Free will? I dont think so

[lelinator]

Knowing that you love cheeseburgers, I can contrive to be somewhere that crosses your path, with a freshly-grilled cheeseburger in each hand. “Want a cheeseburger?”, I ask. You have the freedom to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and if you say “yes”, then I’ve changed the outcome without affecting your free will.

I love thought experiments. But in this case all that you’re doing is kicking the can down the road, as they say. You’re influencing the outcome of my free will choices by controlling someone else’s free will choices, such that they’ll be in the right place at the right time to tempt me with cheeseburgers. Otherwise you have no way of knowing that they’d be there. Now you could argue that you simply influenced their free will in the same way that you’re influencing mine. But as I say, you’ve simply kicked the can down the road. Now if this process continues then you quickly realize that you have to control everybody’s free will in order to influence anybody’s free will. So you inevitably end up controlling everybody’s free will.

Ultimately, I don’t think that your thought experiment works.

Any other ideas?

 

[Gorgias]

You’re influencing the outcome of my free will choices by controlling someone else’s free will choices, such that they’ll be in the right place at the right time to tempt me with cheeseburgers.

No, I’m saying that I’m causing myself to be there, with cheeseburgers in hand.

 

[lelinator]

No, I’m saying that I’m causing myself to be there, with cheeseburgers in hand.

You being who exactly? After all, we’re considering God’s ability to influence my choices, so are you implying that God is physically waiting for me with cheeseburgers in hand? Or are you saying that God is working through you? If so, then just how is He doing that? How is He getting you to be standing exactly where He needs you to be standing? And how does He ensure that I’ll actually be in that spot?

Edit: It’s also not enough for God to simply influence my choices, for God to control how human history turns out He can’t just influence my choices, He has to ensure that I’ll make one very specific choice.

 

[Gorgias]

You being who exactly?

Me. With a cheeseburger for you.

we’re considering God’s ability to influence my choices, so are you implying that God is physically waiting for me with cheeseburgers in hand?

Consider the “burning bush” episode from the Bible. God causes either the matter of the burning bush and the act of burning (or, He causes the appearance of the burning bush). This doesn’t force Moses’ free will, but catalyzes it.

Or are you saying that God is working through you?

We say that informally all the time. But, I don’t think it helps us in this context.

It’s also not enough for God to simply influence my choices, for God to control how human history turns out He can’t just influence my choices, He has to ensure that I’ll make one very specific choice.

I’m not sure about that, at least from the perspective that it’s problematic. If I know you very well, then I know the choice that you will (generally?) make, given an (name removed by moderator)ut. So, although you’re not a deterministic automaton, I know what will be effective in getting you to move from point A to point B. If I can do that, why are we positing that God cannot?

 

[Lunam_Meam]

Seems you’re more interested in disparaging me than discussing the issues here.

It is out of interest in our discussion that I have noticed contradictions, backpedaling, etc, in your arguments at times. If I was not interested, then I would not be paying such close attention to what you say. And, my addressing problems in your arguments is not “disparaging you” as a person, just as my not having thus far experienced personal trauma does not mean I am either an “unemotional psychopath”, or “completely ignorant of and insulated from the true state of the world."

If my wording contradicted itself it was because I unintentionally failed to express myself properly, or more so because you continuously fail to understand or acknowledge the reasoning I present.

Neither. Initially, you clearly expressed God’s foreknowledge is a template (see bold below):

…man follows the template of Gods foreknowledge for man.

After I asked what is your support for that you stated it is not a template (see bold below):

God’s foreknowledge is NOT a template for creation.

And, now you are stating God’s foreknowledge is God:

God’s foreknowledge is God ,…

Meaning? And, you maintain man follows a preexisting template, but if that template did not preexist man as foreknowledge, then in what form did it?

I don’t believe our perception of free will is a false one, but it certainly may be a misperception.

Then, as I have said, you do believe free will is a false perception:

Definition of misperception​

: a false or inaccurate perception

Why are false perceptions necessary if mankind is coerced?

Lunam_Meam:

Why is reward and punishment, etc, necessary if mankind is coerced?

This is a moot point since we are born out of coercion to begin with. If these other things can exist as defined, and we are coerced to be born human, and what kind of human to begin with, then you tell me why they are necessary. In my opinion they are necessary to tell the narrative of creation. To give it definition.

The word “coercion” is not a synonym of “creating”.

Now, how does reward and punishment tell the narrative of creation, and give it definition in a coerced reality? And, for who and why is the narrative of creation told and given definition?

 

[Gorgias]

I doubt that I would hardly have to point out to you the conflicts and misunderstandings that have arisen over the unification of the fully man with the fully divine in Jesus. The so called proposal of the hypostatic union of the divine in Jesus with his humanity merely defines the problem. It doesn’t resolve the problem.

Well, as a Catholic, I think I’d assert that it has resolved the problem, but there remain various churches, denominations, and individuals who disagree with the Church’s doctrines. (Nothing new there, though, eh?)

As far as a unified being which we call Jesus though I will point out that the Church seems to, whenever difficulties in comprehension arises concerning the same, create explanation by splitting that being into its man being and its divine being

Actually, the Church goes to great pains to point out that this is not the case! Jesus isn’t ‘split’ in any way. The Council of Chalcedon (451) stated it this way:

We also teach that we apprehend this one and only Christ-Son, Lord, only- begotten – in two natures; and we do this without confusing the two natures, without transmuting one nature into the other, without dividing them into two separate categories, without contrasting them according to area or function. The distinctiveness of each nature is not nullified by the union. Instead, the “properties” of each nature are conserved and both natures concur in one “person” and in one reality [hypostasis]. They are not divided or cut into two persons, but are together the one and only and only-begotten Word [Logos], God, the Lord Jesus Christ. Thus have the prophets of old testified; thus the Lord Jesus Christ himself taught us; thus the Symbol of Fathers [the Nicene Creed] has handed down to us.

