does free will exist?

[kimc]

Yes, free will exists. This doesn't rule out cause and effect though. Just because you have free will doesn't mean you have the ability to exert your will over everything and everyone around you. What you do have control over though is yourself - how you choose to react, how you treat others, your attitude, etc.

 

[Michael Chris]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QNgWwV_-wVs

Wow, the logic in that is horrific.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I choose not to answer.

if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice

That was my point.

To answer more eloquently: Yes, Free Will does exist, but is necessarily bound by the laws of physics and biology and the Free Will of others. You may choose to teleport yourself to the Moon by sheer will power, but all you're going to get is a headache. You may choose to be happy, but if you suffer from a severe neurotransmitter imbalance, you better choose to get some medication. You may choose a girlfriend, but you better hope she chooses you back.

 

[An Officer]

I believe free will does exist. I also think whether it exists or not doesn't actually matter.

If you look at it from a god perspective, and you remove yourself from time/space and the laws of physics, then the past, present, and future are one, everything has already happened, and it cannot be changed. One human consciousness may have an illusion of free will, but the actuality is the universe has already been and gone, you've already made all the choices, before you were even born. Our senses and perception are too limited to make objective sense of everything.

It all depends on which perspective you want look at it from. I put my feet up, relax, and let god worry about these things. In the meantime, I make my puny choices, try to learn and grow as much as I can to make those choices intelligent, and focus on being positive more than negative... And maybe one fine day, not in this lifetime, I will finally be graced with an understanding of everything. I believe we exist in order to grow and advance, I also believe this is only stage one of our existence.

The above is my comprehensive theory of everything. Thank you.

 

[Flying Spaghetti Monster]

The song "freewill" is absolutely brialliant.

There are those who think that life
Has nothing left to chance
With a host of holy horrors
To direct our aimless dance

A planet of playthings
We dance on the strings
Of powers we cannot perceive
The stars arent aligned ---
Or the gods are malign
Blame is better to give than receive

You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice

You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path thats clear
I will choose free will

There are those who think that theyve been dealt a losing hand
The cards were stacked against them ---
They werent born in lotus-land

All preordained
A prisoner in chains
A victim of venomous fate
Kicked in the face
You cant pray for a place
In heavens unearthly estate

Each of us
A cell of awareness
Imperfect and incomplete
Genetic blends
With uncertain ends
On a fortune hunt
Thats far too fleet...

 

[think]

free my willy LOL

free will is experienced as spontaneity while cause and effect become the limit approached into the value of one nothing will ever change the will of the free or free the will of the changing

what ever that means .,m

I do the divine will always and of course I am always feeling used by divine will.,,

go figure

 

[Peacemaker]

But metaphysical libertarians are wrong. Libertarian free will does not exist--indeed, cannot exist, for the reasons I've described above.

And all this metaphysical speculation about minds "pushing particles around beyond the physical laws" and "manipulating one or more of the fundamental forces" becomes unnecesssary once we realize that metaphyical libertarianism is false.

There's no need to appeal to mysterious supernatural faculties to explain free will--once free will is properly defined. Free will is simply the freedom to choose what we would ordinarily choose, and to do what we would ordinarily do. As Hobbes put it: "no liberty can be inferred to the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do."

I do believe he's got it! Applause...however as a Christian I have no problem in with determinism. LFW naturally leads to one thing: our choices have no cause. That's irrational. Libertarians can't answer this one question: Why does agent A make choice C? LFW undermines moral responsibility by making our motives irrelevant as sufficient causes of our actions.

I have come to believe that this fallacy has been promoted by Christian apologists as an alibi for their god, and a solution to the problem of evil.

If everything in the universe is determined, then God is responsible for everything that happens therein. That is to say: God is responsible for all the evil in the universe. He made it all happen, when he forged the first link in the chain of cause and effect.

This is unacceptable to Christian apologists, who want to believe that their God is all-good. So they promote the idea that human choices are undetermined as a way of blaming the victim, and getting their god off the hook.

Uh, this is ONLY applicable to those Christian traditions that appeal to libertarian freedom and thereby fail to draw the elementary distinction between responsibility and blame. It does not follow that because God decrees all things certainly that He is to blame morally.

Additionally, Libertarians (generally Arminians, the Orthodox, and Roman Catholics) have yet to provide an exegetical argument for libertarian free will. We Reformed have an exegetical basis for determinism. When Jesus told the religious rulers that they did the will of the father, the devil, by lying, he said this was true because the devil did so from his nature. That's about an explicit affirmation of deterministic moral freedom as you'll get.

The Reformed (eg. Calvinist tradition) has no problem whatsoever with this argument. Have you ever interacted with a Calvinist on this?

We are very candid that we affirm that God has given mankind free agency. Men's will's are determined by their natures, eg. moral natures. We also affirm that our moral natures are fallen. We also affirm God decreed the Fall. That's also in Scripture...He has bound all (both Jew and Gentile) over to sin so that He may show mercy to all (both Jew and Gentile). That's the basis of an exegetical defense of the Greater Good Defense.

