My Christianity: Free Will

[David Sklansky]

Your theory might work if you postulate that God doesn't interract with us or answer prayers. But if he does, he puts himself inside the system and your logic falls apart. Why bother to tell Lot not to look back if he knows he will?

A much simpler solution for theists would be to postulate that God can NOT perfectly see the future. This avoids the paradoxes. There is even a branch of Christianity that believes exactly that. I know this because Not Ready referred me to their website! Although neither one of us can remember their name.

In fact if I was developing a religion I might suggest that it was exactly THIS power that God sacrificed for humans. And humans only. He didn't actually "die" for your sins he gave up one aspect of his omniscience to have a relationship with us. The mechanism might be the Uncertainty Principle or something like that. I think the only reason Christians might have a problem with an idea like that is that it contradicts a few specific biblical passages. That's a shame because I don't think the major tenets of Christianity have much to do with God's ability to see the future perfectly.

[bunny]

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Your theory might work if you postulate that God doesn't interract with us or answer prayers. But if he does, he puts himself inside the system and your logic falls apart. Why bother to tell Lot not to look back if he knows he will?

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You're still thinking of God as existing temporally - that he gives some instruction and later on that instruction is disobeyed. My suggestion is that he gives the instruction, sees it being disobeyed, implements a consequence and sees all the other possibilities "all at once". This doesnt lead to a contradiction - the possible flaw is that it doesnt mean anything.

I would also point out that I dont think God answers prayers - I think the interaction is purely an internal and subjective experience rooted in consciousness. Again a weakness in my position as it may be "God" has evaporated away into nothing more than a comforting thought.

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A much simpler solution for theists would be to postulate that God can NOT perfectly see the future. This avoids the paradoxes. There is even a branch of Christianity that believes exactly that. I know this because Not Ready referred me to their website! Although neither one of us can remember their name.

In fact if I was developing a religion I might suggest that it was exactly THIS power that God sacrificed for humans. And humans only. He didn't actually "die" for your sins he gave up one aspect of his omniscience to have a relationship with us. The mechanism might be the Uncertainty Principle or something like that. I think the only reason Christians might have a problem with an idea like that is that it contradicts a few specific biblical passages. That's a shame because I don't think the major tenets of Christianity have much to do with God's ability to see the future perfectly.

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If I was inventing a religion I would also remove God's omniscience - it would be much easier. I dont think how we would choose to make God has much place in a theistic defence though.

[m_the0ry]

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If humans did not have free will, they would be incapable of love, since they would be essentially be biological robots.

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This is a non-sequitur. You're characterizing something that neither you nor the greatest cognitive scientist in the world can characterize, and you're doing it with an arbitrary metaphor. You are offended at the idea that you could be a machine. and that a machine is nothing more than a sum of its parts. The fact that there are an astronomical number of parts and all of them are infinitely beautiful and complex does not faze your interpretation of said machine. You think, 'cold', 'hard', 'insincere', etc.

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There is one way for truth and multiple ways of darkness. If Bill asks you, “What is favorite food?” and your favorite food is pizza, you have a myriad of choices, but only one of them (pizza) is the truth.

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You make a claim for absolute morality, then equate 'truth' with doing the right thing. Obviously there are a number of problems with this, such as when truth does not lend itself to the most moral decision. Take the above example, lets say the person who asks the question is a psychopath who will kill an innocent person if you answer 'pizza', and you know this fact. I'm experienced enough in these forums to know that arguing against absolute morality is masochistic, but equating the 'one moral decision' (also a debatable concept) with truth is absurd.

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Now, the determinism people will point out very quickly (and quite correctly) that God can see the future. They think this presents a conundrum for the concept of free will. It does not.

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Ok, I'm listening...

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Suppose that God is on his throne, peers through time into the future, and one day and sees Susie being born. Susie is a wonderful child and grows into a beautiful, young woman. She is beautiful, smart, giving, and caring. She donates time to feed the poor and is an avid churchgoer. She gets engaged to a young man who loves her very much named David. Her life is a blessing to all around her. One night she comes home from feeding the poor and finds Tom in her house. Tom has made a dark choice and proceeds to rape and kill her.

