Libertarian Freewill and the Existence of God

[pog]

Hi Michael,
this’ll be my last post for a while, what with Christmas looming and all. And I apologise if my posts have made you angry (or if I’ve misread your tone). I think we have reached an impasse and are now arguing against or past each other rather than trying to understand each other, so it’s probably best if I have a break after this anyway.

I’ve seen them speak as though they mean sub-atomic particles literally pop in and out of existence, but I’ve always assumed (like Lewis) that they couldn’t really mean what they seemed to be saying.

No - the issue here is not as you and Lewis are saying that they really mean something else, but rather they’re using the word ‘nothing’ in a different way to its usual sense, in same way specialists in all fields sometimes alter the denotation of terms to suit a more nuanced usage. A simple check up on wikipedia shows that:

“According to present-day understanding of what is called the vacuum state or the quantum vacuum, it is “by no means a simple empty space”,and again: “it is a mistake to think of any physical vacuum as some absolutely empty void.” According to quantum mechanics, the vacuum state is not truly empty but instead contains fleeting electromagnetic waves and particles that pop into and out of existence.”

So I don’t accept a large portion of your post has any relevance, sorry. We’re talking at cross purposes - I tried to communicate that they were using ‘nothing’ in a different way but obviously I failed to make myself clear to you.

If you agree that it’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of particles popping in and out of existence of their own accord, would you also agree that it’s Philosophically nonsensical to speak of mindless particles doing things of their own accord?

No - mindless particles do things ‘of their own accord’ all the time. I drop a rock - it falls. Who’s is making it travel towards the earth? I know that you know this, so I guess you meant something else when you typed that. But I’m not sure what.

I mean moving, changing direction, changing velocity, doing the humanly unexpected while under human observation, without God directly causing them to do these things, or any humanly (as of yet) undiscovered law or force that God created causing them to do these things?

Not sure what you mean. A particle does X, it may or may not be what we expected - we explain X as best as we can using mathematics etc Some ‘laws’ remain undiscovered, others we’re working on, some we pretty much have down cold.

Can you put aside your respect for these scientists long enough to consider whether it’s as philosophically nonsensical to speak of mindless particles moving without a moving mind or force as it is to speak of them popping into existence without a Creator?

Yes, I can put aside respect (why would I want to?). It is (why say philosophically as if that lends credence to a point?) nonsense to talk of particles popping in and out of existence out of nothing. It is *not nonsense *to talk of mindless, material particles ‘obeying’ physical forces without the constant intervention of mind.

Lewis, Aquinas, Agustine, William Lane Craig, Tom Talbott, and (as far as I know) every other Christian Philosopher who has ever given the matter any thought has come to the conclusion that anything that is possible is possible for God, but it is impossible for Him to do anything self-contradictory, or anything that would constitute a logical incongruity.

Descartes believed this, and Aquinas’ view (along with Mavrodes) - I think - was that God could make a rock so heavy He couldn’t pick it up. There’s various ways of dealing with the omnipotence paradox, and different philosophers and theologians have arrived at differing answers. But I’m not sure of the relevance of this with regards creation, chaos or freewill.

If you say God could flip a coin, wouldn’t He have to make the coin, create the space and air the coin would travel thru, create a surface for the coin to land on, and create and maintain the forces that would cause it to land tails up or face up? In other words, wouldn’t He have to in effect choose whether the coin was gonna land heads up or tails up before He flipped it?

Yes and no. Let’s say He made a spinning coin *ex nihilo *- and made all the surrounding environment. And let’s say He knows everything. He knows, in Newtonian terms, which side the coin will land - so in making it with a certain spin, and in a certain environment He is choosing which side it will land.

So far so good - but when I used that analogy I was trying to relate the coin to non-Newtonian physics. So lets try that:

God makes a special coin where nothing in the environment can change the fact that the coin has a 50/50 chance of landing heads or tails (it’s a quantum coin!). God knows everything there is to know about the environment, the spin of the coin etc - but, by His own choosing, the coin is part of an irreducable probabilisitc system. The only way God can now know which side the coin will land, and therfore the only way God would be said to have specifically chosen it to land that way, is if God’s omniscience covers* knowledge of future events as facts*. As an open theist I reject that any such knowledge is possible - the future is a realm of possibilities which chance and freewilled beings actualise as self-determining agents (or systems), to talk of knowing the future is as nonsensical as talking about knowing how to make a four-sided triangle. If you believe that God’s omnipotence is limited by logic, then I can make the same philosophical move with regards omniscience.

Are you suggesting that God kidds Himself into thinking He has a chaotic system because He wants one?

No. God made a chaotic system 'cause He wanted one (if there is one - again, I’m just arguing that it’s possible - trying to keep an open mind etc).

Are you suggesting it would not be a logical incongruity to say that God could create a universe where mindless coins just toss themselves, and land however they (mindless though they are) want?

No more logically incongrous than a world where rocks fall according to the laws of gravity without God’s direct intervention or guidance.

You’re good at quoting scientists who are trying to make philosophical statements

O.K - I’ll stop. You obviously don’t like quotes (apart from Lewis) even though you asked who the experts were.

I think you’re more of a compatibilist than a believer in libertarian freewill.

I believe both can exist. Some choices I make are free in the libertarian sense; others might not be. I think I can be a libertarian and a universalist. It’s a cool viewpoint that gives me the best of both worlds. I like it.

I’ll leave it there. There’s much more you said that I could respond to, but I have limited time and it seems like it’s getting us nowhere now. I’ve learned a bit from our chat, and you’ve helped me sharpen up my views. Thank you. I hope that I too may have been of some use - I did warn you to start with that I wasn’t an expert and that I couldn’t engage you on the level you wanted. In all seriousness I suggest that you learn quantum theory and discuss these things on a science forum - becuase it’s the only way you’ll really know what the scientists are saying. Similarly, I suggest that you read a selection of the texts or listen to a selection of the lectures I’ve named so that you can beter understand, even if you disagree with, the opposing viewpoint.

Merry Christmas!

[PrototypeAnthroUnit]

I certainly don’t mean to hi-jack this thread and take it off into a completely different direction, but I had a question for pog that related to Open Theism and prophesy. I’m mostly wondering how you see God speaking with any definitive character regarding future events in light of your perspective.

Perhaps this would be a good topic for a new thread, or maybe there’s already a thread about this that I haven’t found yet? If you know about anything, I’d be most interested to hear about it!

Alright, that’s it. Interruption over. Carry on!

[pog]

I think that’s a great topic for another thread, prototypeanthrounit - there’s some passages of scripture I’m quite stuck on and maybe other open theists here can help me out .

The usual answers involve the future being partly open and partly closed, which I guess is simple enough, but I favour totally open but making what he wants to happen happen + conditional prophecy.

I’ll be happy to get involved sometime after Xmas. Have a good holiday!

[Michael]

Hi Michael,
this’ll be my last post for a while, what with Christmas looming and all. And I apologise if my posts have made you angry (or if I’ve misread your tone). I think we have reached an impasse and are now arguing against or past each other rather than trying to understand each other, so it’s probably best if I have a break after this anyway.

I’ve seen them speak as though they mean sub-atomic particles literally pop in and out of existence, but I’ve always assumed (like Lewis) that they couldn’t really mean what they seemed to be saying.

No - the issue here is not as you and Lewis are saying that they really mean something else, but rather they’re using the word ‘nothing’ in a different way to its usual sense, in same way specialists in all fields sometimes alter the denotation of terms to suit a more nuanced usage. A simple check up on wikipedia shows that:

It would take a direct quote from your sources to show that.

I haven’t been involved with wikipedia for a long time, but I’ve been an editor, and if I had the time and inclination (and could remember my old password) I could probably edit the page you’re quoting.

