God's Foreknowledge and Free Will Vs Choice

[Giovonni]

I’ve enjoyed reading the many discussions on this forum about God’s foreknowledge and the implications for free will, however I frequently encounter the same argument which I don’t think establishes free will. Typically the discussion goes something like this:

Poster: If God knows how we will act we cannot have free will.

Responder: God’s foreknowledge does not equal causation. Example: I have a son and I give him the choice of ice cream or vegetables. I know he will pick ice cream, but my knowing does not cause his choice.

This response equates choice with free will, but I’m not sure they are the same. For example, let’s say I give my dog Baxter a choice between a steak and a salad. I know he will choose the steak because that is his favorite, but we would not therefore say Baxter has free will. We would say he made a decision based off some underlying motive or instinct (physical requirement, taste, etc…)

If free will is not simply the ability to choose, what is it? A standard definition is making a choice that is not determined by prior causes. But it seems impossible for us to be the source of our choices. We may rationalize our decisions, but this is really just the brain’s way of dealing with an overwhelming amount of internal and external information. Often our decisions are made at a subconscious level before we are aware of them. Since we can’t fathom all the factors involved in a decision, we allow ourselves the illusion of free will.

God however does not have this problem since he is both omniscient and transcends time. God knew before the universe existed how we will respond to the stimulus we encounter. He could have created a world in which Adam and Eve would freely choose obedience or where Judas would choose not to betray Jesus. Since ours is the world God actualized, it logically appears God is the only one with free will.

 

[davidv]

I’ve enjoyed reading the many discussions on this forum about God’s foreknowledge and the implications for free will, however I frequently encounter the same argument which I don’t think establishes free will. Typically the discussion goes something like this:

Poster: If God knows how we will act we cannot have free will.

Responder: God’s foreknowledge does not equal causation. Example: I have a son and I give him the choice of ice cream or vegetables. I know he will pick ice cream, but my knowing does not cause his choice.

This response equates choice with free will, but I’m not sure they are the same. For example, let’s say I give my dog Baxter a choice between a steak and a salad. I know he will choose the steak because that is his favorite, but we would not therefore say Baxter has free will. We would say he made a decision based off some underlying motive or instinct (physical requirement, taste, etc…)

If free will is not simply the ability to choose, what is it? A standard definition is making a choice that is not determined by prior causes. But it seems impossible for us to be the source of our choices. We may rationalize our decisions, but this is really just the brain’s way of dealing with an overwhelming amount of internal and external information. Often our decisions are made at a subconscious level before we are aware of them. Since we can’t fathom all the factors involved in a decision, we allow ourselves the illusion of free will.

God however does not have this problem since he is both omniscient and transcends time. God knew before the universe existed how we will respond to the stimulus we encounter. He could have created a world in which Adam and Eve would freely choose obedience or where Judas would choose not to betray Jesus. Since ours is the world God actualized, it logically appears God is the only one with free will.

Seems to me that you definition of free will is lacking. From the Catechism.

1704 The human person participates in the light and power of the divine Spirit. By his reason, he is capable of understanding the order of things established by the Creator. By free will, he is capable of directing himself toward his true good. He finds his perfection "in seeking and loving what is true and good."7

1731 Freedom is the power, rooted in reason and will, to act or not to act, to do this or that, and so to perform deliberate actions on one’s own responsibility. By free will one shapes one’s own life. Human freedom is a force for growth and maturity in truth and goodness; it attains its perfection when directed toward God, our beatitude.

To me this means that free will is more than just the capability to choose. It is the ability to direct oneself to an end (purpose).

 

[Rynard]

It goes like this: God created the world. Indeed. And animals act in accordance with nature. So be it.

But man, man is an anomaly. Man can act in discord with nature, and by doing so, doesn’t grow and evolve into becoming the best he that can be, therefore distorting his free will because he becomes trapped into doing the same immature stuff over and over again, instead of moving to a level where he becomes “freer.”

