Thank you for the explanation. Yes, the same thing applies to ideas and concepts. Before someone “comes up” with these ideas and concepts, they cannot be known. Before Shakespeare “came up” with Hamlet, it did not exist, so it could not have been known.
Obviously “being evil” does not bring us closer to God. If we agree that “being closer to God” is the ultimate good, and evil brings us further from God, then evil is undesirable. To say that repentance might change that, and repentance requires the prior sin (if there is no sin, there is nothing to repent) that would advocate the idea that being sick and recovering is “better” than being healthy all the time. Or pounding your thumb with a hammer is “good”, because it is so good, when you stop it. The idea that the cessation of negative things is somehow better than not having negative things in the first place is sheer rationalization - a kind of “sour grapes”.
I am not confused. The concept of transcendence is also nonsensical, if examined a bit further. There is only “one kind” of nonexistence. One cannot distinguish between a “book, which was never written” and a “book, which has not been written yet”. Neither one exists.
I heard innumerable times that God hates the sin but loves the sinner. I am sure, you heard it, too.
One more time: what is the difference between a book that was never written and the one which has not been written yet? What is the difference between a “nonexistent book” and a “nonexistent apple”? Nonexistence cannot be “qualified”.I would agree, but I would also say that the notion of a book God “has not read yet” is sillyand the general statement is sufficient in this case.
I don’t accept the Scripture or the revelations, I only have facts. And the facts don’t show any kind of love.We have Scripture and revelationwhich together with empiricism lead me to counter your conclusion with regard to God’s love. I think the facts point to quite the opposite.
To reach an agreement, we require an understanding of the term “omnibenevolent”. Let’s suppose it means “desiring the greatest good for each and every individual specifically and unconditionally”.
Then we must reach an understanding “greatest good…” Teleologically, the greatest good would be the persistent achievement of the ultimate purpose for which we were created. Well, what is that? I look to the Gospels, specifically the completion of God’s “Law” to humanity - Matt22: 36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’* 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."***
There are many verses which the other forum members could present, extrapolating on the notion of “Love” and how it leads to the answer of “What is our ultimate purpose?”
So what is required for a subject to love? Clearly freedom of will, for love is a persistent choice. Thus God desires that we be free, and freedom entails the logical possibility of choosing not-love. If God knew that a non-existent being would choose not-love (a logical contradiction with regard to knowledge) and so chose not to create said being, wouldn’t that make God’s love for His creations conditional and thus also contradict His nature? It would be like the parent who swears to love her child unconditionally but aborts her in utero when discovering that the fetus (child) has Down’s SyndromeThe notion is untenable.
I wish you would not use Scriptural quotations because they add nothing to the argument. It makes very good sense not to create the hypothetical persons who will “not-love” God, since the “price” of this non-love is eternal damnation. And it is definitely not the sign of “love” to create someone whose fate is eternal pain and torture (whatever form these may take).
Your example of Down-syndrome afflicted child is not good enough. The child is already conceived at the point when the parents learn about the fact. The correct way to view the problem is when the parents know in advance that the child will be infliced with Down syndrome, and can choose not to conceive. If they would choose to conceive - while knowing that the child will be afflicted, that would not be a sign of love, by any strech of imagination. It would be the sign of stupidity.
You are confused. This equivocation presumes that the future does not exist and thus “foreknowledge”, i.e. knowledge of events at a future timepoint, is impossible. But if foreknowledge has ever been demonstrated then the “future” must in fact exist. Now, since most Christians accept certain prophecies as demonstration of God’s foreknowledge, they also must accept the actual existence of things/events which they have yet to experience as they are constrained to this present - i.e. there exist other “present” times before and behind the one we are experiencing. Thus there can exist a book “which has not yet been written” just as there can exist a book that “is being written” and a book that “was already written”. Transcendence with regard to time implies a lack of constraint to one particular “present”. You don’t have to accept this as truth, only as an equally valid hypothesis - IF foreknowledge is possible, then future “presents” exist. It is not nonsense when you understand it.