Another way of translating this would be:

We teach . . . one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, known in two natures, without confusion, without change, without division, without separation.

Continued…

 

[Gorgias]

Jesus seems to show weakness; his humanity. Jesus creates miracles or forgives; his divinity. Jesus seems to show ignorance; his humanity. Jesus seems to show foreknowledge; his divinity. Jesus gets tempted; his humanity.

No: I think that we’re not “splitting” Jesus here, but talking about the union of His natures. What can be predicated of one nature is a valid statement, without causing confusion about the union.

Not to get too off track here but let me ask you, If God has no potential and is eternally that way then how could God ever “become” anything?

Ahh… now this is the question, eh?

I would answer that Jesus Christ has always been the Second Person of God. That is true always. Nevertheless, in a singular event in all time and eternity, Jesus Christ became Incarnate in our world. That doesn’t change Jesus Christ, as such. Rather, it means that a Hypostatic Union has taken place.

So, it’s not that “God has ‘become’ anything”, as such. God is God. Always and forever.

If Jesus IS the son in the trinity and has always been that in eternity then what can be added to Jesus so that he become “fully” man and yet remain one being?

We’re not “adding” anything to Jesus, the Second Person of God. Rather, in a certain sense, He’s allowing himself to become “for a little while, made lower than the angels” (Heb 2:7), without “regarding equality with God something to be grasped, [but] rather, he emptied himself” (Phil 2:6-7).

It doesn’t “change” Him as God. In a sense, it changes us, in our relationship to God!

If Jesus’s being fully man adds nothing to his divinity as the son in the trinity then how is it you combine the two beings seemingly into one body, calling that being Jesus as if he were one person with one single identity?

I see what you’re saying. However, we’re not saying that Jesus is “one person with a single identity”. Rather, we’re saying that He’s one person with two natures.

Continued yet again…

 

[Gorgias]

Last part of my response to the first of your recent two responses. If I understand correctly, I won’t be able to post another response until a different poster intersperses with their own post. So, maybe I’ll leave my comments here, and wait until later for a discussion of your second post…

With this view you still have two beings, an uncreated divine son and a created being that is a perfected man.

No; that’s precisely the wrong conclusion! He’s one being – Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity – but He has two natures, (uncreated) divinity and (created) humanity.

Since nothing can be added to or subtracted from Gods being we would still have a God and a human that are of necessity two separate beings.

That’s not the conclusion of the Church: Jesus is one being – one Person – with two natures, not two beings.

These are old arguments I know but they have never been answered…simply ignored and swept under the rug by unreasoned enforcement.

I wouldn’t call it “unreasoned enforcement.” Rather, the doctrine has been stated, and here, you’re merely mis-stating it.

Gorgias:

a part that is intellectual and a part that is ‘sensual’

One might ask here then, how it is that God has parts that may diverge from other parts in his being?

No… it’s not “God” who has parts – it’s the human will that has parts! So, in His humanity, Jesus clearly has parts! (After all: ‘eyes’, ‘arms’, ‘feet’, right? So… parts!)

Since it has been argued that God is completely simplistic in his nature how is it that what is in his being CAN have parts distinguishable from each other with purpose?

Not what is being asserted. “Parts distinguishable from each other” is a characteristic of Jesus’ human nature, not as a characteristic of God’s being.

And those that accept these contradictions seemingly have no problem doing so…it baffles me to no end.

I might equally well assert “that those who do not accept the doctrine perceive contradictions… baffles me to no end”, no?

Never the less…it’s clear, parts and all, that Jesus in these passages distinguishes his will from his fathers. Again, a contradiction.

Jesus has two natures, and therefore, two wills. “Two natures but only one will” is a proposition that was raised, debated, and then later rejected at the Third Council of Constantinople (681AD).

So: two wills (human and divine). The human will has two parts (‘sensual’ and ‘intellectual’). The sensual part of Jesus’ will shrunk from pain, while the intellectual did not. No contradiction here!

 

[Gorgias]

One might ask though what the state of a perfected human being would be. Wouldn’t it be one in which that being didn’t know misery or pain?

Not certain that this follows. Pain is a normal part of physical life. Misery is a reaction to events experienced. Why would we suggest that a “perfected human being… doesn’t know misery or pain”? That sounds like Buddhist dogma – and even at that, it requires the assertion that none of the physical universe is real.

all thought to be made not contradictory because of the influence of some Greek concept to define that relationship IS in my estimation contradictory and untenable to say the least.

“The influence of some Greek concept”. Why bother addressing the concept when you can tar-and-feather it, eh? Hmm…

Seems to me that IF Mankind was created to long for and commune with the good that would be his natural tendency.

It is. But, we are imperfect, and we sin, and thus, we do not act in accord with our nature. As a result, our nature becomes broken, and we continue to sin.

No creature is free.

Depends on how you define ‘free’.

Our freedom is derived from the cage that has been built for us and that freedom is little more than a simulation.

Like I said: jaded.

And, I would assert, inaccurate.