Molinism, Predestination, Free Will, Grace?!

[belorg]

Your post 244 re-presented your argument. It has been challenged as invalid. The claim of NCS is not sufficient justification. NCS does not explain why an attribute of the creator must exist in the creation.

My argument is valid. The conclusion follows from the premises. If one accepts that God’s will is a NSC for His act (you can even claim that God’s will IS His act under Divine Simplicity) and one accepts that God’s act is a NSC for the universe (which is true if God is omnipotent) , then the result exists as athe cause exists.

 

[tonyrey]

My argument is valid. The conclusion follows from the premises. If one accepts that God’s will is a NSC for His act (you can even claim that God’s will IS His act under Divine Simplicity) and one accepts that God’s act is a NSC for the universe (which is true if God is omnipotent) , then the result exists as a the cause exists.

There is no obvious reason why the results of God’s creative acts should have any of His attributes. In fact it is positively unreasonable to put His nature or activity in the same category as His creatures. St Paul’s doctrine “In Him we love, move and have our being” implies that the Creator transcends everyone and everything. He alone is immutable, He alone is omnipotent and He alone is necessarily eternal but that doesn’t prevent Him from conferring eternal life on those who love Him. God is not static Necessity but dynamic Originality - as one would expect from the greatest creative power that exists: Love. He is certainly not restricted by a human syllogism!

 

[belorg]

There is no obvious reason why the results of God’s creative acts should have any of His attributes. In fact it is positively unreasonable to put His nature or activity in the same category as His creatures. St Paul’s doctrine “In Him we love, move and have our being” implies that the Creator transcends everyone and everything. He alone is immutable, He alone is omnipotent and He alone is necessarily eternal but that doesn’t prevent Him from conferring eternal life on those who love Him. God is not static Necessity but dynamic Originality - as one would expect from the greatest creative power that exists: Love. He is certainly not restricted by a human syllogism!

the ‘obvious reason’ lies in the argument I presented.

 

[davidv]

the ‘obvious reason’ lies in the argument I presented.

If it is so obvious, why is it not visible?

 

[tonyrey]

the ‘obvious reason’ lies in the argument I presented.

Repetition weakens rather than strengthens an argument if it ignores criticisms…

Why must the results of God’s creative acts have any of His attributes?

 

[belorg]

Repetition weakens rather than strengthens an argument if it ignores criticisms…

Why must the results of God’s creative acts have any of His attributes?

That is addressed in the argument.

 

[belorg]

If it is so obvious, why is it not visible?

It is not because you don’t see something that it is invisible.

With all due respect, but if this is really the only thing you can say about my argument, there is nothing left to discuss.

 

[davidv]

It is not because you don’t see something that it is invisible.

With all due respect, but if this is really the only thing you can say about my argument, there is nothing left to discuss.

I think a multitude posts are ignored to make this statement. So much for logic.

 

[mamlukman]

I’ll jump in here. This is one of my favorite topics. I’ve read all 17 pages of posts, but I confess not in great detail. I may not do justice to something I skimmed on p. 5 or something. I think the buying ice cream example came closest to my own thoughts. I may be naive, and I’m not going to give ideas a lot of fancy names, but let’s take an example.

As I see it, the discussion is about the compatibility of free will vs. God’s omniscience. I have never had a problem with this, perhaps because of my naiveté. Maybe not.

Let’s assume I’m God, in a helicopter, hovering over the countryside. There is a train on some tracks going at 60 mph. There is a school bus of kids going 50 miles an hour on a road that crosses the train track at right angles. From my vantage point, I can see that they will crash if they both continue at the same speed. I am “omniscient.” However, both the driver of the school bus and the train have free will. They can speed up, slow down, or stop. They are completely unaware of each other because there’s a big forest blocking their views.

Let’s stop for a second and talk about what I think in the ice cream example were called “anterior causes.” If it’s another term, forgive me. But in any case, neither driver has complete free will. They can’t fly away, for example. They can’t wish themselves in Japan. They can’t even change clothes because there aren’t any clothes available. So in other words, yes, they have free will, but not all possibilities are open to them. In fact, they both have very limited possibilities to exercise their free will. They have to deal with reality.