Time is applicable to God, He is simply not constrained by it. “At the same time” is not meaningless to God because it means our present time, e.g. T1, and the passage of time is also ours, T1 to T2. Your examples are correct, a bachelor at T1 can be married at T2. As for “outside of time”, this means present at all moments in time, including our past and future. I tried to explain - God knows that S chooses X at T2 because S does choose X at T2. At (or immediately after) T2, S also “knows” that S chooses X at T2 because S just experienced it. Now S can say, “I choose X at T2” or rather “I chose X at T2” since T2 is now in the “past”. So God and S experienced T2 together. Now, what God can do but S cannot is inform S at T1 of the experience at T2 - to a person constrained by time, this step would involve time-travel to the “past” T1, but to God there is no “past” nor any future. God can speak of T2 to those experiencing only T1 because He is experiencing both T2 and T1. So back to married bachelors, the human in question is both married and a bachelor to God, but at different times T1 and T2, and so there is no contradiction.
)I agree, but this does not mean free will cannot be respected - you can respect a child before conceiving one of your own. Their existence simply gives you the opportunity to put that respect into practice, from concept to physical reality.
Yes, action requires time, and eternal action requires infinite time - all that is required for God to eternally will is His eternal existence. What doesn’t make sense?
Well, to help you with this, we’d need to agree on what the “facts” are, and that could take a very long thread all its own (one may already exist here somewhere). To give my piece, I accept Scripture and revelation because of the “facts” (read interpretation) - you may reject them by your interpretation of the “facts”. Alas, an impass?
Sorry, the Bible-quotes were to show scriptural bases of Christian notions of “good” with regard to God and man. The gist is that “Love” is the purpose of our existence (from a Christian perspective, despite how many may behave). From this premise can be deduced the answer to the “Problem of Evil”, hence the need for my use of the quotes.
That is one huge “if”.
What Christians or other people believe (myself included) is of no consequence. Where are the facts to support “prophecies”? Outside the Scriptures, of course. Or within the Scriptures, corroborated by some external sources.
As a working hypothesis it is acceptable. Then please explain how is that hypothesis compatible with the concept of free will.
In what way? If there is “time” where God dwells, then there is a past, present and future for God. Does he know his own future? In that case he is constrained by this knowledge, since he cannot do anything else that he already knows what he will do. In other words, he has no free will either. To emphasize: “it is not foreknowledge that makes free will impossible”, it is what makes foreknowledge possible is what makes free will impossible. If our present is past for God, then our decisons are already made (unbeknownst to us), and therefore we cannot choose otherwise. The spilled milk is past, and there is no way to change that.
That was not the point. It was asserted that God respects our free will, and (usually) does not interfere with it. But that respect does not apply to uncreated “people”, since - by definition - they don’t (and cannot) have any “will”. Therefore God can choose not to create those who will “misbehave”, and that “non-act” of “not-creation” in no way interferes with the free will of existing people. By not creating the future sinners, he is able to create a better world.
If action presupposes and requires time, then God is affected by it. There is a past, a present and a future for God, too. His time might be different and separate from ours, but there must be some kind of time. Timeless action would be a self-contradictory proposition.
A usual outcome.
That is OK. If you use the quotations to clarify your position, I agree with this. The problem only occurs when they are used as an argument, which is supposed to be relevant and convincing.
Now you totally contradict your previous stance (in your previous post), where you said that God can know the future. Which one will it be?
Check out Tgdesq’s argument, who says that free will does not hinges upon the principle of alternate possibilities.
I agree with him in the sense, that it is enough to have freedom to choose from good actions, and it is not needed that one would also have the option to choose an incorrect behavior. As long as we have good options, that is enough to have “true” free will.Well, within Scripture there are many, but you don’t accept Scripture… and any scriptural reference to future events (e.g. destruction of Temple in Jerusalem) you will assume were not prophesied but added afterward… Outside of Scripture are numerous stories about Saints, apparitions of Mary, etc… have you heard of Fatima? Other people on this thread may be better informed than I with regard to which examples of “foreknowledge” you might find plausible, but this may be another impass.
See below.
No, God is omnipresent – past and future are part of our perception of reality in which God actively participates. This is a more difficult notion, so let me first help you dispel the fallacy of “knowledge constrains freedom”.
Yes, but in order for God to know who will “misbehave” He must create them to begin with – again, knowledge cannot logically precede its object, and knowledge of that objects independently authored actions cannot logically precede the actions (choices) themselves. Thus, the wrong choice must be made for God to know that the wrong choice was made. The only way God can create beings whom He precedently knows will not sin is by removing the ability or opportunity to exercise that choice, rendering free will impotent throughout their existence, which interferes with the free will of an existing being. This gets back to your confusion over time.
I agree that “timeless action” is nonsensical, that for God to begin acting there must be a timestamp, and indeed Christians believe that God acts in time, beginning with the creation of “time”. God is a necessary being, meaning not only that He has “always” existed, i.e. since the “beginning of time”, but meaning that His existence precedes time, not temporally but logically. To clarify, Time began simultaneously with God’s action since action (as we understand it) requires time.