You see, if you look at it with the perspective of robots, it makes more sense. If a soul gives 100% to God, he will act in an accord, but his choices will vary based on other people’s choices around him. But regardless, say they all act in a set pattern of lesser or fuller development, the man who gave himself 100% is going to do exactly what God desires for him. Sort of slavery if you think?

Freedom will ultimately undermine goodness. Freedom is a crackpot theory developed by modernists.

Then comes the question: is God free, and did He give up His free will when He made man, setting himself up to eventually see to them in heaven in a set way.

Anyway, as another aside, freedom is not the ultimate good.

I personally revel in my capacity for emotions, and the ride, versus whether or not I can not choose God, or choose God. That is not where my ultimate worth lies. My ultimate worth lies in imitating the divine good.

And keep this in mind: the ultimate evil, sin, is really man’s expression of saying he knows what’s good or bad, and choosing either apart from the commandments (what caused man’s fall), and not following the premise that we need to follow God’s ultimate good and evil, and not fall into presumption.

Therefore God does not know which path we will choose. Therein lies our free will. To choose to be robots for God, or to be robots for the devil. Heaven in a different matter altogether, but on this earth, we’re not meant to have what is only in store for those who attain heaven. Therefore “free will” is a mystery, sorry boys.

 

[Giovonni]

Seems to me that you definition of free will is lacking. From the Catechism.
To me this means that free will is more than just the capability to choose. It is the ability to direct oneself to an end (purpose).

The ability to direct oneself to an end through reason is nothing more than our response to the external stimuli and our genetic make-up which predisposes us to act a certain way. Just as Baxter the dog reasons that he likes steak more than salad, we reason our choices, just in a more complex manner.

 

[Gorgias]

The ability to direct oneself to an end through reason is nothing more than our response to the external stimuli and our genetic make-up which predisposes us to act a certain way. Just as Baxter the dog reasons that he likes steak more than salad, we reason our choices, just in a more complex manner.

That’s the point, though: Baxter doesn’t reason, he acts on instinct… or, if you will, on lower-level cognitive activity. The ability to be rational is what distinguishes us as humans; and, not coincidentally, what gives rise to free will.

Your statement, then, simply boils down to “Baxter makes a choice; why is a human choice substantially different?”… and the answer is simple: because our choices are directed toward a rationally chosen end (or, at least, we have the capacity to direct our choices to such an end ).

 

[Giovonni]

The ability to be rational is what distinguishes us as humans; and, not coincidentally, what gives rise to free will.

Rational thought is simply a chemical reaction in the brain. It may be a higher cognitive function than a survival instinct but stating “because we reason therefore we have free will” is begging the question. The reason marketing campaigns are so effective is because we’ve figured out how to manipulate the environment in a way that shapes our reasoning. Not unlike Pavlov’s dogs but at a more advanced level.

 

[Giggly_Giraffe]

I remember half tuning in when I heard St Teresa of Calcutta talk about how the universe is infinantly big and infinantly small. I was puzzled why a nun was babbling on about this science. Soon after the same idea presented itself in a documentary explaining how “Fractals were God’s thumb print” showing how choices can be made within boundaries to create the infinity.

The Mandelbrot set - someone has called it the thumb-print of God - is one of the most beautiful and remarkable discoveries in the entire history of mathematics.
With Arthur C. Clarke as narrator and interviews with a number of notable mathematicians, including Benoît Mandelbrot, this program graphically illustrates how simple formulas can lead to complicated results: it explains the set, what it means, its internal consistency, and the revolutions in thought resulting from its discovery. Asked if the real universe goes on forever, Stephen Hawking defines its limit of smallness; the Mandelbrot set, on the other hand, may go on forever.
The invention of the silicon chip in the 1970’s created a revolution in computers and communication and hence transformed our way of life. We are now seeing another revolution which is going to change our view of the universe and give us a better understanding of its’ working.
This film will explore the fractal universe and on our voyage of discovery, we will be helped by: Professor Ian Stewart of the Mathematics Institute, University of Warwick, an author of over 100 published scientific works; Dr. Michael Barnsley, former professor of mathematics at Georgia Institute of Technology who received a 2.5 million dollar government grant in 1991 to develop a fractal image compression systems.

topdocumentaryfilms.com/fractals-colors-infinity/

 

[phil_at_dayboro]

Seems to be a few assumptions

 

[Gorgias]

Rational thought is simply a chemical reaction in the brain.

