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ateista
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If that is the case, why did God not instantiate the world where everyone chooses morally? Mere “improbability” does not “dampen” God’s omnipotence.
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SeekingCatholic
Guest
I would also like to point out that “significant freedom” is only part of Plantinga’s free will defense: the other part of the argument is that it is (epistemically) possible that God could not have actualized a world in which all free persons go right and that therefore persons suffer from “Transworld depravity” - they will always go wrong at least once in every possible world. A world God cannot actualize is either a logically or metaphysically impossible world.
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tobias
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I agree that improbability could not 'dampen' God's omnipotence. Nor could impossibility, for if a reality is truly impossible ( uncausable ), then one who has power to cause all causes has not power over that which no power can actualize.
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ateista
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Very well. So why did God not actualize a world in which everyone is saved (because they freely make the right decisions)? Since it is merely unlikely but not impossible, and allegedly God wants everyone be saved; that would be the preferred world for God. The existence of free will does not explain it any more.
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john_doran
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well, it’s not the same thing: the “double effect” argument doesn’t assume that the good instantiated by the action in question is “greater” than the bad of the unintended consequence.
i agree with it as a synopsis of a free will defense, but it is not plantinga’s (since it doesn’t mention transworld depravity).
a choice is “significantly free” just in case nothing at all determines the choice except the choosing.
look, if there are beings capable of making (significantly) free choices, then there are possible worlds with common world-segments, S, prior to the choice, and which differ only in respect of the choice.
as near as i can tell, your use of “metaphysical” possibility here is supposed to differentiate between worlds that are possible because they are logically consistent, and those that are possible in the sense of “actualizable” (i.e. there are logically consstent worlds that are nonetheless not capable of being actuaized); and then you suggest that any world that god cannot actualize is not “metaphysically” possible.
but that just doesn’t follow: if there are created beings capable of making free choices, then it is up to those beings and NOT god to actualize the worlds in which the various choice-outcomes exist.
again: the worlds at which the various choices are made are actualizable, and therefore “metaphysically possible” - they’re just not actualizable by god.
i deny that god’s inability to actualize another being’s free choice requires him to be less than omnipotent.
i’m afraid you’re mistaken.
not that it matters.
i don’t know: you’re the first that i’ve read who makes this distinction (in this context, at least), and makes so much of it.
for whatever it’s worth, i think “metaphysical” possibility is just logical possibility by another name.
no - as i say above, it is not up to god to actualize those (parts of) worlds containing free choices: it is up to the chooser.
SeekingCathlic:
right: what free choosers will choose in any given circumstance.
not quite: the scientia media is precisely grounded in the choice of the chooser - that’s what god knows when he knows counterfactuals of creaturely freedom.
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john_doran
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he wants everyone to be saved in the world he in fact actualizes. he just knows that it’s not possible.
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ateista
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Why not possible?
It entails no logical contradiction. That is the crux of the matter. If omnipotence means to be able to actualize anything that does not contain or lead to a logical contradiction, then such a world is surely actualizable.
As a matter of fact I can even give you an example of such a world: it contains only one human being: “Mary”, the mother of Jesus. Allegedly she was the only human being without sin.
Show me that there is a logical contradiction in this world. I already heard that there “may” be one, and that is the reason that God did not actualize this world, but that is simply question begging!
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SeekingCatholic
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Then it’s no good as a defense. For evil not to be gratuitous the good which could not have existed but for the evil must outweigh the evil.
Anyway, back to the free will defense. Either an aspect of God’s omniscience or His omnipotence must be sacrificed to maintain this.
It implies it, even if it doesn’t mention the term by name. The crux is that God could not actualize a world containing creatures with free will in which everyone chose rightly. Will you agree that this is the basic premise of any free will defense? The free will defense claims that moral good could not exist but for the existence of moral evil.
IOW, just libertarian free will.
Agreed. So then a world in which everyone chooses rightly is a metaphysically possible world.
Correct.
Correct. If God is omnipotent He must be able to do anything which is metaphysically possible; thus He must be able to actualize any metaphysically possible world.
So you are saying there is something a creature can do but God cannot do! You’ve completely thrown traditional theology on its head. The very definition of “impossible” in classical theism is “something God cannot do”.