Ah, the substance of the Problem of Evil – why respect the freedom of sinners, especially at the cost of suffering or when the sinner impedes the freedom of his victims? “Loving” beings seek to reduce “suffering” or at least defend the freedom of all, right?
See above regarding “omnipresence” as coherent consciousness of all points in time “simultaneously”.
PAP simply states that freedom entails a bivalent situation, choose X or not-X, in which the ultimate arbiter is the Agent characterized as “free”. A choice between morally equivalent options has to do with an absence of morality. The choice “to love or not-love” is what matters, and if these were morally equivalent then there would be no sin, no good and bad, but they are not equivalent. To be free to love God, we must necessarily be free to not-love Him. The very nature of God establishes “love” as good and “not-love” as bad, so morality precedes creation. Thus “true” free will with regard to love, our telos, necessarily entails a “bad” option.Check out Tgdesq’s argument, who says that free will does not hinges upon the principle of alternate possibilities.
Fallacy of the complex question: have you stopped beating your wife yet? Shame on you.
I never stated that your belief in PAP, even in its naïve form, is inadmissible; much less that of the small percentage of Catholics who might believe it. I said it was not relevant to this discussion, and not just because most Catholics here won’t accept it. The primary reason it isn’t relevant is because it demolishes your entire argument in this thread.When you use the term “true” free will, you are really just reiterating that you believe PAP must be the measure of free will. In any event, I disagree with your conclusion that she doesn’t have “full” control. She is the source of the cause of the action. That if she had decided to do otherwise she wouldn’t have been able to makes no difference to me. What she in fact did do was within her control because she caused it.
While it is true that there are specific fact patterns that present difficulties for any definition of free will, particularly dilemma arguments, this is not one of them. You are analyzing the wrong choice. The choice to be analyzed is not between burning to death and jumping to ones death, it is whether he can act to avoid death altogether. Obviously he can’t. He is controlled by outside forces such that he cannot cause himself to survive. All he can do is choose the manner of his death. It is also true that he cannot choose otherwise, but that isn’t necessary to the conclusion that he lacks free will under a locus of causal control analysis.
And by my definition he doesn’t have freedom to survive either because his death was determined by outside causes.
No it isn’t. The evil genius controls her brain such that she cannot change her mind. That is the whole point of the experiment.
You mean: could she have done otherwise. No she couldn’t. Does that mean that she didn’t have free will? Under a causal control analysis she does have free will. You are just repeating yourself that you believe PAP to be the measure of free will. But repeating it doesn’t make it true.
The whole point of these Frankfurt scenarios is to show that an actor can still take morally significant actions without having “the ability to do otherwise.” It does that quite effectively. Why then you are insisting upon PAP as the “true” measure of free will (repeatedly) baffles me. What about your argument that “God can necessarily actualize a world where all actors freely do what is right” requires PAP?
I didn’t say that all arguments for PAP are naïve, only the simplified version that you previously presented. Dilemma defenses to a causal control definition of free will on their best day only serve as a reductio ad absurdum. Dilemma defenses can serve to give counter-intuitive results under specific fact patterns, but that is true under any deterministic/libertarian framework. You can always show a counter-example (or worse, a contradiction) that cuts against our intuition as to whether an actor is morally culpable for the action performed. It does not nullify Frankfurt’s observation that there are indeed many scenarios where an agent is morally responsible even without the ability to do otherwise.
Then what are you arguing with me about? We both accept the locus of causal control definition of free will.
First, I was not part of that thread. Second, I would stipulate to the same definition. It does not demand that the actor be able to “do other than he did.” Under the locus of causal control analysis an actor can still act morally or immorally even without the ability to do otherwise. You apparently agree.
Well, if what they expressed is that persons can perform morally significant acts without PAP, then I agree with them. Of course I can show you threads that I have personally participated in where the vast majority of Catholics reject PAP. Which just goes to show that other threads are not necessary to meet the arguments presented in this thread.
Did I make the argument that simply because you disagree with me that it must be a strawman? Or did I argue that your insistence that “free will” must equal PAP – a definition that we both reject – is a strawman? My suggestion is that instead of trying to convince me of a definition of free will that neither of us agree with, you instead use the one that we both agree with.
Yes. And that type of contingency has nothing to do with what I’ve asserted.
