Free will?

[cafolini]

Adam didn't even have free-will as to the size of the bite. ROFLMAO!

[Cioran]

Adam didn't even have free-will as to the size of the bite. ROFLMAO!

That is correct. Isn't there any old theistic saying that not a single sparrrow can fall without God knowing where, how and when it fell? Since God also made the world, he made the sparrows fall where and when he wanted them to. Many theists understand this problem and hence come up with solutions like predestination and calvinism, which solutions, unfortunately, indict God as a monster even if the calvinists would like to pretend otherwise.

[mazHur]

Bearing in mind that we are dealing with hypotheticals -- God does not exist, of course -- this conversation is still fruitful as an exercise in logic and philosophy. By pure logic alone, for instance, it can be shown that God's infallible foreknowledge by itself does not and cannot preclude human free will. But in your reply, you are forgetting the other side of the coin: God created the world, and did so exactly as he intended it to be. If God created the world but made a mistake, such that evil was introduced without his consent, then he would fail to be omnipotent at the very least, and perhaps fail to be omniscient as well.

As the theistic assumption of omnipotence and omniscience, God stands wholly indicted for all evil in the world. Given his omniscience together with his omnipotence, Adam certainly does NOT have free will, and nor does anyone else. In order for Adam to have free will in eating or not eating the apple, it is required that he himself be able to actualize the world in which he ate it, and render possible but non-actual the world in which he did not eat it. In other words, Adam must be a self-creator of his own world. But he did not create the world. God did. It was God, not Adam, who had the choice of creating a world in which Adam ate the apple, or a world in which he did not. He chose to create the world in which Adam ate the apple, rendering non-actual the world in which Adam failed to eat the apple. Thus the act of apple-eating was God's will and not Adam's.

your comments remind me of the Zoroastrian belief in division of God into Ehrman (the God of Destruction or Evil you may say) and Ishwar (God of Construction and Good) ....
We as humans yet do not know nor are likely to know the mysteries behind Creation or God. We can surmise at the most. How do we know Adam was not having Free Will or was in inchoate stage at the time of Adam or Eve eating the Apple??
When we say God is Omi-all we might mean to say he controls the Fate or Destiny of His Creation......but not their Acts because as far as humans are concerned they have been given intellect which in turn entitled them to divine gift of Free Will??

[mazHur]

That is correct. Isn't there any old theistic saying that not a single sparrrow can fall without God knowing where, how and when it fell? Since God also made the world, he made the sparrows fall where and when he wanted them to. Many theists understand this problem and hence come up with solutions like predestination and calvinism, which solutions, unfortunately, indict God as a monster even if the calvinists would like to pretend otherwise.

That sounds like Fatalistic belief. Good, Evil and Fate or Destiny are distinctly separate things. There could be more attributes to God but who knows them all??

You are vehemently trying to prove that God is responsible for Evil, right? But why do you forget about his Goodness or the Blessings He bestows on others?? God has His own ways of working beyond human intelligence......perhaps this is why axioms like ' Man proposes God disposes'', ''The Mill of God grinds slowly but surely'' came into light.

[cafolini]

That is correct. Isn't there any old theistic saying that not a single sparrrow can fall without God knowing where, how and when it fell? Since God also made the world, he made the sparrows fall where and when he wanted them to. Many theists understand this problem and hence come up with solutions like predestination and calvinism, which solutions, unfortunately, indict God as a monster even if the calvinists would like to pretend otherwise.

Bingo!!!!!!!!!

[mazHur]

Free Will-- In Islamic philosophy
According to Islamic creed, it is God’s will which has determined that this particular species of creation, known as man, has the dual ability to follow guidance or go astray, according to his own free choice, not as a result of any compulsion.
This is how God lets whomever He wills go astray and how He helps whomever He wills follow the straight path. His will helps everyone who strives to implement divine guidance, while it abandons and lets go astray anyone who stubbornly rejects guidance. It does no injustice to anyone.
A human being may follow guidance or may allow himself to go astray: both possibilities are part of his nature. Both directions have been created by God’s will. Similarly, the consequences that follow upon a person’s choice to follow one way or the other are also determined by God’s will which is active, absolute. Reckoning, judgement and reward are based on man’s choice of the course he follows. That choice is of his own making, although the ability to choose either has been planted in him by God’s will
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

