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Free Will Except...Well, Except When it's not.

calamity

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The "God gave us Free will" argument goes like this. Whenever something bad happens, like when a mean man murders a child or some idiot texting-driver slams into a row of cyclists, and one of us skeptics points out that a truly just god would never allow such a thing to happen, the true believers say, "God gave us free will." Of course, in their justifications, they totally ignore the will of that molested child who was murdered or those cyclists minding their own business who were slammed in the rear as they pedaled along. Often, the true believer will say what happened to them was "God's Will."

What on Earth?



So which is it. Do we have free will or are we all stuck on an endless treadmill doing God's will?
 
Maybe it's gods will that you have free will so both terms apply simultaneously.
 
The "God gave us Free will" argument goes like this. Whenever something bad happens, like when a mean man murders a child or some idiot texting-driver slams into a row of cyclists, and one of us skeptics points out that a truly just god would never allow such a thing to happen, the true believers say, "God gave us free will." Of course, in their justifications, they totally ignore the will of that molested child who was murdered or those cyclists minding their own business who were slammed in the rear as they pedaled along. Often, the true believer will say what happened to them was "God's Will."

What on Earth?

So which is it. Do we have free will or are we all stuck on an endless treadmill doing God's will?

I don't agree with the "God's will" camp. Is it God's will that a baby be born with cancer? That from the time he's born until the day he dies he's getting chemotherapy and living a miserable existence? I can't believe that. If there is something more, then I don't think God's the conductor. He gave us life, didn't he? (If you believe that.) Isn't that enough? I cringe when I hear a parent who's lost a child say, "I guess God needed another angel." It makes me so damned sad.
 
Free will cannot exist with an all-knowing omniscient being. If we cannot change what God knows, we have no free will, and since God is often put forth to be all knowing, we therefore cannot change our lives.
 
Your question is no different than asking why does suffering exist, or why does evil exist, and those questions can be reduced to why did God decide to create at all, and that is a question we can not answer. Similarly, science can tell you how the universe came into being, but it can not tell you why things exist to begin with.

Both are unanswerable questions.
 
I don't know of anyone who is a proponent of free will who also thinks that freedom of the will includes freedom to do literally anything. I have free will, but I'm not free to, say, weigh ten thousand tons or see electrons without the aid of technology, or so on. Similarly, if I'm walking outside and struck by lightning, it's not as if I don't have free will just because I didn't want to be struck. So, I'm not sure what the point of the OP is.
 
The "God gave us Free will" argument goes like this. Whenever something bad happens, like when a mean man murders a child or some idiot texting-driver slams into a row of cyclists, and one of us skeptics points out that a truly just god would never allow such a thing to happen, the true believers say, "God gave us free will." Of course, in their justifications, they totally ignore the will of that molested child who was murdered or those cyclists minding their own business who were slammed in the rear as they pedaled along. Often, the true believer will say what happened to them was "God's Will."

What on Earth?



So which is it. Do we have free will or are we all stuck on an endless treadmill doing God's will?

Well, ya see? I believe that everything which happens is God's will. I don't believe God chooses favorites, or manipulates the affairs of men.
 
Maybe it's gods will that you have free will so both terms apply simultaneously.

But, then that would mean God is not actively involved anymore, if he ever really was at all. Which again, brings up a point.

If he gave us free will, why does he punish those who refuse to accept Christ? It seems like, he's offering free will with one hand and whacking us for exercising it with the other.
 
The "God gave us Free will" argument goes like this. Whenever something bad happens, like when a mean man murders a child or some idiot texting-driver slams into a row of cyclists, and one of us skeptics points out that a truly just god would never allow such a thing to happen, the true believers say, "God gave us free will." Of course, in their justifications, they totally ignore the will of that molested child who was murdered or those cyclists minding their own business who were slammed in the rear as they pedaled along. Often, the true believer will say what happened to them was "God's Will."

What on Earth?



So which is it. Do we have free will or are we all stuck on an endless treadmill doing God's will?




Yes, and no. :mrgreen:



Without free will we'd all be finger puppets in a pointless show. Without God's will we'd be living in chaos far greater than anything we can imagine. The two are not mutually exclusive.
 
Free will cannot exist with an all-knowing omniscient being. If we cannot change what God knows, we have no free will, and since God is often put forth to be all knowing, we therefore cannot change our lives.

Correct. If free will exists, God cannot be all-powerful. He could, in theory, grant us free will and know in advance what we will do with it, but then punishing us for exercising it makes no sense. It'd be cruelty in its most extreme, especially for the innocent victims of someone exercising free will like drunk driving or a child finding dad's gun and shooting his sister.