The Arminians would affirm the Free Will Defense (FWD). I'd like to challenge a Christian here, if any, to provide an exegetical basis for the LFW, if there are any here that believe in LFW. I would add that if you can't provide it, and I do not believe you can without assuming LFW first (which means it isn't exegetically derived), then you should consider abandoning it. Indeed, if LFW falls by the wayside, there goes a great deal of Christian doctrines concerning salvation (eg. election, general atonement, the nature of saving grace, and the possibility of "falling from grace") that has been propagated since the rise of Arminianism. LFW is one of two keys to Arminianism. It functions, according to Miley as a dictum around which Arminianism is constructed; ergo without LFW, Arminianism is false and should be abandoned for Calvinism - the very thing that Arminianism was constructed to answer. Calvinism is not committed to these philosophical propositions concerning the will in the way Libertarian traditionas like Arminianism are committed.

God has also determined all things by His eternal decree. The decree merely speaks to certainty. We affirm that the decree is executed by various means. God interferes directly to do some things, He simply does not interfere directly for others. This speaks to causality.

The Westminster Confession and the Second London Baptist Confession spell this out frankly.

It 's a glaring nonsequitur to argue that because God is responsible for all things that He is not "fully good." The proper counterargument is simply this: Goodness, like love, is not God's only attribute.

There are multiple discussions of this at www.triablogue.blogspot.com

 

[K'riq Sa]

no. will died in jail and the movement died with him.









k'riq the unindiscernable

 

[Jadzia]

I think you are viewing this debate too chemically , i.e. too much on the micro-scale. In biology, the cohesive interactions of millions of proteins and ligands drive physiological mechanisms. Only if a significant percentage of these interactions can be influenced in the same way will you see a change in how the organism responds. From what you have said I do not see how such a coordinated change can be brought about through a quantum superposition across macro-scale tissue.

Jefferies, I have an idea for constructing our synthetic brain.

I was thinking today about something else I'm involved in and it reminded me of this discussion we had last month.

The Setup

We know that brain cells are rather like digital switches in that they either fire or they don't. This firing is a response to their input states. The input values are pre-multiplied by coefficients to modify their significance, to either strengthen or weaken their role, in causing the neuron to fire or inhibiting it from firing.

So we can imagine it like a logic gate, that outputs digital 0 or 1, with various analogue inputs.

Now as you say, we don't have isolated small scale effects directly causing a macroscopic physiological change, so rather than talking about the behavior of one neuron, imagine a bundle that is maybe one hundred neurons wide.

Now as each neuron can itself output 0 or 1, the bundle can output 0-100, with any intermediate value.

So this now operates as an pseudo-analogue processor, taking an analogue input and generating an analogue output. And this can be rescaled and represented with an analogue function f(x) where 0<x<1, and 0<f(x)<1.


The Free-Will Mechanism

Now how can I make f(x) listen to quantum level changes? Because remember that the quantum level is the only level where we can break out of deterministics and allow free will to have an effect on the dynamics of matter.

Well f(x) must be an amplifier of some kind, but constrained to its domain of 0 to 1. So, we're talking about chaos theory aren't we?

Let f(x) be a chaotic function, like the lambda function:

f(x)=2x, if 0<x<0.5
f(x) = 2(1-x), if 0.5<x<1

So if this nerve bundle is 100 neurons long, that is part of the "free-will" mechanism, let it consist of 100 of these chaotic amplifier stages.

So a signal fed into the input stage will be passed 100 times through the lambda function like an iterator, and double the size of the input 100 times, albeit curtailed within the 0-1 domain... that is 2^100 = about 10^30 = very big amplification.

The result is that microscopic events do become significant with this amplifier. In this case, a single neuron could and would affect the state of the whole nerve bundle so far down the chain. That can then trigger a nerve impulse --> muscle reflex --> organism level activity.

And this is not just one neuron, but any one of them in the bundle. So this quantum change doesn't have to happen in one place, but in anywhere in a region covering many hundreds or thousands of neurons.

It then reduces to the previous problem, that a single brain cell can have its timings adjusted slightly by quantum level effects, through the formation of unstable neurotransmitter tautomers, for example

Again, a chaotic amplifier could bring these tiny deviations in timings up to macroscopic levels.


Conclusion

It's an interesting thought to me and it really isn't obvious what the output of a setup like this would be. The natural test would be to build a chaotic amplifier and make sure it is sensitive to quantum level happenings. Then feed it with pulses of electricity and look at the outputs.

How would we test the outputs (signal level somewhere between 0 and 1) to see if there it is characteristic of a choice being made, rather than being the result of a deterministic or random process?

All I can imagine is that choice would present as a semi-organised pattern. That is something not typically random, but nevertheless with variations that are not explainable through deterministic methods.

Because in this experiment you would know what the amplifier is, and exactly how complex it is, so you would know what deterministic processes are possible, and what patterns are possible. Choice would manifest as patterns which are more complex than these processes could create.




If there are any neurologists or brain surgeons on here I'd appreciate your feedback. For example: Do we understand the flow of electrical signals through neural networks? Do we understand the electrical patterns outputted from neural networks? What experiments have been done on brain tissue? Has electronic stimulation of brain tissue samples ever shown signs of choice or does it all appear deterministic?

 

[Goliath]

The Reformed (eg. Calvinist tradition) has no problem whatsoever with this argument.

Calvinism represent such a minuscule proportion of the total Christian and neo-Christian population that its doctrines are hardly worth considering.

According to Wikipedia, there are between 1.5 and 2.1 billion Christians and neo-Christians in the world.

According to the same source, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has only 75 million members--that is to say, somewhere between 3.6 and 5 per cent of the total.

In fact, given the current rapid growth of Mormonism, it seems likely that by the end of this century the Book of Mormon will be far more widely-read and influential than the Institutes of the Christian Religion.

