Molinism, Predestination, Free Will, Grace?!

[oldcelt]

tonyrey;13027951:

You have never explained how

God’s knowledge causes us to make our choices. The fact that God creates us is irrelevant. He is omnipotent but you are arbitrarily restricting His freedom as if you have privileged insight into what the Creator of the universe can and cannot do. That is presumptuous to say the least…

The questions remain:

Do you believe a computer has any insight into the nature of reality? Do you rely on its output as much as a child’s?

Reasoning cannot be programmed because it is creative, intuitive and often inspired. Persons are in an entirely different category from robots, biological or not. Otherwise we would have no right to life, freedom or happiness. We would live in an absurd world where nothing makes sense because everything would be composed of mindless molecules which exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever. In fact reason itself would become an illusion which is nothing more than the aimless metamorphosis of physical and chemical reactions. Absurdity would reign supreme if insight and knowledge were merely infantile fantasies created by lumps of matter. “Garbage in garbage out” sums up materialism perfectly. Getting sense out of nonsense is a self-refuting, metaphysical conjuring trick equivalent to destroying the foundation on which your conclusion is based. To reduce oneself to the level of a robot is literally self-destructive insanity. The best test of any theory is whether it works in practice. Do we regard and treat ourselves and others as impersonal machines? If not why not?

So, if I am understanding you…there has to be an interventionist deity to explain rational human thought after 13 billion years? That I cannot grasp.
Time, is the great equalizer. We are what we are through an initial creative act plus time.
No supernatural intervention required…total free will on our part…and so on.

 

[AyJSimon]

You have never explained how God’s knowledge causes us to make our choices. The fact that God creates us is irrelevant. He is omnipotent but you are arbitrarily restricting His freedom as if you have privileged insight into what the Creator of the universe can and cannot do. That is presumptuous to say the least…

The fact that God creates us is entirely relevant, and the key to the argument. I’ve never claimed that God’s perfect foreknowledge by itself is what causes us to behave the way we do. That can be easily refuted. And it’s not even slightly presumptuous to suggest that even an omnipotent Creator couldn’t accomplish that which is logically impossible. And nevermind that it’s Christians limit God’s abilities all the time, by insisting, for example, that he can’t do Evil.

Reasoning cannot be programmed because it is creative, intuitive and often inspired. Persons are in an entirely different category from robots, biological or not. Otherwise we would have no right to life, freedom or happiness. We would live in an absurd world where nothing makes sense because everything would be composed of mindless molecules which exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever. In fact reason itself would become an illusion which is nothing more than the aimless metamorphosis of physical and chemical reactions. Absurdity would reign supreme if insight and knowledge were merely infantile fantasies created by lumps of matter. “Garbage in garbage out” sums up materialism perfectly. Getting sense out of nonsense is a self-refuting, metaphysical conjuring trick equivalent to destroying the foundation on which your conclusion is based. To reduce oneself to the level of a robot is self-destructive insanity. The best test of any theory is whether it works in practice. Do we regard and treat ourselves and others as impersonal machines? If not why not?

We do not - mostly because many of the most rational among us still labor under the illusion of free will, and of Self. It’s a basic failure of our intuition. But an objective, dispassionate view of our situation can allow us to see beyond this intuitive failure - and to do so doesn’t invalidate useful emotions like compassion and empathy. If anything, dispelling the myths of Self and free will allows us more ready access to these feelings.

 

[Aloysium]

. . . many of the most rational among us still labor under the illusion of free will, and of Self. It’s a basic failure of our intuition. But an objective, dispassionate view of our situation can allow us to see beyond this intuitive failure - and to do so doesn’t invalidate useful emotions like compassion and empathy. If anything, dispelling the myths of Self and free will allows us more ready access to these feelings.

We use words to understand and communicate within and among ourselves. Myths are to the immaterial what concepts like waves and particles are to the physical.

We need to define our terms. Illusions would be misunderstandings, mis-intuitions, seeing things like demons in knots of wood. To speak of them is to imply that it is possible to intuit what is real. Illusions can also be understood as less inclusive understandings.

The Self is most certainly not an illusion, but rather a universal psychological reality, as real in that realm as the body in the world of the physical. The self is moulded through our interactions with one another. The definition may go even further; in eastern thought the Atman is Brahman, the ultimate transcendent reality is One. Although Buddhism appears to affirm the thoughts you echo, one has to be careful how this is to be understood because there is no Magisterium, and as you say we are prone to intuitive failures.
The Soul is different from the Self and speaks to our fundamental relational nature, which is created in love but exists damaged in our fallen world. I fear I’ve likely lost you summarizing it thusly, but that’s the short of it. Compassion and empathy are more than simply emotions but reflect an attitude towards others. They imply relationship.