If you want to show that “the issue here is not as you and Lewis are saying that they really mean something else, but rather they’re using the word ‘nothing’ in a different way to its usual sense, in same way specialists in all fields sometimes alter the denotation of terms to suit a more nuanced usage” please provide firsthand quotes.

What Lewis said was that (as a Philosopher) he found it almost impossible to believe the quantum theorists he heard really meant what they seemed to be saying (in regards to movements of sub-atomic particles being totally undirected and ungoverned), and these same quantum theorists certainly (at times) seem to be saying that such particles pop in and out of existence–so even if “they’re using the word ‘nothing’ in a different way to its usual sense,” they mean something quit different from what they would seem to be saying to most of us.

Are you suggesting it would not be a logical incongruity to say that God could create a universe where mindless coins just toss themselves, and land however they (mindless though they are) want?

No more logically incongruous than a world where rocks fall according to the laws of gravity without God’s direct intervention or guidance.

Are you serious?
**
Rocks don’t just fall of their own accord.

They fall according the law of gravity, and we can both agree that there’s nothing logically incongruous about that.

But without gravity, an object at rest will remain at rest, and an object in motion will remain in motion, and rocks don’t fall at all**

But unless you don’t really mean what you seem to be saying, what you’re suggesting is a world where sub-atomic particles move in (both humanly and Divinely) unpredictable ways, without their movements being governed or caused by God or any God-made laws (such as gravity), and that is much more logically incongruous than a world where rocks fall according to the laws of gravity.

You’re suggesting a world where “rocks” (on a sub-atomic level) can fall up or down, without being acted on by any law, for no reason, and of their own accord (if you really mean what you seem to be saying.)

The reason Lewis found it almost impossible to believe that the precursors of the scientists you quote really meant what they seemed to be saying was that he understood that without God there could be no objects, no motion, and no gravity (and no particles could do anything.)

You agree they couldn’t really pop in and out of existence, but don’t seem to see the absurdity of saying that these particles just do their own thing (without being caused to by any minds of their own, or any outside mind, or law, or force.)

I apologise if my posts have made you angry (or if I’ve misread your tone).

I find some of your posts frustrating.

Talking to you is like talking to someone who agrees that an explosion at a typewriter factory couldn’t produce a typewriter, but doesn’t agree that a typewriter couldn’t unpredictably start typing and produce random works of literature without any human input.

What’s more frustrating is that all you’re doing is defending the theories of these quantum physicists you admire, without even trying to make sense (or help anyone else make sense) of what they’re saying.

How do particles that could not exist without God move without Him?

If God moves them (either directly, or thru intermediate laws of His creation and maintenance–and therefore predicable to Him), and He wants them to move without His knowing how or when they will move, how could He conceivably accomplish this?

Returning to the coin analogy, how could God create the coin, set it in motion, create and maintain the space it traveled through, create the surface it would land on, and create and maintain all the forces that would act upon it and cause it to land either heads up or tails up, without knowing (before He set the coin in motion) how it would land?

How could He cause a given 50% of given particles to go one way, and the other 50% to go the other way, without either directly choosing which particles would go each way, or creating and maintaining some (as yet undiscovered law) that determines which particles go which way?

Are you (or your sources) saying the particles act on their own, like rocks deciding when, if, and whether to fall without being caused to fall by God, man, or gravity?

Because that is what you seem to be saying, and it is (imo) philosophically absurd.

You may be up on the science, but you seem to be intentionally avoiding the real philosophical difficulty here (and I find it almost impossible to believe you don’t see it.)

Would you please try to say something (or quote someone who has said something) that’s relevant to the question?

How could even God design chaos?

How could He make (or create laws that make) sub-atomic particles do things that they aren’t caused to do (i.e. that are truly indeterminate)?
**
Isn’t that the very definition of a contradiction in terms?**

[Paidion]

My position is that free-will actions are NOT random (whatever “random” means. I think what we call “random” are actually events which we cannot yet explain.)

Like determinists, I believe that all events are caused. However, not all events are caused by other events. Many of them are caused by free-will agents (including God).

[Michael]

An interesting comment from the other forum.

When you allow the supernatural anything is possible. God could say, “Let there be a little black box out of which random particles appear.” He wouldn’t need to know the mechanism. There is no mechanism. It’s just his supernatural will. And if he wills it to be random it is random. He knows what comes out just because he sees all time.

Isn’t this basically what he does when he creates souls/libertarian-free-wills? There isn’t a mechanism or formula that determines at the moment of its creation that a particular soul/LFW will be good or bad, is there? Isn’t each LFW a little random decision generator as far as God knows?

To Pog and Paidion:

I can’t understand that, but is that what you’re saying?

P.S. The part I have a problem with is “He wouldn’t need to know the mechanism. There is no mechanism. It’s just his supernatural will. And if he wills it to be random it is random.”

I just posted this reply.

And neither He or the secondary cause (i.e. the little black box) would create the particles, or determine their behavior–they’d just come into existence and start doing things all on their own because God willed it?

Isn’t saying that these particles could come into existence on their own (i.e. just appear out of the little black box), and do things on their own (i.e. behave indeterministically), and (at the same time) saying that this could be so because God wills it a contradiction in terms?

Aren’t you saying both that the mechanism of their existence and behavior is God’s will, and that there is no mechanism?

If I forget about there being no table, and no laws of gravity, or friction, or motion without God, I can imagine Him blindfolding Himself and letting the dice roll, but once I remember that He’s supposed to be the source of all, I tend to come to the conclusion that the dice would do nothing unless He willed them to.

So I ask myself how God’s will (or secondary deterministic causes that exist only because of God’s will) could cause the dice to move, and come to rest in a certain position, without God being fully aware of how they would move and where they would come to rest?

Any thoughts?

[pog]

Hi Michael.
I notice that you’ve started at least four threads on this website that pertain to this issue and that you are also discussing the same topic on other websites. You have made many posts, often quite complex ones, and posted even on Christmas Day. Clearly, this issue is one that you find deeply troubling, that you have no clear answer to, and which, I suspect, you have a deep personal motivation for pressing on with. I wish I could help, but I really don’t think that either I, or anyone else, will be able to give you the kind of clarity and perfect answers you seek.

These threads have raised issues concerning: the nature of free will; the freedom of God; the origin of the universe and the cosmological argument; the intelligibility of quantum physics and the principle of indeterminancy; the relation between libertarian freewill and universalism; open theism; the attributes of God and their relation to causality, universalism and biblical prophecy; the relationship of God and free agents to time; and determinism and moral accountability. As far as I know, no one, no scientist, philosopher or theologian, has ever been able to present a convincing and total answer to these topics - there is no position that anyone has taken that has not been argued against or rebutted by other equally intelligent and educated professionals. I fear that the best anyone can hope for on these topics is to reach a tentative and reasoned position that accepts the fact that others might have differing, but no less reasnoble and tentative positions. Consensus is simply not going to happen - we simply don’t know enough about the true nature of reality.

I find some of your posts frustrating. Talking to you is like talking to someone who agrees that an explosion at a typewriter factory couldn’t produce a typewriter, but doesn’t agree that a typewriter couldn’t unpredictably start typing and produce random works of literature without any human input.

Yes, it is frustrating And, actually, I think you’ve represented me (or at least the science I’m saying I find possible) accurately - and I know that it goes totally against our common sense and intuitions - but that is what the majority of quantum scientists do seem to be saying - *and meaning *- and what a large number of eminent philosophers and theologians accept as being a good, or at least plausible, description of reality. Quantum weirdness is called quantum weirdness for a reason! And I am saying that I think such a view is possibly right. I guess you think that makes me mad I don’t find the view nonsense, merely confusing.

