Free Will

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
221

just trying to answer one the question of the OP:

[quote]
2. How does one resolve the paradox of free will within a seemingly deterministic universe (if one is atheist), or its existence in a universe every subatomic particle of which has been created by an omniscient, omnipotent God? [/quote]

this paradox is indeed quite easy to resolve.

there is two separate chains of causes.
-the chain of efficient causes, which is strictly deterministic. This chains rules the world.
-the chain of final causes (goals and intents) which is strictly free. This chain rules the mind.

these two chains doesn’t interact at all. they are parallel and never cross.

as strange as it may sound, Mind doesn’t affect Matter. And Matter doesn’t affect the Mind.
Matter affects Matter, and the Mind affects the Mind.

if i lif my arms, i can ask two question : “how ?” and “why ?”.

if i ask "why ?, i will have to seek the final causes of this act. I will find motives, intents, goals, etc : ideas, only ideas. The answer will always be a variant of “i lifted my arm because i wanted to”.

now, if i ask “how ?”, i will have to find efficient causes. this time (and this time only) the answer will be a deterministic one. I will explain that some muscle fired, that some neurons activated, etc. This chain of causes is and remains material and deterministic all the way.

Free will seems paradoxical only because we have the intuition that two questions can be mixed.

but it’s not the case.

From efficient causes to efficient causes, you never find the mind. only matter. you only explain “how ?”, and never explain “why ?”.

For this very reason, there is no “science of the will”, and there will never be one.

A perfect science would be able to correctly predict all our behaviors and all our cerebral states with an extreme accuracy. But even this perfect science would still be absolutely unable to predict a single idea.
strictly speaking we can not even observe nor prove a single idea.

222

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:
HEY GUYS I HAVE THE ANSWER ON WHETHER OR NOT FREE WILL IS REAL…

YOU HAVE THE FREE WILL TO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME INTELLECTUALLY MASTURBATING OVER A CIRCULAR CHICKEN OR THE EGG ARGUMENT FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS!

THIS IS THE DUMBEST THREAD EVER?

HOW MANY ANGELS CAN STAND ON THE HEAD OF A PIN?[/quote]

Are you drunk? [/quote]
I’m fairly certain I am the only one who isn’t.

You guys do realize people have argued this subject before correct?

You do realize it’s like a 30 hour game of risk, exxcept in the end…nooone wins.
Indeed, everyone loses because the truth is never discerned it all falls back to belief and opinion and noone can ever get that time back.

It is in some ways the ultimate trolling.

223

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:
HEY GUYS I HAVE THE ANSWER ON WHETHER OR NOT FREE WILL IS REAL…

YOU HAVE THE FREE WILL TO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME INTELLECTUALLY MASTURBATING OVER A CIRCULAR CHICKEN OR THE EGG ARGUMENT FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS!

THIS IS THE DUMBEST THREAD EVER?

HOW MANY ANGELS CAN STAND ON THE HEAD OF A PIN?[/quote]

Are you drunk? [/quote]
I’m fairly certain I am the only one who isn’t.

You guys do realize people have argued this subject before correct?

You do realize it’s like a 30 hour game of risk, exxcept in the end…nooone wins.
Indeed, everyone loses because the truth is never discerned it all falls back to belief and opinion and noone can ever get that time back.

It is in some ways the ultimate trolling.
[/quote]

Who says the only benefit is in finding the “correct” answer to the problem?

224

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:

[quote]Cortes wrote:

[quote]Rohnyn wrote:
HEY GUYS I HAVE THE ANSWER ON WHETHER OR NOT FREE WILL IS REAL…

YOU HAVE THE FREE WILL TO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME INTELLECTUALLY MASTURBATING OVER A CIRCULAR CHICKEN OR THE EGG ARGUMENT FOR THE NEXT THREE WEEKS!

THIS IS THE DUMBEST THREAD EVER?

HOW MANY ANGELS CAN STAND ON THE HEAD OF A PIN?[/quote]

Are you drunk? [/quote]
I’m fairly certain I am the only one who isn’t.

You guys do realize people have argued this subject before correct?

You do realize it’s like a 30 hour game of risk, exxcept in the end…nooone wins.
Indeed, everyone loses because the truth is never discerned it all falls back to belief and opinion and noone can ever get that time back.

It is in some ways the ultimate trolling.
[/quote]

So because people have discussed this before, nobody else should? Just because the problem is elusive to you doesn’t mean it is to anybody else.
Is your only point to tell us how stupid we are for discussing the topic and how smart your are for mocking us for it?
There is real genius in our midst fellas…

225

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:<<< He is essentially saying that God rendered sin certain without in any way being responsible for it, but Adam is still culpable. No it doesn’t make sense to finite autonomous man, but is nevertheless absolutely biblical…
How does Paul reconcile the conflict? He doesn’t try. He simply says in essence our tiny minds can’t understand God’s infinite mind so “shut up creature”. [/quote]Fixed all that for ya Pat. You’re welcome =]

Great question Cortes which is the one Elder Forlife has thrown out a couple times. (Yes, I do pay attention when people speak). I have the content in my mind, but articulating it properly will be a work of semantic precision that I have not had the time to properly work on. Not that it’s necessarily SOOPER complicated, but it is pressing into the mysteries of God and I want to get it as right as I’m capable of. It is absolutely tied inextricably in with epistemology.
[/quote]

Don’t alter my statements. I don’t alter yours.
Paul wasn’t discussing freewill when he said that.

