Uncaused Free Will is Evil

[James_S_Saint]

In this, I am defining “free” as “uncaused”, “evil” as “destructive to life”, and “will” as “exercising influence”.

What we call free will is a function of the mind’s ability to assess a situation, make a decision concerning how to respond and exercise influence based on that decision. A mind, in doing so, either uses information to make its decision or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t use information to make the decision, then it is ignoring reality, God, and its situation. Such decisions are necessarily amoral because they are not confined to what constitutes morality. What good comes of decisions that ignore the situation and reality itself?

If decisions are made based on information about the situation and reality, then the decision making process is not free from causal determinacy. Decisions are made for reasons and purposes rather than merely being made for no reason or purpose.

What people are calling free will (uncaused will) is a very bad thing paramount to evil. When an agent behaves in a random, unpredictable fashion, that agent cannot be trusted. It cannot be trusted to behave in either a bad or good way. That makes it dangerous and just statistically speaking would necessarily behave in a bad way eventually. It is very much like not having the lug nuts on a wheel. Eventually the wheel will come off while the car is being driven. The probability of that being a good thing is minuscule. Even if it is desired for the wheel to come off. it would make more sense to ensure that it would come off rather than leave it up to chance.

On rare occasions, randomness is desired even though such is actually impossible. But in those circumstances the random act is expected to be limited to a confined influence. If it is confined, then it is not free to create influence, but restricted to only influence the limited scope of concern. Thus even in such cases, the will of the agent is not free even though the direction of the decision is desired to be free from cause.

No matter how you cut it, uncaused free will is destructive to the effort to live and thus is evil.

 

[Oreoracle]

Wait a second. “Uncaused Free Will” is part of your thread title and you just said that “free” is to be defined as “uncaused.” Using substitution, “uncaused free will” becomes “uncaused uncaused will.” Hmm…Is that a redundancy or a double-negative? :coffeeread:

 

[prodigalson12]

You assume free will mandates either a positive or a negative, with only one positive or one negative that is at the disposal for use within any given situation.

Before the fall of man, we had a wide range of positive things to choose from, and only one negative one. That’s the model more of the ideal you would want, yet after the fall, we now have a wide range of positive (and) negative to choose from, with our same free will.

Take it away, the best you’ll be doing is taking us back to the garden without the apple, I think that’s the point of what many people would strive for, with a life on this world, yet taking it away to the point, where there is no choice doesn’t make for much of a full sentient being regardless, thus not worthy of love, or to be able to truly love, just something programmed into play to perform a task, much like an appliance or something.

 

[James_S_Saint]

You assume free will mandates either a positive or a negative, with only one positive or one negative that is at the disposal for use within any given situation.

I don’t see how I assumed that.

Before the fall of man, we had a wide range of positive things to choose from, and only one negative one. That’s the model more of the ideal you would want, yet after the fall, we now have a wide range of positive (and) negative to choose from, with our same free will.

I think you missed the point.

 

[James_S_Saint]

The situation is 4 fold;

1. Undetermined events really don’t exist, never have.
2. To life, a decision maker, events are seemingly determined by them as it is their task to determine (but within predetermined limits).
3. People want to believe in something (free uncaused-will) that would be evil IF it existed, not realizing that it would be evil. They want to be God (having no limits), often even those who think that they worship God.
4. Evil is relative only to life. To God, the Determiner, Evil doesn’t exist.

Thus from the God perspective;

• No events are undetermined events

•   Undetermined events are evil

•   Therefore no events are evil.

But from the Human perspective

• Undetermined events are evil

•   Evil events exist

•   Therefore undetermined events exist

What is true for God, doesn’t apply to Man.

 

[wanstronian]

In this, I am defining “free” as “uncaused”, “evil” as “destructive to life”, and “will” as “exercising influence”.

What we call free will is a function of the mind’s ability to assess a situation, make a decision concerning how to respond and exercise influence based on that decision. A mind, in doing so, either uses information to make its decision or it doesn’t. If it doesn’t use information to make the decision, then it is ignoring reality, God, and its situation.

If the individual believes in God then that would constitute part of ‘the situation’ as perceived by the individual. ‘Reality’ is also part of ‘the situation.’

Such decisions are necessarily amoral because they are not confined to what constitutes morality. What good comes of decisions that ignore the situation and reality itself?

If decisions are made based on information about the situation and reality, then the decision making process is not free from causal determinacy. Decisions are made for reasons and purposes rather than merely being made for no reason or purpose.

