Understanding free choice by God

[ASimon]

No, God’s not creating would not have been a demonstration of his love. It would not follow, however, that he is unloving, for being trinity, he demonstrates his love in that way (the Father and Son eternally love one another and so forth…).

You are confusing moral values with moral duties. From the fact that it is good to do something, it does not follow that one must do that thing. For example, let us suppose that you have $100. It is good for you to give 50 of it to the red cross, 50 to Catholic Charities, and 50 to Unicef. But you are not obligated to do those things. Or another example. It is good for you to become a doctor, and also good for you you to become a teacher. But you can’t do both. The simple fact that something is good does not obligated one to do it.

So it is good for God to create, but he was not obligated to create. Hence it is proper for us to respond to his creation with love of gratitude.

To repeat (as if it will do any good): Either God can’t ‘not-create,’ because to do so would be an act of Not-Love (which God isn’t capable of), or God CAN ‘not-create’ and since God is Love by definition. his choice to ‘not-create’ would be just as loving as his choice to create, and we should be just as grateful to him regardless.

It seems to me that you’d go with the latter here - since it’s very common for Christians to praise God no matter what happens in this world under his supervision. Fine with me. I’m just pointing out that praising God no matter what he does is something of a silly exercise. You call him a worthy object of praise. Why, exactly? Because he does Anything? That’s what it seems you’re left with, whether God has moral duties or not.

You have, however, understood, at least, that if one’s acts are not free, than it is useless to praise one for them or express gratitude. You just want to have it both ways. You want to deny free will but still maintain things like gratitude and love. But the only way you can do it, is by depriving them of all meaning. So love becomes impossible because all acts are essentially selfish, and gratitude just a tool to try to get people to do what you want. Again, selfishness.

You keep saying this, and you keep not understanding. I’m not stripping all the meaning out of words like gratitude and love. I’m simply pushing them off the categorical knife edge of understanding where they exist in your mind. This is perfectly reasonable, and does not make me any sort of relativist. Why not? Because I’m asserting that we’re all playing by the same rules (even those of us who don’t realize it or want to accept it). So understand, if words like love and gratitude really are meaningless, that’s your problem, not mine. You’re the only one insisting these concepts can’t exist unless they mean Exactly What I Always Thought They Meant.

So on one hand you don’t think we should delude ourselves into believing in love and free will, but on the other, you think it’s crucial we retain such “illusions.” Which is it?

First of all, I said we shouldn’t delude ourselves into believing in ‘altruism,’ not love - and I obviously meant altruism in the narrow, absolutist sense that you’ve been using it.

Anyway, to answer the question, both. I’m saying we shouldn’t believe in concepts in the face of compelling evidence they don’t exist. And I’m also saying it’s probably a good idea that we do retain these illusions. I didn’t mean ‘retain’ in the active sense - I meant that we’re wired to believe in certain illusions about our world. Certainly these illusions can be temporarily overcome - we can learn objective facts that contradict our understanding. But we can’t just reprogram ourselves to discard the illusion just because we have objective facts that prove it’s not true - at least, not very easily. And my sense of humanity is that overcoming this illusion on the global scale, even if it’s possible in the long run, isn’t necessarily a project we need to attempt right now.

Also, how can you maintain this illusion (delusion) when you know that free will and love do not exist? Would you suggest lying to other people to get them to wrongly think that free will, love, and gratitude still exist?

No, there’s no need. As I said, we operate just fine under the assumption that these concepts do exist (even in the narrow, absolutist sense that you imagine they do). In the grand project of progressing our collective understanding of the human condition, this isn’t something we need to deal with right now.

How satisfied are you to be forced to live in an inconsistent fashion; that is, one where you “know” free will, love, and gratitude do not exist, but you think it crucial that you falsely believe they exist?

Obviously, I think they do exist, just not quite so strictly defined as you want them to be. To answer the existential question, it’s a little like asking an atheist how “satisfied” he is believing that when he dies, his consciousness will simply blink out, and there won’t even be the awareness to know it was ever there. Does such an understanding make me happy? Not really. But as you may have noticed by now, I don’t think wanting something to be true is a good enough reason to believe it is true.

While I have no problem living under the assumption that concepts like love and free will are actually what they are commonly imagined to be, if for some reason I couldn’t do that anymore, I think I’d turn out okay. Granted, it’s pretty difficult to imagine the illusion completely coming undone like that.

 

[danserr]

To repeat (as if it will do any good): Either God can’t ‘not-create,’ because to do so would be an act of Not-Love (which God isn’t capable of), or God CAN ‘not-create’ and since God is Love by definition. his choice to ‘not-create’ would be just as loving as his choice to create, and we should be just as grateful to him regardless.

