good, food sustains us. In the presence of food (an externality), our appetite, hunger, moves us to eat. One who is obese, w/o an underlying medical condition, has a habit of indulging in food to excess. Habit is an internal disposition.
The obese person acquires the habit of overeating by repeating the same choice over time. If the desired external is in their presence then their internal disposition largely determines their choice. Can a person change their internal disposition? Yes.
The obese personās friends, doctor or mirror act upon his present disposition. He wills to change his attitude toward food for a higher good, health. The first times he wills to deny his habit its desire to eat excessively are hard. However, that difficulty abates with each time he wills to deny his old habit in order to regain self-control.
In time, he changes his prior vicious habit into a virtuous habit. He has changed his internal disposition toward food. Now in the presence of the same external good, an internal change enables him to freely will differently. If he were a slave to externalities then he could not change his will. But he is not, he can change himself because he has the free will to do so.
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S
stoplooklisten
Guest
So, who said they needed to be written down? I can remember people, places, events and words spoken when I was ages 3-5. I didnāt learn to read and write until age 6.
F
Freddy
Guest
Then tell us all what happened on your fifth birthday. Who was there and what they said to you. No, letās make it easier. Give us a verbatim report of the events of your birthday just five years ago.Freddy:
So, who said they needed to be written down? I can remember people, places, events and words spoken when I was ages 3-5. I didnāt learn to read and write until age 6.
F
Freddy
Guest
Why are you mixing up the meaning of choice? If you are given a choice then you make a decision. One over the other.Freddy:
The choice of vanilla over chocolate is preceded by the choice to eat or not eat ice cream. The former is merely a matter of taste and not one of free will.
Choice: To eat or not. Decision - to eat.
Choice: To eat steak or ice cream. Decision - ice cream.
Choice: Vanilla or chocolate. Decision - vanilla.
Life is making decisions on various options. Get out of bed or not. Go to work or not. Take the bus or not. And all decisions are made for a specific reason. If the situation would be repeated then the options would be the same, the reason would be the same for making the same decision. Why wouldnāt it be the same?
Have you ever made a decision that wasnāt based on a reason which wasnāt arbitrary?
Your problem is to show that if the tape was rerun you could make a different decision if the conditions were exactly the same. In which case, how do you validate one decision over the other? If you say it was possible for you to do do so, and each decision is equally valid, then how do we treat any decision you make?
Imagine yourself on a jury. Your guilty verdict could just as well have been a decision to aquit. Thereād be no reason to differentiate the two. How do you answer that?
W
whatistrue
Guest
I claim that God, who created the universe in which we live, including its temporal framework, can see inside it. And if you are correct and can remove God or any other entity that can know the decision in any way other than simply following the sequence of events as it unfolds, then the Naval Battle argument you like to bring up follows Aristotleās solution (it is impossible to say today if the proposition is correct: we must wait for the contingent realization (or not) of the battle, logic realizes itself afterwards) does not dispute free will. Either way, you have not proven your assertion.
O
o_mlly
Guest
That would be your problem. One who repeatedly re-reads Moby Dick expecting a different outcome is in need of serious help.
Rather than address my argument that free will is necessary in order change oneās internal disposition, you revert to replay your ātwo identical worlds except with a differenceā fallacy which has already been refuted.
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