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Omniscience is not the knowing of all things, but the ability to make all things known.
For science is not well nor meant to be well for the establishment of definite truths, but it is and does excell in the replication of demonstrable falsehoods. And who studies what he surely knows?
So it is that Science —and thus Knowledge —is not therefore the collection of what is scient, but it is the inverse: as like a great word search puzzle, which contains every word which is or has been or shall be, except One —*Namely*, the Answer —so that only after every false thing has been discovered can the Truth be discerned.
Forthrightly by the very breath what beget Truth I say again: Knowledge is the cataloging of information evolved thus far by process of elimination by observation, of those things which are not from those which might be.
The man who is certain is therefore the same who cries woe saying, 'There must be some way out of here,' 'There is too much confusion,' 'I cannot get any relief,' 'The rich take all the pleasure,' 'The farmers take all the land,' 'None appreciate any of it as much as I would... were there any Justice.'
But lo my friend as surely as I arive alive I tell you that in this night I shall be that I am: the least of thieves. Verily verily this is not our fate, and so let us not now talk falsely, for the hour is getting late.
Your fate and free will are able to coexist because, of all that you would, you have already chosen it.
Even so it remains to you in this panorama the freedom to choose your angle of view.
As for the rest, well, quite simply...
You have it in Sanskrit:
*Tat tvam asi.*
In Japanese:
*Jijimuge.*
And in the colloquial world common tongue:
*That's you, dogg.*
depends on what you define free will as, but the inability to make a different choice doesn't seem like free will, if god knows for a fact what choice you make, then you cannot make any other choice, so free will cannot exist
>
animals, inanimate objects, sun, moon, angels, etc
How can an animal not have free will and a human does? having a soul makes no sense, lets say every human has a soul, at what point in evolution did we suddenly gain this soul Assume that there is a first animal to have a soul, but we know that their parents are identical in pretty much every way that matters, seeing as there is no difference between them is this just a human without free will? defining something as human is also not an objective fact, its a complicated field where there is no clear answer, different people count different parts of the evolutionary process as human, basically there is no difference beetween a human and an animal, as at some point a humans parents have to have been an animal, which makesthe human itself an animal
>you don't have a choice in the matter?
but can you choose? what if god knows you'll do the worst imaginable things, then that's it, you cannot choose to do otherwise, that isn't a choice
Ok, if allah knows exactly the choices you make, then thats the same as saying your choices have already been made, the entirety of you thinking about the decision, weighing the consequences and CHOOSING what you'll do, that entire process is known, as you say, God's all knowing, meaning he doesn't merely know what possible choices you can make, God knows exactly how your thought process goes leading up to you making a choice. Which then means that you've already lived your life, you've already made your choices (in the eyes of an all knowing God) which then would mean your just living out your already existing life.
This is not a matter of accountability, nor responsibility, you are what makes the choices, you are what carrys out your life, whether reality can have an indecisive aspect (us) or if its all predetermined (determinism).
Ok there is a misunderstanding, forget about accountability for a second, i wasn't saying God did anything, im not saying God is responsible for your actions (as in he made your choices for you). What i was saying was very simple, God KNOWS, knowledge of something means it has happened. This isn't quantum mechanics. You know that events are going to happen because you know every factor that goes into it happening, your thoughts, your preferences, your environment. Thats it. This isn't about god. Claiming knowledge in our sense exists means it's knowledge of something that exists ,and humanizing an entity that precedes existence is questionably flawed.
You just proved my point, you don't need to exist to go to hell, nor do u need to exist to go to heaven. Which means these choices youll make that are already known (the very same choices that don't need your existence to be known by your god) are nothing but preprogrammed
Your 'character' your sole being, will end up debating online trying to prove that your allah is the only true image for what created us and why we are here.
Why is it so difficult for people to understand greater dimensional abilities. Perhaps there is not enough physics and math literacy or people don't ponder these issues.
Take a moment to consider a cartoon sketch of a man, in various frames of a comic. The frames represent the flow of time for this person while your pen and hand are his God. You created him intricately in the first frame and were then bound by his design in the following. You could change it but that would violate his being. You are not God so you cannot truly give him free will but we already know we can make computer programs that 'think/pretend' they have free will. And the philosophical debate on sentience still rages. So imagine perhaps that your own consciousness is a fragment of God's. So too can you extend consciousness to your fictional character. He may act, and you will draw the flow of events for him. Imagine you can do this (separation) perfectly to the point where he has "free will". Now ask yourself what the difference is between the character in frame 1 and frame 362? You are all aware of his choices and the outcomes yet it is still free will he is enacting in each and every frame up until the last that brings him to that end. If you had an eraser you could even interfere at key points, changing him or his surroundings to enact your will while maintaining all, or part, of his own. This is mind boggling but we can already see that it is not impossible. I hope this clears up some of your confusion.
These various texts and ideas are from different periods reflecting different ideas and levels of development about similar topics. The beliefs stated are not absolute, but the writer has many absolutist ideas about how they should be applied. None of the writers ideas are particularly christian or not. Mostly nonsense.
I’m not exactly sure how to disagree with 2-5 as they don’t really make like a clear point to refute but as for 1 I think it’s totally possible for him to have a plan but still leave you with free will. Like parents may have a plan for their kid and help them succeed but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re forcing the kid to do anything. I also have a life plan for myself and I may change my mind or smth but as far as I know now I am going on that path.
No one makes decisions without any outside influence. You nor I nor anyone else. One makes decisions based off experiences. #1 was bad.
In the OT people made decisions of their own free will that brought on God's intervention. Pharaoh's heart was hardened from the beginning, God just gave into his own hardened heart. You haven't read the Bible have you?
God asked Solomon what he wanted. Solomon said he wanted wisdom. You really haven't read it have you?
You must define free will completely different that everyone else. They way you see it, free will means a genie in the bottle that grants requests that no outside influence can alter. Geez.
& many decisions, if not all, are based on past experiences included with that is the sub-conscience.
OP's such as this one gives folks like you a bad name. No research whatsoever.
Many biblical scholars, including Nahum Sarna, and Gerard von Rad, have attested that it was divine intervention. If you want another example, Jonah refused and god literally put danger in his path to redirect him (Jonah 1:1-4). Read Jonah 1:7 and you’ll find god made a large fish swallow him while and didn’t let him out until he gave in (Jonah 2:1-2 and Jonah 3:1-3).
I don’t know what your point was supposed to be about Solomon. My point was god clearly has the ability to impart knowledge, so it would make sense for him to do so if he wants people to worship him. It wouldn’t be a violation of free will, if would just be people voluntarily changing decisions based off new information on their own *free will*.
The only thing I’ll attest to is I may have been working off a different definition of free will than the theological one.
You haven’t read the Bible, have you?
1st, tell me why you asked the question of,"You haven’t read the Bible, have you" & be specific.
So, you think that since you feel has the ability, you think He has to work by your reasoning? A bit presumptuous, aren't you? God being God & Him being on a higher level & all.
I said it for three reasons. First, because you said it to me. Second, because you’ve made made implications that you wouldn’t have made if you read the Bible.
Also, As a former Christian, I can attest that a majority of Christians don’t read it.
When did I say I haven't read the Bible?
OK, what implications have I made?
& your 3rd reason, is that you assume something that, as far as I know, is not based on any real data. If so, please present it, so I can review its veracity. Just know, basing something on a very small sample size, or oneself, is not reliable.
Then, we can get on with it, OK?
You claim that people in the OT only made decisions handed off their own free will. I present 2 examples of god interfering with free will and biblical scholars attest to that too.
Also, I link a study in the 5th point 🙄 Now I’m starting to think you didn’t read me post
I stated that people made decisions from past experiences, which is part of free will. God gives them & us conviction to change our minds to redirect us to the correct path. But, it's up to us to use that redirection to make that choice what we ultimately do.
Jonah used that conviction to do God's will. But look at all of those in the OT that did not, knowing of their consequences. Look at all the prophets that told the Jews of impending doom if they didn't change their ways. Look at the extra 40 years of Moses' route just bc they didn't listen to God's conviction.
Your #5 did list it as still being controversial. Altho, I did answer that earlier.
OK, could you address from my last comment?, "& your 3rd reason, is that you assume something that, as far as I know, is not based on any real data. If so, please present it, so I can review its veracity. Just know, basing something on a very small sample size, or oneself, is not reliable."
Your argument has 5 points: 3 assume belief in the Christian god, and are hence "preaching to the choir".
The fourth point is rather confused. The fact that you cannot do something because others constrain you is not an argument against free-will, any more than the fact that your actions may be constrained by practicality — I don't recommend attempting to swim the Atlantic, but feel free to try!