What people are calling free will (uncaused will) is a very bad thing paramount to evil. When an agent behaves in a random, unpredictable fashion, that agent cannot be trusted. It cannot be trusted to behave in either a bad or good way. That makes it dangerous and just statistically speaking would necessarily behave in a bad way eventually. It is very much like not having the lug nuts on a wheel. Eventually the wheel will come off while the car is being driven. The probability of that being a good thing is minuscule.

I think you need to define what you mean by ‘evil.’ In general use, I would argue that the word ‘evil’ implies an intent for wrong-doing. Using this definition, what you’re talking about isn’t evil. If you’re using the less-used sense of ‘disastrous’ then you seem to be simply saying that unpredictable events can have disastrous consequences, which probably isn’t news to anybody.

Even if it is desired for the wheel to come off. it would make more sense to ensure that it would come off rather than leave it up to chance.

On rare occasions, randomness is desired even though such is actually impossible. But in those circumstances the random act is expected to be limited to a confined influence. If it is confined, then it is not free to create influence, but restricted to only influence the limited scope of concern. Thus even in such cases, the will of the agent is not free even though the direction of the decision is desired to be free from cause.

No matter how you cut it, uncaused free will is destructive to the effort to live and thus is evil.

Yes - for one specific and rather arcane context of the word ‘evil.’

But I’m not even sure what your point is. Free will as you define it here, doesn’t occur, does it? Who makes truly random decisions? And if someone did, then by definition this decision would be free from evil intent.

Thus from the God perspective;

• No events are undetermined events
• Undetermined events are evil
• Therefore no events are evil.

There’s an error here, in that you ignore determined events that may be evil. But I’m still not sure what you’re trying to show. Can you summarise the point(s) you’re trying to make?

 

[Voice_of_Reason_1]

I think the whole argument about randomness muddies the water for Christians. It’s usually far enough to say that there are natural forces underlying all behaviour (even belief in God) and that because nature follows set laws and because we are part of nature, that we cannot be exempt from the determinism in which everything in the world acts for better or for worse (whatever that is)

It’s a futile effort though: some will make poor critiques of your argument; others will simply deny determinism on the grounds that it can’t be true since we all have free will! I agree with your posts though.

Wanstronian, I’m sure the OP realizes the arcane sense in which he uses the word ‘evil’; you can only tackle one tenaciously-held bronze-age idea at a time though (this is a dialogue with Catholics, as you know; no reason to get sidetracked on the manmade distinction between good and evil when there’s the question of free will at hand)

 

[wanstronian]

Whoops! James did indeed define ‘evil.’ Right at the top of the post. My bad.

 

[James_S_Saint]

“Evil” is the reverse spelling of the word “live” for a reason. In German, it is “efyl”, reversed to spell “lyfe”. Evil is the concept of “the opponent to life” - the reverse of the effort to live or life. For every effort, there is an opponent.

 

[wanstronian]

“Evil” is the reverse spelling of the word “live” for a reason. In German, it is “efyl”, reversed to spell “lyfe”. Evil is the concept of “the opponent to life” - the reverse of the effort to live or life. For every effort, there is an opponent.

Not sure about your etymology here!
etymonline.com/index.php?search=evil&searchmode=none
Nothing to suggest that ‘evil’ and ‘live’ are connected other than by a coincidence of spelling.

Nor can I find either ‘lyfe’ or ‘efyl’ in the German dictionary.

Can you cite a source for your claims?

 

[James_S_Saint]

I’m sorry, I meant “Germanic”, not “German”. MY bad, I guess we’re even.

In case you are not aware, as many aren’t, Anglish, which we now call English, was the language of the Anglos which was declared one of the many Germanic tribes (“germ tribes” – small foreign tribes) by Rome. What you see as “Old English” in etymology is often referring to the more ancient Germanic language of commerce throughout Europe, today merely English. What we call Germany today was formed of the high mountain tribes that eventually adopted the name German even though none were originally named that.

The Anglos were the messengers (from “angels”) using traveling tradesmen to spread news about. They always settle on the far coast. In the US, they are “Los Anglos” where Hollywood spreads messages through movies and media.

The online sources now seem to have the spelling as “yfel” rather than “efyl” which bothers me because it was an issue in a debate years ago wherein I didn’t believe the word “evil” came from German “efyl”, but an online dictionary source at that time stated it, so I couldn’t refute it in the debate. Now it seems the spelling online is reported as “yfel” (I’ve been setup ). But I’m more inclined to believe the original. Words are not arbitrary sounds.