226

[quote]kamui wrote:
just trying to answer one the question of the OP:

Or simply put, ‘choice’ is a metaphysical entity. There is a one way trust between the physical and the metaphysical. Metaphysical entities or events can effect physical entities, but physical entities do not effect metaphysical one.
Choice occurs in metaphysics, in metaphysics there is no time and no space. This is a necessary setup for metaphysics to guide the physical world. The metaphysical can exist with out the physical, but the physical cannot exist with out the metaphysical.

Now this being said, it does not always stand to reason that when we think we have choice we actually do…That makes life really interesting. Because, we have all kinds of circumstances limiting and forcing our choices in one direction or another.
In the end, it is my opinion we really have total control over one set of circumstances, to choose good or evil. Think about it, it’s the only thing we have total control over. Otherwise there are always mitigating circumstances forcing our choices in one direction or another. The rest is debatable.

227

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:<<< Out of curiosity, do you believe Adam and Eve would have had children in the Garden of Eden? >>>[/quote]Absolutely yes. [quote]forlife wrote:<<< Or was the fall necessary for mankind to exist?
[/quote]Absolutely not. Except that in the providence of God man fell before children (which leads me to believe they weren’t there long, another topic altogether).
[/quote]

Ok, just curious. Mormons teach that “Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy.” In their view, while the fall was the result of transgression, it was still part of god’s plan since mortality and having children wouldn’t have otherwise been possible.

228

[quote]kamui wrote:
just trying to answer one the question of the OP:

From a radical behaviorist perspective, the two chains are in fact one.

Not sure how much psychology you’ve had, but there are entire disciplines dedicated to the “science of the will”, including human motivation, cognition, perception, information processing, values, preferences, and decision making.

229

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
just trying to answer one the question of the OP:

Or simply put, ‘choice’ is a metaphysical entity. There is a one way trust between the physical and the metaphysical. Metaphysical entities or events can effect physical entities, but physical entities do not effect metaphysical one.
Choice occurs in metaphysics, in metaphysics there is no time and no space. This is a necessary setup for metaphysics to guide the physical world. The metaphysical can exist with out the physical, but the physical cannot exist with out the metaphysical.

Now this being said, it does not always stand to reason that when we think we have choice we actually do…That makes life really interesting. Because, we have all kinds of circumstances limiting and forcing our choices in one direction or another.
In the end, it is my opinion we really have total control over one set of circumstances, to choose good or evil. Think about it, it’s the only thing we have total control over. Otherwise there are always mitigating circumstances forcing our choices in one direction or another. The rest is debatable.[/quote]

I guess it depends how you define evil. People with frontal lobe damage have committed horrendously evil acts, but is it truly evil if they can’t control themselves?

230

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
just trying to answer one the question of the OP:

Or simply put, ‘choice’ is a metaphysical entity. There is a one way trust between the physical and the metaphysical. Metaphysical entities or events can effect physical entities, but physical entities do not effect metaphysical one.
Choice occurs in metaphysics, in metaphysics there is no time and no space. This is a necessary setup for metaphysics to guide the physical world. The metaphysical can exist with out the physical, but the physical cannot exist with out the metaphysical.

Now this being said, it does not always stand to reason that when we think we have choice we actually do…That makes life really interesting. Because, we have all kinds of circumstances limiting and forcing our choices in one direction or another.
In the end, it is my opinion we really have total control over one set of circumstances, to choose good or evil. Think about it, it’s the only thing we have total control over. Otherwise there are always mitigating circumstances forcing our choices in one direction or another. The rest is debatable.[/quote]

I guess it depends how you define evil. People with frontal lobe damage have committed horrendously evil acts, but is it truly evil if they can’t control themselves?[/quote]

Culpability is directly proportional to your ability to control your actions. If they truly cannot help it, then no they are not culpable.

231

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]forlife wrote:

[quote]pat wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:
just trying to answer one the question of the OP:

Or simply put, ‘choice’ is a metaphysical entity. There is a one way trust between the physical and the metaphysical. Metaphysical entities or events can effect physical entities, but physical entities do not effect metaphysical one.
Choice occurs in metaphysics, in metaphysics there is no time and no space. This is a necessary setup for metaphysics to guide the physical world. The metaphysical can exist with out the physical, but the physical cannot exist with out the metaphysical.