So, what can be the conclusion? One of three options is what I see.

God doesn't exist. Free will doesn't exist. Or, God and Free Will exist, but God is powerless and clueless on what we will do next. He's the creator who left his creation on its own, maybe after a few tweaks, much like the developer of a self-replicating, evolving AI program.
 
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I don't know of anyone who is a proponent of free will who also thinks that freedom of the will includes freedom to do literally anything. I have free will, but I'm not free to, say, weigh ten thousand tons or see electrons without the aid of technology, or so on. Similarly, if I'm walking outside and struck by lightning, it's not as if I don't have free will just because I didn't want to be struck. So, I'm not sure what the point of the OP is.
The point of the thread is to ascertain where God's will ends and Free Will begins. At some point, the two are in conflict because not every act of freely made by man pleases God.

Now, is that god's will? Does free will please God even though what's been done does not? If so, what does that tell us about God?
 
Two points Maggie, first of all, do you believe that most wisdom comes through pain and hardship. The "Greatest Generation" lived through the Great Depression and WW2. Some of the best people I've ever known have had extremely hard lives, and some of the shallowest have had the easiest, which is to say that I think pain and suffering can lead to good things.

Secondly, a person who believes in Heaven should be relieved when a suffering friend or relative dies. If a person really, really believes in Heaven, I would assume they would be pleased when a friend or relative dies under any circumstances other than taking their own life.

I don't agree with the "God's will" camp. Is it God's will that a baby be born with cancer? That from the time he's born until the day he dies he's getting chemotherapy and living a miserable existence? I can't believe that. If there is something more, then I don't think God's the conductor. He gave us life, didn't he? (If you believe that.) Isn't that enough? I cringe when I hear a parent who's lost a child say, "I guess God needed another angel." It makes me so damned sad.
 
Two points Maggie, first of all, do you believe that most wisdom comes through pain and hardship. The "Greatest Generation" lived through the Great Depression and WW2. Some of the best people I've ever known have had extremely hard lives, and some of the shallowest have had the easiest, which is to say that I think pain and suffering can lead to good things.

Secondly, a person who believes in Heaven should be relieved when a suffering friend or relative dies. If a person really, really believes in Heaven, I would assume they would be pleased when a friend or relative dies under any circumstances other than taking their own life.

I agree with the points you've made here. Your second one is a little complicated. It's been my experience that some of the most religious people I've known have been the most afraid of death.
 
Why do you think Christ is a criteria for punishment (or reward)?

A lot depends on what you consider "god" to be. For example, let's take the explosive force that "created the universe" which is popularly called "The Big Bang". That force could well be considered god because we exist due to that original power. But to assume that force taks a personal interest in upgraded monkeys on a minor planet in a minor galaxy is either sheer arrogance or marketing. I think it's marketing and that "god" could care less about your "free will".


But, then that would mean God is not actively involved anymore, if he ever really was at all. Which again, brings up a point.

If he gave us free will, why does he punish those who refuse to accept Christ? It seems like, he's offering free will with one hand and whacking us for exercising it with the other.
 
I agree, I don't know if there's anyone who believes beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's a Heaven. And I would be heartbroken if a person I loved got cancer, especially a child.

I agree with the points you've made here. Your second one is a little complicated. It's been my experience that some of the most religious people I've known have been the most afraid of death.
 
Why do you think Christ is a criteria for punishment (or reward)?
I don't, but certain Christian groups argue--quite forcibly--that those who do not accept Christ cannot ascend to heaven. No Christ, go directly to Hell.

A lot depends on what you consider "god" to be. For example, let's take the explosive force that "created the universe" which is popularly called "The Big Bang". That force could well be considered god because we exist due to that original power. But to assume that force taks a personal interest in upgraded monkeys on a minor planet in a minor galaxy is either sheer arrogance or marketing. I think it's marketing and that "god" could care less about your "free will".
Our currently accepted version of "God" is a bit to parent-sounding for my taste. A parent accepts that a child has free will, especially as the child advances in age to become a teen and eventually an adult. Similarly, like God is not pleased when we humans do something outside of the expected norm, a parent freaks when an intelligent child decides not to go to college to become a doctor but chooses instead to do drugs, play guitar and sing with a long haired band.
 