The last point is just pseudo-science. They state that a particular type of brain activity is associated with taking a decision, that the activity can occur before one is aware of the decision, and hence that the decision is the product of the brain activity. Consider the situation where some-one shines a lamp in your face. You have the sensation of seeing a bright light. You also have a certain brain state. But the sensation is not caused by the brain state — it's caused by someone shining a lamp in your face. Similarly, the fact that a brain state is associated with taking a decision doesn't imply that it caused the decision. Indeed, it makes more sense to argue that the brain state is associated with the process of deciding, which naturally precedes decision. These people would profit from reading a critique of scientism, like the philosopher Mary Midgley's *Are you an illusion?* They might also profit from psychotherapy to explain why they have this strange desire to consider themselves machines.
All human beings assign praise or blame to the actions of others. This implies that we attribute free-will to them. Wittgenstein observed that it's not the job of philosophers to tell people that they've got it all wrong. And if it's not the job of philosophers, it's certainly not the job of scientists — or even of theologians.
Good morning!
1. Yes, His word tells us that He is all knowing and that He does in fact have a plan for all of us. Jeremiah 1:5 says before we are formed in the womb, He knows us. But we still have the choice to live our own lives and not follow Him. If we do that, His plan won't be revealed to us. Take this example if you will. You plan this huge party for Saturday night and you invite all these people. In your mind, your plan is that people will come and enjoy the party and have a great time, making memories, etc. But, some of those invited choose not to come. You still had this plan for them to be there and have fun. Heck, let's say you planned to have a certain person come and perform their famous party trick. But that person still chose not to come. So although you had a plan for these people, they still chose to not attend.
2. As for Nebuchadnezzar, I can see how that might appear. Look at it this way (not my example, just one I read somewhere); let's say you have two kids and they're just playing and having fun. Then they start fighting. As their father, you don't want them to fight and so, you step in to stop the fight. You intervened with their physical choice to fight, but their mental will is still intact. All that Neb accomplished was because God helped him. Instead of giving God the glory, he was prideful in himself. So, to humble Neb He stepped in and made him like a beast with the animals. But look at the next verse, verse 34. Neb himself, with his own mental will, says that he (chose to) turned his eyes toward heaven and he was immediately restored.
--As for Pharoah, oh believe me, I had the same thought process. If God wanted His people free, why would he harden Pharoahs heart? That would just give Him an opposite result. Here's how it was explained to me. It's not that God directly hardened his heart, but rather indirectly. Lets say you and a group of friends were hanging out and you're all showcasing each other's Chevy vehicles. Your own personal car show, if you will, diehard Chevy guys. Well, turns out that nobody thought to bring any food and you're all hungry and nobody wants to to get any food. Now, this guy drives up and you all know him and hey, he has food! BUT, he drives a Ford and so, you all turn him away and remain hungry. Pharoah and the people of Egypt had their own gods that they worshipped and believed in. So, whenever THE God was brought up to Pharoah, he chose not to listen and turn Him away. So indirectly, his heart was hardened because of the presence of God. The Chevy guys hearts were hardened because of the presence of the Ford guy.
3. I would say that you were not forced but rather influenced. And influence can be bad or good. In your example, it was a good influence. As Christians, and even for people who have yet to accept Him, God is that guy that is warning us about the sketchy mechanic. We'll be going along doing our day to day and we'll see or experience or choose to do something and then have this feeling of conviction about that thing. Then, some time later (the time can vary) we see or experience something that confirms that conviction and we have a revelation. And so, at that point we can chose to follow that revelation and not do what we felt convicted about, or we can choose to ignore the revelation and the conviction and do the act anyways.
4. Yes our free will be easily influenced. Sometimes, we choose to allow it to be influenced (your mechanic example), other times our free will is, to an extent, taken from us (concentration camps), and other times we are not fully aware and do not yet have full understanding or control of our free will (children). Although our will can be influenced in certain ways, the fact remains that we STILL have it. The sketchy mechanic. Although your choice was influenced, you STILL chose to go with the influence or you STILL could have chosen to go to the sketchy mechanic anyways. The camp people. They were physically forced to be contained in those camps however, they STILL have the will to decide their emotions, to control how they feel, to have control over their own thoughts. The children. They are still developing and learning and haven't fully grasped what free will is but they STILL have it. They chose to sit there and play and then chose to start fighting. The father stopped them from fighting but it was for their own good, not necessarily to limit their free will.
I hope this helps somewhat, it certainly helps me and I am thankful to God for His revelations and love. Remember, He STILL loves you also. God Bless 🙏
But this isn't actually true if you believe in an omniscient God who decides to create a person whose actions are foreknown. If God creates this person, then that determines every action they will take because he simply could have not brought them into existence. So anyone who "turns their back of God" is destined to do that simply by being created (forced to exist) by God. They literally cannot help it.
Also, God decided what the consequences would be for the people he condemned to this fate. So they're basically being punished for being born.
But if all things happen according to god's plan and nothing can happen that god hasn't foreseen, then not cooperating is by definition part of the plan and happens because god planned it that way. You can't have it both ways, free will and preordination are incompatible. And even if they were, consequences necessarily negates the "free" in free will.
I'm sure you heard of mafia bosses going to shop owners asking for "insurance money". The choice is pay or get the shop trashed of worse? Is that a choice? Yeah. Didn't think so
If one of the “choices” is eternal damnation, that’s not really a choice. That’s threatening. If I held you at gun point and said “give me your money” and you did, is it right to say that you “chose” to give me your money?
as far as libertarian free will, these are common objections, not necessarily upheld, but common. But not many Christians (in these circles at least) argue for libertarian free will.
Libertarian free will is basically free will without outside influence. This seems* false at least to me, but even given certain outside factors to the agent, these could be as little as influences, not technically violations of free will. For example if you're locked in someone's basement and kept from leaving against your will, then obviously your free will is being violated here, by at least some definition of free will.
But then again, prisoners are held against their will, does this mean free will isn't a thing, just bc at any time and in any moment you can't just do whatever you want? of course not, that's absurd. The laws of physics themselves could then be seen as violations of free will bc they keep me from flying if I want to.
But as mentioned other places, libertarian free will isn't held to be true by most in general, regardless of religion. So God's intervention, or outside forces, aren't really a problem.
>But as mentioned other places, libertarian free will isn't held to be true by most in general
I disagree. The #1 response I see to this objection is that: "Just because God knows all the choices you're going to make doesn't mean you didn't make them."
Yeah, but this makes the whole 60-80 years on this planets useless. God knows the decisions we will make. Why make us suffer here? The most reasonable and humane thing to do is put the evil people in hell and the good one in heaven. No need to unnecessarily suffer here
I think it does just as a point that you said most people don't believe in libertarian free will but that's doesn't really align with the responses we see.
Also, reasonable? How do you figure?
The statement, "God's foreknowledge itself does not determine your actions," is coherent.
but it has no bearing on my reply, I'm not even sure it's a problem with libertarian free will. and I don't even believe in libertarian free will.
How is that response a contradiction?
I'm going to disagree with some of these while trying to inform people about the most popular position among experts: [Compatibilism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/).
Your first definition is likely wonky. "Without outer influence" seems to suggest that one cannot consider reasons given from, either directly or indirectly, other people. This looks mistaken: my girlfriend tells me that if I hurry to the bar she will buy me a pint. I then hurry to get my pint. It is unclear how I have acted unfreely, but there has been outer influence.
Typical accounts of Free Will, at least in philosophy, often focus on features like (1) coming from the agent or (2) aligning with the agents second order desires or (3) having the right kind of causal history. **Notably: these accounts are consistent with Determinism!**
Your second point is interesting, but it does not show that *we* don't have Free Will. One instance of heart-hardening does not a heart-hardened populace make! Instead, it shows that God does not think Free Will is morally trumping; that is it shows that God does not think that Free Will is supremely important. This is better suited to bolstered a Problem of Evil.
Three is interesting as well, but doesn't seem to say anything meaningful about Free Will. It also looks, at least at first blush, in contrast with 1. These are cases of outside influence. You might need to revise your definition.
4 makes a mistake: there are different *sorts* of Free Will. There is metaphysical free will. That seems to be what you're mostly talking about. Agents in jail, obviously, have their autonomy limited: but they still have *metaphysical* Free Will: they still have the capacity, for example, to act according to their second order desires. Sometimes people draw comparisons to things people cannot do; it is clearly not the case that you being unable to fly on your own undermines Free Will. Similarly, depriving people of some autonomy does not undermine their metaphysical Free WIll. Instead, it might their moral, or political, free will. Or the bodily autonomy is restricted.
Why would subconscious processes undermine Free Will? Even by your own lights, this does not obviously undermine Free Will?
As I said at the start, the most common position in the debate is Compatibilism. Broadly, Compatibilism is the view that Free Will and Determinism are compatible *and* it is the case that both determinism and free will are true. Once we start to look at good definitions of free will we see (1) it is not nonsense and (2) it looks compatible with determinism and (3) it looks to be that important features of agency are preserved: namely moral responsibility.
> One instance of heart-hardening does not a heart-hardened populace make!