Meanwhile, the environment is going to affect them. Maybe there’s a storm that will knock down a tree that will delay the school bus. Maybe the school bus will get a flat tire. Now I, as God, hovering in that helicopter, can make some predictions: if the storm causes a tree to fall across the road, the school bus has to stop, and it will no longer collide with the train.

As a matter of fact, to switch metaphors for a second, it’s very much like a chess game: if do this, I have these possible moves; if you respond in this way to any of my possible moves, I have these moves. Etc. So God is a super good chess player and calculates all the possibilities. Laplace–18th c.?–had a demon do such calculations.

Now back to the school bus and train. So there are all sorts–but not an infinite number–of possibilities; if you take possibility A, then a new set of probabilities pops up. And it goes on–again, not infinitely, but further than I can describe.

At each step the school bus driver and the train driver have totally free will–within the limits of the possibilities open to them. Again, it’s like a chess game–you are constrained by the pieces you have and the rules. I, God, hovering in my helicopter, can see all the possibilities laid out before me. I know exactly what is going to happen. (On a smaller scale, I’m sure everyone has seen a traffic accident where you say to yourself, “If that idiot keeps going at that speed he’s going to crash into that car ahead of him.” Your knowledge doesn’t affect anyone’s free will. You can just see it will happen.)

So, in conclusion, at each step (or each fork in the possibilities) each driver has free will. God, having calculated all the possible trillions of combinations of possibilities, knows what will happen. God’s knowledge isn’t affecting the free will of the drivers. The free will of the drivers isn’t affecting God’s knowledge of what’s going to happen. There is no problem reconciling the two.

Now you could argue about past causes and decisions that brought the two drivers to this point, but that’s simply begging the question.

To go off topic for a second, there is a recent movement in science to put forward the “anthropic principle.” Simply stated, it says that the possibilities of the universe turning out the way it has are very, very small. So small that instead of chance determining everything from the big bang to now it seems like everything was designed from the beginning. To me this is a nonsensical argument. What it does–and here’s where we get back to the main subject–is place a de facto limit on God. What they are really saying is "The universe couldn’t be brought into existence by chance–after God created the big bang and a bunch of physical laws–because there are simply too many ways for it to go wrong. But if God is God, would it be harder for Him to create 100 trillion universes rather than one? A trillion trillion universes? No. If you had so many trillions of universes that the probability of one of them turning out like ours was actually quite good, then you don’t need the anthropic principle. I think people a) think of God as active–a sort of busybody God that’s constantly tinkering with the universe and b) think that if they can’t think through layers and layers of possibilities, God can’t either. That doesn’t make sense to me.

 

[pambarnes1516]

(John 17:16)
As far as predestination is concerned, one is only doomed from the start in so far as God always knew they would choose damnation. God didn’t “doom” them, however, He created them knowing full well they would be doomed. So from God’s perspective, they were always doomed. From the human perspective, they were doomed in time according to their own free will. God can say He predestines because He creates with foreknowledge.

We can’t say we were predestined to anything but to receive the grace of salvation because we live in time and we receive predestined grace which we can accept or deny in time. God created the damned with every intention of them being saved. God’s intentions are always good. But the realization of His intentions are dependent upon our actions: our freely willed actions. So although God’s intentions are for everyone to be saved, and although God does everything possible for every person to be saved, denying no one the means to be saved, people still end up in hell while being created in full knowledge of their final destination.

One in hell, therefore, can justifiably say in all truth that they were always doomed from the start and had no choice since they had no choice whether to be created or not, while at the same time claiming to have willingly went to hell by their own actions since what they could choose in time was what caused their damnation. Their creation caused their damnation since without their being created they could have never chosen to be dammed, and their free will caused their damnation since it was their choices that caused their damnation. God’s ‘will’ is for us to be saved, but His ‘act’ of creation often leads to someone’s damnation since God creates not a creature who has no choice but one who does. Man’s will, distinct from God’s but created by God, is free to choose life or death. So man is predestined not by the “will” of God, but by His original “act” of creation and by the “will” of man.

If I intended on creating two people to be with me who were totally free to choose, and I knew that no matter what I did one would never choose me and I created that one anyway, it could be said that I predestined that one to be apart from me, even though I intended on him to be with me, since in knowing his fatal choice, I chose to create him anyway. My action caused his predestination, not my will, other than I willed to the action of creating him, I could never will his evil will nor did I predestine his evil will.