To help you sympathetically understand this point of view maybe we could reverse roles and you could answer a few of my questions to take the discussion on:

Situation: State of affairs x leads to state of affairs y. Is it possible that there exists a probabilistic casual relation between x and y? In other words, is it possible that x caused y but might not have?
A1) Yes; in which case you agree with me that probabilistic causality is not nonsense.
A2) No, because there is no causality. This is a radical move and I would like you to explain your view further.
A3) No, because all states of affairs are caused by the choices of free agents. Again, this is a radical move and I would like you to explain this viewpoint.
A4) No, because all causal relations are deterministic. See questions under P1.
A5) No, because all causal relations are either deterministic or the choices of free agents. See questions under P2.

P1: All causal relations are deterministic.
Q1) This goes against the universal subjective experience of free choice. What argument can you forward that is strong enough to overturn the universal experience of freedom?
Q2) Without the freedom to choose otherwise no agent can be considered morally culpable for any action. How do you avoid the conclusion of moral nihilism?
Q3) Without freedom how is God a maximally perfect being?
Q4) How can you explain the huge biblical emphasis upon choice?
Q5) What is the point and purpose of prayer? What is the point and purpose of evangelism?
Q6) How does God escape the blame for actualising a universe that He knew would lead to all the suffering of history? How is God not a monster?
Q7) If God is a necessary being, but is without freedom, then must we conclude that everything is also necessary for it could not have been otherwise? Are there no contingencies at all?
Q8) If all things are deterministic then with omniscience there can be no pleasant surprises and no novelty and no growth in knowledge. Do we therefore experience pleasures God cannot?
Q9) Without freedom how am I anything more than a puppet and how is history anything more than a scripted stage show that God watches whilst all the time knowing the end? And if God knows it all anyway, why bother running through the show – why not just jump straight to the end point and cut out the intervening suffering – what is the point of earth if heaven is the goal?
Q10) Is this, then, the best of all possible worlds? How then do you explain that it seems obvious to me that even a simple change could make the world better?

P2: All causal relations are either deterministic or the choice of free agents.
Q1) Is God the only free agent?
Q2) If God is the only free agent, what has prevented Him from endowing creatures with a quality He Himself possesses?
Q3) If humans are free agents then is God also free, or do we have an excellence that God does not possess?
Q4) If a free agent chooses x instead of y what is the originating cause of x – is it the creature’s will or is it something else? Could you explain how this works?
Q5) Is nature aside from free agents deterministic? What grounds this form of causality; was it chosen by God? Was God free to chose another form or system of causality? What prevented God from establishing randomness as a causal factor?
Q6) If nature is deterministic then how are humans free? Is there a part of human agents that is not subject to natural, deterministic laws? What is this part and where does it come from?
Q7) If humans have a non-physical aspect that stands in causal relation to physical systems how does this non-physical element interact with the physical world: what is the solution to the mind-body problem?
Q8) What caused the first cause? Is there a state of affairs or agent that is uncaused and undetermined by a preceding state of affairs or free choice? Is it possible for something or someone to exist that stands in neither a deterministic or free choice causal relationship to other states of affairs?

[Paidion]

[size=130]Early Christian Writers Who Affirmed Free Will[/size]

100-165 AD : Justin Martyr
“We have learned from the prophets, and we hold it to be true, that punishments, chastisements, and rewards are rendered according to the merit of each man’s actions. Otherwise, if all things happen by fate, then nothing is in our own power. For if it be predestinated that one man be good and another man evil, then the first is not deserving of praise or the other to be blamed. Unless humans have the power of avoiding evil and choosing good by free choice, they are not accountable for their actions—whatever they may be.” (First Apology ch.43 )

[About the year 180, Florinus had affirmed that God is the author of sin, which notion was immediately attacked by Ireneaus, who published a discourse entitled: “God, not the Author of Sin.” Florinus’ doctrine reappeared in another form later in Manichaeism, and was always considered to be a dangerous heresy by the early fathers of the church.]

130-200 AD : Irenaeus
“This expression, ‘How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldst not,’ set forth the ancient law of human liberty, because God made man a free (agent) from the beginning, possessing his own soul to obey the behests of God voluntarily, and not by compulsion of God…And in man as well as in angels, He has placed the power of choice…If then it were not in our power to do or not to do these things, what reason had the apostle, and much more the Lord Himself, to give us counsel to do some things and to abstain from others?” (Against Heresies XXXVII )

150-190 AD : Athenagoras
“men…have freedom of choice as to both virtue and vice (for you would not either honor the good or punish the bad; unless vice and virtue were in their own power, and some are diligent in the matters entrusted to them, and others faithless)…”(Embassy for Christians XXIV )

150-200 AD : Clement of Alexandria
“Neither praise nor condemnation, neither rewards nor punishments, are right if the soul does not have the power of choice and avoidance, if evil is involuntary.” (Miscellanies, book 1, ch.17)

154-222 AD : Bardaisan of Syria
“How is it that God did not so make us that we should not sin and incur condemnation? —if man had been made so, he would not have belonged to himself but would have been the instrument of him that moved him…And how in that case, would man differ from a harp, on which another plays; or from a ship, which another guides: where the praise and the blame reside in the hand of the performer or the steersman…they being only instruments made for the use of him in whom is the skill? But God, in His benignity, chose not so to make man; but by freedom He exalted him above many of His creatures.” (Fragments )

155-225 AD : Tertullian
“I find, then, that man was by God constituted free, master of his own will and power; indicating the presence of God’s image and likeness in him by nothing so well as by this constitution of his nature.” (Against Marcion, Book II ch.5 )

185-254 AD : Origin
“This also is clearly defined in the teaching of the church that every rational soul is possessed of free-will and volition.” (De Principiis, Preface )

185-254 AD : Origen
“There are, indeed, innumerable passages in the Scriptures which establish with exceeding clearness the existence of freedom of will.” (De Principiis, Book 3, ch.1 )

250-300 AD : Archelaus
“There can be no doubt that every individual, in using his own proper power of will, may shape his course in whatever direction he chooses.” (Disputation with Manes, secs.32,33 )

260-315 AD : Methodius
“Those [pagans] who decide that man does not have free will, but say that he is governed by the unavoidable necessities of fate, are guilty of impiety toward God Himself, making Him out to be the cause and author of human evils.” (The Banquet of the Ten Virgins, discourse 8, chapter 16 )

312-386 AD : Cyril of Jerusalem
The soul is self-governed: and though the Devil can suggest, he has not the power to compel against the will. He pictures to thee the thought of fornication: if thou wilt, thou rejectest. For if thou wert a fornicator by necessity then for what cause did God prepare hell? If thou wert a doer of righteousness by nature and not by will, wherefore did God prepare crowns of ineffable glory? The sheep is gentle, but never was it crowned for its gentleness; since its gentle quality belongs to it not from choice but by nature.” (Lecture IV 18 )

347-407 AD : John Chrysostom
“All is in God’s power, but so that our free-will is not lost…it depends therefore on us and on Him. We must first choose the good, and then He adds what belongs to Him. He does not precede our willing, that our free-will may not suffer. But when we have chosen, then He affords us much help…It is ours to choose beforehand and to will, but God’s to perfect and bring to the end.” (On Hebrews, Homily 12 )

[Michael]

Hi Don.

I’m more interested in logic here than I am in Patristic quotes that simply support your pre-stated position.

(But if you can quote Justin Martyr and Ireaneus, can I quote Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and A. E. Knoch?)

[Michael]

Hi Michael.
I notice that you’ve started at least four threads on this website that pertain to this issue and that you are also discussing the same topic on other websites. You have made many posts, often quite complex ones, and posted even on Christmas Day. Clearly, this issue is one that you find deeply troubling, that you have no clear answer to, and which, I suspect, you have a deep personal motivation for pressing on with.