Have you ever interacted with a Calvinist on this?

Believe me--I have absolutely no interest in interacting with Calvinists on this, or anything else.

 

[stj]

This is a little old, but I missed it when it was new. Calvinism is indeed out of fashion, but that is not a counterargument. The true believers of course are armored against reason, but it may be instructive all the same to look a little more closely.

But metaphysical libertarians are wrong. Libertarian free will does not exist--indeed, cannot exist, for the reasons I've described above.

And all this metaphysical speculation about minds "pushing particles around beyond the physical laws" and "manipulating one or more of the fundamental forces" becomes unnecesssary once we realize that metaphyical libertarianism is false.

There's no need to appeal to mysterious supernatural faculties to explain free will--once free will is properly defined. Free will is simply the freedom to choose what we would ordinarily choose, and to do what we would ordinarily do. As Hobbes put it: "no liberty can be inferred to the will, desire, or inclination, but the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do."

I do believe he's got it! Applause...however as a Christian I have no problem in with determinism. LFW naturally leads to one thing: our choices have no cause. That's irrational. Libertarians can't answer this one question: Why does agent A make choice C? LFW undermines moral responsibility by making our motives irrelevant as sufficient causes of our actions.

Choices not having causes is irrational? The tacit assumption that God doesn't need a cause but our choices must is a fine example of how Calvinism demands supplementary assumptions to bolster its exegetical foundations.

I have come to believe that this fallacy has been promoted by Christian apologists as an alibi for their god, and a solution to the problem of evil.

If everything in the universe is determined, then God is responsible for everything that happens therein. That is to say: God is responsible for all the evil in the universe. He made it all happen, when he forged the first link in the chain of cause and effect.

This is unacceptable to Christian apologists, who want to believe that their God is all-good. So they promote the idea that human choices are undetermined as a way of blaming the victim, and getting their god off the hook.

Uh, this is ONLY applicable to those Christian traditions that appeal to libertarian freedom and thereby fail to draw the elementary distinction between responsibility and blame. It does not follow that because God decrees all things certainly that He is to blame morally.

The need for a distinction between responsibility and blame is not logically required by anything except the predetermined need to rationalize the Calvinist theology. It is not certain that it is a true distinction at all but only verbal quibbling.

Additionally, Libertarians (generally Arminians, the Orthodox, and Roman Catholics) have yet to provide an exegetical argument for libertarian free will. We Reformed have an exegetical basis for determinism. When Jesus told the religious rulers that they did the will of the father, the devil, by lying, he said this was true because the devil did so from his nature. That's about an explicit affirmation of deterministic moral freedom as you'll get.

Is there an exegetical basis for God's free will? The doctrine of the soul, as any Jehovah's Witness would be happy to inform you, lacks a strong exegetical basis. If you accept the notion however, why shouldn't such metaphysical entities be alleged to possess such ludicrous qualities as libertarian free will? Obviously the Calvinist has a predetermined theology incompatible with such a notion of a soul, while the nefarious Arminians do not. Neither position flows from pure exegesis. They are founded by an interpretive framework of subsidiary assumptions demanded to produce an illusion of coherence in a collection of ancient documents.

We are very candid that we affirm that God has given mankind free agency. Men's will's are determined by their natures, eg. moral natures. We also affirm that our moral natures are fallen. We also affirm God decreed the Fall. That's also in Scripture...He has bound all (both Jew and Gentile) over to sin so that He may show mercy to all (both Jew and Gentile). That's the basis of an exegetical defense of the Greater Good Defense.

It was agreed that "the liberty of the man; which consisteth in this, that he finds no stop, in doing what he has the will, desire, or inclination to do." Does the fallen nature inflicted on man permit the desire for salvation? If you affirm that true salvation enjoins a holiness a fallen nature cannot desire, yet it remains that even a fallen nature would wish to avoid hell and gain eternal life in heaven. Yet even this desire is stopped by the refusal of God to make plain the road to heaven by showing proofs to the rational mind. Instead he demands "faith," which means an emotion that simply cannot be willed. The insistence that man has free agency is a theological construct, which may cite scripture but is essentially independent of it. It is required to remove the onus from God, but what real meaning could the phrase have?

God interferes directly to do some things, He simply does not interfere directly for others. This speaks to causality.

Direct interference includes altering the disposition, hence the will. Again, what could the claim of free agency possibly mean after such an admission?

It 's a glaring nonsequitur to argue that because God is responsible for all things that He is not "fully good." The proper counterargument is simply this: Goodness, like love, is not God's only attribute.

It is a glaring non sequitur to assume that the Almighty God is susceptible to a philosophical analysis into attributes, like a Platonist analyzing the Summum Bonum. The properness of the assumption this can be done is due only to its convenience in reconciling the contradiction between God's alleged omnipotence and God's alleged good.

As to Mormonism---given that this religion is openly founded on a fraud, the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of religion and its apologists is manifest. And shameless.

 

[Goliath]

This is a little old, but I missed it when it was new. Calvinism is indeed out of fashion, but that is not a counterargument. The true believers of course are armored against reason, but it may be instructive all the same to look a little more closely.

Be my guest. I just don't have the patience, and frankly, I don't see the need. As far as I'm concerned, Calvinism is of merely historical interest.

 

[think]

As existence is a blur in the eyes of life the expression of one's personal experience of others imaginations remains the only thing left for dinner at the Christmas table. Eating food is like choosing your next job to perform at work. Written in the annals of anal discussions the value of true freewill is lost in movements burrowing down into the potato manifestations like a turd becoming a spud on the eve of x-mas.

