St. Thomas' Argument from Contingency

[Linusthe2nd]

The question is not whether you can still find a gap in modern physics to squeeze your God into. You will always be able to do so.
The question is: is God necessary to explain the aspects of modern physics you refer to. And the answer is no.

And isn’t it wonderful. Even in the darkness of the 21st century the light of Aristotle and Thomas still shins. Who takes Hume, Berkly, Descartes, Kant seriously these days? It is hard to bury the truth.

Linus2nd

 

[belorg]

And isn’t it wonderful. Even in the darkness of the 21st century the light of Aristotle and Thomas still shins. Who takes Hume, Berkly, Descartes, Kant seriously these days? It is hard to bury the truth.

Linus2nd

Hume and Kant are taken seriously by the majority of contemporary philosophers. Not that they agree with everything thye say, but they don’t agree with everything about Aquinas and Aristotle either.

 

[tonyrey]

I have pointed out that we

Our choice is unreasonable if it is motivated by pride, envy, greed, lust, vanity, jealousy, animosity, laziness or selfishness. It is reasonable if it is motivated by an objective, impartial consideration of the facts.

Why do you reject our power to think for ourselves and make up our own minds?

No response!

And no, it’s not because I regard persons as biological machines. Even if persons were completely immaterial, my question still stands, and I have yet to receive an answer that makes any sort of sense.

That is because you don’t regard persons as independent entities. Even though you don’t regard them as machines you regard them as cogs in the machine of nature and compelled to act according to the laws of nature - without being capable of originality and creativity.

In other words we don’t have a mind or will of our own because all our choices and decisions are supposedly caused by factors beyond our control. We are in effect helpless spectators who have no power to transcend our heredity and environment, no reason to exist and no feature which distinguishes us from other animals apart from our superior intelligence…

 

[empther]

There is, of course, only one reason why you would deny your own free will.
It frees you from guilt and anticipation of punishment in the next world.

 

[belorg]

Our choice is unreasonable if it is motivated by pride, envy, greed, lust, vanity, jealousy, animosity, laziness or selfishness. It is reasonable if it is motivated by an objective, impartial consideration of the facts.

OK, so our choice to be unreasonbale is the result of the fact that we are unreasonbale, which is because we chose to be unreasonable because we were unreasonable because we chose to be unreasonable because we were unreasonbale because…

This leads to an infinite regress, Tony, and IIRC, you think an infinite regress is impossible.

No response!

If you had read and understood what I said, you would have known I did respond to this question.

That is because you don’t regard persons as independent entities. Even though you don’t regard them as machines you regard them as cogs in the machine of nature and compelled to act according to the laws of nature - without being capable of originality and creativity.

I do regard persons as a kind of machines, but that has no bearing on my thoughts on this matter.

In other words we don’t have a mind or will of our own because all our choices and decisions are supposedly caused by factors beyond our control. We are in effect helpless spectators who have no power to transcend our heredity and environment, no reason to exist and no feature which distinguishes us from other animals apart from our superior intelligence…

That is fairly accurate. And I came to that conclusion through a thorough investigation of all sorts of philosophical arguments and without presupposing materialism , naturalism, or even atheism.

 

[belorg]

There is, of course, only one reason why you would deny your own free will.
It frees you from guilt and anticipation of punishment in the next world.

The utterly primitive and logically incoherent ideas of punishment in the next world do not concern me at all.
The reason why I deny our own free will (in the libertarian sense you seem to be talking about) is because there are no serious arguments for it. That’s why the vast majority of contemporary philosophers are compatibilists, and lots of those who are libertarians take that position for theological rather than philosophical reasons.

 

[empther]

The reason why I deny our own free will is because there are no serious arguments for it.

Any simpleton who goes to hamburger row and chooses MacDonald’s one day and Burger King another day knows there’s free will,
and would laugh at you if you said otherwise.

“Ha, ha, ha.”

 

[belorg]

**Any simpleton **who goes to hamburger row and chooses MacDonald’s one day and Burger King another day knows there’s free will,
and **would laugh **at you if you said otherwise.

“Ha, ha, ha.”

Well, that’s a convincing argument. And look who’s laughing.

 

[CatholicSoxFan]

The utterly primitive and logically incoherent ideas of punishment in the next world do not concern me at all.
The reason why I deny our own free will (in the libertarian sense you seem to be talking about) is because there are no serious arguments for it. That’s why the vast majority of contemporary philosophers are compatibilists, and lots of those who are libertarians take that position for theological rather than philosophical reasons.

• Saying that hell doesn’t concern you is a comment on one’s psychology; it doesn’t prove anything. That an idea is old doesn’t discredit it, by the way. Last time I checked, that the Sun exists is a very “primitive” idea, and I don’t see anyone rejecting it on those grounds.
• youtube.com/watch?v=xCwY36a19aQ
  Besides, since free will is intuitive, in the absence of a defeater, it is reasonable to believe in it.