Holidays become less important, and philosophical questions pertaining to the existence of God (and the hope of life after death) become less academic when those you love most aren’t visibly here anymore.

I find some of your posts frustrating. Talking to you is like talking to someone who agrees that an explosion at a typewriter factory couldn’t produce a typewriter, but doesn’t agree that a typewriter couldn’t unpredictably start typing and produce random works of literature without any human input.

Yes, it is frustrating And, actually, I think you’ve represented me (or at least the science I’m saying I find possible) accurately - and I know that it goes totally against our common sense and intuitions - but that is what the majority of quantum scientists do seem to be saying - *and meaning *

And the fact that the inferences these scientists draw from their math and experimentation “goes totally against our common sense and intuitions” (as you yourself say) is why C.S. Lewis found it almost impossible to believe they meant what they were saying (and found their speculation philosophically unacceptable.)

But I’m no quantum physicist! Remember, all I’m arguing for here is the possibility that the scientists might have got it right - that’s all (I’m not wedded to quantum indeterminism - indeed it is very much an ongoing debate and Einstein might be proved right after all).

So let’s try to focus on the philosophical issues this time.

To help you sympathetically understand this point of view maybe we could reverse roles and you could answer a few of my questions to take the discussion on:

O.K.
**
If I do, will you try to put the same thought and effort into answering my questions?**

Situation: State of affairs x leads to state of affairs y. Is it possible that there exists a probabilistic casual relation between x and y? In other words, is it possible that x caused y but might not have?

You’re asking me whether or not I believe that the concept of indeterminism is compatible with the concept of God, and it was to explore that very question that I started this thread.

What I will say is that this “probabilistic” view sometimes seems to conflict with what I would call the almost universal human intuition that “there must be a reason for things” (which has always led most men to believe in God), and with the most basic Philosophical arguments men have used to prove the existence of God.

I’m asking you (and those reading along), if you can see any way around what I perceive as this conflict (without getting into quantum theory, which seems impossible to reconcile with the idea of one uncaused cause, or one independent fact.)

This goes against the universal subjective experience of free choice.

I’ve known many people who denied having any free choice.

They were mostly universalists who esteemed the life and the writing of A. E. Knoch, and were fond of quoting passages to the effect that “all is of God.”

I believe some of them were (and probably still are) on this forum, so this “universal subjective experience” is perhaps not as universal as you imagine.

Without the freedom to choose otherwise no agent can be considered morally culpable for any action.

If Hitler were totally insane, and had survived WWII, do you believe an insanity defense would have (or should have) saved him from the gallows?

Hitler knew better.

He saw what happened to Mussolini, and he killed himself to avoid what would surely have happened to him.

I don’t believe he would have committed his crimes if he knew that would be their outcome, but that doesn’t mean he could have avoided committing them given who he was and what he knew at the beginning of his career.

Could he have decided to outlive the war and try for one last soapbox after he saw what happened to Mussolini?

Being who he was (and as prideful as he was), I don’t see how he could have.

But let’s say he would have imagined himself given a public soapbox (and welcomed it) if he hadn’t seen Mussolini strung up by the partisans.

That means that seeing Mussolini pay for his crimes in that way (whether or not Mussolini ever had the freedom to choose otherwise) changed who Hitler was (to some small extant.)

Without the freedom to choose otherwise no agent can be considered morally culpable for any action.

I don’t agree.

Let’s say that the death penalty definitely deters (no freedom to choose otherwise) 100% of those who would definitely (no freedom to chose otherwise) be murderers in a society with no death penalty (and that those executed would murder under the same circumstances in either society.)

Wouldn’t human courts have a compelling social reason to impose the death penalty on those who commit murder (regardless of whether or not those executed had the freedom to chose otherwise)?

Could God not have even more reasons for holding an individual accountable for his actions (whether or not he have the power to choose otherwise)?

God’s purpose could be more than deterring (molding the characters) of the living, it could be shaping and molding the executed criminals themselves (i.e. all universalists assume Mussolini and Hitler will be different after the closing scenes of their lives, and whatever post-mortum hell they experience.)

So I don’t see that it’s at all true that “without the freedom to choose otherwise no agent can be considered morally culpable for any action.”

Without training, does a dog have the freedom to choose otherwise when it comes to doing property damage to a house or apartment?

No?

But doesn’t training still involve holding the dog culpable for staining the carpet or chewing the walls?

How do you avoid the conclusion of moral nihilism?

By maintaining that some things (like being a saint) are still better than other things (like being a Hitlerian monster), and that for a finite being, the purpose of life is to learn the difference.

Without freedom how is God a maximally perfect being?

God already knows what perfection is, and He’s already perfect.

How can you explain the huge biblical emphasis upon choice?

By all the above.

What is the point and purpose of prayer? What is the point and purpose of evangelism?

Consider two passages from the book of Acts.

But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. (Acts 27:21-24.)

And
**
And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off.** (Same chapter, verses 30-32.)

What was the point of cutting the lifeboat lose, and keeping these men aboard if they were all gonna make it thru the storm alive?

Apparently their staying aboard was part of the process of their all making it thru the storm alive (just as prayer and evangelism, and holding people accountable, seem to be part of what God is working out in creation.)

BTW: If you had really given any thought to what Padre Pio said regarding his prayers for the happy death of his late grandfather, you would have noticed that he didn’t really say anything about time travel or changing the past.

He said that God would have already taken his prayers into account.

How does God escape the blame for actualising a universe that He knew would lead to all the suffering of history? How is God not a monster?

By creating some good that in the end far outweighs all the suffering.

If God is a necessary being, but is without freedom, then must we conclude that everything is also necessary for it could not have been otherwise? Are there no contingencies at all?

I don’t know.

That’s what I’m trying to figure out (and it seems to me, that I’m doing a better job of answering your questions here than you are of answering mine.)

If all things are deterministic then with omniscience there can be no pleasant surprises and no novelty and no growth in knowledge. Do we therefore experience pleasures God cannot?

If God is all-knowing, wouldn’t He know what we feel–and couldn’t He experience pleasant surprises and novelty “through us”?

Maybe nothing really surprises Him, but He knows what it feels like when we’re surprised.

Maybe there’s a sense in which He lives through us (in much the way parents live through their children.)

Without freedom how am I anything more than a puppet and how is history anything more than a scripted stage show that God watches whilst all the time knowing the end? And if God knows it all anyway, why bother running through the show – why not just jump straight to the end point and cut out the intervening suffering – what is the point of earth if heaven is the goal?

Maybe God is already at the end point, but we just can’t get there by skipping the show.

Is this, then, the best of all possible worlds? How then do you explain that it seems obvious to me that even a simple change could make the world better?

I don’t know if any simple change would make the world better.

I’m still trying to figure out how a timeless God (who sees all the alternative at once) could choose between worlds that would have been just as good.

I’ve given your questions some thought, and I’ve tried to answer them.

I hope you (or someone here) will kindly take the time to give as much thought to my questions (and perhaps try to say something that might at least be helpful in trying to answer them.)

And, actually, I think you’ve represented me (or at least the science I’m saying I find possible) accurately - and I know that it goes totally against our common sense and intuitions

So if all this talk about a “self-actualizing” creation “goes totally against our common sense and intuitions,” are you saying that we should throw philosophy and reason out the window?

That in the end human reason is unreliable, and the agnostics are right?

But I’m no quantum physicist! Remember, all I’m arguing for here is the possibility that the scientists might have got it right - that’s all (I’m not wedded to quantum indeterminism - indeed it is very much an ongoing debate and Einstein might be proved right after all).

Then let’s forget the quantum theory.

I’ve given some thought to the philosophical questions you asked, and I’ve tried to answer them (using reason and logic–not the language of scientific theories nether of us understand).
**
Could you please try to address my questions in the same way?**

Thank you.