Now, your version might in a sense be possible if God only knows the free choices his creatures will make as a result of them choosing them (which you seem to hold, and which puts us right into open-view theology, IMO created specifically to deal with the problem of moral evil, but sacrificing a traditional aspect of God’s omniscience). E.g., God doesn’t “know” which world to actualize prior to its actualization to bring about the desired free choices of creatures.
However, according to classical theism and the traditional understanding of omniscience God knows prior to the actualization of the world what the free choices of the created beings are going to be, and that means prior to the creatures actually making those choices. Therefore it is up to God to actualize the world in which the various choice-outcomes exist, for He knows what they will be prior to the actualization.
Could He have actualized a world (with the same world-segments, etc.) but in which the created beings in fact chose differently? The free-will defense answer must be “no”, which means, according to the above, that such a world must not be possible. Yet the free-will defense also insists that such a world is possible to preserve “significant freedom”. There’s a contradiction.
So again you do hold there exists a metaphysically possible world not actualizable by God. I claim this makes God not omnipotent.
Then you must hold that actualizing another being’s free choice is metaphysically or logically impossible. However there is nothing prima facie impossible about it, and as you are well aware one large school of philosophical thought (Thomism) holds that God can do and actually does just that.
I’m not mistaken, and it matters a great deal. You can’t have your version of “significant freedom” and Molinism at the same time.
This is not what scientia media is grounded in - which is precisely why there is a grounding objection in the first place - because the chooser and the choice might not exist.
You are saying that when God knows that “if A were in situation B, he would choose C” it is not a hypothetical knowledge which has a truth-value of “true” even if A never exists, or situation B never exists, at all. It is a mere knowledge that A actually is (or was, or will be) in situation B and actually chose C in that situation. This is not Molinist scientia media.
Now if there is a possible world in which A were in situation B and did not choose C then the counterfactual of creaturely freedom is false. It is not the case that if A were in situation B, he would choose C. Yet you must insist that this is a possible world to preserve your idea of “significant freedom”. So you are faced with a contradiction. You’re actually a closet open-viewer.
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john_doran
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because in the world that god in fact actualizes, he knows that people will choose not to be saved.
depends who you ask: for SeekingCatholic it’s about metaphysical contradiction…
but i agree with you: it’s about logical contradiction. it’s just that it’s logicaly contradictory for god to make anyone’s choices for them.
i don’t think that there’s any logical contradiction in the world you describe (with the proviso that any “person” in a world with no other people will live a life that’s only marginally “human” in the sense that we currently understand the term).
i don’t hang my hat on the free will defense, though, so the fact that god could have created a world with one rational being who is given one free choice to make which she makes correctly, doesn’t matter to me one whit.
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SeekingCatholic
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So why didn’t God actualize a world in which He knew everyone would choose to be saved?
But it’s not logically contradictory for God to actualize a world in which they all choose rightly, and it does not entail God making their choices for them.
Well there you go. There’s no logical contradiction in a world in which all choose rightly.
A good choice, since it’s been ripped to shreds here.
It refutes the free will defense.
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tobias
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Code:
Since this seems to merely be an unsettling dilema of classical theism (particularly Catholic) and God's character in the actualization of this world, lets digress to the creation account.
Geniesis 1 recounts God's methodical acts of creation. At each realized potential God declares that 'It is good.' These declarations of goodness include also the last potential realized, namely mankind. God did not reserve a designation of partial good to Man, for before a rejection the world was free of moral evil. An actualized world where all would freely make right moral decisions.
What then was the undoing of this actualized world? Moral evil entered from the interference of an intelligence from outside of this world (that is ,not bound.to this world) As I discussed earlier in this thread, apart from intelligence there is no way of actualizing potential. The 'dilema' of free choice is not that we are free to commit moral evil alongside moral good, the dilema is that moral evil was interjected from without. It was niether Man nor God who was the agent of actualizing the potential of moral evil, It was angelic intelligence.
In classic theological terms the world, not just man, is fallen. Alongside moral evil came natural evil ( In no way should entropy be assigned the designation of a natural evil ). Thus it was neccessary for an intelligence outside of this world (again not bound to) to undo the consequence of the rejection.