If there were ways to express the free will of my fingers and as they type what I were to think then they would not think of my thoughts as I type with them.

 

[Peacemaker]

Choices not having causes is irrational? The tacit assumption that God doesn't need a cause but our choices must is a fine example of how Calvinism demands supplementary assumptions to bolster its exegetical foundations.

Actually, Calvinism begins and ends with exegetical foundations. If you have an exegetical argument against the Westminster Confession's definition of "Free Will," by all means make one. If you have an exegetical warrant to justify the assumption that God needs a cause, by all means present one.

Calvinism is not committed to a philosophical view of "Free Will" in the way that Miley, to take one example of an Arminian theologian, says Arminianism is committed to Libertarian freedom

Calvinism affirms it's definition of free will on the basis of Scripture, not underlying philosophical assumptions. We affirm that men act according to their natures, because that is what Scripture actually teaches. For example, Jesus in John says to the religous rulers that they spoke lies because they acted like Satan, the father of lies, for when he speaks, he speaks from his nature.

If you actually knew the history of Reformed Theology (for example as outlined by Mueller in Post Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, you would know this).

It's the Liberatarians that are demanding supplementary philosophical notions.

And God's choices do have a cause - namely His own nature. You may want to bone up on Theology Proper. I suppose you're trying to allude to Euthrypro Dilemma. I need not reproduce new material here, I will simply refer you to Triablogue, where more than one of us has refuted that little notion more than once. Reformed Theology answers these objections quite easily.

Oh, and God not needing a cause compared to our choices needing a cause is a category error on your part. You're confusing ontology and epistemology.

The need for a distinction between responsibility and blame is not logically required by anything except the predetermined need to rationalize the Calvinist theology. It is not certain that it is a true distinction at all but only verbal quibbling.

That's an assertion, not an argument. The distinction between responsibility and blame is very like the distinction betwen primary and secondary causality. There's a long history of that discussion. So, if you're going to argue that it's "verbal quibbling" you need to demonstrate that to be the case.

And it's not as if the Arminian or any other Libertarian is any better position here. The Arminian is the one that tries to say that Calvinism makes God to blame...but in Arminianism God still decrees this universe and no other, knowing full well what will happen. How does this put the Arminian in any better position? It doesn't...and that's the point. The post to which I was responding was the post about the Free Will Defense. The FWD is (a) unbiblical and (b) doesn't do what it really sets out to do, namely "get God off the hook." Reformed Theology has no problem with saying that God is responsible and yet God is good...it's called the Greater Good Theodicy.

Is there an exegetical basis for God's free will?

Yes. Reformed Theology has quite a developed exegetical basis. I'd refer you to Berkhof, C.Hodge, R. Reymond.

The doctrine of the soul, as any Jehovah's Witness would be happy to inform you, lacks a strong exegetical basis.

Of course, this is only relevant if I believe every interpretation to be equally valid.

If you accept the notion however, why shouldn't such metaphysical entities be alleged to possess such ludicrous qualities as libertarian free will?

1. Because Scripture explicitly denies that to be the case.
2. Because Arminians, the very champions of LFW in theological circles do not argue for LFW on an exegetical basis. Indeed, they freely admit that it is a philosophical, not an exegetical idea. Try reading some Arminian theologians. They say it's an assumption brought to the text. Well, if it's an assumption brought to the text, it can't thereby be derived from it.

Neither position flows from pure exegesis. They are founded by an interpretive framework of subsidiary assumptions demanded to produce an illusion of coherence in a collection of ancient documents.

Please name some Calvinst theologians who derive their doctrine of the freedom of the will from "subsidiary assumptions demanded to produce an illusion of coherence in a collection of ancient documents." Simply asserting this and demonstrating it are not convertible. Try again.

Does the fallen nature inflicted on man permit the desire for salvation?

No, it permits his desire to continue in sin and to seek salvation only by his own means - works, for he is bound to the covenant of works.

Yet even this desire is stopped by the refusal of God to make plain the road to heaven by showing proofs to the rational mind.

1. On the contrary, Reformed Theology affirms Romans 1 quite soundly. Man knows God exists, yet it is man, not God, who suppresses that knowledge.

2. Reformed Theology also affirms that special grace, namely regeneration, is both necessary and sufficient to stop that suppression and therefore man naturally responds in such a way as to seek God. That means is the preaching of Gospel enjoined with the power of the Holy Spirit.

3. It has so pleased God, therefore, to show mercy to whomever He will, those are the elect. Man has sinned and deserves no mercy from God. Those receiving no mercy are the reprobate. God's "refusal," eg. "divine silence" is a judgment upon men, considered as sinners. Both the supralapsarians and the infralapsarians affirm this.

Instead he demands "faith," which means an emotion that simply cannot be willed.

Calvinism does not define faith as an "emotion that cannot be willed." The difference between faith and reason is Scripture is such that faith is reason regenerated by God's grace. The biblical distinction is not between emotion and reason, but between faith and sight, unseen and seen.

The insistence that man has free agency is a theological construct, which may cite scripture but is essentially independent of it.

You have yet to demonstrate this. Calvinism answers the libertarian on both theological and philosophical grounds. We answer the theological libertarians by challenging them to provide an exegetical argument for LFW. We answer them philosophically, because, by appealing to LFW, they are opening themselves up to philosophical challenges...but because we are not committed to LFW the way the Arminians are committed, we need only provide an exegetical basis for our view of free agency. If you'd like to offer an exegetical challenge, by all means do so.

