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abucs
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Free will should not be restricted. If you restrict the will then it is not free and you do not have independent life but driverless car machines.
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abucs
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Simulated free will is not free will by definition. The human designers are not defining a system with life, they are designing a system of unthinking machines. Your analogy is a system devoid of life. No thanks.
btw I can take a sledge hammer to a driverless car and smash it to pieces. There is no defence to that action and the car really doesn’t care because there is no life there. I can decide not to put gas in the car and it will just sit there rusting away. I can decide not to put oil in the car or not do maintenance or not get it fixed when parts stop working. You are talking only about one aspect of the ‘design’ and that is safety in very limited circumstances and your focus is not on the safety of the creations within your design.
You are confusing the design of the mindless machine with the care of the passenger that uses it which you are not designing.
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abucs
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No, not If your answer is to take free will away from the human race or for God to always and constantly explicitly step in and physically stop anything He does not agree with.
Again you are mixing up the concept of the will and the outcome. When you say you would like God to step in and stop you if you wanted to kill many people then you have moved off talking about your will and now talking about God thwarting your will. The two concepts are vey different. The question was whether you wanted God to create you as an unthinking driverless car which is the analogy you put forward
It was not if you wanted Him to interfere if your programming went haywire. Again the driverless car analogy is bad because there is no life there.
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abucs
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But since you are not omnipotent or omniscient then you have no way of knowing that. Part of independent freedom is being able to choose your own life and thoughts. Personal growth is extremely relevant. Again. if you are creating a world where there is no personal growth then you are back to the driverless cars. No thanks.
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abucs
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If you are designing a reality for independent life then before you ask the question of how much ‘bad’ should be allowed, you have to think about the more fundamental question of how you are going to oppose the ‘bad’ in that Creation that is chosen by independent beings whilst still granting them independence.And now we are back to square one. How much “bad” should be allowed? Would you give some concrete example of some “bad” stuff, that should be allowed and another “bad+1” stuff that should be prevented.
There seems to be three choices in designing a Creation and you are thinking about the first two which do not work and would actually create a hell on earth.
- Create beings who cannot think ‘bad’ things. (Beings are not independent).
- Step in and prevent people from doing bad things (Beings are constantly thwarted in their independence)
- Grant individual free will and work with people to discover and choose the right. (People have independence but have to negotiate with others).
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abucs
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Independent beings with free will is not a tangent. It is the fundamental question that you have to understand and address. It is at the very heart of any Creation of a world with sentient life.
The fundamental design of the Garden of Eden story is not fleshed out in Genesis because the lessons from it are the important aspect of the story. In order for there to be goodness man has to choose goodness which is the will of the Creator. He must be given the choice.
Taking the tree or the snake away from the story does not change that underlining reality. The snake and the tree are used to symbolise the negation of God’s will and the acting out of that rebellion.
If you take away the snake (choice of rebellion from God) then you are choosing a Creation of type 1 above. (Create beings who cannot think ‘bad’ things).
If you take away the tree (the ability to act in rebellion from God) then you are choosing a Creation of type 2 above. (Step in and prevent people from doing bad things).
It does not work without denying or constantly thwarting freedom of the will. It would also stop the possibility of people from freely choosing (through God) to discover the good and choose to live it.
This is the purpose of this Creation that we currently inhabit.
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MonteRCMS
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Everybody would have a check book with five billion dollars so the could all buy their own airliners.
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Sophia
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Limited freedom is not the same as NO freedom. We routinely restrict the freedom of our children, and also the freedom of those whose actions we consider “undesirable”. (We put them in jail.)
I follow the catholic teaching about omnipotence. According to the catholic teachings it is the ability to create anything which does not entail a logical contradiction. And since the aforementioned “saints” exist, it is not logically impossible to create them without going through the learning process.
If you do not follow the catholic teaching, there is not much we can agree upon. Also if you deny the difference between limited free will and no free will at all, there is no reason to continue.
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abucs
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We are talking about freedom of the will Sophia. Again you are mixing up freedom of the will and freedom of outcome. We put criminals in jail to stop the outcome of their will not to stop their freedom of will. We have to negotiate with them for them to choose to change their own will.
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Sophia
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If everyone would have five billion dollars, then the dollar would have no value at all. Inflation would wipe out the purchasing power of the money.
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abucs
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It is impossible without denying them the freedom to choose their own being of who they are.
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Sophia
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No, I talk about the whole package. There are three levels here:
- to think of something (this is not volitional)
- to will to do it (this is volitional) and
- to be able to act on that will (this is partly volitional, and partly contingent upon the structure of the world).
When we raise our children, we try to instill good behavioral patterns, which will instinctively guide them to behave in an acceptable manner. So that robbing a bank (for example) never even occurs to them. However, even if it occurs (as a playful fantasy), then they immediately decide not to go on that idea, so they never “will” it.
As I said, if you are not willing to accept the catholic teaching about omnipotence, there is no reason to keep this conversation alive.
If you prefer the current state of affairs with all the atrocities and natural disasters, that is your prerogative. I see no advantage in having chemical, biological or nuclear weapons of mass destruction, nor can I see the advantage of having leprosy, cholera, heart diseases and other assorted maladies - all of which are the result of the “original sin” - according to the catholic teaching. Your preference is yours. I simply disagree with it. If I could be the creator of my world, there would be no commands, no prohibitions, no “sins”, because none of the created beings would have the slightest inclination to commit acts that I (as the omnipotent and omniscient creator) would not approve of. If you think that there is no “free will” in this world, then you need to bone up on the definition of free will. Read about it in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy in the following article. Free Will (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Such a world is logically possible, so it could be created. (I make very sure that all my arguments are taken from the teachings of the church.)