The actualization of moral evil was not caused by an imperfection in the free will in Man in his1st disobedience, but by the moral evil of deceit from the outside intelligence of the adversary.
Would God truly be just if He chose not to actualize this world because of the outside influence of angelic intelligence? It's often said that God permits evil that good may come of it, which kind of misses the point. I would rather say ' God permits evil that the good may be restored.'
Omnipotence is not only to be able to cause all actualization, but if a reality is willed- it is, if creation is pondered--it thus becomes. So to have actualized an other world because this one has fallen, starting over with the ponderance of creation, would not just mean not willing this world to have ever existed in favor of another, it would mean this worlds undoing, for what omnipotence wills, is. So in order to accomplish this cosmic reversal, would entail God commiting moral evil-- the destruction of innocent beings.
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john_doran
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this is just not right. at all.
it is possible (and, in fact, true) that the goods at stake in morally relevant free choices are incommensurable, and thus neither better or worse than, nor equal to each other.
yes, i will agree, with the proviso that the defense simply attempts to establish that it is possible that things be this way.
of ***course ***there are things that i can do that god can’t; there are ***lots ***of things: he can’t do anything the doing of which is ***me ***doing it, because god is not and cannot be me.
god cannot think my thoughts for me, or eat my breakfast for me, or run to catch the bus for me, or post this reply on this forum for me. of course ***god ***could do all of those things for himself, but then it would be ***him ***doing them. he could ***cause ***me to do them, but it is still ***me ***doing them. only i can make these propositions true:
john doran is scratching his head;
john doran is running to catch the bus;
…and so on.
in the same way, only i can make my own free choices; how could this be something that anyone else does?
(incidentally, the same thing applies to “omniscience”: i know what it feels like to be me, but god doesn’t. how could he?)
that’s just not the only way to look at it…
god ***does ***know what his free creatures choose in every possible world, and his knowledge of those counterfactuals of creaturely freedom is his middle knowledge.
just because he knows what will be chosen doesn’t mean that he can actualize any of the worlds in which those choices occur: when he knows what each free choice will be, he also knows which worlds he cannot actualize consistently with those free choices.
sigh. we’re going round in circles here…
each world in which a free choice is made is possible (both metaphysically and logically), it’s just not possible for god to actualize, so there’s no contradiction at all.
you seem to assume that the only sense of “possible” that is capable of grounding both god’s omniscience/omnipotence, and creaturely freedom is something like “capable of being actualized by god”. but why should anyone believe that?
ok. and i claim it doesn’t.
how can anyone actualize my free choices but me? seems like a similar question to: how can god make a square circle?
thomism understood in that way is wrong…
the version of thomas’ view of god’s sovereignty and creaturely freedom to which i subscribe is logically equivalent to molinism, and as between them i am indifferent.
as far as i can see, thomas’ view is that when god creates free creatures, what he creates is an ontology of events and objects - he creates “john-doran-freely-choosing-to-eat-cornfakes”, because he knows that’s what i would choose. and which also means that thomas’ god can’t just create any freely chosen act that he wants (or elose he wouldn’t be creating something making a free choice)…
i continue to think you’re wrong about this.
but, again, it doesn’t matter at all because i’m not defending a historical position - a position associated with a certain name - i’m defending the position that seems to be correct. and maybe it’s not anything that can reasonably be called “molinism”. but so what?
SeekingCathoic:
it’s the ground claimed for god’s middle knowledge. whether or not that’s actually its ground is disputed.
no. this is not what i’m saying.
no: it’s not what occurs in each possible world - it’s what would occur in each possible world if that world were actual.
and i don’t care what you call the position: just call it “correct”.
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john_doran
Guest
maybe, but maybe not.
and that’s all the defense requires in order to succeed: maybe god couldn’t have done it.
A) i don’t think a world like that can be given an exhaustively consistent description;
B) even if it could, the free will defender is understood to be arguing for the moral value of the number and kinds of free choices made in possible worlds in reasonable proximity to this world.
…if this thread counts as ripping anything to shreds, then it’s simply the credibility of people who think they’re ripping anything to shreds in threads like this one…
no, it doesn’t. any more than does the fact that god could have created a world that contained only one rock. or a flower. or whatever…
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SeekingCatholic
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No it is not possible. That there are degrees of goodness is fundamental in metaphysics.