Would God not think of this as a terrible tragedy? Of course he would. After all, it was not Susie’s fault and she was a blessing to all around her. It was Tom’s fault because he made the wrong choice. God could’ve intervened but he did not. If God intervened every time that something bad happened, he would eventually end up removing Susie’s capacity to love all of those around her because all of the opportunities for everyone who ever lived to make a wrong choice would be extinguished. Love is a choice. Without that choice, humans are nothing more than biological material. With that choice, however, the door for evil is always open.

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I'm sorry but I cannot find where in this mess you refute that divine preordination or omniscience is incompatible with free will. I am always amused by compatibilist arguments but I honestly cannot even pick it out from the above. You just go in a massive circle and go back to reciting how much you hate the idea of machines, especially you being one.

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There is a prominent theory about the origin of Satan, but it is not easy to extract from the Bible. The more common story is extracted from Ezekiel 28 and it refers to an angel with free will who, due to pride, started thinking of himself as God, and ultimately revolted against God’s sovereignty in an attempt to become God.

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Again I see no claim about the compatibility of free will and determinism.

[hexag1]

Mempho,
The whole problem of your argument is this: You say that God's knowledge of the future does not diminish the free will of humans. This is wrong dead wrong. The removal of free will from the picture comes in when you say -*THE*- future. THE future. Meaning that there is only one future. Right there you have imposed determinism on the scenario completely.

[Alex-db]

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God Gave Man Free Will

This is extremely important and it is not rocket science. People make it out to be rocket science and I don’t know why.


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Mempho,

This IS actually very difficuly, and thats why people say it is difficult. You show to some extent that it is difficult by failing to say anything meaningful on the subject in the following paragraphs.

You need to answer the following questions:

1) Do humans have free will? (huge philosophy topic- not easy to form a logical conclusion)

2) Is there a God and did he give humans their (/lack of) free will? (huge topic, much easier to form a logical conclusion on this)

Hint: Free-will is difficult, but whether or not we have it, it almost certainly isn't a product of a character from medieval (or any) mythology.

[Subfallen]

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then it basically seems that God has condemnned most of Mankind to Hell just so he could have a loving relationship with some of them.
This isn't the way any God I would worship should operate, how do you reconcile this with a Loving God?

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you deserve it because hell is what you actually want, because you don't really like god even though he is everything that humans like ("good"), because something's wrong with you and you haven't started liking god so that he can change your heart into one that likes god.

so it's fair because you get what you want.

you'd be much better off if you wanted god, but you don't. of course, your choice is free, so it must be that you choose not to want him, otherwise you'd just be a slave to what you want. if what you want isn't under your control, then wanting god isn't under your control, and wanting god is required to get into heaven. so you must choose what you want. you need to want to want it. of course, the choice of wanting to want it is free, otherwise you'd be a slave of what you want to want. you need to want to want to want it.

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Sexy post, goddamn edgy passive-aggressive tone. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

If good is "what is desired for its own sake" then God can clearly not be Infinite Goodness. Because apparently Eve thought a talking snake was >>> God.

[vhawk01]

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then it basically seems that God has condemnned most of Mankind to Hell just so he could have a loving relationship with some of them.
This isn't the way any God I would worship should operate, how do you reconcile this with a Loving God?

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you deserve it because hell is what you actually want, because you don't really like god even though he is everything that humans like ("good"), because something's wrong with you and you haven't started liking god so that he can change your heart into one that likes god.

so it's fair because you get what you want.

you'd be much better off if you wanted god, but you don't. of course, your choice is free, so it must be that you choose not to want him, otherwise you'd just be a slave to what you want. if what you want isn't under your control, then wanting god isn't under your control, and wanting god is required to get into heaven. so you must choose what you want. you need to want to want it. of course, the choice of wanting to want it is free, otherwise you'd be a slave of what you want to want. you need to want to want to want it.

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Sexy post, goddamn edgy passive-aggressive tone. [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]

If good is "what is desired for its own sake" then God can clearly not be Infinite Goodness. Because apparently Eve thought a talking snake was >>> God.