I could say of the other that I predestined him for myself by my actions, not my will, other than I willed the act of creating him as well and he cooperated with my will for him to end up with me.

It could also be said that they both chose for themselves since I gave them the power to do so, even though I knew ahead of time which choice each of them would make.

Now if I were very wise, I would make the bad choice of the one benefit the other, as well as the good choice of the other be part of the punishment of the one who chose badly. Of course I would have to be a god to have such wisdom.

We must remember, by virtue of God’s goodness, that He never determined a creature as existing based on their eternal outcome. That would be to objectify His own creation. God created each and every one of us because He loved us. God loved us into existence. His foreknowledge of our outcomes is the consequence of His divinity, not a qualification for our existence.

 

[Ftboy07]

If it rains on Sunday, you’re not playing golf… If the church burns down on Saturday, you’re not going to church on Sunday.

Your actions do affect the environment, but the choices you make have everything to do with the environment as it existed immediately before you made the choice to act.

If the Church burns down on Saturday, then (as any faithful person would)you would go to another Church that Sunday and include in your prayers for that day your Church that burned down the day before!

 

[Ftboy07]

No, because it’s wrong. If you author your choice, then I’ll call you free. But you don’t author your choices. Your Creator authors them, in accordance with the maze he’s set up for you to run.

Think of it like a “choose your own adventure” book; the author knows all the different choices and endings of each choice, but it’s the reader who considers each different path in the book and then CHOOSES which path to take. Our finite mind must think first and then make a choice because we humans don’t know the future and it’s outcome. While God knows the outcome he doesn’t do one thing that I have yet to see anyone mention , and that is HE doesn’t INTERVENE with our decision making. If he did then we’d never see war,famine,poverty,etc.

So yes there is free will even for the sceptics there is free will on a finite level. No one is on the level of God who is infinite and without time. No human can comprehend the level of God’s knowledge especially seeing that an average human being uses 10% of the brain which is miniscule to infinite. If God was within space and time then he would have had to have been created , but HE wasn’t. HE was,is,and forever will be. The human mind can not comprehend that. If we were able to understand that level of thought that is of God’s, then that is to say we are as HIS equal therefore not making us human,and therefore not needing a forum such as this that we are arguing on.

-THAT WITH WHICH WE ARE AFRAID OF EXCITES US THE MOST; OPEN YOUR MIND.

 

[AyJSimon]

Think of it like a “choose your own adventure” book; the author knows all the different choices and endings of each choice, but it’s the reader who considers each different path in the book and then CHOOSES which path to take. Our finite mind must think first and then make a choice because we humans don’t know the future and it’s outcome. While God knows the outcome he doesn’t do one thing that I have yet to see anyone mention , and that is HE doesn’t INTERVENE with our decision making. If he did then we’d never see war,famine,poverty,etc.

Except the author both knows the outcome, and creates the reader. He doesn’t need to intervene in your choices because he’s already set you on the course to make them.

 

[thinkandmull]

This conversation has become mindless. God MUST create only an eternal universe? Gosh, open your imagination. God is responsible for what you do because He sees it in eternity? He chooses to create and THEN you choose. That is the order of cause to effect. He sees the effect, yes, but at that point it is in YOUR hands. There is no way to refute Deism or prove Catholicism, but at least try to see how our position is not irrational.

 

[tonyrey]

That is addressed in the argument.

The fallacy in your argument is the false assumption that the** result** of God’s eternal creative act is** identical** with the act itself. Divine activity transcends time and space whereas the universe exists in time and space. Of that there is no doubt whatsoever - unless one has an idiosyncratic concept of the Creator. It doesn’t follow from the fact that Creation is eternal that any of the consequences must also be eternal. Such a presupposition implies insight into the nature of God no created being can possibly possess. Human logic is an inadequate guide to ultimate reality because it is confined to human experience and amounts to thinking inside a homemade box! The Catholic doctrine of infallibility is at least confined to faith and morals whereas the hypothesis that **everything **created by God must be eternal is claimed to be absolute, universal and true beyond all possible doubt!

 

[tonyrey]

Except the author both knows the outcome, and creates the reader. He doesn’t need to intervene in your choices because he’s already set you on the course to make them.