That’s a nice assertion, but it’s not one that can be completely proven. Are there chemical reactions in the brain that can be mapped out? Of course. Can we point to any particular reaction and conclusively state “oh, that one right there is the cause of rational thought”? No.

It may be a higher cognitive function than a survival instinct but stating “because we reason therefore we have free will” is begging the question.

Now I see where you’re coming from. Yes, if you’re convinced that we’re deterministic automatons, then you’re convinced there’s no such thing as free will. Talk about begging the question.

The reason marketing campaigns are so effective is because we’ve figured out how to manipulate the environment in a way that shapes our reasoning. Not unlike Pavlov’s dogs but at a more advanced level.

No, the reason marketing campaigns are so effective is that we’ve figured out how to manipulate reactions that specifically avoid rational thought.

 

[Oreoracle]

My problem with the free will vs. determinism debate is that it is centered on a distinction that is nebulous.

I can use my senses to collect data, weigh options, and choose the option most aligned with my preferences to make a decision. This entire process requires no appeal to the supernatural. Our understanding is that even animals with more modest cognitive abilities can perform this task. I will call making such a decision an exercise of “will”. My question is: What is the empirical difference between exercising will and exercising free will?

Since it will be assumed automatically that humans have free will, just imagine that you happen upon a creature so disfigured that you cannot verify that it is human, but you can nonetheless observe its behavior. You observe that it exercises will. So again, my question is how you can verify or falsify the claim that its will is free.

If there is no empirical difference between the two, then I see no distinction between “will” and “free will”.

 

[dmar198]

it seems impossible for us to be the source of our choices. We may rationalize our decisions, but this is really just the brain’s way of dealing with an overwhelming amount of internal and external information. Often our decisions are made at a subconscious level before we are aware of them. Since we can’t fathom all the factors involved in a decision, we allow ourselves the illusion of free will.

I don’t think this is a valid argument because I don’t see anything presented as proof of these assertions. How do you know thinking about our decisions is only rationalizing them? How do you know that rationalization is really just the brain’s way of dealing with lots of information? If both of those were true, would that really mean our choices weren’t free? Couldn’t they be free and rationalized? Couldn’t rationalization be our way of freely dealing with lots of information? Why would we have to know all factors in order for our decision to be free? As another poster said, there seem to be a lot of assertions and assumptions here, which is fine if you can prove them, but I don’t think you can.

The ability to direct oneself to an end through reason is nothing more than our response to the external stimuli and our genetic make-up which predisposes us to act a certain way. Just as Baxter the dog reasons that he likes steak more than salad, we reason our choices, just in a more complex manner.

This appears to be more assertion. How do you know we are like Baxter the dog? How do you know that he reasons that he likes steak in the same way we reason our choices? How do you know that self-direction is nothing more than a response to stimuli + genetic predispositions? Even if it was just responding to stimuli + genetic predispositions, how do you know the part where we respond to stimuli isn’t free?

Rational thought is simply a chemical reaction in the brain. It may be a higher cognitive function than a survival instinct but stating “because we reason therefore we have free will” is begging the question.

Perhaps that would be begging a question, but it doesn’t seem to follow that rational thought it simply a chemical reaction. That would appear to be an invalid argument, namely, You guys used a bad argument for free will, therefore we don’t have free will. ← Bad argument.

The reason marketing campaigns are so effective is because we’ve figured out how to manipulate the environment in a way that shapes our reasoning. Not unlike Pavlov’s dogs but at a more advanced level.