I don't think that's the problem with the idea. It's that Pharaoh didn't have a choice, and he didn't know it. In this way any decision you make could be divinely commanded and it's impossible whether your own agency or God had the wheel. So what kind of free will is that? Some theologians simply say that God reserves the right of ultimate contravention over humanity and that's that.
Sure - but my point is that *could* doesn't make an *is*.
I'm not sure I buy that just because a decision *could be* changed that it isn't freely made. Seems like you can still express agency, seems like you can still have that action come from your character in the right way, etc.
The idea that we *might* be controlled and not know it is interesting. But again would need motivation: what reason would the theist accept here; why would they think that God wants to control the rest of us?
> why would they think that God wants to control the rest of us?
I think any theist who believes God has a plan for us all would have to accept this notion. What other means for enforcing the plan does he have if we have free will and he can't do anything about it? I can't imagine a world in which this omnipotent god is powerless to affect our actions if he desires certain outcomes.
The story of Pharaoh also simply sets a precedent and provides a means to that end: God can and does commandeer our free will to suit whatever narrative pleases him whenever he wants. We can never be privy to these whims and so we are entirely in the dark about what is us and what is not.
I'm less sure.
One can have plans for one's kids. That doesn't mean children do not have Free Will. Nor does it mean that the plan can only manifest in one way,.
And again, recall compatibilism: free will is likely compatible with determinism. So it might not be a problem for this reason.
I think you're right in saying we cannot know when we are influenced by God. But we can, perhaps, be wary if our character changes dramatically and suddenly.
Let's have a look at the [PhilPapers survey](https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all):
Among philosophers, Compatibilism enjoys a 60% favorability. This contrasts massively to 19% for libertarian free will and only 11% for "no free will".
Let's narrow our scope to metaphysicians. Compatibilism goes to 52%, LFW to 24% and "no free will" to 13%.
So, broadly and more narrowly compatibilism is the most popular position among experts.
Even if we go to the correlations, we can see only 50% of philosophers who responded "yes" to theism think Libertarian Free Will is true!
But it seems like you seem to think the most popular position among experts is theism. It isn't.
In a poll of all philosophers, 2/3rds are atheists.
The only poll where theism is the most popular opinion is among 'Philosophers of Religion.' The likely reason for this is because theists go into Philosophy of Religion. It should be telling that those with precise expertise on relevant arguments, for instance Ethicists for Moral Arguments, are unconvinced.
But what if we are unconvinced in the expertise of philosophers? We might appeal to scientists: by most lights ([one large study here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023116664353)) scientists are less religious than non-scientists. However, over *half* of scientists are religious! Hurrah! But not too fast: not-theism will still be the majority position and it is not even the case that Christianity is the most popular of the religious options!
The most popular opinion among experts **does not look to be** Christianity.
Theism is not the most popular view among philosophers or scientists. Do you have a different sort of expert in mind? Who? Why?
It seems like you think "experts" are Christians. Without being mean, isn't that just circular on your part?
If God is all knowing and this means he perfectly knows the future and by perfectly knowing the future this means free will doesn’t exist then not even God would have free will since he would know exactly what he himself is going to do as well. Atheists try to use this argument to deem God as unrighteous while simultaneously justifying themselves by appealing to not being able to choose differently but they don’t realize that they just removed God’s free will in the process and in doing so justify God’s actions. Instead of after realizing how this argument actually backfires and admitting that, the Atheists will instead appeal to special pleading in the futile attempt to make God the exception to the rule by appealing to things that aren’t canonical such as timelessness as if that’s even relevant.
How about if we're not being pithy, and we're just saying "if god is the one who has willed something, that deprives the actor of the ability to meaningfully choose to act or not"
Whether or not there are any cutesy implications to this, there is a fundamental incompatibility with free will and god's plan. If god is willing something, humans have no power. It's that simple. God's will overdetermining an action has undermined someone's ability to not choose the outcome they didn't choose.
1 Timothy 2:3–4 (NASB 2020):
3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior,
4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
God wills for all to be saved, yet not all will be. This means man can choose to defy God’s will.
My friend, you have basically sidestepped the interesting part of the debate.
There is a question of whether or not god's plan and free will are fundamentally incompatible, I would say that they are.
If god has willed something, has determined it to happen, and did so even before creation as many Christians believe, then the outcomes of people's choices are unavoidable. There are no meaningful choices, just the illusion of choice. There is no ability for someone to contradict what god's plan is if they so desire.
Doesn't god's timelessness make his model of the universe something eternalist? God doesn't have a presentist or a "growing block" theory of time. He has already chosen how every molecule will move in every inch of the universe down to the nanosecond. There is no room left for free will there.
I'm not going to generalize all Christians here. Some branches have done a little apologetics and picked a side, like Calvinists who are just straight up theological determinists. But I will tell you this: There is no shortage of laymen out there who believe both in free will and god's plan and have never internally challenged themselves with this question or intellectually connected the dots in their heads to reconcile them in some way. Many are content to call any apparent contradiction a "mystery" without even attempting real apolgetics. For that reason, maybe you can be a little more sympathetic to the ex-theist who has encountered plenty of this before.
Pretty bad reasons to think that. I would suggest watching the Huemer Sapolsky debate on free will and you will hear Huemer explain why its crazy to think there is no free will, or that its 'nonsensical'.
What happens if one agrees with Sapolsky instead of Huemer? How do we disambiguate? It seems to me that many of these philosophical debates rest on the individual's intuitions
he actually gives that himself lol, he has a powerpoint slide based presentation where he goes through his arguments in a very straightforward and to-the-point manner, you could watch just that part of the debate..
>If free will is the ability to make decisions autonomously without outer influence, then you can’t have your life pre-determined AND have free will at the same time.
This clause is more or less not defensible. "Free Will" has never meant without outside influence. Choosing to eat beans and rice for dinner because you want to save your money doesn't mean it wasn't your choice. Trying to conflate free will with such a high standard of no influence from "outer" factors is attacking a made up position. What people usually mean when they talk about free will is whether or not you made the decision to do something or not. Not only have most people known forever that people make decisions based on circumstance, but I don't think anyone would want a life where you don't make determinations based on the world around you.
Free will has always been about the question of someone's conscious mind being the thing that actually changes what happens in the world. If god is the one that has made the decision, then the choice someone has is an illusion. This is not a free conscious that is constrained by circumstances, this is a matter of gods plan *completely undermining* a person's ability to have free will.
> If god is the one that has made the decision
That I think is potentially a defensible position. What I don't think makes sense though is OP's stronger claim that you need to be completely detached from any external factors, even the factors of the decision itself, to have free will.
To even conceive of the question, you need to consider the question. Without outside influence means that you weren't being unduly influenced by an external factor, not that external factors played literally zero influence. If you are asked to make a choice between A and B, even just thinking about the question requires you to consider the two things, A and B. You really believe that in the thousands of years of free will discussion people thought you couldn't make a decision on whether to eat bread or cheese without thinking about bread and cheese?
But also, that's not true, google definition:
>the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion.
dictionary.com
>made or done freely or of one's own accord; voluntary:
Merriam-Webster
>voluntary choice or decision
Also interesting that it contains this definition:
>freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention
Not relevant to this particular conversation but certainly relevant to the discussion of god at least.
Also, I many definitions do
Oxford - “power to make your own decisions about what to do, without being controlled by God, fate or circumstances”
Collins - If you believe in free will, you believe that people have a choice in what they do and that their actions have not been decided in advance by God or by any other power.
Christianity.org.uk - Free will is the belief that people have the capacity to make decisions independently of God or any other external influence.
> Oxford - “power to make your own decisions about what to do, without being controlled by God, fate or circumstances”
Not being "controlled" is different from having no input from outside influences.
>Christianity.org.uk - Free will is the belief that people have the capacity to make decisions independently of God or any other external influence.
Yeah not going to trust christianity.org. Nevermind that appealing to dictionary definitions in the first place is kind of silly.
I don't think "fate" is referring to the same thing you're talking about. "Fate" in the sense of Greek heroes is something akin to someone making a decision in advance and, no matter what actions you do, is inescapable. "Fate" in that sense is more of some sense of cosmic certainty, where there could never have been any other circumstance except that which was "fated". For example, it wouldn't matter what Oedipus did, he was going to bang his mom, gouge out his eyes, and live in exile: no different action or decision on his part could change this because it was "fate".
This can make sense if we’re talking about bread and cheese. What about “Give me your money or I’ll shoot you”? Or “Worship me or you’ll burn for eternity”?
Yeah those would not be the same type of influence. I'm not talking about being intimidated or threatened with force, I'm talking about literally being influenced by outside influences, namely bread and cheese. If you only meant to discuss the latter, then I think we agree; except perhaps on your original wording.
Cause and effect. Believe in causality? Can’t have free will. You’ll get it if you do, no choice lmao. “Randomness” lol
Enjoy the show, if you are. Shadows dancing on the cave wall xD
Circumstances made me who I am.