It seems to me that you’d go with the latter here - since it’s very common for Christians to praise God no matter what happens in this world under his supervision. Fine with me. I’m just pointing out that praising God no matter what he does is something of a silly exercise. You call him a worthy object of praise. Why, exactly? Because he does Anything? That’s what it seems you’re left with, whether God has moral duties or not.

No repeating will not do any good so long as you ignore my posts. You keep trying to force me into a false dichotomy. I see why you want to, but it makes your argument unconvincing.

First, I have said repeatedly, that God was not obligated to create. So anything you say that assumes I think God had to create is meaningless.

Now go back to my example about my wife giving me a present for for my birthday, or rather, for no reason at all. One day, she simply gives me a present with breakfast. Was she obligated to? No. Hence I am grateful to her. Likewise with God. He was not obligated to create, but did. Hence it is right for us to be grateful to God. Now this explains one important reason that Christians love and worship God. This is all I have been trying to show here. You claimed that Christians worship God from fear. I pointed out that not only was this presumptuous, but obviously mistaken since we worship God from gratitude at having been created.

You claim that we would have to be just as grateful to God for not having been created is simply incoherent. How could we be grateful for him not creating us? That’s just a contradiction.

Now God would still be praiseworthy if he did not create, but for other reasons than gratitude. I simply tried to show that gratitude for creation provides us with a very understandable reason to love and worship God. God, would still be praiseworthy anyway though, in a similar way in which a man admires a beautiful picture, landscape, woman. When we recognize a thing as very good, we recognize that it is worthy of praise and even love. This is apart from the motive of gratitude I have mentioned above.

You keep saying this, and you keep not understanding. I’m not stripping all the meaning out of words like gratitude and love

And you keep not understanding that redefining the words as you do makes them meaningless.

Real Definition:
love- to care about a person for their own sake, willing and desiring their welfare.
gratitude- thankfulness to another person, typically for a good that person did
(ps. anyone else following this can feel free to suggest better definitions)

Materialism Definition- based on things you have said
love- to value another person for their user-value to you
gratitude- false feeling of appreciation for another’s action (since that person was not free and so was compelled to do it), may be expressed to condition the other person to act similarly in the future.

Do you see the difference between the two? Under your materialism redefinitions really caring for another person is impossible. Even some of the best human motives and values are reduced to selfishness. Thus, I would say that it is obvious that redefining love to mean selfishness, and gratitude to social conditioning (again to encourage people to act in a way you find useful) would strip them of all meaning and value. You have given up living in the three dimensional world that Christianity offers and gone down to live in the materialist’s flatland.

Mocking my definitions for being narrow and absolutist, simply shows a poor understanding of the issue. The truth is always narrow. It cannot be broader than itself. Except your view is more narrow than mine, since I can live in a world where those words and concepts have real meaning, where you are forced to live in flatland.

So on one hand you don’t think we should delude ourselves into believing in love and free will, but on the other, you think it’s crucial we retain such “illusions.” Which is it?

…
Anyway, to answer the question, both. I’m saying we shouldn’t believe in concepts in the face of compelling evidence they don’t exist. And I’m also saying it’s probably a good idea that we do retain these illusions.

So, not only are you forced to living in a world where the words love and gratitude have no meaning and you only keep them under impoverished definitions. Not only must you deny the existence of any real morality (since you continue to be unable to answer the “ought implies can” problem) and free will, but now you are forced to live in an inconsistent fashion, where you don’t believe these things exist, but you think it important that we pretend they do. You are spending alot words to say precisely this. So to live happily, you think man must live inconsistently. Why not simply accept the belief system that allows you to live consistently?

But as you may have noticed by now, I don’t think wanting something to be true is a good enough reason to believe it is true.

The usual materialists self-compliment. I have not noticed that actually. It seems to me you do not want the things I have said to be true, though I do not know why. But that is another subject.

 

[ASimon]

Now go back to my example about my wife giving me a present for for my birthday, or rather, for no reason at all. One day, she simply gives me a present with breakfast. Was she obligated to? No. Hence I am grateful to her. Likewise with God. He was not obligated to create, but did. Hence it is right for us to be grateful to God. Now this explains one important reason that Christians love and worship God. This is all I have been trying to show here. You claimed that Christians worship God from fear. I pointed out that not only was this presumptuous, but obviously mistaken since we worship God from gratitude at having been created.

The problem here is that your wife is not God. Or rather, you have not presupposed Love into everything that your wife is and does. You have done this with God. So this isn’t even really a serious comparison.