Pretty much everyone who has been faced with a true decision is aware of the reality of free will. A prisoner in jail is probably more likely to exercise his free will than most of us in our freedom, having surrendered to the complacency of stress-free living. It is through the exercise of our will that we construct ourselves from the elements of the world around us. There are profound consequences to our actions that reverberate to the end of time. Many of us run from freedom.

Anyway, that’s my :twocents:

 

[Richca]

People are successfully sued and thrown in jail for much less! No human being has the level of knowledge or power God has. We only suppose or suspect a machine will do great harm. God actually knows, and willfully sustains the existence of the machine!

To me, whether or not there is free will is an open question. However, given RC metaphysics, it is unquestionable that God bears moral responsibility to at least some degree for, well absolutely everything!

If he isn’t, why call him good? Why praise him for creation? Believers say the universe is a great work of God and praise him for it (I agree). However, if he isn’t responsible for evil because of “free will” then he is not responsible for good either. The responsibility functions for both aspects. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

If you understood RC metaphysics, you would find that what your saying here is a philosophical error not to mention that it is a theological error as well.

 

[Richca]

I gave the example of a human creator who builds a machine that he absolutely knows will cause great harm. The act of building that machine with the absolute foreknowledge that it would cause harm would be enough to convict that man in any court in the world.
The same applies to a deity, in my belief.

God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of the harm or evil done by human beings. The evil done by human beings is their personal responsibility. Now, it would be an injustice in any court of law in the world to convict somebody for something that person is not personally responsible for.

 

[tonyrey]

You have never explained how God’s knowledge causes us to make our choices. The fact that God creates us is irrelevant. He is omnipotent but you are arbitrarily restricting His freedom as if you have privileged insight into what the Creator of the universe can and cannot do. That is presumptuous to say the least…

You need to prove that giving us free will is logically impossible. If God is omnipotent that is nothing to prevent Him from doing so. You can argue of course that we don’t have free will because God doesn’t have free will - or even that God doesn’t exist at all - but that takes us away from the topic. However your use of the term omnipotent Creator implies that you accept such a being for the sake of argument. Infinite power implies that the ability to delegate power and share it with others. It is not therefore logically impossible. Since the Creator’s knowledge doesn’t rule it out it is certainly not logically impossible for that reason. In fact it is not at all clear why knowledge of any description should lead to certain consequences: there is a vast difference between a state of mind and the result of that state of mind.

Reasoning cannot be programmed because it is creative, intuitive and often inspired. Persons are in an entirely different category from robots, biological or not. Otherwise we would have no right to life, freedom or happiness. We would live in an absurd world where nothing makes sense because everything would be composed of mindless molecules which exist for no reason or purpose whatsoever. In fact reason itself would become an illusion which is nothing more than the aimless metamorphosis of physical and chemical reactions. Absurdity would reign supreme if insight and knowledge were merely infantile fantasies created by lumps of matter. “Garbage in garbage out” sums up materialism perfectly. Getting sense out of nonsense is a self-refuting, metaphysical conjuring trick equivalent to destroying the foundation on which your conclusion is based. To reduce oneself to the level of a robot is self-destructive insanity. The best test of any theory is whether it works in practice. Do we regard and treat ourselves and others as impersonal machines? If not why not?

We do not - mostly because many of the most rational among us still labor under the illusion of free will, and of Self. It’s a basic failure of our intuition. But an objective, dispassionate view of our situation can allow us to see beyond this intuitive failure - and to do so doesn’t invalidate useful emotions like compassion and empathy. If anything, dispelling the myths of Self and free will allows us more ready access to these feelings.

You seem to believe reasoning is not created, not intuitive and never inspired but purely mechanical - which conflicts with the evidence for scientific discoveries. We don’t regard computers as capable of making discoveries, of being flexible in their activity, being responsible for their conclusions or being aware of what they are doing. Why then should a person be different? The reduction of persons to machines destroys everything of value in life. We are reduced to the level of inanimate objects which lack thoughts, feelings, intuitions, emotions, motives and decisions. If the self is a myth then it doesn’t make sense to refer to “we” or “our”. There are nothing but mindless organisms which lack insight, understanding or any other mental capacity. Thoughts are merely minute electrical impulses that signify nothing more than reactions to physical events. It is absurd to believe such robots can have “an objective, dispassionate view” or “emotions like compassion and empathy”. It amounts to getting something for nothing. If you dispel the “myths” of Self and free will you are no longer entitled to use terms which presuppose the existence of an entity which has any understanding of its environment. Yet all your posts are based on that assumption…

 

[AyJSimon]

You need to prove that giving us free will is logically impossible.