[Cioran]

Free Will-- In Islamic philosophy
According to Islamic creed, it is God’s will which has determined that this particular species of creation, known as man, has the dual ability to follow guidance or go astray, according to his own free choice, not as a result of any compulsion.
This is how God lets whomever He wills go astray and how He helps whomever He wills follow the straight path. His will helps everyone who strives to implement divine guidance, while it abandons and lets go astray anyone who stubbornly rejects guidance. It does no injustice to anyone.
A human being may follow guidance or may allow himself to go astray: both possibilities are part of his nature. Both directions have been created by God’s will. Similarly, the consequences that follow upon a person’s choice to follow one way or the other are also determined by God’s will which is active, absolute. Reckoning, judgement and reward are based on man’s choice of the course he follows. That choice is of his own making, although the ability to choose either has been planted in him by God’s will
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_will

Again, alas, these assertions fail to reckon with the logical consequences of, conjointly, God being omnipotent and omniscient, and also creating the world.

For example, focus on this:

A human being may follow guidance or may allow himself to go astray: both possibilities are part of his nature. Both directions have been created by God’s will.

We could use the analogy of a fork in the road. A man comes to the fork, and one path is labeled EVIL and the other GOOD.

However, unless one is a quantum mechanical Many Worldist, there can be only one actual world.

Now, if God is omniscient, then he knows the truth value of all contingent propositions, past, present and future. He also knows counterfactual contingents -- every way that the world could have been, could be, or could be but will not be. He cannot fail to know all this and still be omniscient.

If he is omnipotent, he cannot fail to create the world that he wants.

Therefore, it is not the man that comes to the fork in the road. Long before he ever existed, God came to that fork, and had to choose whether the man would choose the EVIL path or the GOOD path. By his free act of perfect and infallible creation, God chose the path for the man. If he creates the EVIL path world it is illogical, to say nothing of monstrously unjust, for God to then punish the man for God's own creation.

[YesNo]

Your analogy is invalid, not my argument.

You are NOT responsible for Bill stealing your car, unless you knew infallibly in advance that he would do so -- and, more: unless you were the creator of the world, and could have created a world in which Bill did NOT steal the car.

Your analogy only serves to reinforce my point: Humans are neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and cannot know the outcomes or consequences of their acts, and can only partly, if at all, achieve certain goals or bring about certain results. But God is supposedly omniscient and omnipotent. This means he infallibly knew every possible way the world could be, and could choose to create any of them. He could have created a world in which Adam chose not to sin, but he created the world in which Adam chose to sin. This means he wanted Adam to sin. More, under this scenario, Adam MUST sin, because God, not by his foreknowledge alone but by his perfect creative act, rendered it impossible for Adam to do otherwise. It's not Adam who actualized the world in which he sinned, and thereby made non-actual the world in which he did not. It was God.

Let me rephrase the argument that I hear you presenting:

1) If God creates a completely deterministic universe, then he is responsible for everything that happens in that universe including any evil.
2) God created our universe as a completely deterministic universe.
3) Therefore, God is responsible for everything that happens in our universe including any evil.

That would be a valid argument.

However, the argument then fails because it is not "cogent". What it means for an argument to not be cogent is that some of the the premises, in particular premise 2 above, are not true beyond a reasonable doubt.

The universe we inhabit has been shown to be non-deterministic by quantum mechanics--beyond a reasonable doubt. Nor can a Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics bring determinism back into the universe. To maintain that would be pure pseudo-science on the order of Christian Creationism. That makes premise 2 above false beyond a reasonable doubt and that means the argument fails because it is not cogent.

I would go further and say that the argument is not "sound" because premise 2 is point-blank false, from both scientific evidence and theology, as I understand mazHur's explanation, without adding the "beyond reasonable doubt" escape clause.

You have mentioned that if God does not know what we will do in advance, then there is something wrong with his omniscience or omnipotence. That is not the case. Being omniscient does not mean knowing something to exist that does not exist. If he knew everything that could happen in the universe, he would know a complete state of the universe, which quantum mechanics says does not exist by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

Also you mentioned God knowing when every sparrow falls. So? That is not foreknowledge which is what we are talking about.

[Cioran]

You are vehemently trying to prove that God is responsible for Evil, right?