OK. So it is (epistemically) possible that God could not actualize a world containing creatures with free will in which all chose rightly. Let’s start there.
All this says is the tautology that “God does something” != “john doran does something”, and that God cannot be john doran, only john doran can be john doran. But God can think thoughts, or eat breakfast, or catch buses, or whatever else - or actualize worlds.
Which is of course the very point of contention. If Molinist counterfactuals and scientia media are correct you don’t make the proposition true, because the proposition that “in this circumstance in this world, john doran would scratch his head” is true even if this world and john doran were never actualized. You can’t make a proposition true if you don’t even exist.
Well the debate of libertarian vs. compatibilist free will can hardly be said to be settled. But we’ll presume libertarian free will for the purposes of the argument.
You should say, God does know what his free creatures would choose in every possible world. Not all possible worlds are actualized. Now this version of middle knowledge I can agree with, not being grounded in his creatures’ actual choices.
Therefore, God surveys all possible worlds, and must find none where his creatures all choose rightly (according to the above premise of the free will defense). If he found one, he could actualize it.
Why not? I would agree he can’t actualize a world in which those choices don’t occur. Or maybe this was a typo?
And those would be worlds with contrary free choices. Unless there was a typo in the last sentence, this doesn’t make sense.
Obviously we differ on the meaning of “metaphysically possible”. I take “metaphysically possible” to be equivalent to “whatever God can actualize”. But I’ll even grant you this point, for it doesn’t help the free will defense at all. A world which God cannot actualize is in some sense an intrinsically impossible world, which is all that is necessary for my attack on the free will defense to succeed. So I’ll use “intrinsically impossible” in lieu of “metaphysically impossible”. You’ll agree that God’s omnipotence means He can do anything not intrinsically impossible, yes?
Because if not capable of being actualized by God, it must be intrinsically impossible in some sense. The traditional definition of omnipotence is ability to do whatever is logically or metaphysically possible; you want to add some extra dimension of intrinsic impossibility; fine, it doesn’t change things.
That’s fine, but you cannot have true counterfactuals “grounded” in creatures’ actual actions.
Look, it’s impossible that the ground for god’s middle knowledge could be the (real) actions of creatures who do not exist.
That’s my understanding of counterfactuals and scientia media. It’s not grounded in real and actual choices because it involves worlds that do not exist.
Now, substitute “intrinsic” for “metaphysical” possibility or impossibility in my OP and the argument against the free will defense still stands. Creatures are damned through intrinsic necessity.
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john_doran
Guest
says who? where are you getting this stuff?
this is, at any rate, an ethical claim that i am making about the moral rectitude of god’s act of creating a world with evil in it even if he could have created a world without that evil.
and whatever else may be true of certain metaphysical positions, it most definitely ***is ***possible that the goods at stake in moral reasoning are incommensurable, your assertion to the contrary notwithstanding…
i am excising this point from the thread, though - if you want to start another one on the ethics of creation, feel free.
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SeekingCatholic
Guest
In human morality, when the principal of “double effect” is used, it is always a precondition that the foreseen but unwilled evil be less than the good in view - there is never a case in which the two are deemed “incommensurable”. And also, you are claiming that even God can not know whether the good in view outweighs the evil.
At any rate, it would mean that the God Who allegedly so loved the world that He gave His own Son for its salvation, in the end, actually preferred some other “incommensurable” good to the salvation of the majority of mankind (if you believe the Fathers on this topic).
OK, fine.