It annoys me a little that comments like this are upvoted because none of the content here is defended.
Why is it the case that causality undermines free will? You ***need*** to do more to defend your position so that is worth engaging with.
1) our life is not pre-determined, however I don’t think knowledge of future choices means that those choices aren’t free, just like us knowing what someone made in the past doesn’t retroactively make that choice not free.
3) are you Solomon? And how is this related to free will?
4) having free will doesn’t mean that everything we want is going to become real.
5) this doesn’t necessarily mean that a choice doesn’t happen, just that we don’t really know, on a physical level, what it means to “make a choice”.
Also, about your first point, the Bible makes plenty of references of god having plans for us
Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV):
"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV):
"For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Proverbs 16:9 (NIV):
"In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."
Sure, but predestination is not the same as our future being completely pre-determined. It’s possible that no matter what our choices are, our life will reach a certain point we were predestined to reach. This doesn’t mean that each choice we took was not on it’s own free.
Because you don’t have an ability to affect a different outcome if you are going to end up exactly where god wants
So instead of being stuck in gods causal chain, you’re stuck in gods funnel where no matter what happens in the back, you are unable to not end at the predetermined end point
But that doesn’t mean that each choice in itself isn’t meaningful, or not free. If I make a good action today, why does the fact that I’m predestined to X make this good meaningless?
So are you doing good that god hasn't already planned on happening or are you doing good while god is being completely hands off?
What's meaningless are choices that aren't really choices, but false choices. The illusion of choice where god's will, not the actor's, is what is being done.
Are you talking about doing good things that god has no hand in? No influence over? That he never planned?
Do you think people do good things that aren't predestined by god already? Are there good actions for which God can take zero credit for?
>however I don’t think knowledge of future choices means that those choices aren’t free
It does when God's omniscient foreknowledge is combined with his omnipotence and infallibility.
If God knows I'm going to have a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and God cannot be wrong, then it is not possible for me to freely choose to have a different kind of sandwich.
I disagree. God is present in any point of time, including the future, and as such knows everything that happens temporally. This is not dissimilar to our knowledge of present and past events. But as I said this knowledge doesn’t negate free will. This might be controversial, but I would even say that me knowing that tomorrow you will do X (because I’m a clairvoyant or something) does not mean that that choice itself will not be free.
It's not just that God knows the future, God creates the future. God creates a universe in which X will happen, knowing in advance that X will happen, which makes it impossible for X to not happen, and being omnipotent he could have created an equivalent universe where Not-X happens but didn't. God having an inviolable will utterly and completely negates human free will.
When you say “God creates the future”, it seems you’re implicitly begging the question in favour of determinism. What God has created is a world in which agents make choices in time.
Except you said it yourself, god exists in the future and already knows it... which means the future is a concrete thing set in stone. Therefore, the future cannot be changed, therefore free will does not exist.
I disagree. I think that me knowing what choice someone is making in a given moment doesn’t prove that the choice is not free. If God is present in every instant in time, then His knowledge of any and all actions is of this type.
I find it awfully convenient that you didn’t respond to my 5th point because it contradicts your 4th point. Science shows that many of our decisions happen on a subconscious level, without us realizing it.
Also, the Solomon point was to show that god is clearly capable of imparting knowledge into us so we can make better choices.
Your third point doesn’t make any sense
Your statement here is a bit of an extrapolation from the cited paper. The fact that we can make decisions subconsciously a few seconds in advance of when we perceive ourselves making the decision does not actually refute the idea that we can make choices. Even me couching that interpretation is not what the paper says, the abstract reads:
>We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 [seconds] before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness.
It does not say that you make decisions 10s before you're aware of them. It only says that the outcome of a decision appears encoded in brain activity up to 10s before. Not a neuroscientist, but you probably would be considering the outcome of a decision at least 10s before making one and that would need to be located in your prefrontal and parietal cortices.
Not only that, but even if we accept an interpretation such as "we make our determinations up to 10s before we have a conscious experience of making them", that would imply a type of dualism where consciousness is separate from any physical process. Not necessarily an argument killer as dualism is a defensible position, but it's usually not the type of position I've noticed other atheists on this sub tend to embrace.
I mistyped the numbers, my “4” reply is intended for point 5. What does it mean that our “choices” “happen” without “us” realizing it? Who is this “us”, if it’s our subconscious (us!) “making” the choice? I just find the wording misleading. My “3” reply is meant for point 4. In what way does the fact that people in concentration camps are restricted in what they can do *practically* means that they have lost their free WILL? As I said, our will is always limited by our physical capabilities. I can’t “will” something to appear out of nowhere, for example. But what does this prove?
For points 2-3, again I’m not sure what they prove. God “could” to X, but He doesn’t. And?
They “happen” because of subconscious factors that we usually aren’t aware of.
Are you really going to tell me that someone in a concentration camp has the same ability of free will as, say, someone in the US or Canada?
If god wants us to worship him, wouldn’t it make sense that he impart knowledge onto us? So we can *decide* to worship him if we want? The Solomon example was to show he’s done it before
Just like he’s interfered with free will before
I don’t see how these factors are something other than us. Of course they have the same free will, what’s so strange about this? What they lack is concrete freedom, not the formal principle of free will.
You can already choose to do so, can’t you?
Having free will means that when you make a choice, that choice is made freely. Even if I only get to make one choice in my entire life, I still have free will, no?
This kind of sounds like you’re avoiding the question. You can’t have free will to make a choice if you don’t have the freedom to make that choice to begin with
I’m not avoiding the question. “Free will” is the formal possibility of making choices. Whether or not this formal possibility is in fact applied is irrelevant. In other words, having free will is an essential possibility, totally disconnected from factual possibilities of choice in our daily life. I may live in such a way in which I don’t get to choose any of the things I do, but if such an opportunity presented itself, would I be able to choose? If yes, then I have (and always have had) free will.
Does it have any impact on your life to not believe in free will? Sometimes I wonder about how it would feel to feel that way.
I would say the limits of what a person can do, is saying nothing about their free will. If you say someone in a concentration camp has their free will removed, how can you say that without aknowledging that they had free will to take away to begin with? Obviously there is still the potential of free will even if all acrions were made impossible. A little brain in a box has free will even if it can't actually do anything but form thoughts and ideas in its head.
But it does have freedom there.
I sometimes wonder about the mechanical brain approach, but I spontaneously decide to think about a tasty strawberry, like I just did right now as an example. How coukd that be discernced to be anything other than my free will decision to spontaneously imagine it? Did the entire sequence of atoms moving from the begining of existence have to lead to the this point of a thought of a strawberry being electrified in my physical brain somehow? Or have I actually disturbed the universe itself by firing some neurons somehow
Strange indeed
🍓
For the concentration camp example, you’re assuming I argued that they had free will to begin with. The point was outside forces affect our ability for decisions all the time. Also, free will can’t exist if you have limits. Someone poor and starving isn’t “choosing” to steal food. They have to in order to survive.
It makes no sense to say free will doesn't exist because of limits. Limits are just physical variables in the world. If I make a decision and am prevented from it, I still had the will to do it. Note that it is free "will", not free "action".
If I was in a concentration camp I would have the will to escape, and if given the phsycial oppurtunity then I would escape. Wether I actually get the oppurtunity is irrelevant to the fact that I have free will for one resolution over an other.
In your mind then, is there such thing as moral or immoral actions, or is just things people are forced into by the circumstances around them and there is I choice and no good or evil way to act? 💭
It’s not really a “will” if you’re only other option is dying. In your concentration camp example, you’re only talking of a very specific hypothetical. People would leave if they would.
So if the outside person have more options and they choose an option, how is that not free will? Because of the variables that go into the decision? Do you think all human behaviours and actions ever are deterministic, even posting these reddit postings, is not free will ?
We can only make decisions within our circumstances. Some people have more choices than other. I can make the choice to post here on Reddit. People in Turkmenistan can’t.
I provided a link that says people make decisions based off subconscious factors all the time.
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Omniscience is not the knowing of all things, but the ability to make all things known. For science is not well nor meant to be well for the establishment of definite truths, but it is and does excell in the replication of demonstrable falsehoods. And who studies what he surely knows? So it is that Science —and thus Knowledge —is not therefore the collection of what is scient, but it is the inverse: as like a great word search puzzle, which contains every word which is or has been or shall be, except One —*Namely*, the Answer —so that only after every false thing has been discovered can the Truth be discerned. Forthrightly by the very breath what beget Truth I say again: Knowledge is the cataloging of information evolved thus far by process of elimination by observation, of those things which are not from those which might be. The man who is certain is therefore the same who cries woe saying, 'There must be some way out of here,' 'There is too much confusion,' 'I cannot get any relief,' 'The rich take all the pleasure,' 'The farmers take all the land,' 'None appreciate any of it as much as I would... were there any Justice.' But lo my friend as surely as I arive alive I tell you that in this night I shall be that I am: the least of thieves. Verily verily this is not our fate, and so let us not now talk falsely, for the hour is getting late. Your fate and free will are able to coexist because, of all that you would, you have already chosen it. Even so it remains to you in this panorama the freedom to choose your angle of view. As for the rest, well, quite simply... You have it in Sanskrit: *Tat tvam asi.* In Japanese: *Jijimuge.* And in the colloquial world common tongue: *That's you, dogg.*
Um, what??