Actually, no. I don't believe God is responsible for evil, because I don't believe that God exists. Non-existent entities cannot bear responsibility for anything.

What I'm running is what is standardly called a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity) on the set of Abrahamic theistic claims taken as a whole, showing that taken as a whole, they lead straightaway to logical contradictions or absurdity. Because they do.

[mazHur]

Again, alas, these assertions fail to reckon with the logical consequences of, conjointly, God being omnipotent and omniscient, and also creating the world.

For example, focus on this:



We could use the analogy of a fork in the road. A man comes to the fork, and one path is labeled EVIL and the other GOOD.

However, unless one is a quantum mechanical Many Worldist, there can be only one actual world.

Now, if God is omniscient, then he knows the truth value of all contingent propositions, past, present and future. He also knows counterfactual contingents -- every way that the world could have been, could be, or could be but will not be. He cannot fail to know all this and still be omniscient.

If he is omnipotent, he cannot fail to create the world that he wants.

Therefore, it is not the man that comes to the fork in the road. Long before he ever existed, God came to that fork, and had to choose whether the man would choose the EVIL path or the GOOD path. By his free act of perfect and infallible creation, God chose the path for the man. If he creates the EVIL path world it is illogical, to say nothing of monstrously unjust, for God to then punish the man for God's own creation.

You overlooked the gist of argument, viz,

That choice is of his own making, although the ability to choose either has been planted in him by God’s will

For example, killing is a crime but a soldier kills under certain conditions. Those conditions warrant his 'murder'', or may not warrant it if he chooses to exceed his limits. That is, if he kills innocent people which obviously is Evil. In both cases the High Command knows previously what the soldier is 'ordained' to do with his gun. Similarly, God Knows or has foreknowledge of man's actions but at the same time has given humans the power of making 'choice' which they can use like a good soldier who kills his warring enemy or like a bad soldier who kills innocent people.

[mazHur]

Actually, no. I don't believe God is responsible for evil, because I don't believe that God exists. Non-existent entities cannot bear responsibility for anything.

What I'm running is what is standardly called a reductio ad absurdum (reduction to absurdity) on the set of Abrahamic theistic claims taken as a whole, showing that taken as a whole, they lead straightaway to logical contradictions or absurdity. Because they do.

If you do not believe in God then it's waste of time discussing with you on the topic.
I am a believer and I have my point of view, you have yours. Keep happy with nothing ...allow others to be happy with 'something' which causes them No harm!

[Cioran]

Let me rephrase the argument that I hear you presenting:

1) If God creates a completely deterministic universe, then he is responsible for everything that happens in that universe including any evil.
2) God created our universe as a completely deterministic universe.
3) Therefore, God is responsible for everything that happens in our universe including any evil.

That would be a valid argument.

However, the argument then fails because it is not "cogent". What it means for an argument to not be cogent is that some of the the premises, in particular premise 2 above, are not true beyond a reasonable doubt.

The universe we inhabit has been shown to be non-deterministic by quantum mechanics--beyond a reasonable doubt. Nor can a Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics bring determinism back into the universe.

Of course, as has been repeatedly explained to you (with links to academic papers!) Many Worlds DOES bring determinism back to the physical world! This is not a goal of the MW meta-theory of QM, it's an inevitable consequence of it. In point of fact the Schroedinger wave equation is fully deterministic, and if all the possible events it describes are actually real then the world too is fully deterministic. MW also restores realism and locality to the universe. Moreover, as a meta-theory of QM, Many Worlds is an ongoing contender among quantum physicists (Steven Hawking endorses it) and may even be provable. I have gone over all of this with you, and I refuse to futilely rehash it again. Yours is a case of willfully wishing to misunderstand an entire body of thought.

Of course, if MW is true, then every one of us makes every possible choice in every possible circumstance -- also rendering a hash of free will and moral culpability, of course!

Assuming, however, that there is only one actual world, determinism has nothing to do with God's foreknowledge. On standard theism, God stands outside time -- sees all, past present and future.

If this theistic account is right, then even if MW were false and quantum indeterminism were absolutely true, then God would know all indeterministic outcomes! The outcomes may still be literally indeterministic, but if God sees the whole future he knows what will happen. This does not compromise true indeterminism any more than humans' knowing yesterday's indeterministic account compromises it. In fact such a case is very similar to the modal logical treatment vindicating human free will in the presence of God's infallible foreknowledge, and if I care to do so later I will formally render it.