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john_doran
Guest
i know the point is obvious: that is the point. i can do things god cannot do, without thereby making god any less omnipotent for all that.
and ***one ***of the things that i can do but god cannot, is actualize the worlds that contain my free choices.
i disagree, but i don’t want to belabour the point.
whether or not there are “truth-makers” for counterfactuals of creaturely freedom (or any other propositions, for that matter), and whether or not - if there are - they have anything to do with the creatures making the free choices, is beside the point here.
which is simply that there are counterfactuals of creaturely freedom, and some of them are true.
one change: god surveys all possible worlds and finds none where, if such worlds were actualized by god, his creatures all choose rightly.
no, not a typo…
god sees that, if world W’ were actual up to the point of choice C of mine, i would choose to steal a candy-bar. god also sees possible world W*, where i choose not to steal the candy bar. however, god can’t actualize W*, because only i can actualize the worlds (or, more precisely, world-segments) that contain my choices, including W*.
so: god can see the world in which i choose rghtly, but he is powerless to actualize that world.
well, “intrinsically impossible” strikes me as equally vague, but i’ll agree to stipulate the definition, but with the proviso that it is “intrinsically impossible” for any being to actualize the free choices of another being.
why should anyone believe this? i certainly don’t…
i agree, it doesn’t change things: it is still logically/metaphysically/intrinsically impossible for god to actualize my free choices.
right: the ground is what they ***would ***choose, if they existed in those circumstances.
not quite, i’m afraid: because it is intrinsically impossible for god to actualize others’ free choices, then for any world at which some free being chooses to be damned, god could not actualize the otherwise identical world in which that being chooses salvation.
and god is no less omnipotent, omnibenevolent, or omniscient because of that inability.
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john_doran
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i understand the good=being identity claimed by thomas, but again, my point is an ethical one, and thomas himself doesn’t translate the identity into his ethics.
(and at any rate, the view isn’t one shared by contemporary metaphysicians, so saying that it is “fundamental to metaphysics” is more than a little tendentious).
SeekingCatholic:
SeekingCatholic:
SeekingCatholic:
(and at any rate, the view isn’t one shared by contemporary metaphysicians, so saying that it is “fundamental to metaphysics” is more than a little tendentious).
not true: the acceptance of the bad consequence needs to be “proportionate”, but the analysis of what that means does not need to be utilitarian (it is in fact close to something like “reasonable”).
yes, but only because there is nothing to know: the good doesn’t outweigh the evil; neither is it outweighed by it, or equally weighted. they are incommensurable, and thus asking if the good outweighs the evil is like asking if hope outweighs the number 7.
even if you’re right, so what? it would also mean that god’s preference in that regard isn’t any worse than any complementary preference he might have had. not morally, anyway.
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SeekingCatholic
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Now back to the “free will defense”. It it hopelessly confused, wishing to “have it both ways” when it comes to libertarian vs. compatibilist free will, and misunderstanding Molinism and counterfactuals of freedom, and ends up sacrificing at least some aspect of classical theism.
In libertarian free will, it is both metaphysically and logically possible than if agent A is in situation B, he will do C or not do C. In compatibilist free will, one of the two choices is logically possible but not metaphysically possible (I here prescind from whether the choice is “caused” by the situation B or merely only “predetermined” by it). Put another way, in libertarian free will A’s performing C is a contingent fact whereas in compatibilist free will A’s performing C is a necessary fact.
But God, by definition, is capable of actualizing any universe with any combination of contingent facts. It is only necessary facts which “constrain” Him, so to speak. But the free will defense wishes to argue that A has “significant freedom” (meaning libertarian free will) and that yet God could not actualize a universe containing one or the other choice, which is only a contingent fact (assuming libertarian free will). The free will defense could stand if instead compatibilist free will were assumed, making the choice a necessary fact (which I admitted in the OP), but then it suffers my original objection (the damned being so from metaphysical necessity).
Free-will defenders then turn to Molinism and counterfactuals of freedom in an attempt to save the case. It should be pointed out that Molina himself was not a “libertarian” in the sense used above. He was a compatibilist, though not a causal compatibilist. He wished to argue, against his Dominican opponents, that our choices are not caused directly by God, to preserve our freedom of the will. To the question of how God could then have foreknowledge of our actions without Him causing them, he proposed scientia media - middle knowledge - whereby God has knowledge of the counterfactual proposition “if A is in situation B, he will do C” independently of whether A exists at all, or is put in situation B. Now for God to have this knowledge A’s action must be a necessary, not a contingent, fact. His Dominican opponents argued otherwise. They said the counterfactual is false. It is not the case that if A is in situation B, he will do C. There are possible worlds in which A does or does not do C (distinguished by how God acts in them). Besides, the knowledge of counterfactuals is not grounded in reality (the classic “grounding objection”).
