The Free Will Problem

[john_doran]

This thread is going nowhere… as expected. So I am going to give a summary and let it go.

1. The assumption that the future exists (like the present exists) is nonsensical.

why? there are a great, great many scientists and philosophers who disagree with you.

that said, how is it nonsense? you simply stopped discussing minkowski spacetime when i brought it up before, and without successfully describing how the picture it painted made no sense.

ateista:

1. So let’s examine the ramifications of this assumption. Suppose the believers are right, and the future indeed exists, parallel to the present - for God. In this case there are no unresolved decisions. What we think is an unresolved decision is just a mistake on our part, since the decision has already been resolved. Therefore the concept of a freely made decision is just an illusion imposed on us by our limited view on reality.

not true. as i pointed out before, if the future exists, then future choices can be equally as free as past choices.

the only thing that changes is which moment is “now”, NOT the actual content of each moment.

ateista:

1. This is another clear case of contradiction. A decision is either freely made or not. If the result of an alleged decision already exists, then the decision could not possibly have been anything else - therefore it is not “free” in any sense of the word.

this, again, is simply and straightforwardly false.

you’re advocating the view that the world has all of its properties necessarily: namely, that it is impossible for the universe to have been any other way than it is. but why should anyone believe that? why couldn’t the fine structure constant have been different? or planck’s constant? or…

all that is needed for a choice to be free is that the choice is not entailed by any set of antecedent conditions or true propositions. and those conditions can be true of ***future ***choices, which means that future choices can be free.

ateista:

Of course that does not bother the believers. Anyone who is willing and able to disregard the blatant contradiction that an entity is either one or three - but not both - can deny the validity of any contradiction.

riiiiight. so a triangle is NOT one plane figure with three sides?

who’s calling who crazy?

 

[Sarpedon]

Of course that does not bother the believers. Anyone who is willing and able to disregard the blatant contradiction that an entity is either one or three - but not both - can deny the validity of any contradiction.

What did the Church Lady say? “How conveeeeenient!!”

Why should we be able to understand everything?

Being able to understand everything makes even less sense if you believe atheism. It seems unlikely that the undirected neurons in our brain assembled (with no real reason) in such as way as to never produce false ideas, but it becomes even more implausable to say that these neurons can understand every facet of reality. Ateista, you have stated that you believe the accuracy of the mind without God is an axiom. Honestly, I can’t see how you came to that conclusion.

 

[ateista]

Ateista, you have stated that you believe the accuracy of the mind without God is an axiom. Honestly, I can’t see how you came to that conclusion.

You can posit this question in the tread of “Ask the materialist” and I will try to give you an answer.

 

[gdibella]

(A quick reply)

1. The assumption that the future exists (like the present exists) is nonsensical. The future only exists as a concept, as the result of freely made, but as of yet unresolved decisions. Therefore it is inherently unknowable, just like the nonexistent winner of the lottery on a week when there was no winner. Omniscience does not mean knowing the nonexistence. This is obvious. {quote]

The assumption that the future exists (like the present exists) is nonsensical. [Believers recognize that the future exists at some later point].

The future only exists as a concept, as the result of freely made, but as of yet unresolved decisions. [Well, no, that’s not true. The future is more than a concept. It means that at some point later events become current events. And the present does not exist as an enity either, as the present moment instantaneously becomes the past.]

It does not exist as an entity. [No period of time exists as an entity, so if the principle is that “If it is not an entity, it is not knowable”, then justice, love, the past, and any abstract concept is not knowbale. But we know the conclusion of this statement to be false, the If clause must also be false since the application of the statement yields an untruth…]

Therefore it is inherently unknowable [well no, not if the grounding for this statement is “it is not an entity”.]

The same future exists for God and for us. God continually comprehends it unlike us.

The statement “the future does not exist for us” means that as of the present, the future is not yet here. Nothing too complicated.

And the idea of the “blatant contradiction that an entity is either one or three - but not both”.

This is not even close to what the “believer” is saying. Such a characterization is laughable to anyone who has inquired into trinitarian theology.
The trinity is not reducible to 1 equals 3 and 3 equals 1 at the same time.

It is saying that three persons wield one nature, just as one person wields two natures (jesus).