Your argument is similar to that of Open Theism, that God cannot know the future but that this fact does not invalidate his omniscience because even an omniscient agent cannot know what does not (yet) exist (the future) But this then means the theist has to give up the claim that God stands outside of and beyond time. And there is more: we have empirical evidence that the future exists. And this existence is fully compatible with QM indeterminism, even if QM indeterminism is true (and it's false if MW is true). This is called the Parmenidian or Block Universe, and is a direct consequence of the special and general theories of relativity. It is also known as Minkowski spacetime.

[YesNo]

Of course, as has been repeatedly explained to you (with links to academic papers!) Many Worlds DOES bring determinism back to the physical world! This is not a goal of the MW meta-theory of QM, it's an inevitable consequence of it. In point of fact the Schroedinger wave equation is fully deterministic, and if all the possible events it describes are actually real then the world too is fully deterministic. MW also restores realism and locality to the universe. Moreover, as a meta-theory of QM, Many Worlds is an ongoing contender among quantum physicists (Steven Hawking endorses it) and may even be provable. I have gone over all of this with you, and I refuse to futilely rehash it again. Yours is a case of willfully wishing to misunderstand an entire body of thought.

The main reason I don't accept MW is that the Heisenberg uncertainty principle is derived from the Schroedinger wave equation as well as Heisenberg's matrix approach to QM: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncertainty_principle

Because of that, Schoedinger's wave equation is not deterministic. So again the premises that you are using to support your argument are not true.

Of course, if MW is true, then every one of us makes every possible choice in every possible circumstance -- also rendering a hash of free will and moral culpability, of course!

However, in point of fact, MW is not true. We can skip this case.

Assuming, however, that there is only one actual world, determinism has nothing to do with God's foreknowledge. On standard theism, God stands outside time -- sees all, past present and future.

If this theistic account is right, then even if MW were false and quantum indeterminism were absolutely true, then God would know all indeterministic outcomes! The outcomes may still be literally indeterministic, but if God sees the whole future he knows what will happen. This does not compromise true indeterminism any more than humans' knowing yesterday's indeterministic account compromises it. In fact such a case is very similar to the modal logical treatment vindicating human free will in the presence of God's infallible foreknowledge, and if I care to do so later I will formally render it.

As a combinatorial exercise, assume God knows all non-deterministic outcomes. This does not mean he knows which contingency will be picked. So the conclusion that "he knows what will happen" is false.

This is what I hear you arguing.

1) I know when I flip a coin, I will get either heads or tails.
2) I flipped the coin and heads appeared.
3) Therefore, I knew in advance that heads would appear and not tails.

That does not sound like a valid argument.

Your argument is similar to that of Open Theism, that God cannot know the future but that this fact does not invalidate his omniscience because even an omniscient agent cannot know what does not (yet) exist (the future) But this then means the theist has to give up the claim that God stands outside of and beyond time. And there is more: we have empirical evidence that the future exists. And this existence is fully compatible with QM indeterminism, even if QM indeterminism is true (and it's false if MW is true). This is called the Parmenidian or Block Universe, and is a direct consequence of the special and general theories of relativity. It is also known as Minkowski spacetime.

I'm not familiar with Open Theism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_theism

Looking at the article makes me suspect that I would have something in common with them. However, this is a group associated with Christianity and their arguments are based on Christian sacred texts rather than quantum mechanics.

[cafolini]

Get off the horses and drink your milk. ~ John Wayne
Come on my fellow Mamericans posing as adults.

[Ecurb]

Yes, it certainly does follow, for the reasons given. If Adam eating the apple was a necessary act, this means that at all possible worlds (modal heuristic) Adam must eat the apple. If Adam must eat the apple, then he has no freedom, no choice in the matter, and hence cannot be blamed for introducing evil. We can only hold someone morally culpable if he has a choice in what he does.

That depends what we mean by "choice". Did Mr. Hyde have a choice as to whether to murder those people (my memory is vague as to their number)? After all, R.L. Stevenson was pulling all the strings. Yet most people think it reasonable to say that Hyde is “evil”. What do people mean when they say that, if you are correct that if someone has no choice, he cannot be “blamed” for evil acts?