This appears to be another assertion without proof. How would you answer the following counter-argument: if marketing manipulates our reasoning like Pavlov’s dogs were manipulated, it would be impossible to resist sufficient advertising. But it is possible to resist any amount of advertising. Therefore, marketing does not manipulate our reasoning like Pavlov’s dogs were manipulated.

Is that a valid counter-argument?

Also, I would love to know how you answer the following argument for the logical possibility of free will:

Say you have made a choice. Either your will was determined or it was not determined. If it was determined, it was either determined by itself or it was determined by something other than itself. Apart from further argument, these alternatives must all be considered logically possible because the law of contradiction says that in any choice between an option and its negation, one and only one of them must be true.

My proposition is that the will determines its own choices. It is a cause that is free to produce any of a number of possible effects independently of any prior events. Because there is nothing logically contradictory in this definition of free will, it is a logical possibility. In order to deny its possibility, you would need to show some internal contradiction or some contradiction of observed reality. Apart from that, self-determinism as defined above is a real logical possibility.

What do you think? Is that a valid argument?

 

[Giovonni]

Yes, if you’re convinced that we’re deterministic automatons, then you’re convinced there’s no such thing as free will. Talk about begging the question.

At least my claim is reflected in real world experiences. I can’t say the same for any of the assertions you provide.

Evidence shows that what we call “rational” is mostly based off emotional responses. There are a number of psychological experiments which show how anger, sexual arousal, or happiness, influence our decision making to the point that we aren’t even aware of it. If you want evidence of this assertion check out the book “Predictably Irrational” for examples or read about the studies on subconscious programming.

 

[Giovonni]

This appears to be another assertion without proof. How would you answer the following counter-argument: if marketing manipulates our reasoning like Pavlov’s dogs were manipulated, it would be impossible to resist sufficient advertising. But it is possible to resist any amount of advertising. Therefore, marketing does not manipulate our reasoning like Pavlov’s dogs were manipulated.

Is that a valid counter-argument?

The counter argument is not necessarily valid. My response to this would be that marketing only affects a small portion of our brain. You can only influence so much in the span of 30 seconds or a minute of marketing. But if God was is doing the marketing he can influence everything around us. He could influence what stimulates our dopamine sensors which affect our pleasure, he could have created us without pain sensors, or sexual urges, or hunger pangs. The list is almost infinite.**

 

[Giovonni]

That’s a nice assertion, but it’s not one that can be completely proven. Are there chemical reactions in the brain that can be mapped out? Of course. Can we point to any particular reaction and conclusively state “oh, that one right there is the cause of rational thought”? No.

Actually there is a whole industry based off this very idea. How many millions of people who suffer debilitating depression have been helped by drugs that increase serotonin? People who may have committed suicide have been prevented from doing so. It’s still a work in progress but eventually we will map the brain out and I do think we will pin point areas of the brain that affect our decision making.

Hopefully sooner rather than later we can find a cure for Alzheimer’s and restore so called rationality to people who suffer from it.

 

[lmelahn]

I’ve enjoyed reading the many discussions on this forum about God’s foreknowledge and the implications for free will, however I frequently encounter the same argument which I don’t think establishes free will. Typically the discussion goes something like this:

Poster: If God knows how we will act we cannot have free will.

Responder: God’s foreknowledge does not equal causation. Example: I have a son and I give him the choice of ice cream or vegetables. I know he will pick ice cream, but my knowing does not cause his choice.

This response equates choice with free will, but I’m not sure they are the same. For example, let’s say I give my dog Baxter a choice between a steak and a salad. I know he will choose the steak because that is his favorite, but we would not therefore say Baxter has free will. We would say he made a decision based off some underlying motive or instinct (physical requirement, taste, etc…)

If free will is not simply the ability to choose, what is it?

Your example is an excellent one. A dog is unable to refuse the impulses of his sensuality. Give Baxter a steak, and if he is hungry, he will eat it. He has no intrinsic capacity to control his appetites.