[pog]

Holidays become less important, and philosophical questions pertaining to the existence of God (and the hope of life after death) become less academic when those you love most aren’t visibly here anymore.

O.K I’m sorry. I am of no use to you. I hope you find the answers you’re looking for, though I doubt you’ll find them on an internet forum.

So let’s try to focus on the philosophical issues this time.

Why the snarkiness? You seem to have adopted an adversarial tone in this post - is this how you want our discussion to progress? I will try my best.

If I do, will you try to put the same thought and effort into answering my questions?

I thought I had. Why the snarkiness?

What I will say is that this “probabilistic” view sometimes seems to conflict with what I would call the almost universal human intuition that “there must be a reason for things” (which has always led most men to believe in God), and with the most basic Philosophical arguments men have used to prove the existence of God.

Is that a ‘yes’ you think probabilistic causal relations are possibe, or a ‘no’? I’ll take it as a ‘no’. Based on your choice of questions you’ve gone with: A4) No, because all causal relations are deterministic.

I’m asking you (and those reading along), if you can see any way around what I perceive as this conflict (without getting into quantum theory, which seems impossible to reconcile with the idea of one uncaused cause, or one independent fact.)

Quantum theory *would *be the way I view probabilistic causal relations as possible - I can see no other way. Note, this regards probabilisitc relations - I firmly hold to the choice of agents which is also non-deterministic but not proabilisitic.

I believe some of them were (and probably still are) on this forum, so this “universal subjective experience” is perhaps not as universal as you imagine.

I mostly still think they made choices as they lived, they just ascribed them to God’s will/foreknowledge. Some might have believed that God was making choices through them in time, but I suspect that view is rare. Eitherway, I still stick with ‘universal’ giving the vanishing rarity of other viewpoints.

If Hitler were totally insane, and had survived WWII, do you believe an insanity defense would have (or should have) saved him from the gallows?

The legal framework of the Allies has nothing to do with Hitler’s moral guilt. If Hitler was totally insane in the sense that he had no informed free choices at all, or if at no time he had made free choices that had contributed significantly towards his insanity, then he would not be guilty of sin. I have no idea as to what extent psycopaths are guilty of sin - I leave that kind of judgement to God. But I hold that someone with profound mental difficulties would be incapable of making an informed and free choice, things I see as prerequisites for true moral culpability.

Let’s say that the death penalty definitely deters (no freedom to choose otherwise) 100% of those who would definitely (no freedom to chose otherwise) be murderers in a society with no death penalty (and that those executed would murder under the same circumstances in either society.) Wouldn’t human courts have a compelling social reason to impose the death penalty on those who commit murder (regardless of whether or not those executed had the freedom to chose otherwise)?

So ethically suspect action X prevents clearly ethically wrong action Y. If X was suspect or wrong then no, the courts wouldn’t be obligated to impose it. But lets say, for the sake of argument, that morally neutral action X prevents Y - in that case, yes, human governments would be under an obligation to impose that. I should say that there is no ‘real’ counterpart to this thought experiment, and that even if I choose not to commit murder because of fear, I am still acting in a morally reprehensible manner by wanting to and thinking about it.

Could God not have even more reasons for holding an individual accountable for his actions (whether or not he have the power to choose otherwise)?

This doesn’t follow. You’ve moved from prevention (a pragmatic consideration) to moral accountability. I can implement X to prevent an action regardless of morality. If I had absolutely *no choice *in thinking about murder, desiring it and acting upon that thought, then God *would not *hold me morally accountable for that. Without freedom there can be no fair judgement.

God’s purpose could be more than deterring (molding the characters) of the living

So God uses X (which is what exctly - the entire life history of the universe and all its events?) to slowly, painfully create characters which will end up as Y. Couldn’t God have chosen an alternative method? If there was any other less horrific method or universe that would have achieved this end then God is a moral monster - for choosing the way of more suffering for no good reason. Thus one is committed to saying that this is the best of all possible worlds.

it could be shaping and molding the executed criminals themselves

How does that work for animals, foetuses, babies and the profoundly handicapped? How is God molding them? How is that the best of all possible worlds? How is God not a monster?

But doesn’t training still involve holding the dog culpable for staining the carpet or chewing the walls?

I’m not sure that I would hold a dog morally culpable for any act, and I certainly wouldn’t hold it morally guilty for doing something like that prior to being informed and trained otherwise. Are you comparing an informed, normal adult’s moral choices as equivalent to an untrained dog? Are you saying that humans have no moral accountability? How does this square with the universal sense of objective moral values and the strong biblical emphasis upon moral accountability and judgement (sin and righteousness)?

By maintaining that some things (like being a saint) are still better than other things (like being a Hitlerian monster), and that for a finite being, the purpose of life is to learn the difference.

I’m not convinced that this makes sense. Being X has no freedom to make any choices - all his thoughts and actions are determined. In what sense could he be considered a saint or monster? In what sense does he learn? He is robot; a puppet; a zombie. It wouldn’t be like a person learning the difference between right and wrong and then making better and more informed choices and building a more virtuous character under the guidance of a wise teacher - it’d be like an engineer trying to get his robot to do exactly what he wanted through adjusting the mechanics. This view of humanity is not only degrading, it has nothing to do with morality.

God already knows what perfection is, and He’s already perfect.

So are you saying that God is not free and yet is still perfect? Could you explain that view as it seems counter-intuitive.

By all the above.

That, to my mind, is no explanation at all.

Apparently their staying aboard was part of the process of their all making it thru the storm alive (just as prayer and evangelism, and holding people accountable, seem to be part of what God is working out in creation.)

This is the Calvinist line of predetermined means for predetermined ends. But why does God have to use those means? Couldn’t He have chosen other means? And aren’t these means misleading in that they seem to emphasise the importance of freedom? And how do you deal with those biblical passages that show God changing His mind or plans in response to human prayer, action, repentance, argument etc?

If you had really given any thought

Why the snarkiness?

He said that God would have already taken his prayers into account.

O.K - so are you saying that what I pray now would have already been taken into account in the past because God knew that I would pray X now and so would have adjusted things in the past?

So in what way would my prayers for say the prevention of the holocaust have any effect? Are you saying that God knew that I wouldn’t pray for that now? But I just did - so why isn’t God honouring that prayer?

What explanation is there for why God doesn’t answer any prayer regardig the past that is as simple and convincing as that God doesn’t alter the past? Can you give me one example of where a prayer now has made something in the past happen? If I pray now for something I already know to have happened should I take credit for being instrumental in bringing about a state of affairs that I already know to have happened? This way madness lies …

By creating some good that in the end far outweighs all the suffering.

Are you saying the ends always justify the means? Because God seems to use some pretty foul means - just consider the number of babies who have died in massive suffering. God not only knew that would happen, but He instanstiated a deterministic universe where this was guaranteed to happen (thus He willed for it to happen). That seems a remarkably bad plan! Couldn’t God have created a better world that still resulted in an end of incomparable good? If I can think of a way - freewill + universalism, how come God couldn’t?

If God is a necessary being, but is without freedom, then must we conclude that everything is also necessary for it could not have been otherwise? Are there no contingencies at all? I don’t know.

You seem to know quite well, judging by your previous answers, but don’t like the implications. If God has no freedom then 1) He is not really God as He is not maximally pefect (I can imagine a better being easily), 2) Everything follows from God’s uncaused existence as matter of course - everything, including God, is just a cosmic puppet show. This a bleak view of the universe. 3) It goes against that common-sense intuition and logic you otherwise prefer - it is clear that situation X could have been slightly different - it is clear that X might have been Y - contingency is everywhere in the universe. Are you really wanting to say that everything had to be exactly the way it was and that nothing could ever have been even slightly different and that there is no freedom for any being now or ever in eternity?

and it seems to me, that I’m doing a better job of answering your questions here than you are of answering mine

Why the snarkiness?