Free will cannot exist with an all-knowing omniscient being. If we cannot change what God knows, we have no free will, and since God is often put forth to be all knowing, we therefore cannot change our lives.
Not true. Because a thing knows what actions a person will take does not mean that the thing is the author of those actions. For an eternal being there is no present, no past and no future. Everthing is an instantaneous whole. Think of it as a movie you have already seen. You know how the movie ends, but you are not the cause of that ending. Your actions are known from an eternal perspective simply because to the eternal being, they have already happened. So there is no clash between God and human free will.
 
You can argue absolutely anything forcibly but you can not alter reality with that force.

All religions, are there are many, consider themselves to be the only correct one. What else should they think?



I don't, but certain Christian groups argue--quite forcibly--that those who do not accept Christ cannot ascend to heaven. No Christ, go directly to Hell.


Our currently accepted version of "God" is a bit to parent-sounding for my taste. A parent accepts that a child has free will, especially as the child advances in age to become a teen and eventually an adult. Similarly, like God is not pleased when we humans do something outside of the expected norm, a parent freaks when an intelligent child decides not to go to college to become a doctor but chooses instead to do drugs, play guitar and sing with a long haired band.
 
The "God gave us Free will" argument goes like this. Whenever something bad happens, like when a mean man murders a child or some idiot texting-driver slams into a row of cyclists, and one of us skeptics points out that a truly just god would never allow such a thing to happen, the true believers say, "God gave us free will." Of course, in their justifications, they totally ignore the will of that molested child who was murdered or those cyclists minding their own business who were slammed in the rear as they pedaled along. Often, the true believer will say what happened to them was "God's Will."

What on Earth?



So which is it. Do we have free will or are we all stuck on an endless treadmill doing God's will?
You're making the usual mistake of equating free will with omnipotence.

We only apply the term 'God's will' to those phenomenon currently beyond human influence. At that point, only the faithful tend not to struggle so much, it being quite sufficient a response.
 
You can argue absolutely anything forcibly but you can not alter reality with that force.

All religions, are there are many, consider themselves to be the only correct one. What else should they think?

I always saw that as a huge reason not to believe in any one of them.
 
You're making the usual mistake of equating free will with omnipotence.

We only apply the term 'God's will' to those phenomenon currently beyond human influence. At that point, only the faithful tend not to struggle so much, it being quite sufficient a response.

If God is simply stuck in the water of a river we humans call space-time, and that nothing is new to him, no random act unknown nor quite random, then what's the point?

If God knows how the movie ends because he made it, then free will becomes muddled. If God didn't make the movie, but he just knows the outcome, then he's not an all-powerful creator.

If he created a universe guided by free will, how can he know the outcome without having decided the outcome? After all, he created it.
 
If God is simply stuck in the water of a river we humans call space-time, and that nothing is new to him, no random act unknown nor quite random, then what's the point?

If God knows how the movie ends because he made it, then free will becomes muddled. If God didn't make the movie, but he just knows the outcome, then he's not an all-powerful creator.

If he created a universe guided by free will, how can he know the outcome without having decided the outcome? After all, he created it.
Because the point may be not the destination, but the road we take to arrive there.

Free will is latitude, not the option to contradict God. You may choose without upsetting whatever He intends.

Why must free will be the power to recreate the universe?
 
God's will is not a compulsion, God's will is a whisper in your ear, so to speak, that you can choose to follow, or not. That's the free will. It is, however, illusionary, as has already been pointed out, because God knows how it ends, and knew how it would end when he made it, so all we do is pre-determined, regardless.
 
calamity said:
The point of the thread is to ascertain where God's will ends and Free Will begins. At some point, the two are in conflict because not every act of freely made by man pleases God.

Now, is that god's will? Does free will please God even though what's been done does not? If so, what does that tell us about God?

You'd have to say more about God before those questions become answerable. It looked like you were saying that people don't genuinely have free will because they're unable to avoid (at times) being hit by a car or some such.

I disagree with the idea that God must fail to be either omniscient or omnipotent if human beings are to have free will. God may not, however, be omnibenevolent. I don't think there are any scriptures which describe God as such, among any of the world's religions. It looks like that was a desideratum of Anselm's, and nothing more.
 
I believe that both Fate and Free Will exist together. It is my belief that the track of our lives is laid out and Fated for us at the moment of our birth, sort of like the gates on a croquet field. We are destined to pass through all of those wickets before the end of our lives. However, we have the Free Will to choose the patern we take through those gates, and to attempt to avoid them (though that is a fruitless task). It is the path we choose to take to complete the course and our reaction to each of those meaningful moments that determines how well or poorly we are seen to have lived our lives.
 
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