Direct interference includes altering the disposition, hence the will. Again, what could the claim of free agency possibly mean after such an admission?

1. You have yet to demonstrate that LFW is the only "real" sort of free will.

2. God does not replace the will. He simply gives it spiritual life. He does not believe for us. He enables us to desire that which we would not desire. There is nothing at all here inconsistent with the concept of "free will" understood as the freedom to do what one desires the most, that is, such that the motives of a person, his nature, are/is a sufficient cause behind his actions.

Tell us, oh libertarian, have you ever not made a choice that was not your greatest desire at the time? Can you cite even one example of a man not doing what he wants to do?

It is a glaring non sequitur to assume that the Almighty God is susceptible to a philosophical analysis into attributes, like a Platonist analyzing the Summum Bonum.

Oh, I take it you prefer the apophatic tradition. Given the centuries long list of theologians on both sides of that argument, why should I even accept this assertion? I can only assume that, instead of actually crafting an argument, you'll just assert your merry way through this thread.

The properness of the assumption this can be done is due only to its convenience in reconciling the contradiction between God's alleged omnipotence and God's alleged good.

1. Theodicy does not drive discussions of the attributes of God. Your knowleddge of historical theology appears quite abyssmal.

2. Where's the contradiction between omnipotence and God's alleged good? That would come from an external critique of a Christian theolodicy. You'll need to provide some warrant for that. Or, it could come from an internal critique of a Christian theodicy. The FWD is a good one...and I would agree that the FWD - the Arminian theodicy - has the problem here, but where is the problem with Reformed theodicies? What is the internal problem? You assert much - demonstrate little.

Calvinism represent such a minuscule proportion of the total Christian and neo-Christian population that its doctrines are hardly worth considering.

According to Wikipedia, there are between 1.5 and 2.1 billion Christians and neo-Christians in the world.

According to the same source, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches has only 75 million members--that is to say, somewhere between 3.6 and 5 per cent of the total.

Fallacy of the popular.

The WARC is hardly a measure of the number of Calvinists in the world. Reformed theology has a long and distinguished history in both Baptist and Presbyterian circles. Notice it doesn't include the OPC and PCA. Nor does it include Reformed or Sovereign Grace Baptist churches Hmmm, I wonder why?

Biblically, the remnant, the minority, is traditionally the holder of Truth

 

[stj]

Someone who wants to counter the contradiction between God's goodness and omnipotence with the existence of evil by claiming goodness is not God's sole attribute is tacitly assuming that God can be analyzed this way. I don't have to prove this is true, nor do I have to prove that God is, well, God and beyond human analysis. It is the person making the argument who needs to provide a reason to accept the assumption. The problem for the alleged exegetical proof is that without the additional assumption, the exegetical proof fails. The Greater Good is not the subject of any Bible verse. It is an idea devised to rationalize the real Bible verses, which are contradictory.

Similarly, someone who wants to say it is rational to accept an uncaused God while criticizing the notion of choices without determinate causes as irrational, must rely on supplementary assumptions about ontology and epistemology to make the case. My untutored is that all of "ontology" is a really dumb category mistake. I don't see any reason to get tutored on ontology.

"Of course, this is only relevant if I believe every interpretation to be equally valid." This comes from someone who keeps misreading my posts as defending libertarian free will! This is an inadvertent admission that exegesis will be accepted or rejected upon standards not derived from the text. Those standards are the unspoken assumptions require to rationalize the chosen theology.

" On the contrary, Reformed Theology affirms Romans 1 quite soundly. Man knows God exists, yet it is man, not God, who suppresses that knowledge." This may be an exegetical argument, but it has the difficulty of falsehood. Man does not know God exists. The extraordinary variety of human religions proves this conclusively. This is ignorant twaddle comparable to the claim that idolatry causes homosexuality.

"Calvinism does not define faith as an "emotion that cannot be willed." The difference between faith and reason is Scripture is such that faith is reason regenerated by God's grace. The biblical distinction is not between emotion and reason, but between faith and sight, unseen and seen." I think there's a typographical error in there. Still, it is obvious that regenerated reason is an elaborate construct. The false correlation of faith with the unseen, and sight with the seen, quite aside from being flummery from a mountebank, is moot---one can reason about the unseen. The "faith" in these verses is still a feeling of certitude. Emotions are felt, not willed.

The repeated appeals to authorities such as the Westminster Confession, which I admit has long fled my memory, and theologians, are also assertions. Appeals to authority, when the authorities' credentials are not examined, are fallacious arguments, however.

Deceit, like duress, impairs the freedom of the will. Man can see a variety of religious texts purporting to be the Word of God, yet the one that is supposedly true does not manifest its truth by plainly revealing hitherto unknown knowledge. I submit this is deceit by omission.

 

[Peacemaker]

Someone who wants to counter the contradiction between God's goodness and omnipotence with the existence of evil by claiming goodness is not God's sole attribute is tacitly assuming that God can be analyzed this way.

On the contrary, you can't even follow your own argument. When you say that there is a tension or even a contradiction between God's omniscience (I think you actually mean omnipotence - but never mind your demonstration you don't know your way through basic Theology Proper) and goodness, answering that "Goodness is not God's only attribute" is actually answering you on your own grounds. The original post to which I was responding made reference to this, so answering it is merely answering it on the grounds on which it was originally made. Try again.