If God is all-knowing, wouldn’t He know what we feel–and couldn’t He experience pleasant surprises and novelty “through us”?

But that isn’t the same as experiential knowledge, as far as I can see. He doesn’t know what it is for Godself to experience novelty and pleasant suprises - in the same way that He doesn’t know what it is for Godself to commit sin. I can imagine that God is devoid of some evil, but why should He deny Himself some good?

Maybe God is already at the end point, but we just can’t get there by skipping the show.

Why? If God knew exactly the end point (universalism?) when He created the universe, why couldn’t God create the end point - exactly what has been gained by running through a puppet show jam-packed full of gratuitous suffering and misery just to arrive at a point He could have got to by a click of His fingers? Without positing freedom or without utilising the free will defense theodicy I can see no reason at all why God couldn’t just make happy puppets at the start - why make His puppets suffer first? This ‘God’ is a monster and not worthy of worship.

I don’t know if any simple change would make the world better.

I’ve stubbed my toe. It would have been better if I hadn’t.

I’m still trying to figure out how a timeless God (who sees all the alternative at once) could choose between worlds that would have been just as good.

If He had no freedom He couldn’t. If He had freedom then He would have to instantiate the best of all possible worlds to keep in accordance with His character - which makes His freedom pointless and means that neither God nor us have true libertarian freedom, an you have the massive problem of evil and suffering. Or you say that there was more than one equally good possible world - but then you get the donkey scenario and the problem of God making an impossible arbitrary choice but knowing the outcome of such a choice - making it not arbitrary.

Or you say, with me, that God creates the best universe (in keeping with His character) but doesn’t know the future and that this good/best universe is one which has a mixture of deterministic and probilisitc laws (this far will your waves go and no further) and, most importantly, truely free willed creatures who’s choices God does not know, predetermine or dictate. Seems the best way to go!

I’ve given your questions some thought, and I’ve tried to answer them.

Ok

I hope you (or someone here) will kindly take the time to give as much thought to my questions

Why the snarkiness?

So if all this talk about a “self-actualizing” creation “goes totally against our common sense and intuitions,” are you saying that we should throw philosophy and reason out the window?

No; we use the methods of reason to discover that our common-sense has its limitations and that reality doesn’t confrom perfectly to our sense of logic. We then use the methods of reason to re-build a better logic and a better understanding of the universe rather than sticking to a form of logic that might be flawed.

I’ve given some thought to the philosophical questions you asked, and I’ve tried to answer them (using reason and logic–not the language of scientific theories nether of us understand). Could you please try to address my questions in the same way?

Why the snarkiness?

[Michael]

So God uses X (which is what exactly - the entire life history of the universe and all its events?) to slowly, painfully create characters which will end up as Y. Couldn’t God have chosen an alternative method?

Not if the only way finite creatures can learn is thru experience.

How does that work for animals, foetuses, babies and the profoundly handicapped? How is God molding them?

Maybe He’s using them to mold us (and maybe in some future age their handicaps will be removed, and He’l get around to molding them.)

I’m not sure that I would hold a dog morally culpable for any act

And what would you call rubbing a dog’s nose in the mess he made on the carpet?

He might not be “morally culpable” in the sense you’re using the words, but there’s certainly a sense in which he’s held accountable by his trainer in the training process (and oddly enough, most dogs seem to understand this and learn from their mistakes, almost as if they were “morally culpable.”)

Maybe that practical learning is the only real purpose of moral culpability.

I’m not convinced that this makes sense. Being X has no freedom to make any choices - all his thoughts and actions are determined. In what sense could he be considered a saint or monster?

By what he does.

In what sense does he learn?

In the same sense a house broken dog learns not to soil the carpet.

He is robot; a puppet; a zombie.

No.

He’s a work in progress.

At the start he a selfish, destructive monster, and when finished he thinks of the effects his actions will have on others.

This view of humanity is not only degrading, it has nothing to do with morality.

That sounds a lot like human pride (and I believe pride is considered one of the seven deadly sins.)

The ultra-Calvinist universalists I’ve known always said that it was the pride of wanting to take some credit for their own salvation that made most people resist the idea of predestination (and most of universalists I’ve known have been ultra-Calvinists.)

I’ve stubbed my toe. It would have been better if I hadn’t.

Those same ultra-Calvinists would say that you’d never know it was better not to stub your toe, if you’d never stubbed your toe, and maybe they’re right.

So are you saying that God is not free

No.

I would say that God is free of ignorance, fear, hatred and irrationality.

and yet is still perfect? Could you explain that view as it seems counter-intuitive.

It doesn’t seem counter intuitive to me at all.

Heinrick Himmler was largely responsible for the Nazi death camps, yet he only inspected one, and he couldn’t stop vomiting.

For most of his mortal life, he was able to close his eyes to the horrors of what he did.

God is perfect because His eyes are perfectly open to all that He does.

This is the Calvinist line of predetermined means for predetermined ends. But why does God have to use those means? Couldn’t He have chosen other means?

Again, not if experience is the only way finite creatures can learn.

So in what way would my prayers for say the prevention of the holocaust have any effect? Are you saying that God knew that I wouldn’t pray for that now? But I just did - so why isn’t God honouring that prayer?

I don’t know.

But wasn’t the modern state of Israel created by the U.N. in the aftermath of the holocaust (even though the U.N. seems to be doing all it can to uncreate it now)?

Maybe God did take your prayers regarding the holocaust into consideration, but also took other things to take into consideration.

And how do you deal with those biblical passages that show God changing His mind or plans in response to human prayer, action, repentance, argument etc?

Theologians generally view those passages as anthropomorphic.

Why the snarkiness?

Because you don’t really seem to be addressing the questions I’m asking.

In answer to you question about animals, foetuses, babies and the profoundly handicapped, I said that maybe God’s “using them to mold us (and maybe in some future age their handicaps will be removed, and He’l get around to molding them),” but that leaves the question of “why us now, and them later”?

My question is whether contingency (things that obviously need not be as they are) is evidence against the existence of a rational, personal God?

I quoted (Acts 27:21-24, 30-31.)
**
But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man’s life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. And as the shipmen were about to flee out of the ship, when they had let down the boat into the sea, under colour as though they would have cast anchors out of the foreship, Paul said to the centurion and to the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved. Then the soldiers cut off the ropes of the boat, and let her fall off.**

And I have no problem with the Calvinist understanding that it was foreordained that no life would be lost with all hands on board the ship.

What I have a problem with questions like why would it be foreordained that they drop four anchors (verse 29.)

If everything would have turned out the same if they had dropped two or five anchors, why four?

A better example would probably be if a ten, or nine, or eight, or five, or seven planet solar system would have served God’s purpose just as well as a 9 (or eight) planet solar system–what reason (or reasons) could a timeless God (who sees all the possibilities at once, whose thoughts don’t proceed in a linear sequence, and who couldn’t just pick the “first” model that came to mind) have for choosing to create this solar system?

That’s the question I’d like some thoughts on (and you keep wanting to talk about quantum physics, or Calvinism vs. Arminianism.)

You seem to have a good mind, and I assume you’re not laboring under the burdens I am, so could you please give me your thoughts?

Thus one is committed to saying that this is the best of all possible worlds.

I see you’ve read “Candide,” by Voltaire.

So did I, in Philosophy 101-where the Professor told us we wouldn’t get any answers, but would be able to ask better questions.

I never liked the book, and I didn’t think it was particularly well written, but I would like help (from anyone) with the questions I’m asking.