Man, on the other hand, has the ability to make rational choices (ones that involve his intellect—which a dog lacks entirely). Even if steak were his favorite food, and he were hungry, he could refuse it (because he is on a diet, because he is fasting, because it is a Friday in Lent, or what have you).

Our fundamental freedom is the ability to opt for some good, or to refrain from opting for it, what the Medievals called the freedom to exercise (libertas exercitii).

These goods come on different levels: some of them fulfill some particular need (like the steak); others are necessary for us to be good persons, as a whole (these are the moral goods). We can refuse moral goods, too, and that is how we sin: that is the basis of our ability to choose between good and evil (what the Medievals called liberum arbitrium, which is not exactly the same thing as the freedom to exercise).

A standard definition is making a choice that is not determined by prior causes. But it seems impossible for us to be the source of our choices. We may rationalize our decisions, but this is really just the brain’s way of dealing with an overwhelming amount of internal and external information. Often our decisions are made at a subconscious level before we are aware of them. Since we can’t fathom all the factors involved in a decision, we allow ourselves the illusion of free will.

We are not automata that are completely subject to the whims of our passions or external stimuli (unlike animals). When a good is presented to us, we may opt for it, or not; and opt for it enthusiastically, or lackadaisically. That is up to us.

God however does not have this problem since he is both omniscient and transcends time. God knew before the universe existed how we will respond to the stimulus we encounter. He could have created a world in which Adam and Eve would freely choose obedience or where Judas would choose not to betray Jesus.

I am not fond of this way of looking at it. God can never be the direct, or “essential” cause of a sinful action, because sin is a privation, a kind of non-being—a sort of “blockage” made by the will of the sinner. He created Adam and Eve, and He gave them the capacity to opt for obedience to Him, or to refuse it. Unfortunately, they refused it. (The same with Judas.) God can’t create a different world without creating a different Adam—and that one would still be free to choose as he saw fit.

Since ours is the world God actualized, it logically appears God is the only one with free will.

Spiritual creatures (like men and angels) have freedom, because God has given them a capacity to act, that they are free to exercise as they wish (within the limits, of course, placed by their natures—we cannot fly unaided, or live under the sea without air, etc.). Until they are in sight of their Supreme Good (God Himself), they have the ability to choose, or refuse, any created good, even moral goods.

The fact that God knows what each one of us will do does not compel us to act one way or the other. (Of course He could compel us, but for our good he refrains from doing so.)

 

[Aloysium]

Actually there is a whole industry based off this very idea. How many millions of people who suffer debilitating depression have been helped by drugs that increase serotonin? People who may have committed suicide have been prevented from doing so. It’s still a work in progress but eventually we will map the brain out and I do think we will pin point areas of the brain that affect our decision making.

Hopefully sooner rather than later we can find a cure for Alzheimer’s and restore so called rationality to people who suffer from it.

We exist as participants in a material universe.
There is a physical reality to these symbols on the screen and the neurochemical processes going on at the moment whereby you, as a rational soul enter into relation with me.
I am sure you think yourself intelligent, but I will tell you that you have a simplistic view of all this wonder.
If this irritates you, take a pill.
Wouldn’t that be the solution, given that your world view discounts such obvious aspects of reality such as meaning, love and beauty - the world of the spirit.
Your views are as mindless as any description of man that sees only mind, is brainless.

Sorry, feeling a bit churlish today.

 

[dmar198]

People who may have committed suicide have been prevented from doing so.

Do you think this drug physically makes it impossible to choose suicide? What evidence do you have?

It’s still a work in progress but eventually we will map the brain out and I do think we will pin point areas of the brain that affect our decision making.

That seems to be moving the goalposts because affecting seems different from determining. What I mean is, my decision is affected when someone offers me a donut in return for a favor, but I don’t think the donut *determines my decision. From this, I infer that it is possible for one’s choice to be affected without it being determined, and therefore affecting is different from determining. Does that seem like a valid argument?

Hopefully sooner rather than later we can find a cure for Alzheimer’s and restore so called rationality to people who suffer from it.

Agreed.