I don't have to prove this is true, nor do I have to prove that God is, well, God and beyond human analysis.

On the contrary, the very statement that God is x (x in this case being the statement "God is beyond human analysis") is a statement about God's nature. So, on the one hand you're trying to state that I am the one who has to prove God can be discussed in terms of attributes and on the other that God cannot be discussed in terms of attributes - which is, when closely examined a statement about the attributes of God. Once again, you can't follow your own argumentation. I don't have to prove that God can be "analyzed according to attributes" when, in referring to the tension between particular attributes yourself, you have tacitly agreed that God can be so analyzed.

The problem for the alleged exegetical proof is that without the additional assumption, the exegetical proof fails.

Notice that you haven't engaged any exegetical argument as yet. You've merely done some posturing.

The Greater Good is not the subject of any Bible verse.

Really, and what exactly is the exegetical argument for the Greater Good Defense. If it's not the subject of any Bible verse, then, by all means why do Calvinists employ an exegetical argument?

The essence of the GGD is simply that God has a purpose for the existence of evil.

1. Scripture God’s goodness involves his commitment to his own moral perfections. These include not just love but justice. God is good when he punishes evil.

2. Job is devoted to the greater good defense from beginning to end.

3. Ephesians upholds God's goodness while declaring that He accomplishes all things, literally all - all things, by the power of His will.

4. Isaiah is very clear that the decree that includes the existence of what may be called moral evils foreordains all things, including that evil, while at the same time stating that God has a purpose for its existence. Indeed, this is a repetitive theme.

5. In Gen. 50:20, Joseph answered his brothers: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Here Joseph’s words anticipated Romans 8:28 which reads: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

6. Acts not once but twice declares that the murder of Jesus Christ was itself foreordained by God - literally by the predetermined counsel of His will.

That's just a part of the GGD.

Now, if you have a counter-exegetical argument to present, and I seriously doubt you can begin to muster one, then by all means do so. Time is wasting. Here's a thought, instead of posturing and characterizing actually craft a counterargument.

It is an idea devised to rationalize the real Bible verses, which are contradictory.

You have yet to demonstrate any such contradiction exists. So far, all you've done is assert that some verses (which ones, you have yet to cite) are contradictory.

Similarly, someone who wants to say it is rational to accept an uncaused God while criticizing the notion of choices without determinate causes as irrational, must rely on supplementary assumptions about ontology and epistemology to make the case. My untutored is that all of "ontology" is a really dumb category mistake. I don't see any reason to get tutored on ontology.

In other words, this is a tacit admission you are unfamiliar with the concepts and you don't want to bother yourself to get acquainted with the relevant literature. Wow, that's a real timesaver. I'll remember that for the future.

FYI, it's hardly a Calvinist conceit that choices require determinate causes and that uncaused choice is irrational. That's also a common atheist conceit. Again, if you'd bother to familiarize yourself with the literature, you'd know that. Try again.

"Of course, this is only relevant if I believe every interpretation to be equally valid." This comes from someone who keeps misreading my posts as defending libertarian free will! This is an inadvertent admission that exegesis will be accepted or rejected upon standards not derived from the text. Those standards are the unspoken assumptions require to rationalize the chosen theology.

1. You're the one who cited JW beliefs about the soul. That's only relevant to me if I think that all interpretations are equally valid.

2. Why don't you actually make a cogent presentation about free will. You have two choices: determinate freedom or libertarian freedom. Which of these constitutes true freedom?

3. Your cute, trite, and altogether incompetent attempt to mimic my own statements about exegesis is duly noted. I'm merely answering you on your own grounds. If you're going to disagree with the Reformed confessions on the freedom of the will, this commits you to LFW, since our confessions do not deny Free Will, rather they deny LFW.

" On the contrary, Reformed Theology affirms Romans 1 quite soundly. Man knows God exists, yet it is man, not God, who suppresses that knowledge." This may be an exegetical argument, but it has the difficulty of falsehood. Man does not know God exists. The extraordinary variety of human religions proves this conclusively. This is ignorant twaddle comparable to the claim that idolatry causes homosexuality.

1. The plethora of human religions is actually proof that man knows God exists, but perverts that knowledge. Your conclusion is a nonsequitur.Of course, this phenomenon is by no means inconsistent with Christian theology. The Bible furnishes a theological explanation for the origin of idolatry and infidelity.

2. You have yet to demonstrate that man does not know God exists. This is merely an assertion. What is the epistemic warrant for that assertion?

3. Of course that's not the argument with respect to homosexuality. You can't even get that right. The Bible does link the two, but it doesn't link them in that manner. Try again.

I think there's a typographical error in there. Still, it is obvious that regenerated reason is an elaborate construct. The false correlation of faith with the unseen, and sight with the seen, quite aside from being flummery from a mountebank, is moot---one can reason about the unseen. The "faith" in these verses is still a feeling of certitude. Emotions are felt, not willed.

1. You have yet to cite anything the Bible says about the concept of faith. You're referring, I take it, to Hebrews 11:1. Hebrews 11 is hardly the be all and end all of the biblical definition of "faith." In fact, all you seem to be capable of doing is characterizing a term - not explaining a term. Try this on for size: argue your case.

2. You have yet to demonstrate the falsity of the correlation of faith with the unseen and sight with the seen.

You're full of assertion. Where are the supporting arguments? I'm merely answering you on your own grounds when you call faith an emotion as a critique of the biblical concept. Is that an internal critique? If so, where's the argument? Is that an external critique, if so, where's the argument?