The question is is there a contradiction between three persons and one nature, not if one equals three.

One and three are different. Thinkers like Aquinas, Augustine, and Boethius knew this. Pretty much every educated Catholic knows this now.

–Greg

 

[samuraisedge18]

The example illustrates quite well that the future can only be known when it is inevitable, when the freedom to choose has disappeared. If those two drivers are still miles apart, you cannot “know” that they will keep their present speed and “inevitably” will collide.

but if God knows they will collide than they will.

and everything that happened in the bible was God’s will wasn’t it?. those things had to happen.

 

[Bean61]

The problem we have is not free will but the understanding of God.

God has given us free will but because we don’t understand God we don’t comprehend the free will that He has given us.

To explain free will:

1. John want to acquire skill in a trade.
2. God knows every trade there is. John picks the trade of electrician.
3. What kind of an electrician will John pick?
4. God knows every type and He can understand any of John’s choices. Let’s say there are three choices: Factory, comercial, and home electrician.
5. John picks factory electrician. Although God knew that John would pick one of these specialities, John picked being a factory electrician. It was John’s choice.
6. There are many styles of factory electricians. God knows them all. John picks troubleshooting. John is now a factory, troubleshooting electrician. John made all the choices of his own free will.
7. John could have picked a different trade. God would have seen all the choices to be made, but it would have been John’s free choice.

8)John gets married and has six children. Everyday John makes choices with his own free will about his family. Probably hundreds of choices every day. His wife makes choices also. All of their choices are made with their free will. God forces nothing on them.

1. God sees all the possible choices made by their free will before they make them. When they make a free will choice there is another raft of chices that God sees before them.
2. A person can choose life of death. They can choose good or evil. The choice is always theirs. God may send someone or something to alter their behavior if the choice is bad, but it is always their choice.

Conclusion: We certainly do have free will. It is what makes us human. God sees and understands everything. He knows what choices we have before us. Every choice is determined by our free will.

 

[RCWarrior821]

Did the Christian God give us free will?

If God knows all how did He create us with free will if He already knew what we were going to do. Aren’t we bound by what He already knows we are gonna do?

Do we really have free will???

This is a question i’ve been trying to answer to others and im having a hard time doing it

any help?

 

[Sarpedon]

Did the Christian God give us free will?

If God knows all how did He create us with free will if He already knew what we were going to do. Aren’t we bound by what He already knows we are gonna do?

God knows what we will do but does not cause us to do those actions. There is a major difference between knowledge and causation.

Look at it this way- we can know actions in the past without having caused those actions to be done. Since God is outside of time, He can view time in a totality, which encompasses our past, present and future.Thus, He can see free actions in a like manner to how we see that free actions of our past.

 

[Bean61]

Did the Christian God give us free will?

If God knows all how did He create us with free will if He already knew what we were going to do. Aren’t we bound by what He already knows we are gonna do?

Do we really have free will???

This is a question i’ve been trying to answer to others and im having a hard time doing it

any help?

God sees all the choices we have before us. By our free will, we pick one of those choices. God didn’t tell us which choice to pick. He may have seen 100 choices for us at that particular point in time. We picked one of them. We decided!

 

[OTavern]

Did the Christian God give us free will?

If God knows all how did He create us with free will if He already knew what we were going to do. Aren’t we bound by what He already knows we are gonna do?

Do we really have free will???

This is a question i’ve been trying to answer to others and im having a hard time doing it

any help?

My own suspicion, from experience, is that we have the capacity for free will, but need to make use of the capacity.

Most of us are “bound up” by sin, which makes it difficult to make use of that capacity for freedom that is within us. This does not mean we are completely incapacitated by sin, but that we must make use of “power” from another source - God Himself - to perfectly attain freedom. Grace from God makes our will “free.” Grace frees us from the forces within and outside of us (primarily social pressures) that bind us and “determine” our behaviour.

With grace, every choice we face can have two (or more) aspects: at least one that keeps us bound and incapacitated and, at least, one that “frees” us from those bounds. God’s grace lies in making the choice for freedom and by that fact empowers us to greater freedom. The choice for the good, the one often proposed by conscience, is typically the “free” choice. We even recognize this fact in the language we use. We “ought” to do it, undetermined by our desires, gain or calculations, but on its own merit.