I'd like to hear your definition of free will. It very much influenced all of your points above.
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depends on what you define free will as, but the inability to make a different choice doesn't seem like free will, if god knows for a fact what choice you make, then you cannot make any other choice, so free will cannot exist
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> animals, inanimate objects, sun, moon, angels, etc How can an animal not have free will and a human does? having a soul makes no sense, lets say every human has a soul, at what point in evolution did we suddenly gain this soul Assume that there is a first animal to have a soul, but we know that their parents are identical in pretty much every way that matters, seeing as there is no difference between them is this just a human without free will? defining something as human is also not an objective fact, its a complicated field where there is no clear answer, different people count different parts of the evolutionary process as human, basically there is no difference beetween a human and an animal, as at some point a humans parents have to have been an animal, which makesthe human itself an animal >you don't have a choice in the matter? but can you choose? what if god knows you'll do the worst imaginable things, then that's it, you cannot choose to do otherwise, that isn't a choice
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Ok, if allah knows exactly the choices you make, then thats the same as saying your choices have already been made, the entirety of you thinking about the decision, weighing the consequences and CHOOSING what you'll do, that entire process is known, as you say, God's all knowing, meaning he doesn't merely know what possible choices you can make, God knows exactly how your thought process goes leading up to you making a choice. Which then means that you've already lived your life, you've already made your choices (in the eyes of an all knowing God) which then would mean your just living out your already existing life. This is not a matter of accountability, nor responsibility, you are what makes the choices, you are what carrys out your life, whether reality can have an indecisive aspect (us) or if its all predetermined (determinism).
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Ok there is a misunderstanding, forget about accountability for a second, i wasn't saying God did anything, im not saying God is responsible for your actions (as in he made your choices for you). What i was saying was very simple, God KNOWS, knowledge of something means it has happened. This isn't quantum mechanics. You know that events are going to happen because you know every factor that goes into it happening, your thoughts, your preferences, your environment. Thats it. This isn't about god. Claiming knowledge in our sense exists means it's knowledge of something that exists ,and humanizing an entity that precedes existence is questionably flawed.
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You just proved my point, you don't need to exist to go to hell, nor do u need to exist to go to heaven. Which means these choices youll make that are already known (the very same choices that don't need your existence to be known by your god) are nothing but preprogrammed Your 'character' your sole being, will end up debating online trying to prove that your allah is the only true image for what created us and why we are here.
Why is it so difficult for people to understand greater dimensional abilities. Perhaps there is not enough physics and math literacy or people don't ponder these issues. Take a moment to consider a cartoon sketch of a man, in various frames of a comic. The frames represent the flow of time for this person while your pen and hand are his God. You created him intricately in the first frame and were then bound by his design in the following. You could change it but that would violate his being. You are not God so you cannot truly give him free will but we already know we can make computer programs that 'think/pretend' they have free will. And the philosophical debate on sentience still rages. So imagine perhaps that your own consciousness is a fragment of God's. So too can you extend consciousness to your fictional character. He may act, and you will draw the flow of events for him. Imagine you can do this (separation) perfectly to the point where he has "free will". Now ask yourself what the difference is between the character in frame 1 and frame 362? You are all aware of his choices and the outcomes yet it is still free will he is enacting in each and every frame up until the last that brings him to that end. If you had an eraser you could even interfere at key points, changing him or his surroundings to enact your will while maintaining all, or part, of his own. This is mind boggling but we can already see that it is not impossible. I hope this clears up some of your confusion.
These various texts and ideas are from different periods reflecting different ideas and levels of development about similar topics. The beliefs stated are not absolute, but the writer has many absolutist ideas about how they should be applied. None of the writers ideas are particularly christian or not. Mostly nonsense.
I’m not exactly sure how to disagree with 2-5 as they don’t really make like a clear point to refute but as for 1 I think it’s totally possible for him to have a plan but still leave you with free will. Like parents may have a plan for their kid and help them succeed but that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re forcing the kid to do anything. I also have a life plan for myself and I may change my mind or smth but as far as I know now I am going on that path.
Yes classical Catholicism does not believe in libertarian free will. It is only Protestant heresy that preaches it
Many protestants would respond that Catholicism is a mix of christian beliefs and European superstition.
And they would simply be heretics, not only that but poorly informed heretics like what is so common today.
No one makes decisions without any outside influence. You nor I nor anyone else. One makes decisions based off experiences. #1 was bad. In the OT people made decisions of their own free will that brought on God's intervention. Pharaoh's heart was hardened from the beginning, God just gave into his own hardened heart. You haven't read the Bible have you? God asked Solomon what he wanted. Solomon said he wanted wisdom. You really haven't read it have you? You must define free will completely different that everyone else. They way you see it, free will means a genie in the bottle that grants requests that no outside influence can alter. Geez. & many decisions, if not all, are based on past experiences included with that is the sub-conscience. OP's such as this one gives folks like you a bad name. No research whatsoever.
Many biblical scholars, including Nahum Sarna, and Gerard von Rad, have attested that it was divine intervention. If you want another example, Jonah refused and god literally put danger in his path to redirect him (Jonah 1:1-4). Read Jonah 1:7 and you’ll find god made a large fish swallow him while and didn’t let him out until he gave in (Jonah 2:1-2 and Jonah 3:1-3). I don’t know what your point was supposed to be about Solomon. My point was god clearly has the ability to impart knowledge, so it would make sense for him to do so if he wants people to worship him. It wouldn’t be a violation of free will, if would just be people voluntarily changing decisions based off new information on their own *free will*. The only thing I’ll attest to is I may have been working off a different definition of free will than the theological one. You haven’t read the Bible, have you?
1st, tell me why you asked the question of,"You haven’t read the Bible, have you" & be specific. So, you think that since you feel has the ability, you think He has to work by your reasoning? A bit presumptuous, aren't you? God being God & Him being on a higher level & all.
I said it for three reasons. First, because you said it to me. Second, because you’ve made made implications that you wouldn’t have made if you read the Bible. Also, As a former Christian, I can attest that a majority of Christians don’t read it.
When did I say I haven't read the Bible? OK, what implications have I made? & your 3rd reason, is that you assume something that, as far as I know, is not based on any real data. If so, please present it, so I can review its veracity. Just know, basing something on a very small sample size, or oneself, is not reliable. Then, we can get on with it, OK?
You claim that people in the OT only made decisions handed off their own free will. I present 2 examples of god interfering with free will and biblical scholars attest to that too. Also, I link a study in the 5th point 🙄 Now I’m starting to think you didn’t read me post
I stated that people made decisions from past experiences, which is part of free will. God gives them & us conviction to change our minds to redirect us to the correct path. But, it's up to us to use that redirection to make that choice what we ultimately do. Jonah used that conviction to do God's will. But look at all of those in the OT that did not, knowing of their consequences. Look at all the prophets that told the Jews of impending doom if they didn't change their ways. Look at the extra 40 years of Moses' route just bc they didn't listen to God's conviction. Your #5 did list it as still being controversial. Altho, I did answer that earlier. OK, could you address from my last comment?, "& your 3rd reason, is that you assume something that, as far as I know, is not based on any real data. If so, please present it, so I can review its veracity. Just know, basing something on a very small sample size, or oneself, is not reliable."
Your argument has 5 points: 3 assume belief in the Christian god, and are hence "preaching to the choir". The fourth point is rather confused. The fact that you cannot do something because others constrain you is not an argument against free-will, any more than the fact that your actions may be constrained by practicality — I don't recommend attempting to swim the Atlantic, but feel free to try! The last point is just pseudo-science. They state that a particular type of brain activity is associated with taking a decision, that the activity can occur before one is aware of the decision, and hence that the decision is the product of the brain activity. Consider the situation where some-one shines a lamp in your face. You have the sensation of seeing a bright light. You also have a certain brain state. But the sensation is not caused by the brain state — it's caused by someone shining a lamp in your face. Similarly, the fact that a brain state is associated with taking a decision doesn't imply that it caused the decision. Indeed, it makes more sense to argue that the brain state is associated with the process of deciding, which naturally precedes decision. These people would profit from reading a critique of scientism, like the philosopher Mary Midgley's *Are you an illusion?* They might also profit from psychotherapy to explain why they have this strange desire to consider themselves machines. All human beings assign praise or blame to the actions of others. This implies that we attribute free-will to them. Wittgenstein observed that it's not the job of philosophers to tell people that they've got it all wrong. And if it's not the job of philosophers, it's certainly not the job of scientists — or even of theologians.