 

[belorg]

• Saying that hell doesn’t concern you is a comment on one’s psychology; it doesn’t prove anything. That an idea is old doesn’t discredit it, by the way. Last time I checked, that the Sun exists is a very “primitive” idea, and I don’t see anyone rejecting it on those grounds.
• youtube.com/watch?v=xCwY36a19aQ
  Besides, since free will is intuitive, in the absence of a defeater, it is reasonable to believe in it.

There are plenty of defeaters, as well as plausible explanations as to why we have the intuition of free will.

 

[tonyrey]

Our choice is unreasonable if it is motivated by pride, envy, greed, lust, vanity, jealousy, animosity, laziness or selfishness. It is reasonable if it is motivated by an objective, impartial consideration of the facts.

We are unequivocally unreasonable when we claim to derive reasoning from unreasoning processes.

This leads to an infinite regress, Tony, and IIRC, you think an infinite regress is impossible.

The only regress that occurs is a reversion to mindless activity in your mind!

No response!

If you had read and understood what I said, you would have known I did respond to this question.

an unsupported assertion.

: That is because you don’t regard persons as independent entities. Even though you don’t regard them as machines you regard them as cogs in the machine of nature and compelled to act according to the laws of nature - without being capable of originality and creativity.

I do regard persons as a kind of machines, but that has no bearing on my thoughts on this matter.

“kind of” doesn’t let you off the hook. You don’t regard anyone as original, creative and independent, do you?

In other words we don’t have a mind or will of our own because all our choices and decisions are supposedly caused by factors beyond our control. We are in effect helpless spectators who have no power to transcend our heredity and environment, no reason to exist and no feature which distinguishes us from other animals apart from our superior intelligence…

That is fairly accurate. And I came to that conclusion through a thorough investigation of all sorts of philosophical arguments and without presupposing materialism , naturalism, or even atheism.

To come to conclusions without making any presuppositions is consistent with the derivation of reason from unreasoning electrical conjunctions! They become mindless reactions to perceptions, sensations and emotions while intelligence becomes no more than a mechanical sequence of actions devoid of intuition, inspiration or comprehension.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

How do you know that, in your mind, this ‘decision’ was not made by the equivalent of a die roll or by a preference in your mind?

That seems strange. If I make a decision based on rolling a die (e.g. if the result is 4, I am going to put green socks on) then it is not a random decision?

If nothing influences it, not even who I am, then the decision is randomly arrived at.
If the decision is influenced by who I am, then it is not random, but it is a matter of preference.

If something happens without any reason, it happens by chance. Maybe random is too strong a word here, but something that doesn’t happen for a reason, happens by chance.

Either the random process is an accurate description or it’s not.

The fact is that if your choice of socks is completely controlled, then it is based on reasons. It can also be based on preference (which is also a subjective reason). Those are the only two somewhat indeterministic options. It can also be completely controlled if your ‘setup’ combined with circumstances, inevitably leads to your choice of socks.

The only other option I see is chance. If you have another option, please share it with me. But I have asked this countelss times already, and nobody has been able to come up with anything that cannot be reduced to determinism or chance or a combination of both.

This was a long time ago, but I’ve been away and wanted to respond briefly: the other option is free will. The fact that it is not the same as the other options is what makes it free will. It is a thing in itself and it simply decides, once it exists it does not require reasons to pick things. It may or may not consider other reasons, but in either case it chooses things on its own by its own power without needing to or being able to be based on something else.

Again, it may consider other factors, but the factors - even if they clearly point to a specific option - do not determine what the choice will be. The will does. Itself. It can see the reasons for choice A, know that it is the best choice, and then do B anyway for any reason or no reason at all. In such a case it would be being stupid, but it can do that, and there need not be a cause for it. It causes the choice with no more fundamental explanation required other than that explaining why it exists.

Now, you may not believe in free will (something I read made me think you did) but if you don’t that is probably a different discussion.

 

[belorg]

This was a long time ago, but I’ve been away and wanted to respond briefly: the other option is free will. The fact that it is not the same as the other options is what makes it free will. It is a thing in itself and it simply decides, once it exists it does not require reasons to pick things. It may or may not consider other reasons, but in either case it chooses things on its own by its own power without needing to or being able to be based on something else.

Again, it may consider other factors, but the factors - even if they clearly point to a specific option - do not determine what the choice will be. The will does. Itself. It can see the reasons for choice A, know that it is the best choice, and then do B anyway for any reason or no reason at all. In such a case it would be being stupid, but it can do that, and there need not be a cause for it. It causes the choice with no more fundamental explanation required other than that explaining why it exists.

Now, you may not believe in free will (something I read made me think you did) but if you don’t that is probably a different discussion.

And how is " do B for no reason at all" and even " without a cause" different from “by pure chance”?