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Sephus is at his best when he is levelling.

[Mempho]

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" I know with certainty what program my wife chose to watch last night - yet it was a free choice. "


Thats because it was in the past. So to reconcile it you need a creator that establishes physical laws that it lives outside of....a creator that has provided no more evidence of its existence than the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Impossible to disprove, granted...so are unicorns and parallel universes. That doesnt make belief in them rational. I understand that you do not claim rationality, but agree its strictly faith based. Mempho apparently doesnt, trying to establish a logical framework for God that simply doesnt exist.

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I think that you should consider this for a moment. Do pocket card cameras change the outcome of a poker tournament? The answer is yes because most, if not all, of the participants change their play to adjust for the cameras.

(In theism, this is a given. Almost all people modify their actions when being watched by others while some modify their actions with the "awareness" that God is watching.)

While the outcome is changed, however, that does not mean that the game was interfered with. It does not mean that the game was not within the rules of the game. I've never heard of anybody saying that ESPN's camera team is actively changing the outcome of the game. Could they? Unquestionably. Do they? I can't answer that with certainty but I feel fairly safe in saying no.

Even further, most of you here have played online poker seriously for some length of time. Since the ability to access knowledge that could effect the game exists somewhere, maybe on a server in Costa Rica, and the provider has the ability to access that information at any time, why would you want to even play? Many people trust that the operator of the site either chooses not to access that knowledge at a given time or that, even if he does access that knowledge, that he does not use it to affect the outcome.

[Mempho]

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Your theory might work if you postulate that God doesn't interract with us or answer prayers. But if he does, he puts himself inside the system and your logic falls apart. Why bother to tell Lot not to look back if he knows he will?

A much simpler solution for theists would be to postulate that God can NOT perfectly see the future. This avoids the paradoxes. There is even a branch of Christianity that believes exactly that. I know this because Not Ready referred me to their website! Although neither one of us can remember their name.

In fact if I was developing a religion I might suggest that it was exactly THIS power that God sacrificed for humans. And humans only. He didn't actually "die" for your sins he gave up one aspect of his omniscience to have a relationship with us. The mechanism might be the Uncertainty Principle or something like that. I think the only reason Christians might have a problem with an idea like that is that it contradicts a few specific biblical passages. That's a shame because I don't think the major tenets of Christianity have much to do with God's ability to see the future perfectly.

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I think that this is the really the crux of it. The problem we see is that God is not always just a passive watcher and, instead, he intervenes. Since the Christian God is one of action, we must account for this logically.

If God knows that John is going to have problem A, God is never wrong, and God knows everything, then he also must know that John will pray about problem A. God knows that he will answer it, problem A will be resolved, and that everything in the future that was effected by the resolution of problem A is already known.

God's omniscience is also an intimate knowledge of himself and what he is going to do before he even does it (I am forcing God into a linear time system just for the purposes of our understanding).

Of course, God doesn't answer all prayers, but that is another discussion entirely that I think will be most interesting.

[qdmcg]

OP, possibly a bit off topic but I'm curious:

I grew up semi-Catholic (church 1-2x a month, and religious education until I was confirmed). I guess I am somewhere between agnostic/atheist at this point in my life (20yrs old). There is one thing about Catholicism that still really bugs me.

I don't have any hard statistics, but I'd say that 99% of Muslims, Jews, Christians who are born into their religion would never "switch" religions. They may certainly become non-religious but I think that it would be incredibly rare for you to see someone born as a Christian and eventually become a Muslim, or vice versa.

I am also not positive what the scripture says about this, but I believe that if you "reject" Jesus Christ/etc. then you are supposed to goto hell, and being Islamic would certainly seem to qualify as rejecting Jesus.

How do you reconcile the fact that people who grow up Islamic are almost NEVER going to become Christian? That is their way of life, it has been instilled in them from their parents since birth, and its completely unrealistic for them to become Christians.

If Christianity is "right" in the sense that Islam/Judaism is wrong, and the one God is a Christian God, how do you come to terms with all of these people who are essentially [censored] out of luck because of the way they are born?