The repeated appeals to authorities such as the Westminster Confession, which I admit has long fled my memory, and theologians, are also assertions.

On the contrary, I'm referring you to material to actually help you actually engage the argument. If you're going to set yourself up as a critic of Calvinism, then it is altogether appropriate for me to refer you to the classic Calvinist confessions and theologians. You're the one who said that Calvinism, depends on certain assumptions, etc. so I'm asking you to document that - for example by citing certain theologians that do this.

I need not reinvent the wheel, when there is a mountain of literature that has already covered much of this. When I refer you to Berkhof, to take just one example, I'm merely referring you to material that you can access yourself and read.

Appeals to authority, when the authorities' credentials are not examined, are fallacious arguments, however.

Then by all means examine the credentials of the Westminster Divines or any number of our theologians and tell me how they are not proper authorities on the subject of Reformed Theology. If you're going to critique our theology, then it's up to you, not me, to do that.

I suspect what's really going on here is another adolescent attempt on your part to avoid actually engaging Reformed Theology. Sorry, I'm not playing that game with you. You're the one who decided to critique it, not me. In so doing, you took upon yourself certain obligations. Reformed Theology has a long and distinguished history, so any critic of it needs to avail himself of the opportunity to engage our theologians.

Deceit, like duress, impairs the freedom of the will.

How so? Freedom of the will simply means men do what they desire to do. How does deceit impair that freedom?

Man can see a variety of religious texts purporting to be the Word of God, yet the one that is supposedly true does not manifest its truth by plainly revealing hitherto unknown knowledge.

Is this an internal critique or an external critique? If the former, please cite, chapter and verse the problem. If an external critique, please give me a nonarbitary reason to accept your standards over that of the Bible itself.

I submit this is deceit by omission.

Omission of what? Deceit by omission suggests somehow that God owes each and every man "the truth" such that man can come to a saving knowledge of God.

1. I would argue that Scripture is plain with regard to salvation itself.
2. I would argue that it is man's fault, not God's fault, that he rejects that truth or does not see that truth in the text.
3. I would argue that the target audience is not all men without exception - it is the elect and only the elect. So, the fact that all men w/o exception do not see or understand the text in this regard is only an argument that would work against the Arminian. I'm a Supralapsarian Calvinist. I have no problem with that. Do you have an argument that actually touches mine or not?

 

[archeryguy1701]

The world we live in is on a giant cause-and-effect train. However, the cause is often times either directly or indirectly related to the conscious choices that people make. So, yes, I do believe that there is free will.

 

[splodenode]

this here is a good thread

 

[stj]

Very busy on the weekend. There is of course no real point to paying any attention to this nonsense, but this is the internet! Please forgive late response.

The deliberate obfuscation by arbitrary distinctions that make no difference, dragged hodge podge from various pages of philosophy and theology as convenient omit to confront my argument. Which was, that freedom of the will requires the power to make a real choice. Deceit impairs the freedom of the will, and everyone knows it. Otherwise, contracts entered into after misrepresentations by one party would still be upheld! (I must say implying otherwise bespeaks an appallingly low standard of morality.)

This is totally relevant to Christianity of the double predestinarian variety. The damned cannot freely choose salvation because their will is impaired. God impairs it. A biblical example would be God hardening Pharaoh's heart, which in ancient times was regarded much as we regard the brain today. Ignoring the unfashionable double predestination people, though, the problem still exists for "regular" Christianity. God hides from us, leaves only cryptic messages in scripture about how to save ourselves, then hides the key to the code. No one in thousands of years has succeeded in producing a logically compelling interpretation of scripture. All examples of a theological uniformity have been created by violence, threat of violence and fear of violence. Such is the true spirit of Christianity. We cannot freely choose the path to salvation because it is hidden.

Further, "choosing" salvation according to Christianity means having faith, a feeling of certitude. But feelings cannot be willed. A rational assent can be willed, but Christianity spits on rationality. The much maligned libertarian free will of the vile Arminians is a metaphysical construct, an imaginary power attributed to the mystical "soul." The denatured and impossible "free will" can be imagined to achieve the impossible requirement of "faith," placing the onus for failure to choose on the individual and thereby acquits God of demanding the impossible from us. Unfortunately, there is no such kind of free will. Both Calivinism and Arminianism fail.

The Calvinist types simply don't feel the need to portray God as condemning only the bad people whose spotted souls can't mystically see the salvific truth. That is the only real reason for their divergent theologies and exegeses. As to why they don't feel the same, the commonest speculation is summed up in the old joke---Why is there a hell? Because it wouldn't be Heaven without entertainment!

By the way, although this religious attitude is unfashionable amongst Christians, it is as I understand the standard posture for Islam. The duplication of a theology upon such a different exegetical foundation really does show how it's the preconceived idea that determines the interpretation of the scripture, whether the Bible or the Qu'ran.

The above is really all the reply needed to read, for those who care. Given the failure to address the real argument, the rest of the the post is basically trawling intellectual sewers of one sort or another. Some notable turds are ---

2. Job is devoted to the greater good defense from beginning to end.

When God speaks from the whirlwind, he says nothing of the sort.

5. In Gen. 50:20, Joseph answered his brothers: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” Here Joseph’s words anticipated Romans 8:28 which reads: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”

Compare to number 2. What greater good was accomplished when Satan persuades God to torment Job?