The flaw in your argument is the notion that because an omni-God is “responsible for” or “the cause of” all evil in the world (as well as everything else that happens), there cannot be other “causes”. Perhaps there are proximate causes and ultimate causes. When the car drives around the curve too fast and spins out, what is the “cause”? Is the crash due to the driver’s excessive speed? Is it due to insufficient banking on the curve? Is it due to insufficient cohesion on the part of the tires? Or is it due to the miners who mine the ore that is smelted into steel so that the car can be made in the first place? It’s reasonable to call all of these “causes” for the crash.

Similarly, calling the omni-God’s creation of the world the “cause” of all things (including evil) is reasonable – but why would that preclude other “causes” any more than calling the mining of ore the “cause” of the car wreck would preclude more proximate causes. There is a sense in which when one man shoots another, he “causes” the other man’s death – whether or not there is an omni-God who set everything in motion in the first place. Since we don’t know how this omni-God operates, we are stuck with seeing more proximate causes, if we are to see any. Like the gambler who figures the odds of drawing the 5th Diamond at 9/47ths, we must muddle by as best we can. It is perfectly reasonable (from our perspective) to talk about proximate causes to things, even if we are fatalists philosophically.

In addition, suppose there is such an omni-God as you suggest (personally, I think ascribing specific “powers” to God, as if He were simply a superhero is a bit silly, but I’ll grant some religious people do it. Muslims, for example, think painting a picture of God or Mohammed is heretical, because He can be described only through stories and metaphors.) . If you are correct that in such a situation we cannot ascribe blame to humans for their sins, then (using the same logic) neither can we ascribe error to humans in their opinions or reasoning. Both Cioran’s arguments and mine (based on Cioran’s own logic) can neither be correct nor incorrect. Such an assessment of an argument suggests the possibility of one choice being preferable, in terms of truth value, to another choice. But if we have no choice, this is not the case.

Therefore, Cioran’s argument is either meaningless, or based on a worldview that ASSUMES that there is no such omni-God. If a hidden premise in Cioran’s argument is, “P1, There is no omni-God “, then his argument is circular. If there is an omni-God, then, based on Cioran’s own statements about how a lack of choice precludes the possibility of blame (presumably for statements of fact as well as morally freighted actions), then Cioran’s argument is irrelevant.

The problem here, though, is that if the above is correct, then people who do evil acts ought to be commended, not condemned . Judas ought to be held a hero on this account! Since such evil acts are necessary to bring about a greater good, I trust the best place in heaven is reserved for the worst of us. This is the logic of your argument.

Of course Judas is held to be a hero in some Christian sects. The Gospel According to Judas is a book of Apocrypha that holds this view. Judas’ act was necessary for the resurrection.

However, “acts” are not evil in and of themselves. Judas may have betrayed Jesus knowing it was necessary for the greater good, or he may have betrayed Jesus for the 50 pieces of silver. The same act can be good or evil, depending on the motive. Therefore, you don’t make your case. “Evil” is a state of mind and being, not an act. The acts might be necessary for the greater good, while the state of mind remains evil (however we want to define "evil").

But that's another hopeless problem for the Abrahamic religions! If God is unknowable, then why, at the same time, do the people who hold this position acribe properties to God, such as moral perfection? If you hold that God is ineffable, you cannot logically ascribe any properties to him without instantly contradicting yourself. For all we know, God may be totally evil, or beyond good and evil, or he may not care about humans at all. Perhaps he made the world because he likes empty space, of which most of the universe is made? Perhaps humans are just an accidental byproduct of the creation of empty space? Who knows? God is unknowable, after all!

As I said earlier, I think ascribing well-defined properties to God is silly. However, it does not follow that because one can’t understand God perfectly, or even well, one cannot understand Him at all. Indeed, the premise of Abrahamic Religions is that God is Good, not because He behaves in some manner which we puny humans delineate as good, but by postulate and definition. God cannot logically be “totally evil” in Abrahamic Religions because that contradicts one of the basic postulates of the religion.

IN addition, I think religions in general are non-logical. The French Structuralist Claude Levi-Strauss wrote about how the function of myth was to overcome contradictions, or hold two contradictory ideas at the same time. Of course this is anaethema to logicians and to some philosophers -- but while logic is a valuable tool, as G.K. Chesterton once said (in support of my argument above), "You can only find the truth with logic when you have already found it without logic."