You claim that we would have to be just as grateful to God for not having been created is simply incoherent. How could we be grateful for him not creating us? That’s just a contradiction.

In practice, sure, but not in principle. In principle, if it were possible to feel something like gratitude without having a consciousness, your logic would demand that you must be grateful to God for it. Because God is Love, and everything God does is out of Love. When a rainstorm starts just in time to extinguish a fire before it can burn down a house, God is Love. When a tsunami washes away an entire city and everyone in it, God is Love. When a couple who’s been trying to have a child miscarries at week 26, God is Love. Praise God for his endless bounties of Love. Always.

Now, this is clearly masochism, but underlying it is my point. When God is Love, and everything God does is evidence of his Love, you’re left to praise him no matter what happens. This is a ridiculous proposition, unless of course this God demands that you praise him, and you fear the consequences if you didn’t. But as I said - your problem, not mine.

And you keep not understanding that redefining the words as you do makes them meaningless.

Real Definition:
love- to care about a person for their own sake, willing and desiring their welfare.
gratitude- thankfulness to another person, typically for a good that person did
(ps. anyone else following this can feel free to suggest better definitions)

Materialism Definition- based on things you have said
love- to value another person for their user-value to you
gratitude- false feeling of appreciation for another’s action (since that person was not free and so was compelled to do it), may be expressed to condition the other person to act similarly in the future.

Do you see the difference between the two? Under your materialism redefinitions really caring for another person is impossible. Even some of the best human motives and values are reduced to selfishness. Thus, I would say that it is obvious that redefining love to mean selfishness, and gratitude to social conditioning (again to encourage people to act in a way you find useful) would strip them of all meaning and value. You have given up living in the three dimensional world that Christianity offers and gone down to live in the materialist’s flatland.

Mocking my definitions for being narrow and absolutist, simply shows a poor understanding of the issue. The truth is always narrow. It cannot be broader than itself. Except your view is more narrow than mine, since I can live in a world where those words and concepts have real meaning, where you are forced to live in flatland.

Again, your problem, not mine. You don’t think love and gratitude can exist without an entirely selfless component built into them. I think you’re wrong. Granted, I can understand why it’s soothing to believe in completely selfless love or gratitude, but our growing understanding of the sciences of mind don’t appear to allow for this. The implications of this clearly unnerve you. Not much I can do about that.

So, not only are you forced to living in a world where the words love and gratitude have no meaning and you only keep them under impoverished definitions. Not only must you deny the existence of any real morality (since you continue to be unable to answer the “ought implies can” problem) and free will, but now you are forced to live in an inconsistent fashion, where you don’t believe these things exist, but you think it important that we pretend they do. You are spending alot words to say precisely this. So to live happily, you think man must live inconsistently. Why not simply accept the belief system that allows you to live consistently?

Because it would force me to accept as reality certain propositions I know to be false, and others that I have very good reasons to believe are false. And to repeat (again): I’m not saying we believe in the illusion in any active way. I’m saying our default position is to believe the illusion. This can be overcome - much like we can see past a magician’s illusions if we pay close enough attention and we know what to look for. But in our moment-to-moment experience, we operate under the assumption that love can only be a selfless emotion, and that we are the authors of our actions. And at this particular point in history, it’s probably a good thing that this is the case.

The usual materialists self-compliment. I have not noticed that actually. It seems to me you do not want the things I have said to be true, though I do not know why. But that is another subject.

See, in any other discussion, the fact you’d don’t really know why I don’t appear to want to believe things that would make me feel better would give someone pause. For my part, I understand perfectly well why you want to believe what you believe.

 

[JDaniel]

Again, I return to the mugger analogy (which you’ve conveniently ignored). The loaded gun is put to your head, and the mugger demands your wallet. Are you not being coerced into handing over your wallet? Do you really consider yourself “free” to decide what to do in that moment? You simply can’t - not unless you want to apply the most reductionist understanding of the concept (one that you would never apply in any other context).

ASimon:

I’m not missing anything you’ve written: I understood perfectly. What I’m trying to get you to understand is that you are operating under a false analogy. Pure and simple. If you weren’t, you would be affected in the same way any human is affected. You can’t simply escape it by assuming that it holds no power over you because of this or that. That’s arrogance. You must think that you are somehow so much better and that makes you completely different from everyone else. When I made my way back home, there was little difference between what you currently think and what I thought. But, a gun is a gun. Period. Only someone who was deaf, dumb and blind would ignore a gun! You’re talking about real life, not imagination.