I am aware of that, and it has nothing to do with what I’ve asserted.
And some propositions are necessarily true (between the parties at least) if the premises are agreed upon. Whether you think that trivial or not, I don’t know.
That’s the thing. There is no current source of disagreement between us on the correct measure of free will. We both agree that is the locus of causal control. Not PAP. So considering that using naïve PAP would destroy your entire argument that actors can make choices freely, and further considering that both of us disagree with PAP and both agree with the locus of causal control, do you have an argument that there is a necessarily possible state of affairs where all persons freely choose to do what is right under a locus of causal control definition of free will?
Yes, so far, so good. I can only wish that you had participated in those threads, but one cannot have all the wishes fulfilled.
No, they actually argued the opposite.
I thoroughly enjoy this conversation.
). She thinks that she could have acted otherwise. We know she could not have, but she thinks she does have the other option. This - erroneous - belief is what makes us decide that she acted freely, on her own volition. It is the knowledge or the lack of it what makes the difference. If Mary Jones were aware of the device in her brain, and she would freely decide that she does not want to kill White, and then the device would kick in, then we would agree that she was coerced, her decision was not free.Yes, so far, so good. I can only wish that you had participated in those threads, but one cannot have all the wishes fulfilled.
No, they actually argued the opposite.
I thoroughly enjoy this conversation.
). She thinks that she could have acted otherwise. We know she could not have, but she thinks she does have the other option. This - erroneous - belief is what makes us decide that she acted freely, on her own volition. It is the knowledge or the lack of it what makes the difference. If Mary Jones were aware of the device in her brain, and she would freely decide that she does not want to kill White, and then the device would kick in, then we would agree that she was coerced, her decision was not free. Don’t you?Which is contradicted by your other asserton that God can know the contents of abook, which has not been written yet. After all the writing of the book is just another choice to be made by the not-yet-created person. Either God cannot know the contents of the book (which is sensible) just like he cannot know how a not-yet-created person will behave, and then his omnisicence evaporated. Or he can know the contents of the not-created book, but then he can know the future decisions of the not-yet-created person - and therefore he can choose not to create that person. You can’t have your cake, and eat it, too.
Isn’t that the point? As long as the person is acting freely as far as they’re concerned, then God or any external observer would have a means of determining where their heart or intention is at- what they freely will-in any given situation. Therefore, even if He knew that all people would choose immorally (that no other world was possible), the locus of control would still be with them.How do we apply this to the hypothetical question you highlighted? To me it is obvious. God creates the scenario, where everyone believes (incorrectly) that they could have chosen otherwise. Therefore their decision is uncoerced (the lack of knowledge is unknown) so they would act freely in the hypothetical world - just like Mary Jones, who is unaware of the device. There is absolutely no difference! To repeat: if the person can carry out what he wants, we call that a free decsion (according to the locus of control) - regardless of the fact that he could not have acted otherwise. And I think this settles it.
Ah, I see your problem: not-created vs. not-yet-created. To me “not-yet-created” implies a future time when the precise object definitely “is-now-created”, which gets back to future “presents”. A book or person “not-yet-created” at T1 is one that also “is-now-created” at T2, and since God has knowledge of both T1 & T2 He can have knowledge of both the book and the person. What God cannot logically know is anything at all about a subject which at all moments in time is “not-created”, for if a thing is never created that it cannot be said to be “not-yet-created”. Thus God cannot know anything about a hypothetical person whom He does not create at any point in time (a not-person?) nor anything about a hypothetical book that is never actualized in reality (a not-book?).
And what if the “free” person fails to be manipulated? What if they choose the “unchoosable” alternative they have been presented with? Is this impossible?
Of course it presupposes this, and much else besides! Are you suggesting your proof doesn’t have analogous presuppositions? Are you calling the contingent availability of gold an absolute? Why? I really don’t know what you’re getting at here.
I sure do. We agreed that God’s action (any action) presupposes time (some kind of a time). Even if we suppose God’s omnipresence in our time (which assumption I don’t share), God cannot be omnipresent in his own time. That would be a logical contradiction. Therefore it is possible that in GT1 (a specific instance of God’s time) a person is not created yet, but in a later GT2 (a future instance in God’s time) he will create that person. It is asserted by Catholics that God “creates” the soul of a new person at the moment of conception. That action subdivides God’s time into “present” (the instance of creation), past and future (the intervals before and after this action). (Side note: and, by the way, with the act of conception we “force” God into action, the unchanging and immutable God - which is yet another contradiction.)