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abucs
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I agree that freedom of will without the freedom to act on it is meaningless. But this is different from the success of acting on it. Your example of putting someone in prison is one where you restrict the success of someone acting on their free will to commit crimes. You can’t completely prevent it but you seriously cut down the likelihood of them being successful.
People have had the will to fly like a bird and from that will we have planes, helicopters, jet packs, hot air balloons, hand gliders and space ships. We have the free will to desire such things and we have the free will to act on it and we have had varying degrees of success.
You cannot limit free will in a world where you grant beings independence of thought. They may be limited by their abilities to act on it successfully but that is not limiting free will or the will to act.
Guiding someone is different from controlling them. You cannot control your children so that they don’t think about robbing banks. You can propose certain values to them which they will choose or reject as independent thinking adults and this will be factored into how they live their lives together with other experiences. The values shown to them in their upbringing will be considered or rejected when they choose how to act in the world, including the likelihood of seriously considering robbing banks. It is not a matter of control it is a matter of choice. You said it yourself that they are deciding not to act. That is choice. Part of deciding how to act is to judge between two possible actions. You have implicitly allowed for choosing bad options in your answer
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abucs
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and I showed you that your suggestion was impossible without denying people the freedom to choose who they are so you are wrong to invoke Catholic teaching about omnipotence because it is logically impossible to create someone ‘off the bat’ whilst also granting them the freedom to have (name removed by moderator)ut through choice on who they are. The two are logically inconsistent.
I say again your world is one where you take away the freedom of individuals to choose who they are. This is not independent life. You are back to designing driverless cars which is not a blueprint for life but mechanical machines.
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abucs
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You are free in this world to mitigate against natural disasters, biological weapons etc. The success of your actions is not assured, but you and me are free to act to mitigate against such things, What we are discussing is not a matter of preferring these things, it is discussing the practical ways in which goodness can be chosen over badness whilst allowing for the free will of all other beings who inhabit this planet.
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abucs
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Such a world is not logically possible whilst still allowing free will for others.
Telling people to ‘bone up’ is not a coherent argument.
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Sophia
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People are what they are. What they have been created. A smart person cannot “choose” to become dumb, and a dumb person cannot “choose” to become smart. A good person cannot choose to become evil, and vice versa. One cannot choose to make a pig to become a racehorse, though it is possible to train them to become a fast pig. Yes, God (or any omnipotent being) can create very good persons without going through a “learning process”. That is what omnipotence MEANS. Unless you understand and internalize this, don’t worry to answer, because I am not interested in talking to a “brick wall”.
And I suggest again to read the linked article in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy to learn about the different concepts of “free will”, the libertarian version, the compatibilist version and the others.
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abucs
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A person can become smart through reflection, following good examples and valuing wisdom.
A good person can choose to become evil and an evil person can recognise their failings and work to become good.
Why else have things like the Scriptures and the example of Christ through the incarnation and inviting people to follow Him?
Why have the God almighty come to earth and invite sinners to amend their lives and sin no more if people are not able to amend their own lives and choose to be good?
You do not value people having and articulating thoughts that do not match your own. This makes you one of the least suited people to be able to put forward a viable blueprint for the perfect world.
Dozens of socialist dictators had the same problem last century and their solution when encountering opposition was simply to kill them, deny freedom and independence to citizens and create more laws to control people because they supposedly knew better.
They didn’t, and it was hell on earth that they created.
The brick wall that you are hitting is that you do not realise that you having dictatorial preference for deciding how other people are to be over their own God given ability to choose this for themselves is wrong.
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Sophia
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Could the Virgin Mary become an evil person by choosing to become evil? Obviously not, since to be “good” is the rejection of evil - not just the practicing of evil, but even considering evil, and much less “willing” to become evil.
God created her to be “good”. Did she have “free will”? Obviously yes. So God (or any omnipotent and omniscient creator) can create good people right off the bat, without forcing them to go through “hoops” of learning. Someone might say that Mary was a “special case”, and even God could not create another fundamentally good and incorruptible person, even if he wanted to. But that would be another denial of God’s omnipotence. There is no logical necessity of having only one incorruptible person.
This argument is also based upon catholic teaching. Reject it at your own peril.
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abucs
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God created us all to be good if we so accept it. That qualifier is the part that you are not understanding. He doesn’t make us robots but creatures of free will who have the power to reject Him.
Yes, the virgin Mary could have chosen to sin and reject God, she didn’t. She had the choice to reject God’s plan conveyed to her by the visit from the angel. Instead, she gave her acceptance.
Mary was conceived without original sin, so was Eve and so was Adam.
Eve and Adam chose to sin, Mary chose not to. She was the new Eve and chose not to sin.
God is not a dictator, He sought her co-operation and she accepted. You appear to believe you can create a world where your will rules absolutely without regard to others acceptance.
Reject that criticism at your own peril.
You cannot seriously make the suggestion that good people can’t become bad and bad people can’t become good, the examples in every day life are legion.
Again I say to you, if bad people can’t become good then Jesus’ incarnation calling for sinners to choose to amend their own life and follow Him becomes useless.
Ignore that fact at your own peril.
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