You make the notion of Heaven or Hell into a * real gun*, not a child’s squirt gun. You can’t simply say that we regard it as a real gun and you regard it as a squirt gun. Even though it seems like you should be able to get away with that, only insanity would prevent an otherwise sane person from not understanding that it is a gun, or it is not. Besides, generally speaking most Christians hardly understand any concept of it being a potentially real gun until they are well into additional, acquired data. The average Christian has no real conception of predestination, i.e., the certainty of Heaven or Hell, until well into their study of Christianity.

If this is where this will end, then we’ll agree to disagree.

And I repeat, the reason I am not a fair test of my own assertion is because I don’t presume the existence of God, Heaven, or Hell. Effectively, I am saying that the mugger holding the gun might as well be a child holding a piece of plastic.

Insufficient, as I said. Unless you are insane. And, I really don’t believe that you are.

God bless,
jd

 

[ASimon]

ASimon:

I’m not missing anything you’ve written: I understood perfectly. What I’m trying to get you to understand is that you are operating under a false analogy. Pure and simple. If you weren’t, you would be affected in the same way any human is affected. You can’t simply escape it by assuming that it holds no power over you because of this or that. That’s arrogance. You must think that you are somehow so much better and that makes you completely different from everyone else. When I made my way back home, there was little difference between what you currently think and what I thought. But, a gun is a gun. Period. Only someone who was deaf, dumb and blind would ignore a gun! You’re talking about real life, not imagination.

You make the notion of Heaven or Hell into a * real gun*, not a child’s squirt gun. You can’t simply say that we regard it as a real gun and you regard it as a squirt gun. Even though it seems like you should be able to get away with that, only insanity would prevent an otherwise sane person from not understanding that it is a gun, or it is not. Besides, generally speaking most Christians hardly understand any concept of it being a potentially real gun until they are well into additional, acquired data. The average Christian has no real conception of predestination, i.e., the certainty of Heaven or Hell, until well into their study of Christianity.

Why exactly can’t I “get away” with that? You think heaven and hell are actual places. I do not, therefore I cannot be coerced into acting one way or another based on the consequence of being sent to one place or the other. That’s why it holds no power over me. I honestly don’t understand how you think you can get around this, unless it’s to tell me (as so many Christians do) that I really do believe in God and heaven and hell, and I’m just denying the obvious. Which is, by the way, far more arrogant and presumptuous than anything I’ve ever said.

If I don’t believe heaven and hell exist, I cannot be compelled to abase myself to a Deity out of hope or fear of being sent one place or the other after I die. Just like if I don’t believe the gun is actually a gun, I cannot be compelled to hand over my wallet.

Find me somebody that actually believes Hell exists, and wants (not just expects) to go there after they die, and then you might (only might) have a case that there’s no coercion involved here.

 

[JDaniel]

Why exactly can’t I “get away” with that?

ASimon:

If you hold that perception that easily, the gun is not the gun that you describe it to be. You are not so superior, I’m sorry to tell you, that only you get it. People even in Jonestown had to have sufficient impetus to get them to drink the cool-aid. And, that was “gun-point!” You have a very low opinion of everyone except you.

You think heaven and hell are actual places.

But, that is not the impetus you think it is. That is your predilection.

I do not, therefore I cannot be coerced into acting one way or another based on the consequence of being sent to one place or the other. That’s why it holds no power over me. I honestly don’t understand how you think you can get around this, unless it’s to tell me (as so many Christians do) that I really do believe in God and heaven and hell, and I’m just denying the obvious. Which is, by the way, far more arrogant and presumptuous than anything I’ve ever said.

We have no business judging others and, besides, I think you are wrong.

If I don’t believe heaven and hell exist, I cannot be compelled to abase myself to a Deity out of hope or fear of being sent one place or the other after I die.

It simply does not cause nearly that much, or kind, of fear, although, I’ll admit there may be a little the more some people learn Revelation. But, it needn’t come to that compulsion.

Just like if I don’t believe the gun is actually a gun, I cannot be compelled to hand over my wallet.

If the gun is not a gun, it is so for everybody. Only someone with an aberration, or in an aberrant situation, would believe that a real gun as not a real gun. A gun is real or it is not. There are no in-betweens. It will either kill you or it will not. There are no in-betweens. The sane person takes whatever steps are necessary to determine the reality of the gun. And, if the person is unsure, it is saner and smarter to err on the side of caution. But, that cannot be applied to the metaphysical concept of God. There are too many things a person must discover and verify, in order to come to the conclusion that God, Heaven and Hell exist.