Once you accept the premises of the argument (God created everything. God has perfect foreknowledge of all that will happen), then in essence, I’ve already proven it to you. My inability to “prove” it beyond this doesn’t illustrate a weakness in my argument, but rather your inability to notice (or more likely, acknowledge) when your spade has finally turned.

You seem to believe reasoning is not created, not intuitive and never inspired but purely mechanical - which conflicts with the evidence for scientific discoveries. We don’t regard computers as capable of making discoveries, of being flexible in their activity, being responsible for their conclusions or being aware of what they are doing. Why then should a person be different? The reduction of persons to machines destroys everything of value in life. We are reduced to the level of inanimate objects which lack thoughts, feelings, intuitions, emotions, motives and decisions. If the self is a myth then it doesn’t make sense to refer to “we” or “our”. There are nothing but mindless organisms which lack insight, understanding or any other mental capacity. Thoughts are merely minute electrical impulses that signify nothing more than reactions to physical events. It is absurd to believe such robots can have “an objective, dispassionate view” or “emotions like compassion and empathy”. It amounts to getting something for nothing. If you dispel the “myths” of Self and free will you are no longer entitled to use terms which presuppose the existence of an entity which has any understanding of its environment. Yet all your posts are based on that assumption…

As I pointed out earlier, if Christian theology were true, and if it explicitly taught that God had control of everything we did, this would have no effect on our ability to have insight, or be creative, or reason, or have certain emotions. We could still do all those things - they would just be determined by God. So you’re making an unjustified leap to conclude that we need an inner Self and free will to accomplish any of these things. And even without the Self, we still have to make use of words like “I” or “You” or “We” or “Our,” in the same way that we have to use words like “choice” and “decision” to talk about behavior, even if we don’t have free will.

 

[oldcelt]

God’s foreknowledge is not the cause of the harm or evil done by human beings. The evil done by human beings is their personal responsibility. Now, it would be an injustice in any court of law in the world to convict somebody for something that person is not personally responsible for.

You left out the creative power…that is where the responsibility comes in. Perfect foreknowledge + Creation = responsibility.

 

[Richca]

You left out the creative power…that is where the responsibility comes in. Perfect foreknowledge + Creation = responsibility.

The creative power has given to human beings a power to choose between good and evil, to be subject to their own free choice.

 

[oldcelt]

The creative power has given to human beings a power to choose between good and evil, to be subject to their own free choice.

Creation while knowing infallibly the outcome cannot logically result in freedom for the created.

 

[davidv]

Creation while knowing infallibly the outcome cannot logically result in freedom for the created.

Why not? None of the purveyors of this dogma have been able demonstrate its truthfulness.

 

[Richca]

Creation while knowing infallibly the outcome cannot logically result in freedom for the created.

I think I have pointed out in a post somewhere on this thread that the logic you are presenting here fails in a number of respects. On the one hand, if one denies that humans have free will, then God is the author of sin and evil. This is not logical for a number of reasons to name just a few: God would be acting against his own nature; God would not be infinite Goodness or Being itself; what would be the purpose of causing moral evil? Is God some kind of confused, deformed being? A conception of God who is the cause of all the sins of mankind is a rather odd, to say the least, conception of God is it not?

On the other hand, if one is to deny that God has foreknowledge than this also is not going to stand to reason. This would mean that God is not perfect; his knowledge is limited and thus God is not infinite; that God, the First Being, is subject to change in which case he would not be the first being; that God has a composition of potentiality in which case he is not pure act and he would be in need of some higher or prior being to have caused his own being which amounts to saying that this is not God. What kind of God is God who possesses an infinite intellect with limited knowledge? Should He not rather have infinite knowledge?

So, the logic you and ajsimon are presenting here, philosophically is not going to stand to reason or logic. It can be refuted logically and philosophically from a number of vantage points and philosophical truths not to mention Divine Revelation which is the word of God itself.

 

[Aloysium]

Creation while knowing infallibly the outcome cannot logically result in freedom for the created.

If you believe this and wish to convince others, rather than merely using the adverb “logically”, try to demonstrate the logic.

It seems to me logical that if an all-powerful being can create something with an individual existence such as we ourselves possess, the creature would also have the capacity to create albeit in a finite fashion, as part of its beingness. These qualities are clearly mine - I exist and have made of my life what I have willed from what I have been given.