To set on a course does not imply that the course is immutable!

 

[tonyrey]

This conversation has become mindless. God MUST create only an eternal universe? Gosh, open your imagination. God is responsible for what you do because He sees it in eternity? He chooses to create and THEN you choose. That is the order of cause to effect. He sees the effect, yes, but at that point it is in YOUR hands. There is no way to refute Deism or prove Catholicism, but at least try to see how our position is not irrational.

Not to be able to create beings who can choose is a sign of impotence rather than omnipotence!

 

[tonyrey]

(John 17:16)
As far as predestination is concerned, one is only doomed from the start in so far as God always knew they would choose damnation. God didn’t “doom” them, however, He created them knowing full well they would be doomed. So from God’s perspective, they were always doomed. From the human perspective, they were doomed in time according to their own free will. God can say He predestines because He creates with foreknowledge.

We can’t say we were predestined to anything but to receive the grace of salvation because we live in time and we receive predestined grace which we can accept or deny in time. God created the damned with every intention of them being saved. God’s intentions are always good. But the realization of His intentions are dependent upon our actions: our freely willed actions. So although God’s intentions are for everyone to be saved, and although God does everything possible for every person to be saved, denying no one the means to be saved, people still end up in hell while being created in full knowledge of their final destination.

One in hell, therefore, can justifiably say in all truth that they were always doomed from the start and had no choice since they had no choice whether to be created or not, while at the same time claiming to have willingly went to hell by their own actions since what they could choose in time was what caused their damnation. Their creation caused their damnation since without their being created they could have never chosen to be dammed, and their free will caused their damnation since it was their choices that caused their damnation. God’s ‘will’ is for us to be saved, but His ‘act’ of creation often leads to someone’s damnation since God creates not a creature who has no choice but one who does. Man’s will, distinct from God’s but created by God, is free to choose life or death. So man is predestined not by the “will” of God, but by His original “act” of creation and by the “will” of man.

If I intended on creating two people to be with me who were totally free to choose, and I knew that no matter what I did one would never choose me and I created that one anyway, it could be said that I predestined that one to be apart from me, even though I intended on him to be with me, since in knowing his fatal choice, I chose to create him anyway. My action caused his predestination, not my will, other than I willed to the action of creating him, I could never will his evil will nor did I predestine his evil will.

I could say of the other that I predestined him for myself by my actions, not my will, other than I willed the act of creating him as well and he cooperated with my will for him to end up with me.

It could also be said that they both chose for themselves since I gave them the power to do so, even though I knew ahead of time which choice each of them would make.

Now if I were very wise, I would make the bad choice of the one benefit the other, as well as the good choice of the other be part of the punishment of the one who chose badly. Of course I would have to be a god to have such wisdom.

We must remember, by virtue of God’s goodness, that He never determined a creature as existing based on their eternal outcome. That would be to objectify His own creation. God created each and every one of us because He loved us. God loved us into existence. His foreknowledge of our outcomes is the consequence of His divinity, not a qualification for our existence.

We are predestined to be free!

 

[mamlukman]

Except the author both knows the outcome, and creates the reader. He doesn’t need to intervene in your choices because he’s already set you on the course to make them.

I like the choose your adventure analogy. But I would disagree that the author has “set you on the course” to make choices. Let’s say your 3 year old is reading one of those books. You know your kid loves kittens. One of the choices in the book is between a kitten and a dog. You know your kid will choose the kitten because you know what they like. You are not “setting the course” --you simply know them well enough to know what they will choose. It’s up to them to choose; you simply know what their choice will be.

If you push that back a level–in other words, why would the kid like kittens and not dogs–you’re simply begging the question and going back a step. There is a reason.

 

[tonyrey]

I like the choose your adventure analogy. But I would disagree that the author has “set you on the course” to make choices. Let’s say your 3 year old is reading one of those books. You know your kid loves kittens. One of the choices in the book is between a kitten and a dog. You know your kid will choose the kitten because you know what they like. You are not “setting the course” --you simply know them well enough to know what they will choose. It’s up to them to choose; you simply know what their choice will be.

If you push that back a level–in other words, why would the kid like kittens and not dogs–you’re simply begging the question and going back a step. There is a reason.

Knowledge does not necessarily entail causation!