Admittedly, there are those who naively, so it is sometimes said, get into the mode of acceptance. But most are, from all that I have ever witnessed, not people who are in that mode from an impetus of “fear.” For others, it is a conclusion to some methodology of acceptance obtaining, and that methodology, in most cases, does not include coercion by “fear.” And, there is also bravery. The brave person may understand Heaven or Hell, but fully believes he does not have to worry about that. Believe it or not, there are many, many people who actually do what they ought and not according to their exquisite whim.

You can think that all people come to acceptance by fear all you want, but your thinking it does not make it true. If you we’re involved with a Church, or around a religious community you would get a real sense of that almost immediately. But, since you are not, you have only surmise in your methodology. Go to Bible study with a believer and you can take a poll.

Find me somebody that actually believes Hell exists, and wants (not just expects) to go there after they die, and then you might (only might) have a case that there’s no coercion involved here.

I can show you those people in the entirety of the group of ladies and men who are in my Bible study. I promise you, there is no one there that is even concerned about Hell. They invariantly believe they are among the elect. And, they practice their Faith more because they are intrigued by the complexity of the Faith, and love the liturgy, and God, to the best they can, fully understanding that God is invisible, but, so is air.

God bless,
jd

 

[danserr]

The problem here is that your wife is not God. Or rather, you have not presupposed Love into everything that your wife is and does. You have done this with God. So this isn’t even really a serious comparison.

So, we started with you making the rather absurd and presumptuous claim that Christians only worship God from terror of hell. I pointed out that this is misguided for two reasons:

1. We worship and follow God, not from any sort of terror of hell, but from love and gratitude to him for creating us, dying for us, and making us for eternal happiness with him. Obviously gratitude is an understandable response. I pointed out that in the same way that I am grateful to my wife for giving me a gift, she did not have to give me, likewise, we are grateful to God for giving us these things he did not have to give us.

• repeating your attempt at escape from this, about “presupposing love into everything God does” is simply irrelevant. All that matters for this point is that I am grateful for a good given that did not have to be given, and that this provides Christians with a proper motives to love and worship God.

1. God would still be worthy of praise and worship even if He did not create us. This is in the same way that someone sometimes sees a beautiful landscape, painting, woman etc, and one just naturally wants to praise that person or thing, because one just recognizes that she/it is worthy of praise. God also is simply objectively worthy of praise and worship because he is just that kind of being.

You claim that we would have to be just as grateful to God for not having been created is simply incoherent. How could we be grateful for him not creating us? That’s just a contradiction.

In practice, sure, but not in principle. In principle, if it were possible to feel something like gratitude without having a consciousness, your logic would demand that you must be grateful to God for it.

That’s like saying that a square circle is contradictory in practice, but not in theory. It is a totally meaningless statement.

We would not be grateful to God for not creating us if he did not create us. Nothing I have said implies we would be have to be grateful to God for a good he did not give us. That’s like saying I should be grateful to God for giving me a million dollars. He hasn’t, so to suggest I should is silly. I am grateful to him for other reasons. I love him for other reasons. But I am not grateful to him for goods he has not given. That is just silly. From my point 2 above, God is praiseworthy (because he is a being worthy of praise in the same way that a beautiful woman or painting is just worthy of praise), so I still praise him, of course.

Now as to your nonsensical claims about free will not existing. I made several arguments about this, you have carefully ignored them.

1. First, I argued that denial of free will leads to moral nihilism, since “ought implies can.”
   If free will does not exist, it makes no sense to say that a man ought to do something. Either he will or not, because it was determined by causal factors outside himself, but you cannot say he ought to do it or refrain from it, because he can not do otherwise.

• You have continued to ignore this argument.

1. Second, I offered an argument that if free will does not exist, we should never know that it does not exist, therefore the denial of free will is self-refuting.

• You have ignored this argument.

You deny the real existence of things like love, gratitude, free will and real moral goodness (which follows from your denial of free will). In this way you live in a far poorer and more narrow world, the flatland of the materialist. Yet, you can’t live happily like this, so you maintain that we should still act as if we have these things. You therefore are forced to live in an inconsistent fashion.

For my part, I understand perfectly well why you want to believe what you believe.

The implications of this clearly unnerve you. Not much I can do about that.

I can see how it comforts you to think this, but given that you deny the existence of things like love and gratitude and wrongly claim that Christians only follow God from terror of hell, I am afraid you can’t possibly understand why we follow God. I wish you could.

At any rate, your claim is simply the usual self complimentary nonsense of the materialist. Furthermore, if you give it any significance, it commits the genetic fallacy of trying to invalidate of belief by explaining how it arose.