An important part of that life is the relationship which through the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have tried to foster within myself, with the Ground of my being, who has been and always will be present for the totality of my existence, which springs from Him in every moment.

 

[tonyrey]

Once you accept the premises of the argument (God created everything. God has perfect foreknowledge of all that will happen), then in essence, I’ve already proven it to you. My inability to “prove” it beyond this doesn’t illustrate a weakness in my argument, but rather your inability to notice (or more likely, acknowledge) when your spade has finally turned.

The problem is your inability to consider the objections to your argument which makes a rational discussion impossible.

 

[tonyrey]

You have never explained how

It is absurd to think** time alone **can explain anything. Why should a lapse of 13 billion years make **mindless **molecules any more powerful than they were after a lapse of 13 seconds, 13 years, 13 centuries or 13 million years? Are there any intermediate stages between electrical impulses and thoughts? If so what are they? This is the weakest explanation I have ever encountered. Total free will produced by chance from total chaos!

 

[tonyrey]

Creation while knowing infallibly the outcome cannot logically result in freedom for the created.

Please give just one reason to support this dogmatic conclusion. What is the** mechanism** that prevents created beings from being free? Precisely **how **does knowledge interfere with another person’s activity? What is it that limits the power of the Creator of the entire universe from sharing power? Failure to answer these questions implies that knowledge has no effect whatsoever on another person’s activity…

 

[oldcelt]

Please give just one reason to support this dogmatic conclusion. What is the** mechanism** that prevents created beings from being free? Precisely **how **does knowledge interfere with another person’s activity? What is it that limits the power of the Creator of the entire universe from sharing power? Failure to answer these questions implies that knowledge has no effect whatsoever on another person’s activity…

Tony,
If your deity has impeccable knowledge of all future events, and still creates an individual life-form, that deity cannot possibly grant that individual creation freedom. Their destiny was pre-known, prior to their creation…there can be no freedom under those conditions…even if that deity claims that the freedom exists.
In that case, one must reconsider the deity.

John

 

[oldcelt]

It is absurd to think** time alone **can explain anything. Why should a lapse of 13 billion years make **mindless **molecules any more powerful than they were after a lapse of 13 seconds, 13 years, 13 centuries or 13 million years? Are there any intermediate stages between electrical impulses and thoughts? If so what are they? This is the weakest explanation I have ever encountered. Total free will produced by chance from total chaos!

13 billion years of combination, starting with amino acids, can accomplish a great deal.

John

 

[oldcelt]

I think I have pointed out in a post somewhere on this thread that the logic you are presenting here fails in a number of respects. On the one hand, if one denies that humans have free will, then God is the author of sin and evil. This is not logical for a number of reasons to name just a few: God would be acting against his own nature; God would not be infinite Goodness or Being itself; what would be the purpose of causing moral evil? Is God some kind of confused, deformed being? A conception of God who is the cause of all the sins of mankind is a rather odd, to say the least, conception of God is it not?

On the other hand, if one is to deny that God has foreknowledge than this also is not going to stand to reason. This would mean that God is not perfect; his knowledge is limited and thus God is not infinite; that God, the First Being, is subject to change in which case he would not be the first being; that God has a composition of potentiality in which case he is not pure act and he would be in need of some higher or prior being to have caused his own being which amounts to saying that this is not God. What kind of God is God who possesses an infinite intellect with limited knowledge? Should He not rather have infinite knowledge?

So, the logic you and ajsimon are presenting here, philosophically is not going to stand to reason or logic. It can be refuted logically and philosophically from a number of vantage points and philosophical truths not to mention Divine Revelation which is the word of God itself.

Logically…it stands…if you really think about that… I think you know that. In my belief system, Divine Revelation does not exist. To whom was this revelation given? What is your evidence?
I know the answers…that is why I am where I am. All the rest is merely explanations for the impossible…logically.

 

[oldcelt]

If you believe this and wish to convince others, rather than merely using the adverb “logically”, try to demonstrate the logic.

It seems to me logical that if an all-powerful being can create something with an individual existence such as we ourselves possess, the creature would also have the capacity to create albeit in a finite fashion, as part of its beingness. These qualities are clearly mine - I exist and have made of my life what I have willed from what I have been given.

An important part of that life is the relationship which through the grace of the Holy Spirit, I have tried to foster within myself, with the Ground of my being, who has been and always will be present for the totality of my existence, which springs from Him in every moment.

I have demonstrated it again and again…so have others. If some do not wish to see the logic of the human mind…I understand. Nor did I for over 50 years. There is a term in my former faith called an epiphany,a moment of clarity…