As food for thought:

I don’t find quantum theory all that helpful, and I don’t really get what terms like “self-actualizing” are supposed to mean, but the idea of God limiting Himself makes some sense to me.

What I don’t understand is how God’s limiting (or withdrawing) Himself would result in the unexpected happening, as opposed to nothing happening?

Doesn’t it stand to reason that without God, there’s no substance, no being, no movement, no action, nothing?

[Sobornost]

Philopsophy is always quite combative I guess - and it’s often hard to agree on the scope of the topic under discussion (especially with people who come from different traditions of philosophy/theology or whatever). But take the white heat out of it at Christmas (I think it virtuous to have a CHristmas truce and play football in No Man’s Land together - as it were - whenever and wherever possible ).

So my suggestion is to save the ‘philosophising with a canon’ for the New Year. Keep things a bit more tentative and exploratory for now

Blessings

Dick

[pog]

I appreciate your attempt at peacemaking, Sobornost
I will try to put away my canon …

Have a good new year.

[pog]

I am not a determinist, Michael, as it leads to too many problems. Without freewill I cannot see how one can have true morality or judgement. Without freewill I cannot see how God can be anything but a monster when He wills suffering on such a huge scale and without consent and without reasnoble justification. Without freewill I cannot understand the bible or Christ. Without freewill I cannot understand the origin or power of evil. I don’t want a tyrannical God; I don’t want to be a puppet; I don’t want suffering of innocent children to make me a better person or mould my character. I don’t my prayers and actions made almost irrelevant. I reject hyper-calvinism and determinism with a passion - they are, to my mind, abhorrent doctrines that only buy a small degree of peace of mind at too high a price. Determinism doesn’t seem to match the best philosophy, theology or science, nor does it match the overwhelmingly convincing argument of my own subjective experience of my own free will. There is no philosophical argument that I can even concieve of that will persuade me that my experience of freedom is an illusion more than my experience of freewill will convince me that it is real.

Not if the only way finite creatures can learn is thru experience.

That’s a very big if. What exactly am I learning by watching children die?

Maybe He’s using them to mold us

That seems a somewhat grotesque view. How does the suffering of an animal that existed long before any humans were there to even observe it, let alone learn from it, benefit anyone? I’m sure you know of all the arguments against a Hick-style vale of soul making theodicy - I won’t reherse them here. I reject any notion that babies die to make me a better person.

And what would you call rubbing a dog’s nose in the mess he made on the carpet?

I’d call it irrelevant in a discussion concerning morality. Would you consider training a learning-computer / robot moral education? Is the robot’s character being formed? Morality presupposes moral awareness and informed decision making. I am not a dog.

He might not be “morally culpable” in the sense you’re using the words

In other words, he’s not morally culpable. He might be trainable, I might be able to produce some Pavlovian automated behaviour in him, but he’s not acting morally.

most dogs seem to understand this and learn from their mistakes, almost as if they were "morally culpable

Learning to fear a beating or covet a reward is not moral development.

By what he does.

Even though they had no choice about what they did? If behaviour alone is enough to determine one’s virtue then a robot or zombie could be supremely morally virtous. And a puppet controlled and willed by God from before the creation of the universe to sin is not a sinner - it is a victim of a capricious and cruel tyrant.

He’s a work in progress.

Like an unfinished machine. I reject such a low view of beings made in the image of God. I see people: other beings with value and dignity and moral awareness and worthy of my respect and sympathy. I don’t see the outworking of God’s will expressed in freedomless puppets.

and when finished he thinks of the effects his actions will have on others

There is no ‘he’ - there is only God working through Him. There is only a schizoid God - God sinning then judging Himself.

That sounds a lot like human pride

No, it sounds a lot like the cry of human dignity and freedom in the face of unwanted and unrequested dictatorial control by someone who’s only right to be worshipped or loved seems based on His power.

I would say that God is free of ignorance, fear, hatred and irrationality.

But He can’t make choices - and His freedom from negative emotions like those you listed is not meritorious as He could not be otherwise. Can He love? Can He laugh? Can He sing? He sounds like a stone more than a person.

It doesn’t seem counter intuitive to me at all.

We have very different intuitions.

God is perfect because His eyes are perfectly open to all that He does.

I’d rather judge a person’s worth by their goodness of character demonstrated in good deeds.

Again, not if experience is the only way finite creatures can learn.

Explain to me how it is that creatures made my a God who decides their limits, in a world where God designs the laws of nature, could not have been made differently by an omnipotent being. Why not just make us think we had those experiences - why do they have to be real? Why not just make us in the matrix - where all the suffering is really only acting by computer generated figures. Why does anyone ever have to really suffer at all? Would not make illusory pain and pretend suffering - we’d never know? This way lies solipsism of the most infantile variety …

Maybe God did take your prayers regarding the holocaust into consideration, but also took other things to take into consideration.

A cop-out. God never answers any prayers regarding what we know happened in the past, does He? Why? What possible reason could you provide that is as strong or as convincing as the more obvious one that God doesn’t change the past?

Theologians generally view those passages as anthropomorphic.

How convienient for their theory. That smacks of the worst kind of eisegesis. If the biblical writers were using the literary technique of anthropomorphism in order to reveal something to us that couldn’t be revealed by plain speech, what is it that their anthropomorphism is revealing? Moses talks to God, God changes His mind. What is the anthropomorphism elucidating in that verse? If the biblical writers wanted to show us that God changes His mind, could they really have made it much clearer? I sense that if one’s Calvinism is firmly in place then one can make any passage mean the opposite of what it appears to mean.

Why the snarkiness? Because you don’t really seem to be addressing the questions I’m asking.

Really? In all my long posts on this thread do you not consider that I have at least tried my best to answer, sympathetically and clearly, your many difficult queries? You are wrong.

My question is whether contingency (things that obviously need not be as they are) is evidence against the existence of a rational, personal God?

No, it isn’t. It’s evidence that determinism is wrongheaded. It’s evidence that hyper-Calvinism is wrong. It is evidence that God has limited Himself. It’s evidence that there is freedom and possibly even randomness in the universe, and it might be evidence that there’s a devil.

What I have a problem with questions like why would it be foreordained that they drop four anchors (verse 29.)

The obvious answer is that some things (at least) aren’t foreordained. This is the right way to go.

That’s the question I’d like some thoughts on (and you keep wanting to talk about quantum physics, or Calvinism vs. Arminianism.)

sigh I keep wanting to … ??? I respond to you; you have been directing our little chat. And if the answer to your question should involve those things …?

Doesn’t it stand to reason that without God, there’s no substance, no being, no movement, no action, nothing?

Not in the way you mean. God is the first cause - the rest can follow without His foreknowledge or direct interference.

I think I’m going to leave this discussion - it is pointless.

[Michael]

That’s the question I’d like some thoughts on (and you keep wanting to talk about quantum physics, or Calvinism vs. Arminianism.)

sigh I keep wanting to … ??? I respond to you; you have been directing our little chat. And if the answer to your question should involve those things …?

In fairness, libertarian freewill may be a valuable concept that’s well worth talking about.

But some of us have a problem understanding it.

Michael, as much as I see free will answering the problem of evil, I have too many difficulties with it. But thanks for the interesting thoughts. I’m reading along and appreciating your questions and your friendly approach.

Thanks.

[Is compatibilism campatible with the existence of God?)

And I’m sure you know that Sigmund Freud was a determinist, as are the majority of materialist philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists, all of whom see libertarian freewill as (at best) a useful myth (that allows courts to function.)

When you add the ultra-Calvinists (many of whom are universalists) it would seem that there are a lot of people whose intuition isn’t as clear on this as yours.

And I think this blog articulates the problems we have with the concept.

Nevertheless, I think you could have some point on this topic we’re all missing–so perhaps it’s not the total distraction I believe all the talk about quantum theory is.