 

[dmar198]

The counter argument is not necessarily valid. My response to this would be that marketing only affects a small portion of our brain. You can only influence so much in the span of 30 seconds or a minute of marketing. But if God was is doing the marketing he can influence everything around us. He could influence what stimulates our dopamine sensors which affect our pleasure, he could have created us without pain sensors, or sexual urges, or hunger pangs. The list is almost infinite.** I think there is a logical problem with your response.

If I can summarize my argument, it was this:

Premise 1. If marketing manipulates our reasoning like Pavlov’s dogs were manipulated, it would be impossible to resist sufficient advertising.
Premise 2. But it is possible to resist any amount of advertising.
Conclusion. Therefore, marketing does not manipulate our reasoning like Pavlov’s dogs were manipulated.

If I understand your response correctly, you think the above argument is wrong because it does not disprove the theory that God can manipulate our reasoning by His omnipotent power.

If that summary of your response is incorrect, please correct me. But if it is correct, I don’t think it invalidates my argument because it does not deny either premise or establish a problem with the logical form of my argument. Your response, if I rendered it correctly, simply says that I haven’t disproven this other thing.

As for whether God can violate our free will, I think that is within His power to do, at least in one sense, but in another sense I think it is not. The sense in which I deny that it is in His power is that I deny that He has the power to contradict Himself. I think He created a free will in each of us, and I think it would contradict His power to destroy His creation.

Earlier I gave an argument for the logical possibility of free will. What did you think of that argument? I will repeat it here, with small edits, for convenience’s sake:

Suppose you have made a choice. Either your will was determined or it was not determined. If it was determined, it was either determined by itself or it was determined by something other than itself. Apart from further argument, these alternatives must all be considered logically possible because the law of contradiction says that in any choice between an option and its negation, one and only one of them must be true.

My proposition is that the will determines its own choices. It is a cause that is free to produce any of a number of possible effects independently of any prior events. I think there is nothing logically contradictory in this definition of free will, and therefore I think that it is a logical possibility. In order to deny its possibility, I think you would need to show some internal contradiction or some contradiction of observed reality. Apart from that, self-determinism as defined above seems to be a real logical possibility.

What do you think? Is that a valid argument?

 

[Giovonni]

We are not automata that are completely subject to the whims of our passions or external stimuli (unlike animals). When a good is presented to us, we may opt for it, or not; and opt for it enthusiastically, or lackadaisically. That is up to us.

Yes, this is the assertion that I keep hearing, but an asseration without evidence is not compelling. I have provided evidence that we are largely subject to the whims of our passions. Pharmacology, marketing, phsychology, all provide evidence of this. I have yet to see good evidence to the contrary. You cannot rationalize outside of your own brain. Yet the brain is a physcial tool which is subject to the stimuli it recieves.

I am not fond of this way of looking at it. God can never be the direct, or “essential” cause of a sinful action, because sin is a privation, a kind of non-being—a sort of “blockage” made by the will of the sinner. He created Adam and Eve, and He gave them the capacity to opt for obedience to Him, or to refuse it. Unfortunately, they refused it. (The same with Judas.) God can’t create a different world without creating a different Adam—and that one would still be free to choose as he saw fit.

Buy why would they refuse it? They had no knowledge of good or evil. Yet something compelled them to disobey. Somewhere there must have been a part of them that said, “Hey I have an emotional desire to be more like God”. God could’ve created any Adam and Eve he chose. There is nothing he cannot do. Even one which chose to obey his command.

The fact that God knows what each one of us will do does not compel us to act one way or the other.

I addressed this in the orignial post.

 

[Giovonni]

Do you think this drug physically makes it impossible to choose suicide? What evidence do you have?

I don’t think a drug makes it impossible to commit suicide. Drugs are imperfectly created by men and women. BUT, there are many people who were suicidal and now feel better because doctor’s treated a chemical imbalance. My example doesnt need to show impossible action because it is only analogus. When we talk of God however, his creating is perfectly made therefore anything that follow is perfectly aligned with his will.