But in the free will defense it cannot be admiited that A’s choice constitutes a necessary fact, in order to preserve “significant freedom”. Thus God’s knowledge of counterfactuals is changed to mean merely His knowledge of the contingent facts in the world He creates. In Molinism there is no possible world in which A does not do C - it is a necessary fact. In the free will defense, there is a possible world in which A does not do C, but it is a world which somehow God cannot actualize. Why can God not actualize it? It is argued because of the contingent fact that A in fact does C, which attempts to make this a necessary fact, contradictory to libertarian free will. Or it is argued that God simply cannot choose to create a world with His choice of contingent facts, which simply denies His omnipotence (as classically defined).
Or, it is argued that what God really actualizes is the world-segment prior to A’s choice, with A himself actualizing the world with either C or ~C. But then how does God know what A will choose in this hypothetical world, given that both C and ~C are possible worlds? God does not cause A’s choice. The situation B does not pre-determine it. God has not chosen a priori which world - with C or ~C - to actualize. His knowledge must be as a result of A’s choice. This is making God’s knowledge not prior to the world He creates but as a result of it, which is contrary to the classical idea of omniscience.
In libertarian free will, it is both metaphysically and logically possible than if agent A is in situation B, he will do C or not do C. In compatibilist free will, one of the two choices is logically possible but not metaphysically possible (I here prescind from whether the choice is “caused” by the situation B or merely only “predetermined” by it). Put another way, in libertarian free will A’s performing C is a contingent fact whereas in compatibilist free will A’s performing C is a necessary fact.
But God, by definition, is capable of actualizing any universe with any combination of contingent facts. It is only necessary facts which “constrain” Him, so to speak. But the free will defense wishes to argue that A has “significant freedom” (meaning libertarian free will) and that yet God could not actualize a universe containing one or the other choice, which is only a contingent fact (assuming libertarian free will). The free will defense could stand if instead compatibilist free will were assumed, making the choice a necessary fact (which I admitted in the OP), but then it suffers my original objection (the damned being so from metaphysical necessity).
Free-will defenders then turn to Molinism and counterfactuals of freedom in an attempt to save the case. It should be pointed out that Molina himself was not a “libertarian” in the sense used above. He was a compatibilist, though not a causal compatibilist. He wished to argue, against his Dominican opponents, that our choices are not caused directly by God, to preserve our freedom of the will. To the question of how God could then have foreknowledge of our actions without Him causing them, he proposed scientia media - middle knowledge - whereby God has knowledge of the counterfactual proposition “if A is in situation B, he will do C” independently of whether A exists at all, or is put in situation B. Now for God to have this knowledge A’s action must be a necessary, not a contingent, fact. His Dominican opponents argued otherwise. They said the counterfactual is false. It is not the case that if A is in situation B, he will do C. There are possible worlds in which A does or does not do C (distinguished by how God acts in them). Besides, the knowledge of counterfactuals is not grounded in reality (the classic “grounding objection”).
But in the free will defense it cannot be admiited that A’s choice constitutes a necessary fact, in order to preserve “significant freedom”. Thus God’s knowledge of counterfactuals is changed to mean merely His knowledge of the contingent facts in the world He creates. In Molinism there is no possible world in which A does not do C - it is a necessary fact. In the free will defense, there is a possible world in which A does not do C, but it is a world which somehow God cannot actualize. Why can God not actualize it? It is argued because of the contingent fact that A in fact does C, which attempts to make this a necessary fact, contradictory to libertarian free will. Or it is argued that God simply cannot choose to create a world with His choice of contingent facts, which simply denies His omnipotence (as classically defined).
Or, it is argued that what God really actualizes is the world-segment prior to A’s choice, with A himself actualizing the world with either C or ~C. But then how does God know what A will choose in this hypothetical world, given that both C and ~C are possible worlds? God does not cause A’s choice. The situation B does not pre-determine it. God has not chosen a priori which world - with C or ~C - to actualize. His knowledge must be as a result of A’s choice. This is making God’s knowledge not prior to the world He creates but as a result of it, which is contrary to the classical idea of omniscience.
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SeekingCatholic
Guest
If you want to excise the point from the thread, then excise the point from the thread.
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