6. Acts not once but twice declares that the murder of Jesus Christ was itself foreordained by God - literally by the predetermined counsel of His will.

Contrast Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane to be spared.

You have yet to demonstrate any such contradiction exists.

Contradictions in the Bible have spawned a cottage industry of liars "explaining" them away. The very concept of the devil in the New Testament (whose "nature' is to lie,) does not exist in the the Old Testament, especially in the Book of Job! God, the presumptive author, does not even know who the "ancestors" of his only begotten Son are!
It is hard to know whether it was malice or folly that inspired this nonsensical statement.

FYI, it's hardly a Calvinist conceit that choices require determinate causes and that uncaused choice is irrational. That's also a common atheist conceit. Again, if you'd bother to familiarize yourself with the literature, you'd know that. Try again.

Such meanness and dishonesty are entirely typical of Christians. The general notion that things without causes are indeterminate and hence not real in an everyday sense at the very least---maybe even outright nonsense---is not a common atheist conceit. It is a general principle held by all reasonable people. The point of course is that for a Calvinist to hold that choices must have causes to be intelligible, but "God" does not, is inconsistent. It must be rationalized by some verbal hocus pocus. Said tricksy words are not part of the Bible. That sort of thing is exactly why I hold that Christians always rely upon other assumptions in interpretation.

1. You're the one who cited JW beliefs about the soul. That's only relevant to me if I think that all interpretations are equally valid.

Notions of the soul are completely relevant to notions of the soul's freedom of will. Theology is not knowledge. Theologians only cite their fellows, which is prudent since they cannot refute each other scripturally. They can only quarrel about supplementary assumptions. The Witness assume the Hebrew is primary in interpretation. Others assume the Greek ideas of the soul is primary. Both share the basic assumption that the Bible actually has a unitary meaning (and that it is the Word of God,) but actual exegesis requires an army of supplementary ideas like this.

2. Why don't you actually make a cogent presentation about free will. You have two choices: determinate freedom or libertarian freedom. Which of these constitutes true freedom?

Why, it was perfectly obvious. A real God giving real freedom of the will to humanity would really show what must be done to be saved (as in providing miracles on demand or giving real prophecies,) and that would be something that people really can choose to do.

1. The plethora of human religions is actually proof that man knows God exists, but perverts that knowledge. Your conclusion is a nonsequitur.Of course, this phenomenon is by no means inconsistent with Christian theology. The Bible furnishes a theological explanation for the origin of idolatry and infidelity.

This is first a slander on humanity. People who disagree are perverting the truth! It is also itself a huge non sequitur. There are and have been religions which do not have a Jewish/Christian/Muslim notion of God.

2. You have yet to demonstrate that man does not know God exists. This is merely an assertion. What is the epistemic warrant for that assertion?

This is a glorious example of trying to add an irrelevant philosophical tenet as defense for the indefensible. You don't need an epistemic warrant to make an empirical observation about people.

3. Of course that's not the argument with respect to homosexuality. You can't even get that right. The Bible does link the two, but it doesn't link them in that manner. Try again.

Of course it does. In context, Paul is queerbaiting Greek philosophy, his competition. You just don't want to admit how ignorant and vile this shit is.

1. You have yet to cite anything the Bible says about the concept of faith. You're referring, I take it, to Hebrews 11:1. Hebrews 11 is hardly the be all and end all of the biblical definition of "faith." In fact, all you seem to be capable of doing is characterizing a term - not explaining a term. Try this on for size: argue your case.

I know how the word "faith" is used. It is a feeling. As to argument, the contrast between the Epistle of James and Paul's more popular tubthumping gives you lots to argue.

If you're going to set yourself up as a critic of CalvinYou're the one who said that Calvinism, depends on certain assumptions, etc. so I'm asking you to document that - for example by citing certain theologians that do this.

Once again, the obvious---the assumption that the Bible has one single meaning. Or for that matter, that the Bible is the Word of God. It isn't signed "God," after all. Calvinism only gets a special mention because, in discussing free will, double predestination is a particular weird abuse of reason. I also spent a lot of time discussing free will in time travel stories!

Freedom of the will simply means men do what they desire to do. How does deceit impair that freedom?

Could anyone with any shred of decency really mean this?

Man can see a variety of religious texts purporting to be the Word of God, yet the one that is supposedly true does not manifest its truth by plainly revealing hitherto unknown knowledge.

Is this an internal critique or an external critique? If the former, please cite, chapter and verse the problem. If an external critique, please give me a nonarbitary reason to accept your standards over that of the Bible itself.

Reason is not an arbitrary standard. Be an irrationalist if you want. If you just want to say, God said so, and who are we to question? (That is the real message of the book of Job by the way.) Quit all this verbose nonsense.

Deceit by omission suggests somehow that God owes each and every man "the truth" such that man can come to a saving knowledge of God.

This is both nuts and mean. How could God owe eternal suffering in hell to each and every man who chooses not to spare? Like that moron C.S. Lewis in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, whose Christ Aslan has to obey some higher power, your God has to obey some higher power, i.e., your personal belief that people are bad, bad, bad. You should read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Frankenstein is not a villain as the superficial horror movies would have it, because he usurped God's place. He was a villain for doing what God did to his creations.

 

[Star Treks]

It's impossible to say for sure, at least not yet, but my vote is for 'no'. I believe in determinism, or materialism, or whatever you want to call it - that is, it seems more scientifically plausible. Which means I have no choice but to say that free will is probably BS, albeit culturally necessary BS.