Posted on 07/18/2015 11:38:12 AM PDT by Zeneta
“No free will = no responsibility for our actions. . .meaning we had no choice, we were destined to act/say the things we do. Basic liberal argument to excuse evil.”
It doesn’t necessarily follow.
The fact that you may not have free will doesn’t mean you can’t be “encouraged” to behave in a particular or desirable manner.
We are beings that respond to external stimuli. Most of us respond in a similar way to the same stimuli. So a society can impose certain standards of behavior by applying the right stimuli on people that “misbehave”. In most cases it works. Some individuals do not respond as we expect, in fact some we do not know their stimulus-response function. For those we have jails and/or death penalties - ie, we keep them out of circulation. And that’s exactly how our society works.
But that’s not the liberal approach. Liberals want people that don’t respond appropriately (misbehave) to still be in circulation with the general public.
We have free will.
One thing that scientists of today and Calvinists seem to have in common is an antagonism towards philosophy.
Scientists believe that philosophy at best is a way station on the way towards a more complete knowledge of our universe which can only be achieved through the scientific method.
Calvinists believe that philosophy is sheer hubris on the part of finite humans to attempt to understand the workings of the mind of an infinite God.
Attempting to get a scientist or Calvinist to engage in a philosophical discussion with you on free will is pointless.
Scientists will refer you to the latest texts on neuroscience, expect you to read them thoroughly, and then limit your discussion to purely materialistic speculations.
Calvinists will expect you to limit your reading to the Bible and those approved interpreters thereof.
If you are truly interested in a more philosophical approach to this question then I think you should start here:
This particular entry was written by a Christian philosopher . I don't know if she personally is a Calvinist or an Arminian or a Molinist, but she makes a good, though not compelling, philosophical case for the Calvinist position.
I think you will find a lot of other articles of interest at this site that discuss Free Will, Predestination, Materialism, etc. Very few entries claim to have solved any of these philosophical problems. However, they do help you to understand the terminology, the issues, the possible answers, and the overall complexity of the issues involved and why there haven't been any simple answers so far.
My own belief is that philosophy is still a very useful endeavor. I don't think that philosophy will ever be replaced by science. I don't think that it is a form of hubris for humans to use their God-given talents to try and better understand the human condition.
Daniel Dennett has written extensively on the concept of Free Will. He believes that there is still room in a purely materialistic universe for humans to have free will. His arguments have not been particularly convincing to either philosophers or scientists. He claims to be a philosopher, but I believe that like Patricia Churchland he is someone who started out as a philosopher, but now believes that science holds all the answers and that philosophy is just bunkum. Still, he might also be a good person to read to get an idea of the mind of the modern scientist.
If a scientist is being honest, he will have to tell you that he can't be absolutely certain of anything. Since the scientific method begins with empirical evidence, and all empirical evidence is limited, no absolute statements can be made. The best they can argue is that there is a really, really good chance that the models they've come up with can predict some very well-defined future events if every one of the important starting conditions is well-understood and controlled for.
Good luck with the Calvinists. There are certain things they know for sure, and other things they know are beyond all human understanding. And they also somehow know which things fall into which category.
“We know the will is free, and there’s an end on it.” — Samuel Johnson
I believe you have that completely backwards. Free will is a very cornerstone.
They fall back on their misinterpretation of science.
But they know there is free will. That’s hat they object to. They can’t stand others exercising free will in ways that are not approved by them.
“Life is a mirror and will reflect back to the thinker what he thinks into it.” — Ernest Holmes
“To suppose that the Creative Intelligence of the Universe would create man in bondage and leave him bound, would be to suppose an impossibility.” — Ernest Holmes
“Man is bound because he is first free.” — Ernest Holmes
No free will.no sin.
Wrong on both religion and physics.
First on religion. God is aware of what free will choices will in fact happen, and also the far more numerous counterfactual free will choices that won't. If I watch somebody do something and see what he does, that does not determine what he does. At that point of time he had a choice. If I could somehow watch him from some vantage outside of time itself, like God does, this would not change. Now if God made the universe with a physics that was deterministic and immune from interference from non material things (say a soul), then indeed you would not have free will...but of course that follows without bringing God into it, if the universe somehow existed without an outside agent and there were no outside agents, and it was fully deterministic...why then determinism would be true and free will false, but that has nothing to do with models that have God or the human soul in them.
Second on physics. Quantum physics strongly implies the material world is NOT deterministic. If you are not very familiar with why check out this short simple cartoon on the quantum slit experiment
This, however, slams into another error: it diminishes God’s respect for His creation and turns it into puppets.
It would seem foolish of us to assume that the Lord does not have access to more facets of the creation than we do.
Problems with sovereignty statements about God occur when we insist that we know that God’s sovereignty is wooden, that it even forces His own hand in all circumstances and leaves no room for any meaningful love or heart. I.e. when they state that God has no choice but to make us puppets in every manner.
That is not how love works, however. There is always an element of respect in love.
In the sense of conforming to moral law you can. In the sense of making virtuous choices you can't.
>>This, however, slams into another error: it diminishes God’s respect for His creation and turns it into puppets.
Not at all. The whole “puppet” meme is another one of those “this is what Calvinsts believe” lies that are created by Arminians that fear the truth that God is sovereign.
>>I’m no expert, but as someone that continues to seek truth, I’m perplexed with a doctrine that will only provide you with access to Gods plan for you if you fall in line.
That is the polar opposite of Calvinism.
Yes...thanks for that correction...that is what I meant to say, but was imprecise.
If you have no free will, then you have no free will to decide if there is such thing as free will. The illusion is itself an illusion.
Self-refutation is the death of juvenile philosophies.
You have free will but the results of that free will are known beforehand, creating the illusion of no free will, imho.
Even the Hitlers and Dahmers of the world are doing exactly what God wants them to do--what they were created for. If they are doing exactly what God created them to do, and what God wills, then they are fully within the will of God--on their way to Heaven with the rest of us.
That's just not ascriptural---that is anti-Scriptural.
My overtly simple answer to this is;
God gave me a brain/mind. The brain is our reasoning computer. The brain essentially holds the soul because it represents who you are. God has always said the choice in whether to follow him or not was ours to make.
That has to be the definition of Free Will.
As Geddy Lee said:
“Even if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice!”
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