Now this being said, it does not always stand to reason that when we think we have choice we actually do…That makes life really interesting. Because, we have all kinds of circumstances limiting and forcing our choices in one direction or another.
In the end, it is my opinion we really have total control over one set of circumstances, to choose good or evil. Think about it, it’s the only thing we have total control over. Otherwise there are always mitigating circumstances forcing our choices in one direction or another. The rest is debatable.[/quote]

I guess it depends how you define evil. People with frontal lobe damage have committed horrendously evil acts, but is it truly evil if they can’t control themselves?[/quote]

Culpability is directly proportional to your ability to control your actions. If they truly cannot help it, then no they are not culpable. [/quote]

But can people who aren’t culpable still commit evil acts? If so, evil isn’t always a choice.

232

no. they can commit bad acts. not evil ones.

233

[quote]Sloth wrote:I was going to speak on behalf of free will, but now as I sit here I find myself literally unable. Obviously, I will need to reconsider my stance and get back to you all. Unless I can’t…[/quote] Oh how completely I do understand this. I mean that. I spent I don’t know how much time wrenching my brain over these questions. Then there was whether the order of the decrees of God were supralapsarian, infralapsarian or sublapsarian. Theodicy took years off my life tied in with all this. I quit. All I know is that a sparrow doesn’t fall to the ground without my Father and God justly damns men for their sin.

234

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
<<>>
[/quote]
The you have nothing to say here. Nothing to add or subtract. If you quit trying to understand things, understand at least that that is not a stance. It’s nothing at all. Therefore you have no right to criticize anybody else’s. In choosing to be ignorant you therefore recluse yourself from being able to argue a point.

235

God had predestined Pat from Atlanta to be incapable of receiving intact practically anything I say.

236

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
God had predestined Pat from Atlanta to be incapable of receiving intact practically anything I say.[/quote]

I didn’t misunderstand. You said you’ve struggled with these questions for years and that you resolved that it doesn’t matter because God knows everything and that’s fine with you… What I am saying is taking that stance does not give you the right to criticize anybody else’s ideas or theories.

I say there was nothing to struggle with. The question really wasn’t all that important to spirituality until Calvin made it a big deal in saying that God create men to go to hell; and further making that a corner stone of faith instead of Jesus. Second of all resolving the issue into a paradox is not necessary, there are many ways of solving the issue without ending up in a paradox.
Lastly, we men can only guess nobody actually knows how God resolved the ‘problem’, not you, not me, and dman sure not calvin. I would also posit it’s damn close to blasphemy to say you ‘know’ anything about the mind of God unequivocally.

237

[quote]pat wrote:<<< Calvin made it a big deal in saying that God create men to go to hell; and further making that a corner stone of faith instead of Jesus. >>>[/quote]You know literally nothing of the attitude or teaching of John Calvin. Not even his most vitriolic critics would make such a cosmically inaccurate statement in denial of the Christocentricity of every syllable that fell from Calvin’s lips. [quote]pat wrote:<<< Second of all resolving the issue into a paradox is not necessary, there are many ways of solving the issue without ending up in a paradox. >>>[/quote]Once again your Catholic brethren will read this, recognize the error and say nothing.

238

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Once again your Catholic brethren will read this, recognize the error and say nothing.
[/quote]

I read it. I’m not seeing what there is to say.

Your (Calvin’s) view purports the idea of a God who both determines man’s every decision and holds him culpable for that sin. If you want to resolve that issue and pretend were aren’t anything more than wet robots then that’s called a paradox.

The perfectly reasonable idea that God granted us the ability to make choices one way or the other, to indeed choose Him, resolves that paradox. And it isn’t that far fetched a notion for someone who is omnipotent.

It also does not need to make him contingent, as God sits outside the causal chain, outside of time itself. So, just because he knows our sin does not mean he is the author of our sin.

Which part was I supposed to disagree with and speak out against?

239

ALL reality is meaningless if even one particle of creation, physical or metaphysical, is defined outside of His all governing will. The fact that He decrees our sin does not mean He is the author of it. He makes holy and just use of it in it’s bringing Him glory.

You are saying that He saves based on our choice, no?

What I was referring to is that paradox is all over authoritative Catholic doctrine. Only it sides with man when incomprehensibility gets the best of us.

240

[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
ALL reality is meaningless if even one particle of creation, physical or metaphysical, is defined outside of His all governing will.[/quote]

Why?

What if his all governing will is that we come to him freely, without his decreeing it? I have provided loads of scriptural evidence to support this notion.

“Based on” sounds like you may be implying his saving grace is contingent upon our choice. But that’s not at all what I or anyone else here has been saying. First our ability to choose to accept or reject him is made available, then (not temporally speaking, but in terms of contingency) and only then are we able to make the choice. Again, this is something that seems pretty clear throughout the Bible, over and over.

[quote]

What I was referring to is that paradox is all over authoritative Catholic doctrine. Only it sides with man when incomprehensibility gets the best of us.[/quote]

I think you are just not thinking big enough. God can do what he wants.