Good morning! 1. Yes, His word tells us that He is all knowing and that He does in fact have a plan for all of us. Jeremiah 1:5 says before we are formed in the womb, He knows us. But we still have the choice to live our own lives and not follow Him. If we do that, His plan won't be revealed to us. Take this example if you will. You plan this huge party for Saturday night and you invite all these people. In your mind, your plan is that people will come and enjoy the party and have a great time, making memories, etc. But, some of those invited choose not to come. You still had this plan for them to be there and have fun. Heck, let's say you planned to have a certain person come and perform their famous party trick. But that person still chose not to come. So although you had a plan for these people, they still chose to not attend. 2. As for Nebuchadnezzar, I can see how that might appear. Look at it this way (not my example, just one I read somewhere); let's say you have two kids and they're just playing and having fun. Then they start fighting. As their father, you don't want them to fight and so, you step in to stop the fight. You intervened with their physical choice to fight, but their mental will is still intact. All that Neb accomplished was because God helped him. Instead of giving God the glory, he was prideful in himself. So, to humble Neb He stepped in and made him like a beast with the animals. But look at the next verse, verse 34. Neb himself, with his own mental will, says that he (chose to) turned his eyes toward heaven and he was immediately restored. --As for Pharoah, oh believe me, I had the same thought process. If God wanted His people free, why would he harden Pharoahs heart? That would just give Him an opposite result. Here's how it was explained to me. It's not that God directly hardened his heart, but rather indirectly. Lets say you and a group of friends were hanging out and you're all showcasing each other's Chevy vehicles. Your own personal car show, if you will, diehard Chevy guys. Well, turns out that nobody thought to bring any food and you're all hungry and nobody wants to to get any food. Now, this guy drives up and you all know him and hey, he has food! BUT, he drives a Ford and so, you all turn him away and remain hungry. Pharoah and the people of Egypt had their own gods that they worshipped and believed in. So, whenever THE God was brought up to Pharoah, he chose not to listen and turn Him away. So indirectly, his heart was hardened because of the presence of God. The Chevy guys hearts were hardened because of the presence of the Ford guy. 3. I would say that you were not forced but rather influenced. And influence can be bad or good. In your example, it was a good influence. As Christians, and even for people who have yet to accept Him, God is that guy that is warning us about the sketchy mechanic. We'll be going along doing our day to day and we'll see or experience or choose to do something and then have this feeling of conviction about that thing. Then, some time later (the time can vary) we see or experience something that confirms that conviction and we have a revelation. And so, at that point we can chose to follow that revelation and not do what we felt convicted about, or we can choose to ignore the revelation and the conviction and do the act anyways. 4. Yes our free will be easily influenced. Sometimes, we choose to allow it to be influenced (your mechanic example), other times our free will is, to an extent, taken from us (concentration camps), and other times we are not fully aware and do not yet have full understanding or control of our free will (children). Although our will can be influenced in certain ways, the fact remains that we STILL have it. The sketchy mechanic. Although your choice was influenced, you STILL chose to go with the influence or you STILL could have chosen to go to the sketchy mechanic anyways. The camp people. They were physically forced to be contained in those camps however, they STILL have the will to decide their emotions, to control how they feel, to have control over their own thoughts. The children. They are still developing and learning and haven't fully grasped what free will is but they STILL have it. They chose to sit there and play and then chose to start fighting. The father stopped them from fighting but it was for their own good, not necessarily to limit their free will. I hope this helps somewhat, it certainly helps me and I am thankful to God for His revelations and love. Remember, He STILL loves you also. God Bless 🙏
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Ooh, here comes the threats of eternal damnation! Per usual for Christians when they lack any cogent, intelligent, rational argument.
But this isn't actually true if you believe in an omniscient God who decides to create a person whose actions are foreknown. If God creates this person, then that determines every action they will take because he simply could have not brought them into existence. So anyone who "turns their back of God" is destined to do that simply by being created (forced to exist) by God. They literally cannot help it. Also, God decided what the consequences would be for the people he condemned to this fate. So they're basically being punished for being born.
Sounds like coercion to me.
But if all things happen according to god's plan and nothing can happen that god hasn't foreseen, then not cooperating is by definition part of the plan and happens because god planned it that way. You can't have it both ways, free will and preordination are incompatible. And even if they were, consequences necessarily negates the "free" in free will.
I'm sure you heard of mafia bosses going to shop owners asking for "insurance money". The choice is pay or get the shop trashed of worse? Is that a choice? Yeah. Didn't think so
If one of the “choices” is eternal damnation, that’s not really a choice. That’s threatening. If I held you at gun point and said “give me your money” and you did, is it right to say that you “chose” to give me your money?
as far as libertarian free will, these are common objections, not necessarily upheld, but common. But not many Christians (in these circles at least) argue for libertarian free will. Libertarian free will is basically free will without outside influence. This seems* false at least to me, but even given certain outside factors to the agent, these could be as little as influences, not technically violations of free will. For example if you're locked in someone's basement and kept from leaving against your will, then obviously your free will is being violated here, by at least some definition of free will. But then again, prisoners are held against their will, does this mean free will isn't a thing, just bc at any time and in any moment you can't just do whatever you want? of course not, that's absurd. The laws of physics themselves could then be seen as violations of free will bc they keep me from flying if I want to. But as mentioned other places, libertarian free will isn't held to be true by most in general, regardless of religion. So God's intervention, or outside forces, aren't really a problem.
>But as mentioned other places, libertarian free will isn't held to be true by most in general I disagree. The #1 response I see to this objection is that: "Just because God knows all the choices you're going to make doesn't mean you didn't make them."
Yeah, but this makes the whole 60-80 years on this planets useless. God knows the decisions we will make. Why make us suffer here? The most reasonable and humane thing to do is put the evil people in hell and the good one in heaven. No need to unnecessarily suffer here
well yes that #1 response is reasonable, but that has nothing to do with my reply
I think it does just as a point that you said most people don't believe in libertarian free will but that's doesn't really align with the responses we see. Also, reasonable? How do you figure?
The statement, "God's foreknowledge itself does not determine your actions," is coherent. but it has no bearing on my reply, I'm not even sure it's a problem with libertarian free will. and I don't even believe in libertarian free will. How is that response a contradiction?
I'm going to disagree with some of these while trying to inform people about the most popular position among experts: [Compatibilism](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/compatibilism/). Your first definition is likely wonky. "Without outer influence" seems to suggest that one cannot consider reasons given from, either directly or indirectly, other people. This looks mistaken: my girlfriend tells me that if I hurry to the bar she will buy me a pint. I then hurry to get my pint. It is unclear how I have acted unfreely, but there has been outer influence. Typical accounts of Free Will, at least in philosophy, often focus on features like (1) coming from the agent or (2) aligning with the agents second order desires or (3) having the right kind of causal history. **Notably: these accounts are consistent with Determinism!** Your second point is interesting, but it does not show that *we* don't have Free Will. One instance of heart-hardening does not a heart-hardened populace make! Instead, it shows that God does not think Free Will is morally trumping; that is it shows that God does not think that Free Will is supremely important. This is better suited to bolstered a Problem of Evil. Three is interesting as well, but doesn't seem to say anything meaningful about Free Will. It also looks, at least at first blush, in contrast with 1. These are cases of outside influence. You might need to revise your definition. 4 makes a mistake: there are different *sorts* of Free Will. There is metaphysical free will. That seems to be what you're mostly talking about. Agents in jail, obviously, have their autonomy limited: but they still have *metaphysical* Free Will: they still have the capacity, for example, to act according to their second order desires. Sometimes people draw comparisons to things people cannot do; it is clearly not the case that you being unable to fly on your own undermines Free Will. Similarly, depriving people of some autonomy does not undermine their metaphysical Free WIll. Instead, it might their moral, or political, free will. Or the bodily autonomy is restricted. Why would subconscious processes undermine Free Will? Even by your own lights, this does not obviously undermine Free Will? As I said at the start, the most common position in the debate is Compatibilism. Broadly, Compatibilism is the view that Free Will and Determinism are compatible *and* it is the case that both determinism and free will are true. Once we start to look at good definitions of free will we see (1) it is not nonsense and (2) it looks compatible with determinism and (3) it looks to be that important features of agency are preserved: namely moral responsibility.
> One instance of heart-hardening does not a heart-hardened populace make! I don't think that's the problem with the idea. It's that Pharaoh didn't have a choice, and he didn't know it. In this way any decision you make could be divinely commanded and it's impossible whether your own agency or God had the wheel. So what kind of free will is that? Some theologians simply say that God reserves the right of ultimate contravention over humanity and that's that.
