Molinism, Predestination, Free Will, Grace?!

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AyJSimon said:
Not if God created the individuals, and everything else they interact with.

If a bird flies by my window right now, and I turn to look at it, God willed that to happen, because God created me, and the bird, and the materials once used to build the building and the window, and all the people who, at one time, built it. If he has perfect foreknowledge for everything that will ever happen for everything he himself created, than nothing that he created can control its own decisions.
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But what you’re saying is that it would be impossible for a God to create a playing field and populate it with players who possessed free will…if He knew what their choices would be beforehand. But could they possess free will if He did *not *know their choices beforehand?
 
belorg said:
No, it is not simple. In fact, it’s highly complex.
And I have never said that God chooses for us.
It’s just that a situation that is true at every moment in time does not permit any real choice in a libertarian sense.
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Not true.

If the person involved is permitted multiple choices then they have libertarian free will.

That is what human beings have.
 
fhansen said:
But what you’re saying is that it would be impossible for a God to create a playing field and populate it with players who possessed free will…if He knew what their choices would be beforehand. But could they possess free will if He did *not *know their choices beforehand?
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Certainly. But that would mean that God is not omniscient, and lacks complete and perfect foreknowledge. Fine by me if that’s what you’re arguing, but you’d be the first Christian I’ve ever seen willing to admit to that.
 
AyJSimon said:
Not if God created the individuals, and everything else they interact with.

.
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If God created free creatures capable of making choices then we are free creatures capable of making choices.

This doesn’t preclude the possibility that God knows what we will choose.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
If God created free creatures capable of making choices then we are free creatures capable of making choices.

This doesn’t preclude the possibility that God knows what we will choose.
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But God does know what we will choose. So where are you getting your free will again? From your creator who knows, in advance, everything you’ll ever do?

It is logically incoherent to say that God created us free, and knows everything we’ll ever do. There’s no room for freedom in such a scheme.
 
AyJSimon said:
But God does know what we will choose. So where are you getting your free will again? From your creator who knows, in advance, everything you’ll ever do?

It is logically incoherent to say that God created us free, and knows everything we’ll ever do. There’s no room for freedom in such a scheme.
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You choose not to understand.

God let’s us choose. He knows what we will choose. He does not choose for us.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
You choose not to understand.

God let’s us choose. He knows what we will choose. He does not choose for us.
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God lets us choose that which he knew we would choose in the first place. Brilliant.

A puppet is free, so long as it loves its strings.
 
CHESTERTONRULES said:
If we can choose, then we are free.

Get it?
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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.
 
AyJSimon said:
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.
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God in the beginning created human beings
and made them subject to their own free choice.(Sirach 15:14).

This is what we believe.
 
AyJSimon said:
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.
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A “maze he’s set up for you to run” is not the equivalent of having foreknowledge.
 
fhansen said:
A “maze he’s set up for you to run” is not the equivalent of having foreknowledge.
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It sounds like you’re giving yourself even less basis to argue for the existence of your own free will than I did.
 
AyJSimon said:
It sounds like you’re giving yourself even less basis to argue for the existence of your own free will than I did.
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Why? A set up maze would be deterministic of one’s actions while foreknowledge is simply knowing what those actions are before they occur.
 
fhansen said:
Why? A set up maze would be deterministic of one’s actions while foreknowledge is simply knowing what those actions are before they occur.
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Did God create you with perfect foreknowledge of everything you’ll ever do? If so, then how do you have free will?
 
AyJSimon said:
Did God create you with perfect foreknowledge of everything you’ll ever do? If so, then how do you have free will?
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Because He knew my actions/choices without causing them. That freedom-from His will-is the essence of my free will. If you were somehow given foreknowledge now of another person’s actions a year from now, would that mean you caused those actions to happen?
 
God creating the playing field, and including free will into the mix, is one act. Whether or not He knows the outcome before it happens is a separate matter altogether; that fact doesn’t influence the outcome.
 
fhansen said:
Because He knew my actions/choices without causing them. That freedom-from His will-is the essence of my free will. If you were somehow given foreknowledge now of another person’s actions a year from now, would that mean you caused those actions to happen?
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It would mean exactly that, IF I created that other person, and everything else in the Universe (like God supposedly has done).

If God created everything and everyone, and has perfect foreknowledge of how everyone and everything will behave, how do you have free will?
 
fhansen said:
God creating the playing field, and including free will into the mix, is one act. Whether or not He knows the outcome before it happens is a separate matter altogether; that fact doesn’t influence the outcome.
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👍 Knowledge doesn’t entail causality! No one has explained the mechanism by which it could. Insight isn’t equivalent to coercion… 🙂
 
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