I suspect, we ought also to continually “listen” to the will and grace of God each day to “practice” making free choices as part of our own spiritual growth.

Jesus said that we cannot be the slaves of two masters and that when He makes us free we are free indeed. Principally, grace makes us free from our own limitations to do God’s will, a will that is the essence of freedom, since He is “all-powerful” and UNrestricted by any “thing” else.

 

[OTavern]

Did the Christian God give us free will?

If God knows all how did He create us with free will if He already knew what we were going to do. Aren’t we bound by what He already knows we are gonna do?

My thought here is that our “will” is precisely that because it is autonomous from everything else and that which “identifies” us as distinct from all else. We are what we are precisely because of “will.” Our “freedom from” everything else is what makes us distinct from everything else.

However, the richness of existence lies in knowing and loving those “other” goods, but not to the extent of turning over our “identity,” that is, our “will,” to them. If we do that, we become determined by them and lose “ourselves.” When Jesus asked the question, “What does it matter if a man gains the entire world, but loses his very self?” I think this is what he meant.

We give ourselves “over” to the things we love, and thereby get trapped by them. What we must do is give ourselves completely to “God” who is both our identity and our freedom. All other “things” are idols that do not “give” life back, God alone can give identity and freedom in return. In God, we find our “true self,” the one He created and alone can sustain.

Do we really have free will???

The analogy that comes to mind here is being trapped in a labyrinth of tunnels leading upwards and downwards. God and freedom are “up,” but sin and death are “down.” Our freedom is in choosing which direction we turn towards, but the “power” to go there comes from one of two sources:

1. Grace from God that “pulls” us toward freedom, goodness, truth and fullness of life.
2. Inertia of sin (St. Paul called “the flesh” that exerts a constant weight akin to “gravity” pulling downwards.

If we turn and face towards grace, we are drawn to freedom, if we turn towards sin we are more fully bound up by sin. Extricating ourselves is exactly the point of the journey towards “holiness,” wholeness or, as C.S. Lewis calls it, Zoe, the “spiritual life” that we are called to in this world. It is our Exodus from the slavery in Egypt that we find ourselves in.

 

[joseph_virgen]

the following if from a book by dr. francis collins, head of the human genome project and is known as one of the worlds leading scientists. it helped deepen my understanding of God and our free will. it’s not perfect, but nothing is.

if God exists, then He is supernatural.
if He is supernatural, then He is not limited by natural laws.
if He is not limited by natural laws, there is no reason He should
be limited by time.
if He is not limited by time, then He is in the past, the present,
and in the future.

the consequence of those conclusions would include:

He could exist before the big bang and He could exist after the
universe fades away, if it ever does.
He could know the precise outcome of the formation of the
univervere even before it started.
He could have foreknowledge of the planet near the outer rim of
an average spiral galaxy that would have just the right
charactaristics to allow life.
He could have foreknowledge that that planet would lead to the
developement of sentient creatures, through the mechanism of
evolution by natural selection.
He could even know in advance the thoughts and actions of those
creatures, even though they themselves have free will.

 

[Bean61]

the following if from a book by dr. francis collins, head of the human genome project and is known as one of the worlds leading scientists. it helped deepen my understanding of God and our free will. it’s not perfect, but nothing is.

if God exists, then He is supernatural.
if He is supernatural, then He is not limited by natural laws.
if He is not limited by natural laws, there is no reason He should
be limited by time.
if He is not limited by time, then He is in the past, the present,
and in the future.

the consequence of those conclusions would include:

He could exist before the big bang and He could exist after the
universe fades away, if it ever does.
He could know the precise outcome of the formation of the
univervere even before it started.
He could have foreknowledge of the planet near the outer rim of
an average spiral galaxy that would have just the right
charactaristics to allow life.
He could have foreknowledge that that planet would lead to the
developement of sentient creatures, through the mechanism of
evolution by natural selection.
He could even know in advance the thoughts and actions of those
creatures, even though they themselves have free will.

Hi Joseph Virgin,
You’re absolutely right on all counts except God would only know about the mechanism of evolution by Natural Selection through the mind of a man named Darwin. God, of course, would laugh at such a silly idea.