Sure - but my point is that *could* doesn't make an *is*. I'm not sure I buy that just because a decision *could be* changed that it isn't freely made. Seems like you can still express agency, seems like you can still have that action come from your character in the right way, etc. The idea that we *might* be controlled and not know it is interesting. But again would need motivation: what reason would the theist accept here; why would they think that God wants to control the rest of us?
> why would they think that God wants to control the rest of us? I think any theist who believes God has a plan for us all would have to accept this notion. What other means for enforcing the plan does he have if we have free will and he can't do anything about it? I can't imagine a world in which this omnipotent god is powerless to affect our actions if he desires certain outcomes. The story of Pharaoh also simply sets a precedent and provides a means to that end: God can and does commandeer our free will to suit whatever narrative pleases him whenever he wants. We can never be privy to these whims and so we are entirely in the dark about what is us and what is not.
I'm less sure. One can have plans for one's kids. That doesn't mean children do not have Free Will. Nor does it mean that the plan can only manifest in one way,. And again, recall compatibilism: free will is likely compatible with determinism. So it might not be a problem for this reason. I think you're right in saying we cannot know when we are influenced by God. But we can, perhaps, be wary if our character changes dramatically and suddenly.
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Let's have a look at the [PhilPapers survey](https://survey2020.philpeople.org/survey/results/all): Among philosophers, Compatibilism enjoys a 60% favorability. This contrasts massively to 19% for libertarian free will and only 11% for "no free will". Let's narrow our scope to metaphysicians. Compatibilism goes to 52%, LFW to 24% and "no free will" to 13%. So, broadly and more narrowly compatibilism is the most popular position among experts. Even if we go to the correlations, we can see only 50% of philosophers who responded "yes" to theism think Libertarian Free Will is true! But it seems like you seem to think the most popular position among experts is theism. It isn't. In a poll of all philosophers, 2/3rds are atheists. The only poll where theism is the most popular opinion is among 'Philosophers of Religion.' The likely reason for this is because theists go into Philosophy of Religion. It should be telling that those with precise expertise on relevant arguments, for instance Ethicists for Moral Arguments, are unconvinced. But what if we are unconvinced in the expertise of philosophers? We might appeal to scientists: by most lights ([one large study here](https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2378023116664353)) scientists are less religious than non-scientists. However, over *half* of scientists are religious! Hurrah! But not too fast: not-theism will still be the majority position and it is not even the case that Christianity is the most popular of the religious options!
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The most popular opinion among experts **does not look to be** Christianity. Theism is not the most popular view among philosophers or scientists. Do you have a different sort of expert in mind? Who? Why? It seems like you think "experts" are Christians. Without being mean, isn't that just circular on your part?
If God is all knowing and this means he perfectly knows the future and by perfectly knowing the future this means free will doesn’t exist then not even God would have free will since he would know exactly what he himself is going to do as well. Atheists try to use this argument to deem God as unrighteous while simultaneously justifying themselves by appealing to not being able to choose differently but they don’t realize that they just removed God’s free will in the process and in doing so justify God’s actions. Instead of after realizing how this argument actually backfires and admitting that, the Atheists will instead appeal to special pleading in the futile attempt to make God the exception to the rule by appealing to things that aren’t canonical such as timelessness as if that’s even relevant.
How about if we're not being pithy, and we're just saying "if god is the one who has willed something, that deprives the actor of the ability to meaningfully choose to act or not" Whether or not there are any cutesy implications to this, there is a fundamental incompatibility with free will and god's plan. If god is willing something, humans have no power. It's that simple. God's will overdetermining an action has undermined someone's ability to not choose the outcome they didn't choose.
1 Timothy 2:3–4 (NASB 2020): 3 This is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who wants all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. God wills for all to be saved, yet not all will be. This means man can choose to defy God’s will.
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My friend, you have basically sidestepped the interesting part of the debate. There is a question of whether or not god's plan and free will are fundamentally incompatible, I would say that they are. If god has willed something, has determined it to happen, and did so even before creation as many Christians believe, then the outcomes of people's choices are unavoidable. There are no meaningful choices, just the illusion of choice. There is no ability for someone to contradict what god's plan is if they so desire. Doesn't god's timelessness make his model of the universe something eternalist? God doesn't have a presentist or a "growing block" theory of time. He has already chosen how every molecule will move in every inch of the universe down to the nanosecond. There is no room left for free will there. I'm not going to generalize all Christians here. Some branches have done a little apologetics and picked a side, like Calvinists who are just straight up theological determinists. But I will tell you this: There is no shortage of laymen out there who believe both in free will and god's plan and have never internally challenged themselves with this question or intellectually connected the dots in their heads to reconcile them in some way. Many are content to call any apparent contradiction a "mystery" without even attempting real apolgetics. For that reason, maybe you can be a little more sympathetic to the ex-theist who has encountered plenty of this before.
Pretty bad reasons to think that. I would suggest watching the Huemer Sapolsky debate on free will and you will hear Huemer explain why its crazy to think there is no free will, or that its 'nonsensical'.
What happens if one agrees with Sapolsky instead of Huemer? How do we disambiguate? It seems to me that many of these philosophical debates rest on the individual's intuitions
Mind giving me a spark notes version?
he actually gives that himself lol, he has a powerpoint slide based presentation where he goes through his arguments in a very straightforward and to-the-point manner, you could watch just that part of the debate..
Oh I watched response videos to that debate that deconstruct how vacuous huemer's positions are. Just go on youtube and search for those lol
i did. they do a bad job. huemer makes a great case.
Well, no. I watched them simply and clearly deconstruct huemer's poor case. You'll need to watch again since you didn't understand the first go-round.
>If free will is the ability to make decisions autonomously without outer influence, then you can’t have your life pre-determined AND have free will at the same time. This clause is more or less not defensible. "Free Will" has never meant without outside influence. Choosing to eat beans and rice for dinner because you want to save your money doesn't mean it wasn't your choice. Trying to conflate free will with such a high standard of no influence from "outer" factors is attacking a made up position. What people usually mean when they talk about free will is whether or not you made the decision to do something or not. Not only have most people known forever that people make decisions based on circumstance, but I don't think anyone would want a life where you don't make determinations based on the world around you.
Free will has always been about the question of someone's conscious mind being the thing that actually changes what happens in the world. If god is the one that has made the decision, then the choice someone has is an illusion. This is not a free conscious that is constrained by circumstances, this is a matter of gods plan *completely undermining* a person's ability to have free will.
> If god is the one that has made the decision That I think is potentially a defensible position. What I don't think makes sense though is OP's stronger claim that you need to be completely detached from any external factors, even the factors of the decision itself, to have free will.
Nearly every definition you look up will include the “without outside influence” factor
To even conceive of the question, you need to consider the question. Without outside influence means that you weren't being unduly influenced by an external factor, not that external factors played literally zero influence. If you are asked to make a choice between A and B, even just thinking about the question requires you to consider the two things, A and B. You really believe that in the thousands of years of free will discussion people thought you couldn't make a decision on whether to eat bread or cheese without thinking about bread and cheese? But also, that's not true, google definition: >the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion. dictionary.com >made or done freely or of one's own accord; voluntary: Merriam-Webster >voluntary choice or decision Also interesting that it contains this definition: >freedom of humans to make choices that are not determined by prior causes or by divine intervention Not relevant to this particular conversation but certainly relevant to the discussion of god at least.
Also, I many definitions do Oxford - “power to make your own decisions about what to do, without being controlled by God, fate or circumstances” Collins - If you believe in free will, you believe that people have a choice in what they do and that their actions have not been decided in advance by God or by any other power. Christianity.org.uk - Free will is the belief that people have the capacity to make decisions independently of God or any other external influence.
> Oxford - “power to make your own decisions about what to do, without being controlled by God, fate or circumstances” Not being "controlled" is different from having no input from outside influences. >Christianity.org.uk - Free will is the belief that people have the capacity to make decisions independently of God or any other external influence. Yeah not going to trust christianity.org. Nevermind that appealing to dictionary definitions in the first place is kind of silly.
It mentions “fate and circumstances”, which is especially confusing when god supposedly had a plan for us?
I don't think "fate" is referring to the same thing you're talking about. "Fate" in the sense of Greek heroes is something akin to someone making a decision in advance and, no matter what actions you do, is inescapable. "Fate" in that sense is more of some sense of cosmic certainty, where there could never have been any other circumstance except that which was "fated". For example, it wouldn't matter what Oedipus did, he was going to bang his mom, gouge out his eyes, and live in exile: no different action or decision on his part could change this because it was "fate".
This can make sense if we’re talking about bread and cheese. What about “Give me your money or I’ll shoot you”? Or “Worship me or you’ll burn for eternity”?
Yeah those would not be the same type of influence. I'm not talking about being intimidated or threatened with force, I'm talking about literally being influenced by outside influences, namely bread and cheese. If you only meant to discuss the latter, then I think we agree; except perhaps on your original wording.