BTW: Here’s a

[quote]
(http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p3s1c1a3.htm) I think you and Paidion might like.

The more one does what is good, the freer one becomes. There is no true freedom except in the service of what is good and just. The choice to disobey and do evil is an abuse of freedom and leads to “the slavery of sin.”

Doesn’t it stand to reason that without God, there’s no substance, no being, no movement, no action, nothing?

Not in the way you mean. God is the first cause - the rest can follow without His foreknowledge or direct interference.

The problem with saying that is that you’re talking about God, not a human manufacturer of casino gambling equipment.

I could design and manufacture a pair of dice with built in “probabilistic” possibilities, put them in a cup, shake them up and turn them lose on a table, and the rest would follow without my foreknowledge or direct interference–but only because external factors not of my making, not under my control, and not fully understood by me act upon the dice when they’re out of the cup.

If those external factors were not there, acting upon the dice, there would be zero probability they’d come up seven, eleven, snake eyes, little joe, or any other combination.

Instead of being unpredictable, the outcome would be certain–without external factors (like gravity and friction) nothing would happen.

With those external factors acting on the dice, they leave the cup, land on the table, roll, and come to rest (in positions unpredictable to me precisely because I’m not God, and there are physical laws operating that I didn’t make, don’t control, and don’t understand.)

The premise that God can just close His eyes and let things happen seems to imply that there’s some quantum reality that God didn’t create, doesn’t control, and can’t understand.

Furthermore, (unless that’s what you mean to imply) neither you or any source you’ve quoted has explained how anything could happen, anywhere, on any level of existence if God just took hands off–that’s the question you keep avoiding in these long posts.

Part of the problem I’ve had in seeing how God could make arbitrary choices (as temporal, finite creatures sometimes do, by just “picking one,” once we realize there are a lot of perfectly good options), is in the idea of a timeless God seeing all the equally good choices at once (and without any “first” or “last,” or any sequence at all.)

In that regard, I found the thoughts of Padgett and DeWeese (as discussed here) interesting (because if God is omnitemporal, it might answer some of my questions.)

I’ll quote a little.

They each also affirm that God created time (physical time) as he created the physical universe.

It is with these latter claims that they make the distinction between physical and metaphysical time. Physical time is metric time. In other words, it is time that has an intrinsic metric due to regularities in the physical universe. Events such as the earth revolving around the sun are regular enough to mark off units of time. Metaphysical time involves no metric or measured temporal intervals. God, in himself, is immune from temporal measure. These temporal items depend upon the physical measure of time. This measure is a function of the regular processes that follow physical laws. Since God is not subject to the laws of nature, he is not subject to measured time. He does experience a temporal now, somewhat as we do, but his intrinsic experience is not measured by regular, law-like intervals. He experiences temporal succession, but this succession is that of the progression of his own consciousness and actions rather than that of any external constraints. Now that God has created a universe that unfolds according to regular laws, there is a metric within created time. So while God’s now coincides with the now of physical time, the measured intervals do not belong to his divine life.

These positions combine some of the strengths both of the temporalist with strengths of the timelessness position.

[Sobornost]

And I’m sure you know that Sigmund Freud was a determinist, as are the majority of materialist philosophers, psychologists, psychiatrists, and sociologists, all of whom see libertarian freewill as (at best) a useful myth (that allows courts to function.)

Hmmm - I’m uneasy with this Michael – so here’s some thought.

I’m not a follower of Marx or Freud – but

Was Freud a determinist? Well he believed that human actions were, in a sense, determined by the forces of the unconscious and the interplay of ego, id and superego. However, as Eric Fromm pointed out there is a paradox in Freud because he also believed that through understanding the forces that determine us – through the process of Freudian psychoanalysis – we can come to understand the mechanisms that determine us and make less destructive choices.
Likewise with the sociological Marxist tradition – Marx thought that those thing we take as freely chosen – out ideas, beliefs, our patterns of associating – are actually determined by the economic base structure of society. However, with the tools of Marxist analysis – according to him and his followers – we are able to free ourselves from the deterministic chains of oppression and create a just world.

Actually the situation with Marx is a bit more complex. Some Marxists are humanists emphasising human agency – others are anti humanists emphasising historical determinism in the class struggle for ownership of the means of production (I understand that Marx’s earlier writings are more humanist, while his later writings are more anti-humanist). The story of the most prominent anti-humanist Marxist Louis Althusser has always given me pause for thought. He argued with persuasive dialectic for complete determinism from a Marxist perspective – and was a big influence on radicalism in the 1960s. Then one day he killed his wife. Althusser was also a Catholic (he managed to square this with his determinism and his politics in some way) – and in the aftermath of the murder he set about writing a confessional autobiography. In this he analyses all the causative factors that may or may not have lead to the murder of his wife in huge details – tracing everything back to psychoanalytic reflections on his childhood. And in the course of these Mr Spock like reflections’ Louis Althusser as a responsible human agent, and as a human person disappears. It’s really quite chilling and absurd reading.

Regarding psychology – well there are different schools of psychology – broadly speaking Behaviourist, Cognitive and Humanistic (the first being rigidly deterministic, the last being libertarian and the middle one somewhere in between. The psychologist I have met combine insights from the three different schools to accommodate the paradox of human beings as both somehow determined and also somehow free. Certainly the absolute determinism of Skinner undiluted leads to some strange watering holes – as in his ‘Beyond Freedom of Dignity’ which is a manifesto for social engineering for the ‘happy’ society;

Blessings

Dick

[Sobornost]

Duplicate deleted

[Michael]

Was Freud a determinist? Well he believed that human actions were, in a sense, determined by the forces of the unconscious and the interplay of ego, id and superego

And as an atheist (unlike Jung) he would have believed that the forces of the unconscious (ego, id, and superego) were the products of a mindless evolution, over which the individual had no control, would he not?

Same for Marx.

The Marxist/Leninists didn’t execute Czar Nicolas, his wife, and children because they considered them libertarian free will agents morally culpable of crimes that deserved punishment.

They were all executed (including the children) because they were likely to inspire efforts to put the monarchy back in power as long as one of them remained alive (i.e. the justification was political expediency, not libertarian free will or culpability.)

The story of the most prominent anti-humanist Marxist Louis Althusser has always given me pause for thought. He argued with persuasive dialectic for complete determinism from a Marxist perspective – and was a big influence on radicalism in the 1960s. Then one day he killed his wife. Althusser was also a Catholic (he managed to square this with his determinism and his politics in some way) – and in the aftermath of the murder he set about writing a confessional autobiography. In this he analyses all the causative factors that may or may not have lead to the murder of his wife in huge details – tracing everything back to psychoanalytic reflections on his childhood. And in the course of these Mr Spock like reflections’ Louis Althusser as a responsible human agent, and as a human person disappears. It’s really quite chilling and absurd reading.

But from an atheistic pov, he never was more than a product of mindless evolution, and his actions were predetermined by nature and nurture (which, without God, wouldn’t even be directed towards any good ends.)

Hmmm - I’m uneasy with this Michae

Could that be because of your background, training, and education?

(BTW: If you say “yes” you’re a compatibilist.)

The psychologist I have met combine insights from the three different schools to accommodate the paradox of human beings as both somehow determined and also somehow free.

If they were honest, I think most of them would admit they don’t really believe in anything like what Pog means by libertarian free will (but probably consider it a useful legal concept.)

P.S. Why the double post?

[Sobornost]

Good post Michael, will reply later Michael -

It’s easy to do a double post by accident - it’s not a rheorical device for angry emphasis

Here’s a limerick -

There was a young man who said; ‘’Damn!
I’ve just realised what I am
A creature that moves in determinate grooves
In fact not a bus but a tram.’’