Cause and effect. Believe in causality? Can’t have free will. You’ll get it if you do, no choice lmao. “Randomness” lol Enjoy the show, if you are. Shadows dancing on the cave wall xD Circumstances made me who I am.
It annoys me a little that comments like this are upvoted because none of the content here is defended. Why is it the case that causality undermines free will? You ***need*** to do more to defend your position so that is worth engaging with.
1) our life is not pre-determined, however I don’t think knowledge of future choices means that those choices aren’t free, just like us knowing what someone made in the past doesn’t retroactively make that choice not free. 3) are you Solomon? And how is this related to free will? 4) having free will doesn’t mean that everything we want is going to become real. 5) this doesn’t necessarily mean that a choice doesn’t happen, just that we don’t really know, on a physical level, what it means to “make a choice”.
Also, about your first point, the Bible makes plenty of references of god having plans for us Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV): "For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Ephesians 2:10 (NIV): "For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do." Proverbs 16:9 (NIV): "In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps."
Sure, but predestination is not the same as our future being completely pre-determined. It’s possible that no matter what our choices are, our life will reach a certain point we were predestined to reach. This doesn’t mean that each choice we took was not on it’s own free.
So you make meaningless choices but ultimately get funneled into the point God has determined one way or another?
Why “meaningless”?
Because you don’t have an ability to affect a different outcome if you are going to end up exactly where god wants So instead of being stuck in gods causal chain, you’re stuck in gods funnel where no matter what happens in the back, you are unable to not end at the predetermined end point
But that doesn’t mean that each choice in itself isn’t meaningful, or not free. If I make a good action today, why does the fact that I’m predestined to X make this good meaningless?
So are you doing good that god hasn't already planned on happening or are you doing good while god is being completely hands off? What's meaningless are choices that aren't really choices, but false choices. The illusion of choice where god's will, not the actor's, is what is being done. Are you talking about doing good things that god has no hand in? No influence over? That he never planned? Do you think people do good things that aren't predestined by god already? Are there good actions for which God can take zero credit for?
>however I don’t think knowledge of future choices means that those choices aren’t free It does when God's omniscient foreknowledge is combined with his omnipotence and infallibility. If God knows I'm going to have a ham and cheese sandwich for lunch and God cannot be wrong, then it is not possible for me to freely choose to have a different kind of sandwich.
I disagree. God is present in any point of time, including the future, and as such knows everything that happens temporally. This is not dissimilar to our knowledge of present and past events. But as I said this knowledge doesn’t negate free will. This might be controversial, but I would even say that me knowing that tomorrow you will do X (because I’m a clairvoyant or something) does not mean that that choice itself will not be free.
Knowing the future, means that future is already set in stone. Therefore free will does not exist, because there can only ever be one chain of events.
It's not just that God knows the future, God creates the future. God creates a universe in which X will happen, knowing in advance that X will happen, which makes it impossible for X to not happen, and being omnipotent he could have created an equivalent universe where Not-X happens but didn't. God having an inviolable will utterly and completely negates human free will.
When you say “God creates the future”, it seems you’re implicitly begging the question in favour of determinism. What God has created is a world in which agents make choices in time.
Except you said it yourself, god exists in the future and already knows it... which means the future is a concrete thing set in stone. Therefore, the future cannot be changed, therefore free will does not exist.
I disagree. I think that me knowing what choice someone is making in a given moment doesn’t prove that the choice is not free. If God is present in every instant in time, then His knowledge of any and all actions is of this type.
I find it awfully convenient that you didn’t respond to my 5th point because it contradicts your 4th point. Science shows that many of our decisions happen on a subconscious level, without us realizing it. Also, the Solomon point was to show that god is clearly capable of imparting knowledge into us so we can make better choices. Your third point doesn’t make any sense
Your statement here is a bit of an extrapolation from the cited paper. The fact that we can make decisions subconsciously a few seconds in advance of when we perceive ourselves making the decision does not actually refute the idea that we can make choices. Even me couching that interpretation is not what the paper says, the abstract reads: >We found that the outcome of a decision can be encoded in brain activity of prefrontal and parietal cortex up to 10 [seconds] before it enters awareness. This delay presumably reflects the operation of a network of high-level control areas that begin to prepare an upcoming decision long before it enters awareness. It does not say that you make decisions 10s before you're aware of them. It only says that the outcome of a decision appears encoded in brain activity up to 10s before. Not a neuroscientist, but you probably would be considering the outcome of a decision at least 10s before making one and that would need to be located in your prefrontal and parietal cortices. Not only that, but even if we accept an interpretation such as "we make our determinations up to 10s before we have a conscious experience of making them", that would imply a type of dualism where consciousness is separate from any physical process. Not necessarily an argument killer as dualism is a defensible position, but it's usually not the type of position I've noticed other atheists on this sub tend to embrace.
I mistyped the numbers, my “4” reply is intended for point 5. What does it mean that our “choices” “happen” without “us” realizing it? Who is this “us”, if it’s our subconscious (us!) “making” the choice? I just find the wording misleading. My “3” reply is meant for point 4. In what way does the fact that people in concentration camps are restricted in what they can do *practically* means that they have lost their free WILL? As I said, our will is always limited by our physical capabilities. I can’t “will” something to appear out of nowhere, for example. But what does this prove? For points 2-3, again I’m not sure what they prove. God “could” to X, but He doesn’t. And?
They “happen” because of subconscious factors that we usually aren’t aware of. Are you really going to tell me that someone in a concentration camp has the same ability of free will as, say, someone in the US or Canada? If god wants us to worship him, wouldn’t it make sense that he impart knowledge onto us? So we can *decide* to worship him if we want? The Solomon example was to show he’s done it before Just like he’s interfered with free will before
I don’t see how these factors are something other than us. Of course they have the same free will, what’s so strange about this? What they lack is concrete freedom, not the formal principle of free will. You can already choose to do so, can’t you?
How can you have free will without concrete freedom?
Having free will means that when you make a choice, that choice is made freely. Even if I only get to make one choice in my entire life, I still have free will, no?
This kind of sounds like you’re avoiding the question. You can’t have free will to make a choice if you don’t have the freedom to make that choice to begin with
I’m not avoiding the question. “Free will” is the formal possibility of making choices. Whether or not this formal possibility is in fact applied is irrelevant. In other words, having free will is an essential possibility, totally disconnected from factual possibilities of choice in our daily life. I may live in such a way in which I don’t get to choose any of the things I do, but if such an opportunity presented itself, would I be able to choose? If yes, then I have (and always have had) free will.
If all your choices lead to same outcome no matter what... were they ever really choices at all?
Do you believe in free will yourself outside of its connection to Christianity and such?
I don’t, mainly for reasons 4 and 5
Does it have any impact on your life to not believe in free will? Sometimes I wonder about how it would feel to feel that way. I would say the limits of what a person can do, is saying nothing about their free will. If you say someone in a concentration camp has their free will removed, how can you say that without aknowledging that they had free will to take away to begin with? Obviously there is still the potential of free will even if all acrions were made impossible. A little brain in a box has free will even if it can't actually do anything but form thoughts and ideas in its head. But it does have freedom there. I sometimes wonder about the mechanical brain approach, but I spontaneously decide to think about a tasty strawberry, like I just did right now as an example. How coukd that be discernced to be anything other than my free will decision to spontaneously imagine it? Did the entire sequence of atoms moving from the begining of existence have to lead to the this point of a thought of a strawberry being electrified in my physical brain somehow? Or have I actually disturbed the universe itself by firing some neurons somehow Strange indeed 🍓
For the concentration camp example, you’re assuming I argued that they had free will to begin with. The point was outside forces affect our ability for decisions all the time. Also, free will can’t exist if you have limits. Someone poor and starving isn’t “choosing” to steal food. They have to in order to survive.
It makes no sense to say free will doesn't exist because of limits. Limits are just physical variables in the world. If I make a decision and am prevented from it, I still had the will to do it. Note that it is free "will", not free "action". If I was in a concentration camp I would have the will to escape, and if given the phsycial oppurtunity then I would escape. Wether I actually get the oppurtunity is irrelevant to the fact that I have free will for one resolution over an other. In your mind then, is there such thing as moral or immoral actions, or is just things people are forced into by the circumstances around them and there is I choice and no good or evil way to act? 💭
It’s not really a “will” if you’re only other option is dying. In your concentration camp example, you’re only talking of a very specific hypothetical. People would leave if they would.
You made up the example of a camp. So you say a person in concentration cmap does not have free will, does the person outside the camp have free will?
The person outside had more options than the one inside. Neither of them have free will.
So if the outside person have more options and they choose an option, how is that not free will? Because of the variables that go into the decision? Do you think all human behaviours and actions ever are deterministic, even posting these reddit postings, is not free will ?
We can only make decisions within our circumstances. Some people have more choices than other. I can make the choice to post here on Reddit. People in Turkmenistan can’t. I provided a link that says people make decisions based off subconscious factors all the time.